How to recruit SaaS affiliates?
Written by Joran Hofman, Founder of ReditusRecruiting affiliates comes down to one question: who already has access to your ideal customers, in bulk? Think of agencies and consultants who implement software for their clients, newsletters and communities your customers read, and bloggers who already rank for your keywords. Below are six ways to find them, starting with the quickest way to get going.
1. Start with your own network
The people who already know your product need the least convincing: your users, your customers, and the agencies, consultants and partners you work with. Strangers first have to find you, understand what you do and ideally use your product before they recommend you, and that takes much longer.
Send your users to your in-app referral program, and invite agencies, consultants and partners to your affiliate program. Launch both at the same time. How to send the invites: inviting affiliates to your program. What to write: affiliate recruitment email templates.
2. Find the sites that already recommend your competitors
Affiliates who already recommend your competitors with an affiliate link are the easiest to win. They know your market, they already have content that ranks, and they know how affiliate marketing works. Often the ask is simply to add you to an article that already exists.
The Affiliate Finder does the searching for you. It finds the publishers who link to your competitors (and sees which of them use an affiliate link), finds the sites that rank for your keywords, and scores how well each one matches your company. You'll find it under Finder in the sidebar, on every plan. During the free trial it shows the 10 best results; a paid plan shows all of them.
3. Approach the sites that rank for your keywords
Some of the best articles for your keywords will not add you for a commission alone; large publishers often ask for money upfront. A hybrid deal works better: a fee for a defined piece of work, such as a section in a named article, plus a commission on every paid client they bring. Never pay a large amount upfront for "exposure" without a defined outcome.
Campaigns let you pay for that work through Reditus: you describe the work and the bonus, and the bonus is only paid once you accept the result.
4. Invite the people and companies that reach your customers
Agencies, consultants, communities and newsletters that reach your ideal customers can recommend you to many of them at once. Make a list of them and email them your invite link.
When you give an agency something extra, such as a better rate or a discount for their clients, agree on what they do in return: add you to their website, write an article, or bring their first client within 30 to 60 days. A private tier is a good home for these deals.
5. Get listed in the Reditus marketplace
The Reditus marketplace lists B2B SaaS affiliate programs. Affiliates browse it and apply to the programs they like. Anyone can view it without logging in, and it is one of the most viewed pages of the Reditus website.
A listing needs an annual Scale Up or Enterprise plan and a completed technical installation. Run it next to your own recruiting, not instead of it. Step by step: how to get listed in the Reditus marketplace.
Every new listing gets a push when it goes live: we announce it in our affiliate newsletter, and it shows at the top of affiliates' dashboards and at the top of the marketplace.
6. Contact vetted affiliates from the Reditus network
The vetted affiliate database is separate from the marketplace. It holds affiliates from the Reditus network who applied with a profile, connected Google Analytics, YouTube or LinkedIn, and were approved by our team. Because they connected first-party data, you can judge them on their real traffic instead of what they say about themselves.
You reach them with a partnership request inside Reditus, which they accept or decline in one click. There's no bulk sending, so write each request for that person, but you can send as many as you want. What to write: affiliate recruitment email templates.
The vetted database is part of Scale Up and Enterprise, together with public campaigns, which every affiliate in the network can see. Both plans are sold through a demo: book a demo to see them. Affiliates who want to get vetted can read how to create an affiliate profile.
After recruiting: get them active
Recruiting affiliates is only half the work; getting them to publish is the hard part, and campaigns fix that. A campaign pays a one-off bonus for a piece of content or a referral milestone, on top of the recurring commission: how to create affiliate campaigns. Your automated onboarding emails help new affiliates get started too.
Want help with recruitment?
We offer two paid services, on Scale Up and Enterprise. With the Program Launch Package we guide your launch over six weeks and recruit and onboard your first 25+ affiliates. With the Done-For-You Program Service we run your program for you, either focused on recruitment or with full operations. You can't buy them self-serve: contact us in the chat and we'll arrange it with you.