Why your affiliate program is failing (and how to fix it)

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No affiliate program is perfect. Even if your program partners with thousands of affiliates and generates millions in revenue, chances are, there’s something you could be doing better.

That said, not all affiliate marketing mistakes are equal; some are more costly than others and can spell doom for your affiliate program.

Whether your affiliate program is brand new and you want to sidestep fatal rookie mistakes or you’ve been running your affiliate program for a decent amount of time and are yet to see meaningful results, we’re here to help.

In this article, we’ll discuss the biggest reasons why affiliates fail and offer winning strategies to fix the biggest affiliate marketing mistakes so you can make the most of your affiliate marketing efforts.

But first, let’s make sure your business fundamentals are in place.

Business Fundamentals That Support Your Affiliate Program

Running a successful affiliate program starts with getting the fundamentals right. If these basics aren’t properly set up, your affiliate program will never take off.

So first, let’s expand on the core business fundamentals you need to fulfill to bolster your affiliate program.

• Product and service quality. The success of your affiliate marketing program hinges on the quality of your offerings. If your products and services are subpar compared to your competitors, you will struggle to recruit high-quality affiliates to promote them.
• Online presence and reputation. What shows up when people search for your business online? Research shows that customers typically research brands online before deciding to buy. Similarly, affiliates will search for your brand before joining your program. If they find an outdated or poorly designed website, limited online presence, or negative feedback, affiliates will have a hard time successfully recommending your products or services to their audience.
• Affiliate marketing software. Your affiliate program tool is the backbone of your affiliate program. At the least, it should enable you to easily track referred sales, manage commission payouts, provide affiliates with banners, links, and other promotional materials, and access analytics. Plus, it should offer those features within simple-to-use dashboards for both admins and affiliates. It’s impossible for affiliates to do their job and for you to efficiently manage your affiliate program without the right tool.

Once your business fundamentals are in place, it’s time to make sure your affiliate program is all squared up. Below, we’ll explore common reasons specific to affiliate marketing that can cause your affiliate program to fail.

6 Common and Costly Reasons Why Affiliates Fail

Affiliate marketing is a lucrative strategy for driving revenue to your online business. Unfortunately, many program managers make mistakes that can hinder their affiliates’ success.

Let’s break down these common pitfalls and discuss strategies to fix them.

#1 Reason Why Affiliates Fail: An Ineffective Affiliate Program Strategy

A thoughtful strategy is critical because successful affiliate programs don’t just materialize. It often requires a clear, detailed action plan for how you want to run your affiliate program.

Without a proper strategy, your program will lack focus and direction. The result? Confusion, inaction, and lots of wasted effort.

Thankfully, it is relatively easy to correct this.

How To Fix This Affiliate Marketing Mistake

Begin by defining clear objectives for your affiliate program over a specific period, whether monthly, quarterly (recommended), bi-annually, or yearly.

The ultimate goal of every affiliate program is to drive sales. However, to achieve that, you must map the goals to specific objectives.

Here are a few questions to think through about your products, offers, and marketing channels as you put together your affiliate marketing strategy:

• Products: Should your promotional efforts focus on specific items (for example bestsellers) or your entire product catalog?
• Offers: What’s the best way to design affiliate marketing campaigns? Should you build campaigns around new launches, seasonal discounts, or customer favorites?
• Channels: What channels will affiliates likely perform well on — Email, social media, niche sites, or something else? What platforms do your target customers spend the bulk of their time on — YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, etc?

The answers to these questions will inform subsequent decisions about your program.

Keep in mind, your affiliate program strategy is not set in stone. Regularly review and update it to make sure it’s aligned with your business objectives and the changing needs of your affiliates.

#2 Reason Why Affiliates Fail: Working With The Wrong-Fit Affiliates

Many programs fail because most of their affiliate partners aren’t a good fit for their business.

You could create a killer affiliate marketing strategy, offer the highest commission rates, provide extensive training to affiliates, and more. But if your affiliates aren’t the right fit for your business, those efforts will be wasted.

A deep dive into affiliate recruitment is well beyond the scope of this article. However, here’s a quick rundown of how to find high-quality affiliates for your online business.

How To Fix This Affiliate Marketing Mistake

Some affiliate program managers tend to prioritize affiliates with a large audience. However, the reality is that audience size alone is not sufficient.

Instead, a far better approach to finding high-quality affiliates is to focus on people with close ties to your product or industry. For example:

• Existing satisfied customers: Happy customers are already familiar with your product and are likely to be excellent advocates for your business.
• Industry experts: People with professional experience in your industry can leverage their knowledge and connections to promote your products and services.
• Niche creators: Think: nano or micro-influencers in your industry. While they may not have professional expertise they make for credible partners.

Related reading: How to recruit affiliates.

#3 Reason Why Affiliates Fail: Insufficient rewards and perks

Offering a 10 percent commission rate simply isn’t enough in most cases, especially if your products are priced at say $50 on average.

No matter how great your product or service is, your reward structure needs to match your competitors. If your commission rates are too low or tier structures are hard to achieve, you won’t find high-quality affiliates interested in promoting your offerings.

How To Fix This Affiliate Marketing Mistake

Research competing affiliate programs to understand the commissions and perks they offer. (You can easily find this from their affiliate signup pages or by joining their programs).

