Building a Profitable Affiliate Network from Scratch: Key Steps and Challenges

Planning to setup a profitable affiliate network business?

Well, before we go ahead discussing more on it, let me tell you that there are over 107,179 companies worldwide that make up the affiliate network industry.

Ask yourself, where do you want to stand out? 

How will you compete with them in the already crowded market?

The answer to these questions might make you take a moment and rethink your idea of starting an affiliate network agency business.

But if you have made up your mind, that you want to build it and grow into a profitable affiliate network, this article is for you.

In this article, we will discuss the key steps of building an affiliate network and the challenges that you might face. We’ll also discuss how can you make your network stand out and grow ahead of the competition.

Let’s start with the basics and key steps for building an affiliate network.

Key Steps to Building a Profitable Affiliate Network #

1. Define Your Goals and Niche #

The first step in building a successful affiliate network is to clearly define your objectives and identify your niche. You should consider setting goals on what you want to focus on. Whether it’s boosting sales, increasing brand awareness, or generating leads. Also, look for a specific market segment that you want to target. 

It will help you narrow down your choices, and attract affiliates interested in the niche. If you have all this cleared in your mind, you have set a solid foundation for your network. Now, it’s time to choose the right program.

2. Research and Select the Right Affiliate Platform #

Selecting the right affiliate platform is important for the smooth operation of your network. You can research leading networks like ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, and Rakuten. Look at what features they are offering, how user-friendly they are and what is the cost of building it. 

Consult with our experts at EnactSoft. With 10 years in the affiliate industry, we have served over 320+ clients across the globe. With our expertise and experience, we can help you choose the right features and platform to build your own affiliate network. 

3. Create Attractive Affiliate Offers #

This is something you already know about. It is important to create compelling affiliate offers to attract and retain your affiliates. Look for your competitors and create a commission structure that can help you onboard new affiliates. Reach out to brands and negotiate better commission rates with them. 

Consider offering a tiered commission to motivate your affiliate to bring more sales to your network. Additionally, you can also provide affiliates with high quality promotional materials like banners, links and content. It will help them promote products easily and will increase your overall revenue.

4. Recruit Affiliates #

Now, that you have everything, affiliate network, brands and competitive commission structures, its time to recruit affiliates. Reach out to potential affiliates using different channels like email marketing, social media and affiliate directories. 

You can also attend industry events and network with influencers and bloggers. Consider focusing on quality over quantity and build a network of affiliates who are genuinely interested in promoting your products.

5. Provide Ongoing Support and Training #

This is a very important part of any affiliate network. You should provide ongoing support and training to improve your affiliate’s performance and solve their queries. You can offer onboarding materials like tutorials, webinars and more to help them start their journey. 

Also, maintain regular communication through newsletters, forums and direct support to keep your affiliates informed and motivated. Providing continuous support can help you build a relationship with affiliates and make them feel valued as a part of your network.

6. Track Performance and Optimize #

If you are getting into the business, you definitely want to be competitive for the long term. And you have to continuously track performance and optimize your strategies. You should have inbuilt capabilities in your affiliate network to monitor key metrics like traffic, conversions and revenue generated. 

To better optimize your network, talk to your affiliates and get feedback on areas of improvement. This data will help refine your affiliate offerings and understand the challenges that affiliates are facing. It’s an ongoing process, so you have to continuously keep optimizing your performance based on data and affiliate feedback.

Challenges in Building an Affiliate Network #

1. Finding Quality Affiliates

Challenge: Higher commissions are attractive and might bring affiliates who are not seasoned to your network. It can reduce your capability to drive traffic and increase sales.

Solution: Focus on building relationships with influencers and niche bloggers who have a strong following and align with your brand values.

2. Managing Affiliate Fraud

Challenge: Fraud activities like fake leads, clicks can cost your money, and result in financial losses.

Solution: Implement fraud detection measures and try building a affiliate platform that offers fraud prevention tools. This will help you monitor activities and flag doubtful ones.

3. Maintaining Affiliate Engagement

Challenge: Anyone bringing sales in the beginning might be motivated for a shorter periods of time. But over time if the sales go down, it is important to keep them motivated.

Solution: What you can do is offer competitive commissions and regular incentives. Also, you can start offering awards, to top performers. It will keep your affiliates motivated. 

4. Ensuring Compliance with Regulations

Challenge: It is difficult to comply with strict regulations. Affiliate industry is very regulated and you will end up paying hefty fines for non-compliance.

Solution: Always stay updated with the regulations and make sure that your affiliate agreements are regulated and updated with the latest laws. Also, consider consulting legal experts for compliance.

5. Balancing Quality and Quantity

Challenge: Sometimes the networks get too many affiliates in the beginners. The numbers might look promising but the quality of affiliates is something that matters more than numbers.

Solution: You should focus on recruiting affiliates who can deliver high quality traffic, and conversions. Also, review their performance regularly and consider dropping affiliates with low performance.

How to make your affiliate network stand out? #

1. Offer Unique and High-Quality Products #

One of the most effective way that can make your network stand out is unique and high quality products. This will attract more affiliates to your network and will motivate them to promote your unique offerings. You have to make sure that your product and services are innovative and solve real problems. 

There is no other way around to promote your new network. You should consider providing product information, customer reviews and case studies to help your affiliates understand the benefits of promote your product.

2. Provide Affiliate Support and Resources #

We already discussed it but if I be honest, there are very few networks that provide better support and resources. Affiliates especially when they are new to your network and are promoting new brands need readily available resources to promote your products. 

Also, if any thing goes wrong, like the issues with commission tracking or issues with brand products, you and your team have to make sure that you are available for them. This can significantly improve your affiliates experience and will help your network stand out.

3. Implement Competitive and Transparent Commission Structures #

Think yourself, will you choose a network with low commission rates over the one with higher rates? No, right! This same thing applies to affiliates. They would want to get higher commissions. And when you are new in the business, you might have to put profitablity aside and prioritize growth first. 

Providing higher commission is not enough, you also have to make sure that it is being tracked accurately because tracking errors can lead to dissatisfied affiliates, and might impact your growth. Not to mention that if you provide better support, these issues can be resolved but there is still a chance that you might lose affiliates if the issue continues.

4. Build a Strong Community and Engaging Environment #

Community building is one of the most important parts of any affiliate business. You must have seen the Facebook groups, LinkedIn communities, and more. This is not just for the sake of doing it, these communities include experts and beginners and with regular knowledge-sharing activities, they help each other grow. 

Not just that, you can also conduct regular virtual meetings to connect with everyone and solve problems over live calls. Also, add some motivation factors here, like awards, special incentives and features in newsletters. This will give your affiliates a feeling of being included and motivate them to promote better.

5. Use Cutting-Edge Technology and Innovation #

This is something you can not avoid. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you have to use the latest technology and innovations in affiliate marketing. Implement advanced tracking and analytics tools to provide affiliates with detailed insights into their performance. 

Also, you can implement AI tools to personalize marketing and optimize campaigns. By staying technologically advanced, you can provide affiliates with the tools they need to succeed and differentiate your network from others.

Conclusion

If you want to make your affiliate network grow and stand out from the competition, you have a find a balance between offering unique products and maintaining competitive commission structures.

With so much competition around, it won’t be easy to build a reputable affiliate network. But if you implement everything that we just talked about and be in the business for long enough, it is guaranteed that you will succeed.