Know the Affiliate Types

Every successful business transaction has two important elements—make the right offer and make it to the right prospect. In affiliate marketing, that means choosing the affiliates that match your offer. Affiliates come in all shapes and sizes but fall into four general categories: the super affiliates, the up-and-comers, the onesies, and the untouchables. They’re explained in the following sections.

The Super Affiliate

The best type of affiliate partner is the super affiliate. These affiliates make up a very small part of your network but are the backbone of your program. They drive 99% of your revenue or referrals. Super affiliates have a number of things in common. First, they are high traffic sites and their traffic matches up well with your offer. They also take an active part in promoting your program on their site and to their visitors. They write endorsements, provide useful content, offer helpful advice, and find creative ways to integrate your links and graphics into the content on their sites. Super affiliates can also provide you with valuable ideas and tips you can pass on to your other affiliates.

Up-and-Comers

Up-and-comers have content that matches your offer and a large number of visitors that match your targeted customer base. Although they do not generate the types of revenues that super affiliates do, they do show that kind of potential. With a little training and education on your product or service, they could join the ranks of your super affiliates.

Onesies

Onesies might be low-traffic sites but do provide a degree of revenue and visibility for your program. These are normally sites that focus on small, original-content or community niches, such as sports, movie, or rock stars, or other areas of interest, or community sites that host discussions on specific topics (see Figure 7.1). Their revenue may not be high, but they do provide a steady stream of sales and referrals. They will earn one (maybe) check from you per year, hence their name.

Untouchables

The last type of affiliate—and the ones to avoid—are the untouchables. These sites will typically have little or no original content nor host any kind of community interaction. Most are simple one page Web sites that stack several banners or links one on top of the other on their Web page. They have no content—just banners and text links. There is no attempt to promote a particular program, and the Web site hopes to generate revenue from visitors who may click on one of the links. These sites are naturally drawn to pay-per-click programs, so if you have one, be very careful to avoid these types of affiliates. Also, based on the sites that have been determined to be perpetrators of affiliate fraud, the untouchables seem to be the biggest perpetrators.