You’re turning to affiliate marketing as a more cost-effective and low-risk approach to attract more potential consumers to your Shopify store. Then you decide to start an affiliate program but have no idea of getting affiliates to promote products.
Luckily, finding affiliate partners is not tough as you might think. All you need to do is be proactive and know how to look for potential affiliates in the right places.
In the following list, you will get to know the best ways to find affiliates to promote your Shopify store in 2021.
Let’s get it!
Why should you find affiliates?
If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with affiliate marketing in some way. Affiliates are those promoting a merchant’s products/ service and persuade a customer to make a purchase (or other desired actions). In exchange, they will receive a part of the profit.
As you can see, affiliates are the most important players in affiliate marketing. Through affiliate partnership, you can connect with audiences (they already have) that are most likely to be interested in the products of your Shopify store.
Without affiliate partners, your affiliate program does not make sense.
So before recruiting affiliates for your program, you’d better set up goals for your program to delineate who your potential affiliates will be and who you will working with to decide where you can approach them.
One tip when looking for potential affiliates is to look for experienced marketers, particularly those already building up a following and they need to be enthusiastic to work. This will make it much easier for you to include them in your business and experience immediate benefits.
Now, let’s jump to the vital part to find potential affiliates fitting your business.
Why should you find affiliates?
How to find affiliates for your business?
Start with existing customers
Reaching out to your existing customers is the quickest and easiest approach to discover affiliates. Those who have utilized your products/ services, as long as they are happy with them, can be your greatest affiliate partners.
For example, you can approach your loyal customers first via direct messaging, suggesting that they refer their friends to you to receive a commission.
Or you can offer enticing signing up bonuses to encourage them to join after they have completed a purchase.
Individuals are more likely to be persuaded by people they know. This is referred to as word-of-mouth marketing.
Easily convert customers into affiliates with the UpPromote Post-purchase popup feature. By using this Shopify app feature, you can automatically turn your customers into affiliates at an eye blink.
After a consumer successfully puts an order on your Shopify store, a pop-up will appear on the thank you page which showcases your affiliate program and asks them to join.
Create an easy-to-find affiliate landing page
Having an affiliate landing page on your website showing that you are looking for affiliates. It doesn’t have to be too long, but it should clearly explain how the program works, how to apply, and what your terms and conditions are.
When potential affiliates look to see if you have a program, they generally look at the top and bottom menus on your website. In each of these menus, it’s advisable to add a link to your affiliate program website since it’s the most frequent location to link to your affiliate program’s information and sign-up page.
Etsy, one of the most popular global online marketplace, pushes its affiliate program at the bottom menu of its website.
etsy-affiliate-program
You can make your affiliate program visible on your website with UpPromote.
Go to Navigation on your Shopify online store back-end > Main Menu > Add new menu and inserting Name (e.g.: Affiliate) and paste the Affiliate link (the Embed link on your Dashboard)> Save to upgrade your change.
Then the program will appear on your Shopify website like this.
Create an easy-to-find affiliate landing page
Moreover, use strategic SEO to increase the possibility of being found on SERP. Not only make your program visible on your website but also optimize it for prominent niche and industry keywords. So that your potential affiliates can reach your program easier.
Use dedicated solution
Dedicated solutions bring together multiple media partners (affiliates) and advertisers, which can help you speed up the affiliate recruiting process. Many platforms provide a network with a list of trustworthy media partners.
UpPromote Marketplace is where to help you make things possible. It’s completely free.
Two ways you can do to find affiliates on UpPromote Marketplace:
Showcasing your program on the Marketplace so that affiliates can find if they are qualified and appropriate to apply to your program. This way is less proactive since you only list your program on the Marketplace and wait for them to apply.
Many merchants may prefer the second one, proactively find your potential partners with UpPromote. In this way, you’ll be provided access to a list of affiliate profiles from which you can select the ideal affiliates to invite directly to join your affiliate program.
Run online ads
Another tactic for recruiting new affiliates is to advertise the program. You can run ads through Facebook, Twitter, or even Google Ads. If you have a standard product funnel, good commissions, and a large selection of items for your niche, this works well.
