Create an Affiliate Program in 9 Steps + FREE Affiliate Program Launch Checklist

Affiliate marketing has become one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to grow brand awareness. In fact, it’s projected to hit $8.2 billion dollars in spending in 2024. 

If you’re looking to expand reach and build a network of fans and customers, it’s time to consider starting an affiliate marketing program for your business. 

But how complex is it to create an affiliate program? And how can you ensure success once it’s up and running? We’ll answer these questions and walk you through the 9 steps to achieving affiliate marketing success in today’s blog. 

Plus, you can download a free pre-launch checklist at the end of this article to help you stay on track as you put together your affiliate marketing strategy. 

Ready? Let’s get started. 

Table of Contents

1. Pick your niche
2. Research the competition
3. Choose the best affiliate program platform for your needs
4. Create a sustainable commission structure
5. Establish an online presence on social media
6. Recruit high-quality affiliates
7. Design eye-catching promo materials
8. Train your affiliates well
9. Track your progress

Build a successful affiliate program with LeadDyno.

1. Pick your niche

While it may seem that your business fits into only one niche, you might be surprised at the flexibility and specificity available to you within your industry. Start with a broad niche, like technology or education, and then lean into the specifics of your audience, like online coding courses for kids. 

You can also niche down based on the audience you’re targeting. For instance, if you’re a fitness clothing brand, you might target either high-performance athletes or working professionals looking for comfy gym wear. It all depends on your product and your desired market. 

Likewise, if you’re a skincare brand, you might highlight your product’s sustainability to reach an eco-conscious audience. Or you might focus on the innovative skincare technology that promises big results to reach that high-tech, ingredient-focused consumer. The important thing is to know your target audience well, so you can find your strongest affiliates more easily. 

2. Research the competition

It’s important to know who else is competing in the same industry arena as you. What are your direct competitors doing to advertise their products or services? How are they sourcing affiliates? You can learn a lot from the choices they’ve made. Even more, you can potentially avoid their mistakes by running competitive analysis on the performance of their affiliate programs. Here are a few questions to ask as part of your competitive analysis: 

What’s their affiliate commission strategy? 

How do they pay their affiliates? Do they pay in percentage or a flat rate? Is their commission structure both clear and fair? Does it include bonuses? Can you offer a stronger commission rate than them? If you’re able to beat their offer, you may be able to entice their affiliates to try your products and shift their loyalties. However, it’s important to make sure that your commission structure is also sustainable for your business, so you don’t fold before you can get off the ground.

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How do they handle referral links? 

Referral links are used to track affiliate conversions, so you can pay your affiliates properly and see how each one is progressing. You can sneak a peek at how your competitors’ affiliates are performing by using Ahrefs to search their backlinks and see which ones are doing the best. While some affiliates may use link cloaking, you should still be able to gain some solid intel on which tracking links are performing well and how much attention they’re receiving.
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What resources do they give affiliates for marketing and promotions? 

The more attractive and accessible your marketing materials are, the easier it will be for your affiliates to do their job. What kinds of materials are your competitors offering? How are they making it easy for their affiliates to post and share? Also, are they offering special promotions within their program? If so, what sorts of promotions are they and how often are they being offered?

Do they use influencer marketing? 

If they use influencers as part of their affiliate program, how many do they use, and what platforms are the influencers promoting on?

Once you’ve answered these questions for yourself, you’ll have a strong blueprint for what steps to take in building your own affiliate program.

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3. Choose the best affiliate program platform for your needs

Finding the right affiliate platform for your needs is half the battle. Here are a few important things to consider when choosing the right affiliate software for your program: 

• Easy integration with your online store
• A reliable and convenient payment system
• Affiliate tools to help streamline the marketing process for your affiliates
• Flexible features for commission structure, payouts, custom domains, custom CSS, and other customizable options
• Progress tracking and analytics dashboards 

You’ll also want to consider the track record of the affiliate platform – how long it’s been around, which companies use it, how many affiliates it can sustain in a single affiliate network, etc. And while it may seem appealing to choose an affiliate management app that promises a 5-minute onboarding process, you may actually have better luck in the long run with a platform that offers a slightly more complex setup but rewards with an extensive set of features. You don’t want to choose a bare bones program if you’re planning on acquiring hundreds of affiliates.

