How can I encourage affiliates?

When it comes to affiliate marketing there are several factors that should be considered:

1- the product itself, you should make sure that the product itself satisfies a need or more from the side of its user and that it is appealing for them to buy.

2- try to get big names from the industry on board to promote your product. I have read a study that over than 60% of purchases are made by being influenced by an authority/big name in the industry without even reading or digging about the product itself.

3- commission, try to offer good rate that will make affiliate work more and more.

4- communicate with your affiliates on regular basis, provide them with promotional material, banners, ready-to-post articles, email templates, presentations and all possible material that will help to sell the product! let them know ahead when is the launch is going to be, also after the launch send them an email thanking them for making the launch happen and then encourage them to sell more of your product!

I hope these tips are in benefit to you.

Good luck!

I think Steitiyeh has covered most aspects... but I'll add my thoughts as well.

Getting More Affiliates: - To get more affiliates I usually offer an introductory commission that will create a buzz and get more affiliates onto your program.

• The affiliate platform themselves may have some ways of introducing your site to affiliates that have done well with similar programs/products in the past. Either by sending out a mailshot.. or providing you with their details.

Squeezing More From Affiliates: - Review your positioning on all affiliate sites and ensuring your banner/product is occupying prime Real Estate on their site.

• Offer a multi-tier commission that incentivises them to sell more...
• If you have a trademark of PPC policy that restricts them from bidding for certain keywords, loosen it for the beginning to get more buy-in.
• Optimise your banners and include enticing sales messages and strong call-to-actions... and offer many different size types.
• Aside from banners etc. have you looked at product feeds? (XML or RSS feeds that they can embed on their site and build landing pages)... might be worth a shot. It works well for online travel and retail.
• Communication: Just communicate ALL the time to affiliates and let them know about deals, conversion techniques and anything that you know works.

Generally though the Pareto Rule (80:20) applies here and you'll find pretty quickly that more than 80% of conversions come from less than 20% of affiliates... so try to focus on a few key ones rather than worry too much about breadth (although this might help in brand awareness).

The other thing to remember, is that you have to keep on your toes.. as soon as Affiliates realise that they are not earning enough from a program.. they'll look to replace that banner with a better performing one. So you'll need to get it right from the beginning and keep working at it.