What to Include in an Affiliate Program Strategy

If you want to develop a strong affiliate program, it is crucial that you have good strategies in place. You will need to think carefully about how you will incorporate these strategies into your program and support your affiliate recruiting efforts. Here we’ll delve into the seven key components that need to be planned into your affiliate strategy.

Recruitment Strategy:

This is the most obvious point to include in your affiliate strategy, as you will need to think about the fundamentals of your affiliate recruiting. How will you actually bring affiliates into your program, so you can work with them and develop relationships?

This will depend on the specifics of your affiliate program, as different strategies will work better for different types of programs. For example, some programs may benefit from attracting recruits from their existing customer base, but others may need to rely on influencers. 

Activation Strategy:

Once you have recruits on board, it is crucial that you don’t allow them to cool off and lose interest in your program. So, you also need to include activation strategies into your overall affiliate program strategy.

Successful affiliates are unlikely to limit themselves to just your program, so you will be competing with other programs in your niche. 

Therefore, you need to think about how you will follow up with your new affiliates and ensure that they are activated.  

Reactivation Strategy:

Unfortunately, not all affiliates will remain actively promoting your program, so you will also need to think about including reactivation strategies into your action plan. 

Affiliate marketing is relationship based, so you will need to consider a consistent communication schedule to ensure that any dormant affiliates come back on board. 

Optimization Strategy: 

You cannot rely on your affiliates to drive conversions by themselves, so you will also need to consider optimization strategies. If you want to generate more sales and efficiently utilize your affiliate team, you will need to optimize your program. 

This could be something as simple as optimizing your product pages to load quickly, but you may also need to leverage tools to help direct traffic to high-impact pages. 

Optimization can provide a boost to affiliate marketing strategies and help you to retain more affiliates and customers. 

Diversification Strategy: 

While relying on a handful of productive affiliates can be a great start, becoming overly reliant on that small affiliate team can quickly compromise the success of your program. 

A diverse affiliate portfolio can grow your audience reach, accelerate program growth and alleviate risk. 

Technology Strategy:

Affiliate technology has a crucial role to play in connecting your program to affiliates. The right technology can provide tangible advantages, so you can determine the efficiency of your affiliate links and check program progress. 

Reporting Insights and Data Alignment:

Finally, you need to consider your reporting insights and data alignment strategies. A successful affiliate program requires accurate reporting and data, so you can assess which affiliates are delivering the best results and where you can make improvements. This will allow you to adjust your program as necessary for long-term success.