As an advertiser, you may think that setting up your affiliate program and promoting it once or twice is enough to keep going. But… Affiliate recruitment is something you should be doing on a daily basis, and today, we will prove to you – WHY.
Affiliate marketing statistics are impressive. According to Awin, affiliate marketing has an excellent ROI ratio of 1:16.
As a result, it’s no surprise that businesses all over the world are jumping on board.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub’s Affiliate Marketing Benchmark Report for 2022, 80% of advertisers have an affiliate program, and the affiliate marketing industry is expected to grow to $15.7 billion by 2024.
However, for brands that are creating an affiliate program for their business, this can be tempting to adopt a’set-it-and-forget-it’ attitude.
Brands that adopt this attitude will fail and miss out on a plethora of untapped opportunities. An affiliate program necessitates ongoing maintenance and attention, particularly in terms of recruitment. We’ll explain why continuous publisher recruitment is important and provide statistics to back it up.
What is the significance of continuous affiliate recruitment?
According to IAB Australia’s Advertiser Industry Review 2022 data, 83% of advertisers add affiliates to their programs on a monthly basis. This encouraging figure is expected to rise even further in 2023 as we enter a post-pandemic growth phase.
Here’s why these astute brands will fare well in both the long and short term when it comes to affiliate marketing.
The affiliate landscape is constantly changing.
Affiliate marketing is a constantly evolving and shifting industry that must account for new consumer behaviors and technologies. Brands that consistently recruit partners for their programs will be best positioned to capitalize on new affiliate industry trends.
Consider the importance of influencers today. According to Kinsta, 59% of companies now use influencers for affiliate marketing, despite the fact that they were not at all prevalent at the inception of affiliate marketing.
Moreover, the last 10 years have seen a boom in eCommerce and smartphones, which have significantly impacted affiliate tactics and how consumers consume content online.
As partner marketing evolves, brands that seek out affiliates who are pushing industry boundaries will be able to stay ahead of their competitors.
Consider the significant growth in areas such as behavioral targeting. Affiliates willing to work on a CPA basis became an excellent way for brands to test a new concept with little risk or upfront investment.
Affiliates come and go
Affiliates enter and exit the industry on a regular basis. The top earners in your affiliate program today may not be the top earners tomorrow.
According to our extensive collection of strategic partnership statistics, only 20% of affiliates generate 80% of affiliate marketing sales. However, this does not imply that the same entities will continue to be in the top 20% year after year.
You want to ensure that the most important volume drivers are not only on your program this year but also next year and the year after that.
Consider your affiliate program to be a leaking ship. By constantly adding new partner to your affiliate program, you’ll be able to keep it afloat and your affiliate marketing conversions on track.
It’s also important to remember that failing to recruit new affiliates who enter your niche will cost you more than just potential conversions. It will also mean giving your competitors an advantage because any affiliates you do not recruit may quickly join forces with competitor brands.
You should hedge your bets.
You want a diverse range of affiliates in your affiliate program who use different tactics to promote your brand and gain conversions.
Consider this: 15 years ago, PPC affiliates were the primary volume drivers, but this was a brief period. Think how it must have felt for all of the brands whose affiliate programs were overflowing with affiliates using these tactics.
Similarly, until recently, coupon code sites were the dominant affiliates. They do, however, now co-exist with many other types, ranging from social media influencers to bloggers and comparison sites that use SEO to gain traffic. Affiliates, who have a smaller following and a highly specific affiliate niche, have risen to prominence in particular by promoting a brand’s products to a small but highly targeted audience.
Making sure that your affiliate program includes a diverse range of affiliates will keep you from becoming overly reliant on one type, which is critical for long-term success. It will also ensure that you take advantage of all of the available opportunities.
Unfortunately, brands that do not actively recruit affiliates on a regular basis are more likely to have a high proportion of voucher and coupon websites in their affiliate programs, as these are the affiliates who are most likely to find your program passively.
We’ll explain why later when we go over the differences between passive and active publisher recruitment.
Respond to the requirements of your brand.
We’ve talked a lot about how the affiliate marketing landscape is changing. But what about your company’s image? We’d be surprised if your goals and objectives stay the same next quarter, let alone next year!
Your affiliate strategy should reflect your brand’s needs and assist you in meeting your company’s long- and short-term goals.