4. Create a sustainable commission structure

It’s important to set yourself up for success with an affiliate commission rate and structure that will draw affiliates while remaining sustainable for your business, no matter the size of your affiliate program. The average affiliate commission rate sits between 5 and 30%. To narrow down your choice even more, take a look at what your top 3 competitors are offering rate-wise and find a suitably competitive rate from there. If you need to start out lower than the competition, you can always scale your affiliate income rates as your program grows. Many companies also offer a tiered commission rate, which can encourage stronger affiliate performance from your top performers. You’ll also need to decide whether you’re offering one-time commissions or a recurring rate (popular with SaaS companies and subscription services). Once you’ve chosen a working commission plan, you can use an affiliate software like LeadDyno to easily set the rates for every affiliate in your program. 

5. Establish an online presence on social media

What’s the first thing you do when you hear about a product? You search it online. Although it might seem like a minor detail when it comes to creating an affiliate program, social media is one of the most effective ways to recruit affiliates and reach potential customers. Because so many businesses are vying for affiliates and influencers, it’s essential to have a social media presence that shows that your company is both credible and competitive in your industry. What’s the competition like on social media? In fact, over 60% of affiliate marketers are utilizing Instagram for traffic, while nearly 30% use TikTok to promote their products and boost visibility. While that may seem like tough competition, remember that your business will be competing within your niche, so you won’t have to battle it out with every affiliate marketing program on the platform. If you don’t already have an online presence on any social media platform, start by building social proof using customer testimonials, with photos and videos of the product in use or a behind-the-scenes look at your services. Aim for consistency in posting. If the most you can post is twice a week, then stick to twice a week. The important thing is to remain active and to engage regularly with your audience. Don’t leave comments or DMs unanswered, because many platforms track how well you engage with followers and will reward you for responding consistently. Showing your affiliates that you’re active and responsive online will increase their trust in your brand, and consequently, will help them to feel more confident advertising your products to their followers.

6. Recruit high-quality affiliates

Of course the most important factor to nail in any affiliate program is the quality of your affiliates. There’s no point investing time and effort into designing an affiliate program if you can’t find affiliates that are truly dedicated to bringing in referrals. You may have heard of the 80/20 rule; that is, that 20% of the work yields 80% of the results. In affiliate marketing, that number is even more exaggerated. You may find that the top 5% of your affiliates will achieve 95% of your sales, so it’s important to make sure that every affiliate you bring on has the potential to be one of your best.So how do you find these amazing affiliates? Here’s a few strategies to use:

• Pull directly from your customer base. They’re already fans and can vouch for your product or services. In fact, your existing customers may already be referring friends and family to your site – offer them an incentive to do so, and you may have just found your biggest advocates.
  
  
• Reach out to micro-influencers. They may already be following you on social media, or you may have luck sourcing them from local social media accounts and blogs. Don’t underestimate the power of a passionate micro-influencer. If they’re singing the praises of your product or services, they can be very effective, even on a small audience.
  
  
• Run PPC (pay-per-click) advertising campaigns. Promote your affiliate marketing campaign with targeted ads on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google. Use high-ranking target keywords in your niche, mention your commission rates, and include a powerful call-to-action in each ad.
  
  
• Offer a user-friendly affiliate signup landing page. The easier it is to understand what your program offers and how to sign up, the faster you’ll get your affiliates. Make sure there’s nothing standing in the way of signing up new recruits, least of all a negative user experience. Make sure to optimize your affiliate marketing website for SEO, and for even better results, include a quick video walkthrough of the program. 

