It is said that the first step in creating a successful affiliate relationship is affiliate onboarding.
An ideal onboarding procedure will greatly assist new affiliates in creating interest for brand advertising for your business. However, effective communication is necessary to establish a positive relationship with new affiliate program participants. This is important for the overall success of your affiliate program as well as the success of individual affiliates.
This blog will help you simplify the procedure of onboarding new affiliates and the 5 best features for affiliate onboarding for your business.
What Is Affiliate Onboarding?
Affiliate Onboarding is the process of introducing new affiliates to your affiliate program and lining them up to begin advertising your goods and services. From the moment an affiliate signs up until key points in events like their first conversion, an effective affiliate onboarding incorporates communication, direction, and support.
It is a crucial component of each affiliate program. Affiliates’ capacity to successfully market your brand and refer paying clients will be determined by how you onboard them.
In addition, affiliate onboarding is important for the growth of your affiliate program overall. This is especially true for affiliate retention and will have an influence on affiliate income. You are likely to see results the more affiliates actively advertise your business.
A Checklist For Affiliate Onboarding
Make a list of all the things you want affiliates to learn or do during the onboarding process and use it as a checklist. Everything from a welcome email for affiliates to information regarding affiliate websites, affiliate management or other initiatives to assist educate affiliates about the specifics of your program should be included.
The following should be on your list:
- The schedule for commissions and the payouts
- The responsibilities given to the affiliates
- Affiliates’ earning potential for incentives and bonuses
- Your contact details in case they have any inquiries or problems
- Assuring affiliates have access to the newest advertising materials
- Describing cookie length, the duration of time between a click and a conversion
- Simple access to your affiliate program’s terms of service.
5 Features to Streamline Affiliate Onboarding
1. Sign- Up Page with a Welcome message
Sign-up pages may be used to handle new affiliate registers for your affiliate program. Along with the affiliate’s primary contact information, it can also list the campaigns it is mostly focused on.
Post-Sign-up, an affiliate will get a welcome email with their referral link and temporary password. You may also write a custom welcome message, which will be displayed when affiliates check in on the affiliate dashboard.
In addition to extending a warm welcome, this is an excellent time to communicate the key program specifics.
This may consist of
- This may consist of information on login
- Affiliate Links for your brand
- Affiliate Commission Structures
- Information on Payouts
2. Create an Affiliate Portal for your Affiliates
A resourceful Affiliate Portal is a must for your Affiliate Onboarding process.
Through affiliate portals, your affiliates can get access to all the data they require to run campaigns for your program successfully. Learn to manage your affiliate campaigns with our resourceful blogs.
It can additionally be used for:
- View their account manager’s contact details or send an email to them
- Update their billing details
- Explore the resources and campaigns that are available.
- Get complete access to the API library, including reporting and campaign information
- Check the status of bills and earned commissions.
- Sign up for your newsletters
- Reset their password or update their contact details
- View the terms and conditions documents
3. Create Incentives for Initial Sales
Create a bonus or commission-boosting incentive scheme that offers affiliates the chance to generate conversions within the first 30 days of joining your program or so.
Incentives offer encouragement to affiliates to join your program and promote your business. Incentives offer encouragement to affiliates to join your program and promote your business.
Ideas for incentive plans might include:
- Establishing a tier-based compensation system so that affiliates can earn more commissions at various tiers
- Providing two incentives: a commission for affiliates and a discount for customers
- Offering a fixed dollar incentive for achieving a sales goal within a predetermined timeframe
4. Provide Routine Updates and Newsletters
The main goal of affiliate onboarding is to set up affiliates for success. This involves regularly checking in to make sure they have all they require.
Check for emails, product updates, upcoming deals, media mentions, and any extra offers every month or at dedicated intervals.
Additionally, this is a perfect opportunity to let affiliates choose whether or not they want to meet you individually.
Although the welcome message can contain all the essential information, there is probably still a lot you can inform affiliates to get them rolling.
In the first few weeks, set up drip campaigns to deliver emails and newsletters to your affiliates. The campaign’s primary goal should be strategy and ease of understanding.
This may include:
- Understanding of goods and services
- Glossary of essential keywords
- Promotional items and branding kits
- Examples of more affiliate campaigns and promotions
- List of blogs on affiliate marketing
You may also create customized email triggers with different messages and set them up for various events.
- Conversion generated: Whenever a conversion is produced, this event is triggered.
- Payment Created: When an affiliate’s account is settled.
- Commission established: When a commission is created, this event is triggered. This may be the outcome of a conversion, a commission added using the API, an automated recurring commission, etc.
- Commission updated: When a commission is rejected or revised, this event is triggered.
Having affiliate management software really helps in this area. Check out our Guide on Pick The Best Affiliate Software For Your Business
5. Send Surveys to Understand your Affiliate Program’s functioning
It’s crucial to analyze the performance of your affiliate program and find areas that need improvement.
After an affiliate has successfully finished the onboarding process and received their first conversion or commission check, you ought to send them a survey.
The registration and onboarding processes should be the main emphasis of this survey.
You may add the following questions to your survey:
- How hard was it to register in the affiliate program?
- How effective was the provided training?
- What part of the program has proven to be the most difficult?
- How can the affiliate program improve the workflow?
- What measures taken by the program improved the process of onboarding?
Final Thoughts
Affiliate Onboarding is critical for effective affiliate advertising even if it is sometimes underestimated.
Spend time creating affiliate communications channels and materials that will eventually be helpful to create a great affiliate onboarding experience.
Learn more on how Trackier can help you in making your Affiliate Program a success by requesting a demo and getting a free trial today!
