Why Affiliate Marketers Should Focus on Quality Over Quantity

Making the decision to start an affiliate program is exciting. Naturally, you’re eager to make money, so it can be easy to want to work with any marketer who's willing to promote your products. However, being overly ambitious in the beginning can lead to unrealistic goals.

Rather than trying to cast a wide net, it’s more effective to take a strategic approach to the types of affiliates you accept into your program. As a result, you’ll be able to benefit from higher-quality content and promotions that actually drive results.

In this post, we’ll discuss some of the common mistakes new affiliate marketers make. Then we’ll explain three tips for creating meaningful content for a smaller base of quality affiliates. Let’s get started!

Common Mistakes New Affiliate Marketers Make

As with any business, when you first start an affiliate program, there are going to be a handful of challenges and obstacles to overcome. However, learning what some of the common mistakes are can help you avoid them.

One of the first missteps to be aware of is trying to promote too many products. While there's probably a fair number of products you think could benefit from affiliate promotions it's best to narrow your focus down to one or two in the beginning.

Along the same vein, you can run into problems if you don't choose a specific niche. Attempting to tackle too many products and markets at once can spread you thin. It can also eat up a lot of time and result in lower-quality content.

A third common mistake for new affiliate marketers, and the focus of this post, is trying to take on too many affiliates. Your affiliates are representatives of your products, so they reflect your brand's image. Therefore, the smarter approach is to aim for influencers and quality marketers who can deliver results.

The Benefits of Focusing on Quality Over Quantity

Attracting high-quality affiliates is the foundation of successful affiliate marketing programs and promotions. When you focus on quality rather than quantity, you're in a better position to find people with established and relevant audiences.

An example of a quality affiliate is someone who is experienced with creating actionable, insightful content. Ideally, this is someone who already has a following in your niche or field.

Consumers today are inundated with ads and promotions. They aren't going to be persuaded by just any ad or endorsement they come across. Instead, they're more likely to be drawn to someone who has established trust and credibility with them.

If given the option, which of the following types of affiliates do you think would be more persuasive and likely to drive results:

1. Someone who specializes in a specific niche, and is passionate about the products they promote.
2. Someone who has a website promoting a broad range of products and services.

Affiliate marketing success can take time. However, it's important to have the patience and focus to effectively nurture your affiliate relationships. In turn, it will be easier to provide them with the content they need to succeed and attract more quality affiliates.

3 Tips for Creating Meaningful Content for Your Affiliates

When you have a smaller base of affiliates to work with, you can spend more time creating powerful and valuable affiliate content for them. If they succeed, so does your affiliate program. Let's take a look at three tips you can use to get the ball rolling.

1. Find a Niche That Your Audience (and Affiliates) Are Passionate About

As we mentioned, zeroing in on a specific niche and products is an effective strategy for affiliate marketing. By choosing a niche and products your affiliates are interested in (or selecting affiliates who are interested in your products), you're more likely to end up with quality content.

Affiliates who specialize in niches they're passionate about tend to have loyal followers. On social media, these individuals are known as influencers.

By focusing on areas you already know your audience is interested in, you can generate some ideas for who to target and how to do so. To gather this insight, it's smart to use a tool such as Google Analytics:

With analytics tools, you can learn more about your audience. For example, through the audience and demographics reports, you can discover information about:

• Affinity categories
• Interests and behaviors
• In-market segments, such as product-purchase interests

This insight can help inform your affiliate campaign decisions. It offers a starting point for finding areas your audience is most likely to be interested in, as well as where to locate quality prospects.

2. Promote Customer-to-Affiliate Success Stories

Sometimes, the best affiliates are customers who swear by your products. Again, people who genuinely believe in and are passionate about a certain niche or product are likely to naturally produce authentic, quality content.

Therefore, it's worth considering creating and promoting stories about customers who have become affiliates. This strategy can be an effective way to attract more quality affiliates to your program and add a human element to your promotions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpnOzn3y6Zs

Put simply, a customer-to-affiliate success story demonstrates someone's path going from the consumer to the seller/representative. These success stories can persuade those who are on the fence about affiliate marketing. They can also serve as a motivation tool for current affiliates.

Start by talking with any affiliates you currently have in your program who have previously purchased your products. The goal is to identify unique selling points and engaging stories that will resonate with your audience.

3. Track, Monitor, and Optimize Affiliate Content Consistently

When you first start out with affiliate marketing, there's going to be a period of trial and error. This is one of the reasons it's important to focus on quality over quantity.

It's also why it's critical that you regularly track, monitor, and optimize your affiliate content. Following performance metrics lets you see what is and isn't working and make adjustments as necessary.

Managing your affiliate program and staying on top of key metrics is much easier to do when you have a small base of quality affiliates. Plus, you can use affiliate management tools such as Easy Affiliate to make tracking and optimization simple:

With our Easy Affiliate plugin, you can track affiliate links and posts from one dashboard. In addition to campaign insight, you can also manage payments and commissions. You won't have to worry about paying affiliates on time, which is an important aspect of keeping quality affiliates happy.

Conclusion

When you’re first starting an affiliate program, mistakes are inevitable. However, focusing on quality over quantity gives you a better chance of seeing results sooner.

As we discussed in this article, there are three tips you can use to create meaningful content for your affiliates:

1. Find a niche both your audience and affiliates are passionate about.
2. Focus on promoting customer-to-affiliate success stories.
3. Track, monitor, and optimize affiliate links consistently.

Do you have any questions about attracting quality affiliates? Let us know in the comments section below!.

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn! And don't forget to subscribe in the box below.

Affiliate Link Disclosure