How to Recruit Affiliates? 9 Affiliate Recruitment Strategies

Affiliate recruitment isn’t just about getting people to sign up for your affiliate program.

First, you need to find people who match your brand. Also, they should connect with your target audience.

This guide shows how to recruit affiliates strategically the right way. Additionally, we’ll share proven strategies for recruiting affiliates and tips for building a strong affiliate network.

What is Affiliate Recruitment?

Affiliate recruitment is finding and onboarding affiliate marketers. These marketers will get paid when they bring sales for you.

Affiliate marketing outreach creates online partnerships without hiring salespeople. Furthermore, there are no upfront costs.

The quality of your affiliates directly affects your brand and sales. Therefore, recruit affiliates who are genuine and enthusiastic.

You can recruit affiliates in two ways:

• Outsource recruitment to an affiliate recruitment agency.
• Use affiliate recruitment tools to automate the process.

Setting Up to Recruit Affiliates

Before learning how to recruit affiliates​ to recruit affiliates, you need to lay a foundation:

1. Define your ideal affiliate profile:

• Who is the audience you want to reach?
• Which content creators engage your target customers?
• Create a clear picture of your perfect affiliate partner.
• In addition, figure out what the right affiliate products to sell through affiliates.

2. Set up a high-converting affiliate program:

Recruitment affiliate programs must have attractive affiliate commissions. As a result, you will be able to reach potential affiliates.

Read more on “How to Create an Affiliate Program”

3. Get your affiliate marketing materials ready:

Prepare marketing materials like banners, social media posts, and email templates. In the event of recruiting affiliates, this will help you start affiliate marketing immediately.

Once your foundation is set, it’s time to recruit affiliates actively.

How to Recruit Affiliates?

You can follow this step-by-step affiliate recruitment process to onboard quality affiliates.

Step 1: Create a Dedicated Affiliate Landing Page

An affiliate landing page is simply an affiliate signup page. Hence, here, you can share all the details about your program. This includes commission, payout, cookie time, and benefits.

Most importantly, this page must show clear steps for affiliates to join.

Once you have this page ready, you can use it in many ways. First, you can use it for promotion. Then, you can add it to your menu or footer. As a result, more people will see your program.

Tip: Find out about landing page builder apps. They can make this process easy for you.

Here’s an example from the Amazon Affiliate Program. They do everything right by showing commission, benefits, and a clear “Signup” button.

Step 2: Use an Affiliate Recruitment Tool

Finding affiliates is just the first step. After that, you need to create links, track sales, and pay commissions.

To help with the smooth recruitment of affiliates, you can use an affiliate recruitment software​ like Afflr.

Affiliate recruitment software​ features you need:

• Affiliate signup form
• Unique affiliate link generation
• Affiliates tracking
• Automated affiliate payout

Afflr offers a customizable affiliate signup form for all its programs. You can design it to suit your brand’s identity.

Once an affiliate onboard, they get assigned to a program automatically. Following that, they will receive a unique affiliate link.

Afflr tracks everything and helps you manage all tasks from the affiliate dashboard.

Step 3: Start with Your Existing Customers

Your customers already know and trust what you sell. Therefore, they make perfect affiliates to recruit.

Effective affiliate referral strategies to find suitable referral partners include:

• How often do they buy?
• How do they interact on social media?
• What reviews do they leave?

Learn more on how to turn customers into brand advocates.

The best place for your referral registration form is your order confirmation page.

Check out this post-purchase popup created using Afflr for referral marketing.

Step 4: Leverage Your Existing Network

Your network is valuable. Therefore reach out to business partners, suppliers, and fellow entrepreneurs. As a result, they might connect you with good affiliate marketers.

In some cases, you can also get a chance at B2B referral marketing chances. Following this, business partners, vendors, etc can be recruited as affiliates.

Step 5: Target Influencers and Content Creators

Finding affiliates on social media needs a smart approach. Therefore, look for creators whose followers match your ideal customer profile.

You can also explore various affiliate forums and affiliate websites to find suitable partnerships.

Read more on Influencer Marketing to recruit affiliates who are the right match.

Step 6: Use Email for Affiliate Outreach

Email is still one of the best ways to recruit affiliates for affiliate programs.

An affiliate recruitment email should have:

• An eye-catching subject line
• The person’s name
• A mention of their content
• Benefits of your program
• Social proof
• A strong call to action

For more understanding of affiliate outreach through email marketing, look at different affiliate recruitment email templates​.

Step 7: Get Features on Blogs

Many affiliate bloggers cater to your target audience. Get features on their websites. This will increase the visibility of your affiliate program.

