While recruiting affiliates into the affiliate programs of the merchants we work with, over the years we have registered that follow-up recruitment emails are actually more effective than the initial email contact with a prospective affiliate partner. In fact, more affiliates are being recruited through follow-up emails than through the initial contact. Here’s the stats:
- 10% of approached affiliates sign up after initial contact
- over 10-12% more after the follow-up email (sent out 7-10 days after the first one)
Isn’t this amazing? Imagine how much is being missed out by affiliate program managers who do not follow a habit/rule of sending out a follow-up email to remind each prospect of their proposal.
Here’s the sequence I recommend following while recruiting affiliates:
You may also read my article on how not to do it at Econsultancy.com.
Wow, this is a surprising result, for me. I’m curious who you are recruiting with this sample: are these “your” existing affiliates (e.g. affiliates already enrolled in another AMN-managed account)? Or perhaps these are a specific type of affiliate (e.g. “all-joiners” like coupon or incentive sites)?
While it’s been more than 2 years since I managed any programs, I haven’t seen enrollment rates above 10% in more than a decade (in 1997-1999, it was possible) in response to affiliate recruitment emails. A more typical response, in my experience, is an enrollment rate of 1% to 2% for the initial email, and far less than 1% for the follow-up (which is at least 30 days later). And I’m talking about highly personalized recruitment emails (after a careful review of the site, and referencing any existing advertising or affiliate links already on the site).
Mark,
We are doing both very niche targeting (content-oriented affiliates that blog on specific topics, or shoot videos, etc), as well as recruit affiliates that are promoting either competing and complimentary merchants/products/services. So, the sample has been quite mixed, but all of these have been existing affiliates (majority not in any of the AMN-managed programs, but some are).
Once the follow-up email is sent to those who haven’t replied, many write back things like “sorry, I totally forgot about it” or “sorry, haven’t had a chance to join your program yet… signing up now”, and the above-quoted numbers sign up. We are also doing extremely personalized emails, just as you said.
When I was just starting in the affiliate program management (close to 6 years ago), and was using IBP (Arelis) to send out pretty much blanket emails to prospective affiliates, the enrollment rate did fluctuate between the 1% and 2% you’ve quoted. Now I’m doing many things differently, and the conversion is different too.