Affiliate Programs
Affiliate marketing is a form of cost per acquistion (cpa) marketing where you only pay the publisher when a sale is made or a lead is acquired. A good affiliate program must be managed closely and have a great relationship with the affiliates in the program.
Affiliate Recruitment
Recruiting good affiliates is the hardest obstacle you will face when developing your program. Our current relationship with affiliates, along with our involvement in different affiliate groups, and our attending of conferences such as the Affiliate Summit give us the greatest chance of recruiting proper affiliates for your program.
Management
Your program should be continously managed to ensure its profitability. Monitoring your affiliates for fraud, as well as determining which affiliates to eliminate from your program is a must. These are things that should be kept to the professionals. You must also notify your affiliates of new offers, specials, and products that you will be continuously be adding to your program. Providing an affiliate weekly/monthly newsletter announcing updates to your program is also very important.
The #1 thing you must remember is "always service your affiliates". Different affiliates will need differnt things. You will have coupon affiliates that are going to want unique coupons for their own program, as well as new coupons on a regular basis. Content networks are going to need different sizes of banner ads to display on their website. You may need to create custom links for bloggers and emailers. Comparison websites are going to want updated data feeds. By creating a good relationship and providing the information on a timely manner will ensure your affiliate's happiness.
Program Bonuses / Incentives
By providing bonuses when an affiliate reaches a certain goal will increase the value of your program over other programs the affiliate could choose. Thing such as sign up bonuses, first x amount of sales bonus, top affiliate of the month, are just some examples.