For example, simply search “affiliate program for [your niche]”. You will find many listicle blogs you can target. When affiliates read these blogs, they will voluntarily approach you for affiliate registration.

Here is an example of a Google search for “Affiliate programs for Finance”

Step 8: Run Paid Ads

Finding affiliates through Google and social media will be easy with the help of paid ads.

The best platforms to recruit affiliates are: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Here, you can recruit affiliate marketers directly.

Therefore, create targeted affiliate recruitment campaigns on platforms where potential partners spend time.

You can use apps to create ads for your store. This can promote your affiliate program, as well as, the whole website.

These are the best affiliate recruitment tips to find affiliates the easy way. However, if you want to grow your program, read on for more advanced ideas.

9 Affiliate Recruitment Strategies

The most advanced affiliate recruitment strategies for growth are:

Run Contests for Affiliates

Affiliate contests create urgency and excitement. As a result, you will get immediate results.

Performance-based marketing works best with rewards. Consequently, convey to your affiliates that better work will get bigger rewards.

You can conduct these affiliate giveaways by offering different pay like tiered commission.

Giveaways grow your visibility. Thus, it is a good way to use affiliate marketing for lead generation.

Join Affiliate Networks and Marketplaces

If you want to find many affiliates, try an affiliate marketplace.

Affiliate networks like ShareASale and ClickBank are the best places to find affiliate partnerships.

These influencer marketplaces are the best platform to recruit affiliates as they have.

• Built-in payment processing
• Standardized tracking
• Help with solving problems
• Trusted partners

Partner with Super Affiliates

Super affiliates have high-value followers. Therefore, they work well if you sell luxury items.

How to attract super-affiliates:

• Offer higher commission rates
• Exclusive benefits
• Performance bonuses
• Personalized support

Attend Industry Events

Meeting in person is still the best way to recruit affiliates. You can find people who are serious about affiliate partnerships.

At affiliate networking conferences, you can build strong affiliate relationships for digital outreach.

Best affiliate marketing conferences for recruiting affiliate marketers:

• Affiliate Summit
• PI LIVE – Performance & Affiliate Marketing Conferences
• Affiliate World Conferences

Implement Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)

Picture your top affiliates recruiting more affiliates for you. This is how multi-level marketing works.

Here’s how this affiliate marketing recruitment idea works:

• Affiliates recruit other affiliates
• They earn a share of their recruits’ sales

This makes them want to build a network of good affiliate partners. Thus, your program can grow.

Use affiliate tracking tools that can handle complex commission structures. The right affiliate marketing software makes this very easy.

Use Social Proof and Testimonials

Affiliates want to join real, money-making affiliate programs.

Showcase success stories and ‘Affiliate Spotlight’ on your affiliate signup page, email outreach, and social media. As a result, more affiliates will trust your program. Consequently, affiliate signup will increase.

Build a Strong Affiliate Community

Bring all your affiliates together to form a network. Thus, they will motivate each other by sharing experiences and wins.

To build an affiliate community,

• First, start a private Facebook, TikTok or Slack group
• Then, host special Q&As and webinars
• Also, create contests with leaderboards and prizes

As a result, affiliates will do better work.

Read more on TikTok affiliate marketing to know how social media can connect you with referral partners.

Offer Competitive and Recurring Commissions

When recruiting affiliates for an affiliate program, your commission structure can set you apart.

Higher affiliate rewards will help attract good marketers. Additionally, it will also retain your current affiliates.

Consider these affiliate commission models:

• Percentage-based commissions
• Fixed payouts
• Tiered commission structures
• Rule-based commission rate

You can also learn how to set commissions for your affiliate program.

Work with Affiliate Recruitment Agencies

If you have tried all the strategies to recruit affiliates, but want more, get help. You can outsource recruitment using an affiliate recruitment agency.

These agencies specialize in affiliate marketing recruitment. Thus, they can speed up growth.

Some agencies offer affiliate recruitment services that include checking and training affiliates.

Bonus: Affiliate Recruitment Mistakes

Here are some common mistakes to avoid before you recruit an affiliate:

• Focusing on quantity over quality
• Setting commission rates too low
• Providing insufficient marketing materials
• Neglecting communication and support
• Not tracking performance effectively

Conclusion

To recruit affiliates, you need good plans and strategies.

The most successful programs keep improving their methods to recruit affiliate marketers based on what works.

First, start affiliate marketing recruitment by finding marketers who match your brand. Then, offer them great rewards. Finally, give them the right tools and help.

Further Reading

• Affiliate Management: Tips + Strategies
• Affiliate Email Marketing: Ultimate Guide
• Effective Affiliate Marketing Strategies
• Promote Affiliate Links