Then tailor your program’s rewards and incentives accordingly. Your rates don’t have to exactly match theirs, especially if you’re focusing on nano or micro affiliates but they should be reasonably similar.

Another popular tactic is to implement performance-based tiers that reward top performers with bonuses and higher commissions. For example, you might offer a 10% base commission with additional bonuses for affiliates who exceed certain sales thresholds each month.

You can also reward affiliates with additional perks like discounts, free shipping, and more.

#4 Reason Why Affiliates Fail: Unattractive Commission Payout Terms

It isn’t enough to provide great commission rates, your policies around commission payouts matter too.

Lengthy payout terms, restrictive payment methods, and missed payments can cause partners to lose trust in your affiliate program and demotivate them from promoting your offerings.

How To Fix This Affiliate Marketing Mistake

Similar to the exercise to figure out commission rates, explore your competitors’ payment policies and align yours to them.

If your program accepts affiliates based around the world, make sure you offer diverse payment methods to accommodate payouts globally.

It’s also crucial to set up processes that support timely affiliate payouts. Use affiliate marketing software like Coupon Affiliates that can handle most of the heavy lifting — tasks like tracking affiliate performance, calculating commission payouts, fraud prevention, etc. — and present you with the data in a simple-to-navigate dashboard.

For example, Coupon Affiliates offers multiple payout methods so you can choose the option that works best for you, such as:

• Scheduled automatic payouts: This fulfills affiliate payment requests based on your defined criteria and thresholds, no manual review needed.
  
• Automatic payouts: This automatically generates payout requests however you must manually review and fulfill them.
  
• Manual payouts: This enables you to manually generate and fulfill unpaid affiliate commission payments.
  

Whichever affiliate program software you use, make sure it enables you to set up processes that fit with your workflow so commission payouts happen on time, every time.

Finally, make sure you clearly communicate payout schedules and promptly resolve any payment-related issues as they arise.

#5 Reason Why Affiliates Fail: Inadequate Training and Resources

Every program has affiliates in different stages of their affiliate marketing journey. As a result, their knowledge and skill in promoting your offerings vary widely.

Some affiliates can set up their account, promote products, and interpret their performance, without requiring any help. Invariably, others will struggle with generating affiliate links, creating content, using marketing creatives, understanding your affiliate program’s policies, or something else.

Whichever bucket your affiliates fall in, make sure you provide them with adequate support.

How To Fix This Affiliate Marketing Mistake

Set up an affiliate portal with training and resources affiliates need to succeed. Don’t worry about getting fancy here; your affiliate portal doesn’t have to be a full-blown knowledge base.

A modest page linking to the necessary information will do, as long as it covers the necessary information, such as:

• Popular or best-selling products.
• Vital traits of your ideal target customers.
• Crucial information about your affiliate program, including how to create affiliate links and codes, steps to create and share custom affiliate links and coupons, how to navigate the affiliate dashboard, affiliate guidelines, important terms and conditions, and more.

It’s also a good practice to set up a dedicated email address or platform where affiliates can reach you with questions or concerns so you can promptly address them.

As your program grows, you can also send out regular affiliate newsletters with updates on upcoming product launches, promotional tips, and success stories from other affiliates.

#6 Reason Why Affiliates Fail: Ineffective Tracking and Reporting

Ever heard the saying, what is measured is managed? The same principle applies to affiliate marketing.

Key performance indicators (also called KPIs) are feedback about what is working and isn’t working for your affiliate program.

The good news is most top-notch affiliate program management tools offer robust tracking and analytics. However, unless you’re a seasoned expert, it can be tough to sift through the reports and figure out which affiliate marketing metrics matter the most to your online business.

How To Fix This Affiliate Marketing Mistake

Instead of getting bogged down with all the affiliate marketing KPIs, select a few crucial metrics to focus on.

A deep guide to affiliate marketing KPIs is out of the scope of this article. However, here’s an overview of the KPIs that are crucial to most businesses:

• Revenue from affiliate sales
• Conversion rate
• Average order value (AOV)
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Number of new customers
• Sale cancellation/return rate
• Affiliate earnings per click (EPC)
• Commission paid

Pro tip: Keeping a tab on nine metrics for your affiliate program can be challenging. Focus on improving one to three metrics at a time so you can better direct your efforts.

Ready To Fix Your Affiliate Marketing Mistakes?

As shared above, here’s a recap of the biggest mistakes to avoid to ensure your affiliate marketing program drives meaningful results:

• An ineffective affiliate program strategy
• Working with the wrong-fit affiliates
• Insufficient rewards and perks
• Unattractive commission payout terms
• Inadequate training and resources
• Ineffective tracking and reporting

Deploy the above recommendations to build a flourishing affiliate program for your online business starting today!

PS: Not yet set up your affiliate program? Used by more than 5,700 websites, including eCommerce stores, e-learning sites, membership sites, etc., Coupon Affiliates is the perfect plugin to create an affiliate program that actually makes money. Check out the free version or get the premium version (with a 7-day free trial).

Priyanka Okidi

Priyanka is a writer for WordPress and eCommerce companies. She loves breaking down complex ideas into simple concepts.