At the very elementary level, affiliates will promote an affiliate program because they are being compensated for their efforts by earning a reward (usually $$). Affiliates might do a social media post about a merchant’s product, prepping an e-mail to feature a Store sale, or just putting a coupon link on their blog to drive traffic to a website; but at the end of the day, it is all about earning a commission when a sale (or lead) is generated. For an affiliate, they are balancing the highest payout, earning potential and effort involved.
I was an affiliate that ran a data-feed affiliate website before before I transitioned to being an affiliate manager to help advertisers and merchants manage their affiliate program.
The basic concept of motivating affiliates can be pulled from an employee handbook and modify it to fit different scenarios in the affiliate industry.
Seven Methods to Motivate Affiliates
GOALS
Determine the affiliate program goals, and ensure that it falls in line with your affiliate program structure plus capabilities. Following that, identify the medium you will use to communicate that with the affiliate base. Are you looking to drive incremental sales, or looking for inactive affiliates to generate a sale, or utilizing the affiliate program to drive awareness for a seasonal promotion.
REWARDS
The Rewards tend to go hand-in-hand with Goals, so establish a compensation that is of value to the affiliate -typically monetary commission payout. Affiliate managers can also get creative by offering tiered payout based on different performance levels, private commission for specific affiliates, offering Amazon gift card for generating first sale, or even working out with other merchants to bundle gift for a contest. When I was working at Wyndham, we partnered with Angela Conley of Orbitz, and Achelle Dunway from e.l.f Cosmetics to provide a travel vacation getaway for the contest winners.
CHALLENGE
Setup a Challenge that is fun, easy for affiliates to understand and achievable. If you make the goals that is way too challenging and unattainable, it will not get any participation from any of the affiliates. If you can gamify the challenge, it would jazz up the affiliate base and get the challenge in front of all the messages that other merchants are promoting to get their attention.
TOOLS
Ensure that the affiliates in the program have the Tools and the support structure to be successful. The definition of tools is intentionally left vague as it could be technology, banners/images, links, data fees, reporting to help facilitate affiliates promoting the merchant’s program. Figure out what are the affiliates looking for and unblock all the challenges that might be a hindrance to them promoting the merchant.
OPPORTUNITY
When deciding on setting up the goals, determine what will energize the affiliate base, and ensure that the affiliate manager is segmenting the different affiliates based on volume, interaction, sales potential and try to customize different motivational events based on that. The reason for that is to segment out the affiliate and then personalize the motivation factors based on the different affiliate segments to provide Opportunities for the different types of affiliate grow their knowledge and also help them promote the merchant.
ENCOURAGEMENT
An email, or phone call by the affiliate manager to the affiliate goes a long way to help motivate the affiliate as it build a personal touch and lets the affiliate know that they exist. It also gives the affiliate a sense support system in place and there is a highly likelihood that it will encourage the affiliate to do more for the merchant’s program.
RELATIONSHIP
The cornerstone of any merchant – affiliate interaction is the relationship between the affiliate and the affiliate manager. In many instances, putting a name to a face and building a brand reputation behind a brand makes a big difference when it comes to the affiliate promoting the affiliate program versus a competitor’s affiliate program.
CONCLUSION
There is no one solution to motivating affiliates, but the first method is to build the relationship with the affiliate and knowing your affiliate base well. Then use the other methods to reinforce the motivation and drive the affiliate program forward.