How do you find & recruit afilliates to join your program?

[born2drv]

I guess the first place to start is search engines, work backwards and find which affiliates send traffic to your competitors, and try to get them to consider your program as well.

Then what....

1) Are their directories or niche websites for affiliates you can advertise on? If so, which ones?

2) Are their affiliate promoters / recruiters you can hire for a modest fee? Are they worth it?

3) Would offering affiliates a "sign up bonus" of say $20 just to try the program for 30-days and see if it works for them be enticing or just invite them to try it out and see if it works for them?

4) Do top affiliate bonuses work for recruiting affiliates, or just to get the ones you have working harder? Like a $100 bonus every month to the top affiliate? Would you sign up if you saw that?

5) Attend search engine conferences with a big T-shirt that reads "Join my Affiliate Program and get a free kiss" :)

5) Any other ideas?

And finally, is running an affiliate program yourself worth the time and effort, if you have say 2 hours a day to spare, and can pass off to an employee maybe later down the line as it grows.... or am I better off giving it to someone else to manage that already has connections with hundreds of power affiliates?

Thanks in adavance for your responses :)

[veroxii]

I can't really answer most of your questions, but for most affiliates it'll be about the bottom-line.

You really want the super-affiliates, and if they can't earn a few thousand $ per week or month from your program they won't be interested. Guys who are making $500,000+ per year are not going to be enticed by a $100 bonus - or $20 for signing up.

The people who'd go for it probably won't be good at selling and you'll be out $20. ;-)

So, if your product doesn't convert well and can't handle huge volume you probably won't attract the cream of the crop. And really, those are the guys you want. They could bring in 100s of thousands dollar's worth of business per year.

If you are in a lucrative market and offer a better deal than your competitors, they'll most likely find you.

-V

[GerBot]

1) Probably but don't expect much back

2) Yes, they are worth it - one of the best reads this forum daily.

3) You won't win super affiliates with $20.
work on your support, tracking, creative, data feeds and payment terms/methods

4) Yes they work, but don't set a cap on the amount.
If you pay 10% normally offer 12% for commissions over $1000/month. Look to spend a little extra time and effort looking after your top affiliates. Give the top affiliates a point of contact with your company - send them a gift for Christmas.

5) You'll just look like every other Merchant :)

5) when I look for programs I start at the top of the Overture results and start clicking until I find a program with an affiliate/webmaster link on the bottom of their page.
the logic - if you convert well enough to run at the top of Overture you'll convert well for me too

[Essex_boy]

send them a gift for Christmas. - Sounds silly but this does work. I receive a gift from a firm nice but not expensive, I speak with and have cut my price on occassion to help them out.