Maximizing Your Affiliate Marketing Success: The Top 3 Components Needed in Your Affiliate Center (Plus 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid)

Affiliate partners are an essential element to the success of any high-converting offer, and as a business owner or affiliate manager, you recognize their significance for your bottom line. 

But, how do you attract top-quality affiliate partners?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with three core elements to keep at the forefront of your mind when building out your affiliate center, and three critical mistakes to avoid. By applying this straightforward yet effective framework, you’ll be sure to achieve even your most ambitious sales targets.

Learn more about the types of assets affiliate partners will need in our Winning Affiliate Centers lesson.

#1 Speaks To The Right Affiliate Partners

Ask yourself a question: If the most successful affiliate marketers out there today were to land on your affiliate page, can they easily find the right assets and links to promote your offer? 

If you are unsure, that’s what we’re here for. 

Your affiliate center should speak directly to the high earners, the movers and the shakers. You’ll want to partner with people who know what they’re doing, so don’t waste valuable real estate explaining how affiliate marketing works. Instead, tell people how much money they can make by mailing for your offer. Tell them all the ways that they can partner up with you and what the commission splits are. Share the big-name affiliates you are working with, and what results they had promoting your offer.

It’s important to gear your affiliate center toward the audience you want to work with; if you want to grow quickly and surely. You want the pros. Otherwise, you’ll spend most of your time training rather than tweaking your funnel to make it convert even better.

Send all the newbies to East 5th Avenue for the Affiliate Accelerator coaching course to quickly get them up to speed and become a better affiliate partner for everyone. We will be sure to thank you for a referral.

#2 It’s Easy To Use

Your affiliate center should be easy for all types of affiliates to use. .  Here are a few other things to help make it as affiliate-friendly as possible:

• It should answer frequently asked questions for new visitors and provide solid support for your longtime affiliate partners
  

• It should be located at a link that’s easy to remember, and it should have an easy way to get an affiliate ID.
  

• A winning affiliate center proudly shares its easy payment terms, conversion rate, and commission payout.
  

• The swipe copy should be easy to access, with the highest-converting copy located right at the top. All swipe copy should have information on how well it converts so affiliates don’t waste their (or their audience’s) time.

• Keep your assets up-to-date and compliant. If you have assets created for Facebook, verify that it is compliant with their tight regulations, and make that clear on the website so marketers who use Facebook as a channel have an easy time sharing your offer.

• Make it easy for an affiliate partner to reach the affiliate manager or someone else who can help. Set up a shared email that can be accessed by anyone in your organization who can answer affiliate questions. That way, there are more eyes on the questions, and your important affiliates can get answers faster and return to selling for you.

• If you offer a 2nd tier referral program, where affiliate partners make money by referring their friends, put it prominently on your site and make it easy to get others involved! It shows that you care about the people who are opening doors for you and makes it more enticing for affiliates to help grow your network.

#3 It’s Packed With Your Best Tricks 

Many affiliate marketers believe their funnel must remain top secret, or someone will steal it. But by sharing the entire customer journey, complete with landing pages and email copy, you give pro affiliate marketers a peek into why your offer is so successful, and all the evidence they need of a well-run operation that will help them make a lot of cash. 

Share your conversion numbers and video testimonials from other affiliate partners who have tested or promoted your offer, and remember: entice the right people! If you work with any big names, be sure to name-drop them here. This builds your credibility in key ways! 

Have a selection of offers that are suitable for a variety of audiences. For example, books with topics ranging from diets to supplements to common ailments and home remedies. This way, you have a better chance of attracting more affiliates with various audiences. 

It’s also a great idea to have two types of offers running: launches and evergreen offers. Launches are great for generating buzz, but they are exhausting for everyone and should be kept to a few times yearly. This can make for lean in-between times, but with evergreen offers in the mix, and the additional leverage of paid media, things can stabilize quickly.

Don’t forget to put your earnings disclaimer, no-spam policy, rules of engagement, and any other terms, right out there for everyone to see and access.

The 3 Biggest Mistakes To Avoid When Building Your Affiliate Center 

With such a long list of must-haves in a Winning Affiliate Center, there are three common mistakes we see companies make when they start building it out.

1. Forgetting The Sale. Always be selling in your affiliate center from the moment your affiliate partners land on your page. Tell them why they should sell for you and what’s in it for them. Get their email address, and stay in touch.
2. Being Unclear. Don’t make affiliates chase down answers or connect the dots on their own. Your affiliate center should be organized and easy to use. Assets should be updated regularly and checked for compliance.
3. Bad Compliance. Ensure that unsubscribe links are easy to find at the bottom of every email. Use suppression lists. Ensure that when someone unsubscribes, all affiliates get the memo and suppress that email from their lists. The bigger you get, the more this becomes an issue, so get a handle on it early.

There are plenty of things to know when building an affiliate center, but it all funnels up to one important thing: making it an inviting, easy-to-use space for your affiliate partners, so they have everything needed at their fingertips to do what they do best – promote offers. 

By taking the time to create an informative and organized affiliate center, you’re showing your people that you care about their time and success. Who wouldn’t want to work with someone like that? 

Need Support Creating and Scaling Your Affiliate Program?

Supercharge Your Affiliate Revenue with everything you need to know to grow your partnership marketing channel in a free mini-course Everflow of Partner Connections.

You’ll get 15 lessons and 7 actionable tools designed to meet you at any level (beginner, intermediate and advanced) and help you build a steady affiliate revenue coming month after month, year after year! 

TAKE IT – ABSOLUTELY FREE…

Sources:

VIP Master Class: Deep Dive On The Assets

VIP Master Class: Winning Affiliate Centers

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