While resulting in upfront cost before getting any sales, you can still consider running ads to get affiliates for its time-saving, no expertise requirement, and higher quality reps.
Sale Dress has successfully got 5000 affiliates, partially which of them are from UpPromote Marketplace, the others are from running online ads. Thanks to a large number of affiliates, Sale Dress has witnessed its revenue rise significantly.
One of the quickest and easiest methods to get the word out about anything is through social media. You can locate and distribute news on social media faster than you can with virtually any other traditional technique.
If you’ve developed a following for your brand, you’re likely to have some followers already involved in your brand and persuaded to join your program right immediately.
It’s critical to consider which platforms are best for your company’s brand accounts. It’s also important to consider how beneficial these may be to you and how much time you have to write regularly.
If you haven’t had followers yet, no worries, hashtags on Twitter or Instagram can give you a hand. Searching for hashtags and looking for those engaging in topics related to your brand. Or posting affiliate programs using related hashtags to look for potential partners.
Ebin affiliate-program-Instagram
Ebin New York uses a collection of Instagram hashtags #makeup #affiliate program #cosmetics #skincare #affiliatemarketing to look for potential affiliates to join the program.
Another choice is to join Facebook affiliate groups. Affiliates are usually active on these groups to find new products to promote, which means they’re great places to find your potential affiliates willing to market your products.
Facebook-Affiliate-Groups
Approach influencers
Influencers are those who have a strong reputation in a certain industry, and consumers are more likely to trust their friends, family, and people they admire than the selling firm.
Before purchasing a product, buyers are more inclined to seek out reviews from influencers they know, thus influencers’ voices would have more impact on their decision-making.
You can significantly improve your sales by leveraging influencer reach, picking a good product depending on the platform, and providing high-quality marketing content.
Platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat are where you could find your potential influencers.
Using Google to find influencers on Instagram bysearching this query on Google: site:instagram.com “k followers” + Niche market keyword. Then Google will filter Instagram accounts having more than 1000 followers.
Find affiliates on Instagram
How about finding influencers on Facebook using Google? Similarly, you look for the query: site:facebook.com “1000…5000 likes” home + Niche market keyword.Change the numbers depending on your need.
Moreover, you can leverage many platforms supporting find your suitable influencers, such as Social Bakerto look for proper influencers on Instagram.
Simply enter information about your region and interests, and the tool will create influencers with over 100,000 followers and detailed profiles. However, you may need to upgrade to access all services and communicate with influencers.
Niche blogs can send you high-quality referrals since their built-in audiences may coincide with your target audiences. It’s one of the easiest methods to find affiliates that are interested in your area and connected with your brand.
You may locate niche blogs in your target market and offer your affiliate program to them directly.
For example, if you offer natural skincare products, a simple Google search for “skincare routine blog” can provide several results.
Reach out to niche bloggers
These are several related blogs, and the individuals who read them are potential skincare product consumers.
You can contact these bloggers by visiting their About Us or Contact pages and filling out the form. But make sure you give something worthwhile to pique their interest.
Join affiliate networks/forums
Lastly, listing your programs on affiliate networks like Shareasale, Clickbank, or JvZoo is another fantastic approach to discover affiliates.
Affiliate marketers seeking a product to promote frequently go there to do so. Make sure you have a good program with a good affiliate commission. Include tools to help with promotion. Articles, images, banners, and other materials can be used.
The main advantage of joining these networks is that their years of experience and knowledge may help you steer your affiliate marketing on the proper path. You can speak with a customer service agent or visit their knowledge base.
However, you have to make a minimum payment every month, which can be costly at times.
Conclusion
With all that in mind, finding affiliates for your programs is not a big deal anymore.
Remember that finding partners is just the beginning. You still have a lot of work to do to establish a long-term relationship with them, but the recruiting process is still the key to optimize your program and make sure you can work with affiliates who are truly compatible with your brand.
Using UpPromote: Affiliate Marketing to work and manage your affiliates easier. Not only can you control and monitor your affiliates with UpPromote but your affiliate partners also have their portal to get resources and monitor the performance as well. This creates a long-term working relationship and optimizes working performance for stakeholders.
