How to find super affiliates

Want to start a new affiliate program but not sure whom to approach? Well, there are a number of ways in which you can get access to high quality, efficient affiliates - if you know where to look. Here's a first hand primer on how you can get the best affiliates.

Think like one

Before you actually start hunting for the perfect set of affiliates, you will need to tune your mind into thinking like one. That way you can prepare your affiliate program to cater to their requirements. It will also prevent you from receiving any surprises or shocks in future.

Build affiliate sites

No affiliate will want to join your affiliate program if they find you have never built affiliate sites! This is one of the first things most affiliates will ask you. So start building your own affiliate sites to get access to more qualified affiliates.

Good incentives

Make sure to establish a good incentive package that rewards affiliates well. Otherwise you risk losing out on top quality talent and just finding the mediocre affiliates. Make sure to have a good performance bonus package and perks as well.

Product quality

Most top quality super affiliates are concerned with the quality of the product they are promoting. They know that if they associate with a poor quality product they not only risk their reputation online but also earn less in terms of incentives. That's why ensure you have built on a solid, high quality product to promote.

Tracking software

You as an affiliate program owner will obviously need to track the affiliates' performance. For this there are plenty of tracking software available. However, make sure to use software which doesn't invade the affiliate's privacy and that he or she is comfortable with. Else you risk losing them in the long run.

Prompt payments

Nothing puts off a super affiliate more than a late payment. Make sure you pay your affiliates on time - preferably on the first or second day of the month. By establishing a track record of paying on time, you will stand to attract more good quality affiliates in the long run.

Provide promotional tools

In order for your promotional efforts to be successful, you need to adequately train your affiliates. You also need to provide them with easy access to all possible promotional and advertising material. From banner ads, to textual copy, to links to specific sections of your site etc. - these will all help in propagating your product better. Get feedback

It is always a good idea to ask for your affiliates' feedback on a continual basis. That way you know your expectations and theirs and also get to understand their concerns. If they have any problems, you should be ready to sort them out.

Conversion ratios

If you want access to high quality super affiliates, you'll want to notch up your conversion rates on the site. Any serious affiliate worth his salt will hate being taken for a ride. If they find out your site's sales conversions are very slow, they'll abandon your program and move on to something more lucrative. Make sure you tweak and fine tune your site to improve sales conversion rates.

Your page rankings

It is great to have your website among the top 10 search engine results, but not if you wish to recruit good quality affiliates. Many serious affiliates get scared away when they see that you're too "big" or well known. They will not want to compete with you, so be careful and maintain a balance.

Customer base

If you have a newsletter subscription on your site, you could use that customer database to search for good quality affiliates. It's because these persons are already interested in this niche segment and hence can promote your products for you much better.

Individual contact

It maybe extremely time consuming but communicating with each affiliate on an individual basis may actually work. It's because serious affiliates usually disregard such emails as spam. Therefore if you want your email to stand out favourably, consider contacting them personally and personalize the email content. Make sure to include the website owner's name because you want to show that you made the effort to search for their name.