Publisher Recruitment
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Publisher Recruitment
So you've got your affiliate programme up and running, but how do you attract publishers to promote your business? Obviously a competitive commission rate and healthy Awin Index are a great way to get the interest of the publisher community but what are the best ways to promote your programme to get the widest selection of publishers on board?
Here at Awin, we have made a simple guide which looks at all of the ways you can advertise your programme to publishers, and will help you identify ways in which to find the most relevant publishers for your business sector.
Awin Opportunities
Awin has the following range of promotional tools available to advertisers to recruit publishers already on the network.
We can also provide the following marketing options to promote your programme and promotions to the 211,000+ affiliates on the Awin network.
Weekly Affiliate Newsletter
Published every Wednesday, this HTML newsletter is sent to every publisher on the network and is, therefore, the perfect place to speak to potential partners. Content includes ‘Offer of the Week’, ‘Advertiser of the Month’ and ‘Featured Promotions. To submit copy for inclusion, e-mail our marketing team at uk-marketing@awin.com.
The Hub
Available 24/7 to any advertiser or publisher with an Awin account, the Hub is a dedicated resource for Awin publishers giving them instant access to the latest deals, codes, sales and new product information. Subscribing publishers can even receive automatic live updates on particular sections, including offers emerging from specific sectors, allowing your promotions to reach a much wider audience! It can be used by advertisers to communicate incentives and at the same time attract new publishers. You can find a direct link to 'The Hub' under 'Toolbox' in the advertiser administration area. To enquire please e-mail our marketing team at uk-marketing@awin.com.
Note: The above options are currently not available for advertisers using the Awin Access platform plan.
Gap Analysis Report
New and exciting affiliates are always coming to the fore, so it’s important to ensure you have the right partners promoting your products and content. Running a Publisher Gap Analysis will help show potential gaps in your affiliate programme as well as saving time in finding new top-performing affiliates to work with. Contact your Account Manager or Account Consultant who will be able to discuss and run this request for you.
Note: Awin Access clients are charged a small fee for a gap analysis. To find out more on this service click here.
Direct Recruitment
There are also a number of other ways you can look to source and attract new publishers to your programme which are additional to the methods offered by the network.
Search Engines
An easy way to identify strong potential publishers is to find those that appear on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask under keywords relevant to your business. Those that are not advertisers and appear in the sponsored listings are most likely to be publishers; there will even be publishers in the natural listings too.
If you are unsure as to whether a site is working as a publisher or not look for existing links on their site to determine whether or not they use publisher tracking links. You should be able to right-click on any outgoing links and choose the option ‘properties’ from the menu that appears. You will then be shown the destination URL and here is where you will find the tracking (if there is any).
Awin affiliate links look like this:
http://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?awinmid=425&awinaffid=56192&p=http://www.post-a-rose.com/prod_cat/product_page_5148.html
The first part of the URL tells us which network the link is tracking through; in this case www.awin1.com. If the publisher is not using Awin links then here is a list of URLs you might see when researching publishers in this way:
| Tracking | Network |
| scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp | Affiliate Future |
| www.awin1.com | Awin |
| perfiliate.com/brains | Buy.at |
| jdoqocy.com | Commission Junction |
| paidonresults.net | Paid On Results |
| clkuk.tradedoubler.com | Tradedoubler |
SimilarSites
One of the most useful tools for finding new relevant sites that may or may not already be publishers on the network is to use http://uk.similarsites.com/.
You can search for any UK website (such as an existing successful publisher on the programme) and it will display a number of sites that it deems to be ‘similar sites.’ You can then look on their site to see if they are an existing Awin publisher, with links onsite, or a new opportunity for the network and contact them accordingly.
To identify who runs a particular site is to use the free service Who Is which can provide you with details of the registered domain owner. If you find a site you like and you cannot find a ‘contact us’ section then Who Is can often provide you with an e-mail address so that you can contact the owner of the website. You can then start up a dialogue and hopefully get them to join your programme.
Indirect Recruitment
Here we have listed a few quick and easy to implement ideas that could help you grab the attention of the passing publishers.
Affiliate Recruitment Page
Firstly, add a publisher information/recruiter page to your website. The publisher visiting your site is more than likely already engaged with your products and is therefore more open to the idea of earning commissions on sales. We’d recommend adding a link (typically within the footer section) that takes interested third parties to a page with further information.
The page can be as elaborate or as brief as you like, but typically will contain a summary of how your programme operates, the commission available and a link to your Awin profile page for quick sign-up.
Some exemplar pages are: Prezzybox, Beauty Works, Moo and Lovedrobe.
The link below can be used to direct to your profile page where publisher can request to join - simply replace (AID) with your advertiser ID.
https://ui.awin.com/merchant-profile/(AID)
Affiliate Blog
If you are able to setup a blog for publishers, complete with useful information and offers, then it is definitely worthwhile doing. This will attract publishers that are keen to build strong relationships with their advertiser partners, as well as pro-active publishers who are keen to have all the latest promotional methods and information at their fingertips.
Dedicated blogs are not only a great way to communicate effectively with your existing publisher base; supplying your publishers with the correct tools to promote you, as soon as possible, will result in stronger, better organised campaigns.
Get a Twitter account purely for publisher updates. You will be surprised by the number of publishers who love to Tweet and the number of advertisers already making the most of this social networking phenomenon.
Great examples are Dorothy Perkins, Kitbag and Wickes.
Remember you can follow us on Twitter too, just check out @UK_Awin to see what we’ve been tweeting.
Explore our Advertiser Success Centre to learn how to fully utilise the Awin platform and optimise your affiliate campaigns.