For example:
- What products or services do you want to promote?
- Do you intend to enter any specific markets?
- Which stages of the customer journey and lifecycle should you optimize?
While revenue is typically used to measure affiliate program success, your brand’s success may differ entirely. You might want to look at new versus returning customers or the number of leads generated by affiliates (rather than conversions). This is covered in greater depth in our blog on strategic partnership KPIs.
You must continually recruit affiliates to reflect your brand’s changing goals.
You’ll also want to analyze your affiliate program on a regular basis to see what’s working and what isn’t. This includes noting which partners earn the most money for your brand and which are the most satisfied and engaged affiliates. These insights can help you focus your ongoing recruitment efforts on affiliates who will add the most value to your brand.
Another advantage of regularly analyzing your program’s performance is that you will notice any significant changes, such as a key affiliate dropping down the rankings. This will allow you to quickly identify major players who are switching allegiances to your competitors!
The Statistics Underlying Ongoing Publisher Recruitment
Now comes the part you’ve all been waiting for… statistics to back us up!
Commission Junction examined network data for five years to determine the impact of continuous affiliate recruitment on business growth. So, what did they discover?
- Affiliates recruited after the first year account for 60% of a company’s affiliate program revenue.
- Affiliate programs that actively recruit publishers experience twice the growth rate over a five-year period.
In other words, yes, the brands’ existing affiliates did contribute a significant portion of revenue. However, the majority of the revenue generated by the brands’ affiliate programs came directly from newly recruited publishers.
What did you learn?
The affiliates you most recently recruited have the best chance of earning a lot of money for your program. If you stop recruiting affiliates, you will lose a lot of money!
Also, keep in mind that the affiliate programs that grew the fastest were those that were actively recruiting. So, if you want to grow your affiliate program (hint: you should if you want to maximize its earning potential), affiliate recruitment should be a top priority.
But what exactly do we mean when we say “actively recruiting”?
Passive Vs. Active Affiliate Program Recruitment
When an affiliate discovers your affiliate program on its own, this is referred to as passive recruitment. In other words, they track you down.
Active recruitment, on the other hand, occurs when an affiliate discovers your affiliate program as a result of your recruitment methods – in other words, you’ve found and recruited them to your program.
We know what you’re thinking: is there a way to get affiliates to join my program without spending time and money on recruitment?
It appears to be a done deal!
No, not exactly.
The issue is that if you rely on passive recruitment – that is, twiddling your thumbs while waiting for affiliates to join your program – you will end up with a disproportionate amount of voucher and coupon sites in your affiliate program.
AM Navigator disabled active recruitment on a non-paying client’s affiliate program and documented what occurred. While they continued to receive one application per day, the balance was heavily skewed in favor of coupon sites:
- 53% discount on coupons
- 17% of the total
- 12% social
- 12% are directories.
- 6% cashback
Having coupon or deal sites in your affiliate program isn’t a bad thing, but make sure they’re balanced out by other types of affiliates as well.
Remember what we said earlier: having a wide range of affiliates who use a pletora of tactics to promote your products and brand is critical. You can avoid, so to speak, putting all your eggs in one basket and limiting untapped opportunities this way.
Affiliates who use social media outlets, content, and paid search are less likely to come across you by chance. As a result, it’s critical that you actively seek them out and recruit them for your program.
Just keep in mind that each of these affiliates will have unique requirements and business models. They’ll also be inundated with generic messages inviting them to join various affiliate programs and platforms.
So, sending out a generic drip campaign isn’t going to cut it.
Instead, you’ll need to put effort into identifying prospective partners in a variety of categories and recruiting them in a personal and needs-based manner.
Conclusion for affiliate recruitment
If you want to grow your affiliate program, you must constantly recruit new affiliates. However, with the industry evolving rapidly and 60% of a partner program’s revenue coming from affiliates recruited within the last five years, continuous recruitment is also necessary if you want to keep your affiliate conversions in the right zone to meet targets.
Also, keep in mind that affiliates are constantly entering the industry. Continuous recruiting will ensure that you stay current with affiliate industry trends and that new affiliates’ skills are used to bring revenue to your company rather than your competitors!
Ready to launch your affiliate program and tap int the affiliate marketing industry?
Last Updated on August 25, 2023