• Utilize a strategic co-marketing partnership. Work with a company in a similar but separate niche to promote your product to their audience and vice-versa. Find a brand with a similar mission and you may double your customer base (and bring in some fantastic new affiliates).

These are just a few methods for finding and recruiting affiliates that will stand out from the crowd (and bring in tons of new traffic). 

7. Design eye-catching promo materials

Your affiliates need to feel that the marketing assets available to them are attractive and engaging. Otherwise, they simply won’t use them, and you’ll lose out on potential customers and sales. Here are some of the materials you can design to help your affiliates market your product or services using their unique affiliate link:

• Banner ads - Banner ads are a great affiliate marketing tool, because they can easily be placed on a website or blog, and they provide a space for high-quality images and a clear CTA (call-to-action). Plus, you can easily track their progress and make adjustments as needed.
• Social media content - Offer affiliates pre-formatted images and copy for easy affiliate posting to specific social media platforms.
• Media library - Provide your affiliates with a gallery of high-quality images and videos to choose from.
• Email templates - Affiliates can use your template to send a quick email to their mailing list offering your products, a great way to reach a large audience in one go!
• Copy - Make your affiliates’ jobs easier by providing pre-written product descriptions and other marketing copy. 

The more creative materials you offer your affiliates, the more room they have to play content creator and advertise on every platform they use.

8. Train your affiliates well

Your affiliates will only perform to the level that they’re trained. That means, you hold the power when it comes to getting the most out of your affiliate program. From the moment you begin onboarding, you hold the most influence on how well your affiliates will perform in your program.Along with providing them with easy onboarding and high-quality promo materials, you can also offer periodic coaching sessions where you offer sales tips, best practices, and optimization tactics to help them increase their sales.You can also boost affiliate engagement and performance by:

• Offering insider tips via newsletter - Let them know which banners, copy, and strategies convert the most
• Activating affiliate-specific incentives - Gamify their sales by offering bonuses in relation to specific holidays or product releases
• Refreshing promo content - Update marketing materials regularly, so they have more to work with
• Creating an affiliate community - Offer a Facebook group to share monthly affiliate news and success stories 

Another quick tip for helping affiliates to get selling fast: incentivize their first sale! Use a time-boxed incentive bonus, like a higher commission rate or special offer for affiliates who make their first sale within 30 days of joining the program. By investing in ongoing training and engagement, you equip your affiliates to advertise to the best of their abilities. 

9. Track your progress

Any affiliate program looking to achieve and maintain success needs to have a robust tracking and reporting system in place. This can usually be acquired through your chosen affiliate marketing software, although affiliate dashboard and reporting features may vary depending on the software you choose.Look for software that offers comprehensive affiliate and sales tracking, including data on affiliate revenue, lead conversions, and customer specifics. It’s also beneficial to choose software that grants your affiliates access to their own data dashboard. By giving them the ability to track their own referrals, visitors, sales, and leads, you incentivize them further by allowing them to see their progress – and the income they make from it – more easily. 

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE PDF CHECKLIST HERE

Build a successful affiliate program with LeadDyno

By putting these 9 steps into action, you’ll be able to create a strong and impactful affiliate program that will help boost engagement, grow your sales, and increase brand awareness exponentially. 

Remember, when it comes to building an affiliate program, you’ll cut down on legwork significantly by choosing the right affiliate management software for your business. LeadDyno offers in-app options for many of the tasks on this list, including marketing materials, landing page design, and analytics tracking. Whether you’re just starting out with an affiliate program or looking to equip unlimited affiliates, LeadDyno has a program package to suit your needs. And it’s easy to connect LeadDyno to your current business workflow using one of our many integrations, including Stripe, WordPress, Shopify, BigCommerce, and more! 

Ready to kick off your affiliate marketing efforts the right way? Download our FREE Affiliate Marketing Program Launch Checklist and start building your affiliate program today! 

And if you’d like to learn more about LeadDyno, you can book a demo 1:1 or watch on demand to find out if our software is the right fit for your affiliate program. And you can sign up here to try it FREE for 30 days.