Every affiliate manager that reads this gets asked “can you share an example of what other affiliates are doing?” from new and existing partners. If you’re an affiliate, you’ve probably asked this at least once in your journey. If the affiliate manager shares examples of other affiliates, you should think twice about what you share with them.
If an affiliate shares how other affiliates are making money, they will likely share your strategies as well and that can cost you your income.
This post shares why it is a bad practice to share what successful affiliates are doing and how you as an affiliate manager can still give advice and solutions. I break it out by channel with a focus on SEO, YouTube, Social, and PPC.
TL:DR
The reason sharing a strategy that makes other affiliates money is wrong is because there are finite amounts of traffic and sales out there. There are only three top spaces in Google for specific keywords that will get traffic and sales. Replacing an existing affiliate with another does not grow your bottom line as it only replaces the click with another partner, and hurts the affiliate that worked hard to build their revenue stream when they came up with how to rank in that spot. Share different keywords, niches, and themes that convert and also match that affiliate’s niche instead.
SEO (the longest section in the post)
The issue:
When you share a niche site, a blogger, or a creator who is ranking with more authoritative domains, or an affiliate using parasite SEO via LinkedIn Pulse, medium, and forums, you replace the traffic you were already getting vs. reaching new audiences. In addition, you burn the loyalty of that niche site.
Your company is now less profitable because you have that same exact traffic, but from a different affiliate source vs new traffic, so revenue should be about equal if the new partner has a similar pre-sell experience. But the niche site moves to a competitor because you damaged their revenue and you lose the other traffic from their site making your channel is less profitable.
If the niche site was not an end-of-sale coupon touchpoint or a review of your brand, you lose, not the affiliate. Cutting off the non-branded phrases costs your company the revenue and the potential branded search boosts hurting multiple channels at your organization. But there are ways you can still give SEO keywords.
The solution:
Start by asking the content creator for their niche and audience data. Now talk to the PPC, email, and other teams and find out what products, services, or categories this same audience demographic buys. Next go to the SEO team and ask for keywords and phrases that have search volume, and for tips or talking points on how to rank for these specific phrases.
Pro-tip: Different keyword phrases need different strategies. The intent changes, so do the talking points, and what is needed to get a page into a traffic generating position.
Before giving this information out, double check to see if you have any affiliates currently showing up here, and if no, give this strategy not only to the affiliate that asked, but a couple others and see if you can get all top three spaces. Here’s an example.
Example of SEO Advice for Affiliates
When I was a wedding affiliate a long time ago I ranked for phrases related to Bride and Groom Oreos. I had the top positions in Google via content pages, and I was making money. I controlled which favor shops got the traffic, and if someone gave that secret away, I’d have pulled them from my site. What the managers could do instead is give:
- Bride and groom cake pops
- Groom or bride only Oreo cookies (if my site wasn’t optimized for this)
- Skin color variations and mixed skin colors
- Bride and groom chocolate dipped strawberries
Each of these is still in the favor and food niche and can work for multiple types of sites. Sharing them with the partner and with me would have helped give me new topics to cover, the new affiliate a target to go after that wouldn’t damage my income, and bring in new traffic to the channel that the brand may not have had without us. It is a huge win situation.
YouTube
The issue:
Just like SEO, there are a finite amount of top positions available. The difference is that YouTube viewers skip the top results sometimes because channels, titles, and thumbnails will stick out to the viewer based on relatability. You don’t want to give a channel’s bread and butter away, so don’t share specific YouTubers that work with you. This includes the content, talking points, creative like thumbnails, etc…
If the person asking has experience, they’ll be able to find them without you.
The solution:
For YouTube you can share keywords, but take different approaches to the optimization. Look at the product or service being promoted and share talking points based on the need or use, and if the audience has a different one for it. Unlike Google SEO, YouTube has subscribers so the topic also needs to be something that resonates with the subscriber base.
I’ll use t-shirts as the example:
- The usage changes by gender including fit and need
- Skews in usage could be longevity, easy to clean, sweat stains and how sweat shows up, form fitting vs. functional
- The query could be in general like “best t-shirt for running” and add in “cold weather” or another modifier. By having multiple gender YouTubers and shapes showing up in the top positions, the one the viewer most relates to will potentially get the click. The title, description, chapters, etc… should be modified to meet the viewer’s needs as well.
