As you refine your affiliate acquisition strategy, you have to keep both quality and quantity in your sights. Quantity doesn’t just increase your opportunities to generate revenue; it increases the value of the data you have to play with. And with meaningful data comes opportunities to improve your program overall.

Here are some tips for how to get that quality and quantity.

Identify Your Ideal Customer

Before you strategize your outreach efforts, you’ll want to confirm some things about your market:

Who is your ideal customer: You may already have this research in the bag. Look at things like your customer demographics and spending power; what problem(s) your ideal customer has that your product(s) solves; what about your brand sets you apart from anybody else in your space.
Who’s talking to your ideal customer, and where: If you’re in a niche space, this is a little easier. You might even be able to name the top voices in your space already. Put in a little time researching the top bloggers, social media influencers, video hosts, etc. for your ideal customer. This is where you’ll find the folks who’ll be passionate about your product(s).
What type of language will resonate with your ideal customer: The language might vary slightly by channel, but one important thing to have in your toolbelt is a list of hashtags relevant to your business.

Know How to Reach Them

Our Post-Purchase Channel

📍 Where we are in the app: Channels>Post-Purchase

There is no better ambassador of your brand than your own loyal customers. The Post-Purchase Channel is a popup you can set to display to customers at checkout, advertising your affiliate program. If they click through, we’ll automatically pull in their information and register them as affiliates.

Learn how to set up the post-purchase widget for your shop.

Integration Partners

Similarly, we have multiple Integration partners who specialize in recruiting ideal affiliates, including Gatsby and Upfluence.

Gatsby analyzes your customers’ activity as they shop at your store, and identifies prospective, new micro influencers for your brand. With this information, you can trigger outreach to that pre-selected pool.

Upfluence can crunch social data to tell you who your biggest fans are, when they’ve mentioned your brand, whether they’ve worked for your competitors, etc. Then, through our integration, you can invite the best of the best to apply to your program in Refersion.

Learn more about the Gatsby + Refersion integration

Don’t be afraid to message an influencer directly or send them an email — especially if their own brand carries weight. They’ll appreciate a personal touch, so be sure to mention specific things about their audience and posts that are relevant to your brand.

Refersion Marketplace

📍 Where we are in the app: Channels>Marketplace

Our own Marketplace is another channel you can leverage to get your brand out there and widen your net. When messages and applications start to come in, inspect these leads carefully to ensure they are reps who will uphold your brand standards. This is where it’s helpful to ensure you’ve got all the right things on your affiliate registration page.

You can also read more about the Refersion Marketplace.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Open forums: Be wary of open forums. By and large, closed programs are where high quality influencers tend to be.
Paid affiliate recruiting campaigns: It might be tempting to boot up a Google Ads campaign and see what happens, but we don’t recommend it in general. The exception we make is for brands that have a hyper-targeted offering. For example, Magic: The Gathering is an offering so specific that the brand should know exactly where it needs to be without wasting any time or resources.