Affiliate Drive Time – The 7 pillars of effective program management

Do you understand the things that you need to do to run a successful affiliate program? Lee-Ann believes that there are 7 pillars of effective program management including partner discovery, optimisation and more.

In this week’s episode of Affiliate Drive Time, Lee-Ann talks us through the 7 pillars and offers advice on how you can use these pillars to grow your program. Check out the video and read on in the blog below for more detail on these.

So, what are the things that you need to do to run a successful affiliate program?

1. Partner Discovery

The first pillar is partner discovery and this refers to the initial stages of the affiliate program where you are onboarding new affiliates. You’ll not only need to research new sites and affiliates but you’ll also need to find the right traffic sources. Lee-Ann believes that around 25-30% of the initial period is spent discovering partners.

2. Recruitment

Recruitment is a key part of any affiliate program but this process isn’t the same as it used to be. Gone are the days where the majority of the recruitment takes place at big industry events. Now, we are focusing our efforts more on social selling in an attempt to combat the losses faced by the pandemic. Check out our previous tips on social selling here.

3. Activation

You need to make sure that you are bringing in affiliates who are activated and that are starting to drive more traffic to your website. This isn’t always easy but once you nail it, you’ll be glad that you put in the effort.

4. Monitoring Performance

As an affiliate manager, you need to be constantly watching everything to ensure that things are going to plan. You need to know which affiliates are active and you must engage with them to find out how they are getting on. There are tons of tools that can help with monitoring the performance of your affiliates.

5. Active Communication

When you are monitoring your affiliates, you must also ensure that you are staying in constant communication with them. If you aren’t active in your communication, you risk having affiliates losing interest in your brands. Work on your communication and you’ll thank yourself in the long run.

6. Optimisation

Are you spending time optimising your traffic sources and your program in general? Optimisation is a key part of the process and there are a lot of things that you should be focusing on. Don’t just optimise your traffic sources, optimise your relationships with affiliates and what you are offering them.

7. Market Research

Finally, you need to be focusing your efforts on market research as the industry is constantly changing. You need to be keeping your finger on the pulse and understanding what is changing, why it is and how. Spend some time researching online and you’ll get the data that you need to make the right decisions.

These are the 7 pillars of affiliate marketing. Put these tips into practice and you’ll start to see your affiliate program blossom. Don’t forget to join us again next week for another episode of Affiliate Drive Time. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!