Attracting the right publishers

When it comes to recruiting new affiliates, efficiency is the key to gaining quality affiliates that are going to deliver traffic and more importantly, conversions.

Some programmes have thousands of affiliates and, when drilled in to, a large proportion are completely irrelevant to the advertiser’s products or services. Then there’s the proportion of smaller, long-tail affiliates that are relevant, but drive no traffic to the site.

The answer is simple – research. Whether you look to seek them out or they find you, researching a potential new publisher saves time and effort in the long-run.

There are a few things to consider;

1. Look at their website’s traffic: there’s a number of tools available to help you assess the volumes of traffic they receive. If it’s low, they’re not going to drive much traffic to your site!
2. Look at the content: do they have a lot of engagement with their contact, for example shares on Facebook or retweets on Twitter?
3. Look at the site: does it look trustworthy? Would you trust the information on the site?

A key factor is imagining yourself as a potential customer, if you trust the affiliate, whether from accurate content or a good site design, means your customer is more likely to convert.

For publishers that already exist on your programme, look at the traffic they’re driving in comparison to their own traffic numbers.