- If athletic, go with examples for sports and how it works for different ones (soccer vs. baseball vs. pickleball) to get some of the niche longtail phrases.
- Share the different colors and styles by audience and customer type so they match the YouTuber.
- The same audience for shirts that wick sweat while playing tennis could be tank tops for one group and short sleeve crew neck for another.
- Both can optimize for the main phrase as well as the niche ones for long tail within the tennis community and SEO modifiers like crew neck vs. v neck and wicking, movement of arms, etc…
Social Media
The issue:
When everyone is promoting the same product or deal and at the same time, there’s no reason for their audiences to keep engaging with them as there is no added benefit from one account over the other. You as the brand get a huge lift and brand exposure, but it is at the expense of the content creator.
If you also only give one or two a higher offer, you’re burning the bridge with the rest because you’re now playing favorites. If you only play favorite with the biggest accounts or most known, they will leave you when a better offer comes along and the smaller accounts will turn their backs on you because you didn’t value them when they weren’t needed.
There is a win-win situation here.
The solution:
Rotate who gets what and at the most important seasons. You can map this out by looking at their demographics and meeting their specific audiences when they need product. The audience might all be female and from the same sorority, but they have separate needs.
Lets pretend our product is a hair care product and our influencers are from the Delta Nu sorority (Legally Blonde because I’m probably going to watch that shortly). We have three sisters as our partners.
- Elle but after she’s graduated
- A current sister
- Maggie Smith who had graduated and is a professor at Harvard
Two of our partners are actively at school, and both will be around events like rush. Only one will be posting about the rush events, the other will be at the school but likely talking about law and life advice. This is because they’re at different life stages. All three will likely be talking about sisterhood because it is part of who they are, and to fellow Delta Nus, but they’ll have fashion tips at different seasons.
Knowing when their seasons occur is when you’ll want to have them feature your products with the discounts. The current sister is perfect for back to school and pledging season. Elle may be talking about preparing for corporate meetings and being in a courtroom, or tips for prepping for corporate holiday parties. Maggie Smith will likely do self-care tips around times that seniors may be lonely like the holidays or summers as their loved ones may have passed on or they’re stuck at the home and cannot join.
All three are similar and have female audiences, but the seasons when they share fashion tips change, and when their seasons peak that is when you give them the custom deals.
PPC
The issue:
Each time another ad goes up, the costs per click go up and total conversions drop for the partners making the current partners less profitable. And if the affiliates use phrases your own PPC team are bidding on, you now have two or three ads vs. one giving you more exposure, but the in-house PPC costs go higher too. There’s good and bad to be said for this, but once it is too crowded, everyone looses.
Your partners are no longer profitable so in addition to your own PPC costs increasing, you have to pay higher commissions so they can remain profitable. It’s a short term success strategy that normally results in long term losses when you share the top PPC keywords for affiliates, so tread lightly when pushing the same groups.
The solution:
Look for long tail and niche phrases with the least amount of competition. Your company likely cannot bid on “best”, “top”, or comparison keywords because consumers know you’re not as objective as a third party. Let your affiliates have these and get the coverage via your relationship with them.
The same goes for long tail, non-branded phrases. Lets go back to the t-shirt example.
If everyone is bidding on “best t-shirts” in Google Ads, the cost is going to skyrocket. So look for variations that aren’t as competitive and share them with one or two partners at the most. Variations of t-shirts can include:
- color
- size
- style – long sleeve, raglan, short sleeve, etc…
- gender
- use – sports, undershirt, work, etc…
- style – graphic, tie dye, plain, etc…
- price – under $X, deal or cheap, etc…
- material – cotton, blend, organic cotton, linen, etc…
- questions and solutions – for baseball, for a teenager, for work, that dry fast, stain resistant, etc…
There’s no shortage of options in most situations, and your PPC team likely has a wish list of phrase but no budget. Give these to different partners and create landing pages for them to use. They’ll be happy to have these insights, and your company wins because the affiliate can be profitable where the PPC team cannot currently run ads.
Sharing what your top affiliates are doing, assuming they’re value adding, results in a no-win situation. You only replace traffic vs. growing your company, and you burn bridges with partners that add value to your brand. Put the extra effort in and give each partner a unique strategy that won’t impact your other affiliates. When you do this, your company and your partners should all be better off.
