Affiliate Program Approvals and Declines from an Affiliate Manager Perspective

One of the key daily duties of an affiliate manager is to look through the list of affiliates that have applied to the affiliate program and either approve or deny those affiliates to the program. There are a few things you can do to help make your approval process easier and lay the groundwork for clear understanding and expectations with your affiliates.

Lay out what you are looking for from an affiliate for approval on your program info page and sign-up page (if allowed). Several networks also send out an email to an affiliate upon application, and as manager, you can customize the email. Even though at that point the affiliate has already applied, I like to also put my expectation in that email as well. This way, if the affiliate knows that they haven’t met expectations with their application, they can still email me with supplemental information.

Also, in that application email, I specify some of the reasons that they might be declined. I offer that if I do decline an affiliate, and they really want to promote the program, please reach out to me via email / phone / IM so I can be made aware of your intention and enthusiasm. It’s VERY rare that I’ve ever “double declined” an affiliate that did reach out to me and let me know how they were planning to promote the program (as long as it was within the program terms). Any affiliate that has the initiative to take an extra step is definitely an affiliate you want on board.

Affiliate managers should always keep the lines of communication open, in fact welcome communication from their affiliates and respond timely to all affiliate inquiries. Any affiliate manager that says they are too busy to answer affiliate emails is full of bologna. This entire job is about communication and relationships.

Re-state in a decline letter some of the major reasons why an affiliate might have been declined, and let the affiliate know that if they are truly motivated and want to promote the program, reach out to you. Managers who shut the door totally on an affiliate, and don’t hear them out and worth less than a cookie stuffer or parasite.

For those affiliates that are approved, lay out your approval emails as a full playbook for the affiliates. Provide clear contact information for yourself. Re-state what the program is all about, and provide tips on how to best market the products and services, give insights into the type of things customers are trying to solve / do with your products and services, and provide links and banners right there in that email to get started.

Successful affiliates might literally be promoting hundreds of programs. They’ve just applied to your program, so you are fresh in their minds, and you’ve approved them. Your approval letter is the single best opportunity to grab their attention right now, so give them everything they need to hit the ground running, and get links up NOW before they move on to another project.

Your approval/decline process is cornerstone for successful affiliate program management, and it’s really not challenging to simply lay out clear ground rules for affiliates, keep open lines of communication, and provide your affiliates with the tools with which they can succeed.

International Merchants Appealing to North American Audience

Affiliate Marketing is fairly established in the UK and Japan, and growing across Europe. Australia also has a growing affiliate marketing community. There’s tremendous affiliate activity in the Gaming/Gambling sector outside of the United States. In my last post, I wrote about how domestic merchants can leverage their affiliate program to reach an international audience. This week, I’d like to propose that the reverse is also true. Affiliate Marketing allows for a great opportunity for international merchants to reach a customer base in the United States.

Perhaps you’re a t-shirt / clothing / club ware merchant in Ibiza, Spain, or a silk / textile in Southeast Asia, or a crafts / woodwork merchant in Brazil. You’ve been doing quite well for yourself in local trade, and you’ve even sold some of your products through Ebay, and now you have your own website. You still have your business to run, so you don’t want to invest effort and time into the deep dive on pay per click bid management, SEO and link building principles, social media marketing in English. North Americans love your products, evidence coming from the few that have found your site to order, and also from your Ebay customers. You know you could be a great success if only more people knew about your business.

Affiliate Marketing provides an excellent cost-effective answer for international merchants wanting to expand their North American customer base. Perhaps you’re not comfortable enough to write ads and promote your online site in English. Grow your affiliate program with affiliates, and let them go out and promote the store. Work with your affiliates to produce a strong message and story to potential customers for your products and services, then allow those affiliates to carry your story to their visitors.

Your affiliates will be promoting you through many different channels. Allow for paid search, and let your affiliates write ads for Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and other search services. Let them blog about your site and products and produce a strong message in English promoting your store. Provide a data feed to give to comparison and shopping affiliates and propagate your product names all through various natural search results. Get huge exposure to the significant customer base that loyalty base affiliates have, after all they may never have had a chance to hear about your offerings otherwise.

There’s significant opportunity to tap a huge North American audience that loves to shop online. In many countries, online shopping is still in the infant stage as trust issues still must be overcome. However, in North American, online shopping is as accepted as drinking Coke. Get a website up, set-up an online shopping cart and credit card payment processor, and start thinking about kicking off an affiliate program to get exposure to that North American audience. Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone. There are plenty of outsourced affiliate program managers that are both cost-effective and measurable as far as results that can help you build and grow your program.