Set up and manage an affiliate marketing program
Use AI to create templates for setting up and managing affiliate marketing programs.
2024-11-13
Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool to incentivize word-of-mouth sharing. Essentially, affiliate marketing pays people for sharing your product or service with their audience. When someone purchases through their link or discount code, the affiliate is rewarded with a cut of the revenue. When designed effectively, an affiliate program can amplify the positive sentiments your customers are already feeling and reward them for sharing.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to use ChatGPT to:
- Set up and manage affiliate marketing programs
- Create effective affiliate marketing templates
- Track and optimize affiliate performance
Designing the affiliate program
First, you’ll want to identify all the elements of an affiliate program. Use this prompt in ChatGPT:
Create an affiliate program for [business type]. Suggest payout mechanics along with the benefits and drawbacks of each option. I will decide which option to proceed with.
Identify the option you want to proceed with based on the options provided. For this tutorial, we’ll proceed with a Percentage of Sale agreement.
Let’s go with [program choice]. Suggest reasonable rates based on the market.
You may receive a few program options from ChatGPT so it’s up to you how simple or complex the program should be. Since this is the first affiliate program this business will run, we’ll keep it simplified to a standard rate across all products.
Create an affiliate agreement
To ensure there’s no misunderstanding, you should generate a basic affiliate agreement that outlines the program in a legally enforceable manner. While we suggest you run your agreement by a lawyer, ChatGPT is capable of producing a decent first draft.
Let’s do a standard rate of 10% across all products and categories. Write an affiliate agreement based on the terms identified in the affiliate program. Affiliates will have to sign and date this agreement prior to receiving their custom affiliate link.
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ChatGPT may take liberties around elements of the agreement like a minimum purchase amount or payout timeline. It’s up to you to finalize those details based on your business.
Attract and recruit affiliates
To ensure your affiliates are reputable organizations, collect details from them in an application form. This vetting process should be easy enough that it only requires a few minutes, but should collect enough information for you to make a decision.
Create an application template for the affiliate program. Identify the elements of what makes a good affiliate and then generate questions for them to complete that will illustrate those attributes. The application should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete.
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Identify potential affiliates
Start generating ideas of where you might find affiliate partners. They might include existing customers, bloggers, podcasters, and newsletter writers. Most importantly, you’ll want to find affiliates who speak to your target audience.
Where might I find good affiliates for my new affiliate program? I’ll want to reach out to these people and invite them to apply to my affiliate program.
Recruiting affiliates
To ensure as many people see your affiliate program as possible, you’ll want to develop a cold outreach email that introduces them to the program.
Write an enticing outreach email template that I can send out to potential affiliates inviting them to apply. It should include details on the affiliate program and a call-to-action to apply to the program through a sign-up link, or alternatively schedule a meeting to learn more.
Affiliate program operations
Create custom tracking codes for each affiliate
Avoid any mistakes or miscommunication by not including zeros and ones, ‘O’ and ‘I’. These letters and numbers can often be mistaken or written incorrectly.
Create a custom tracking code for each affiliate. Start by generating 10 codes. Other notes:
- It should be a random combination of 10 letters and numbers
- Make the codes all capitals
- Do not use the numbers 0 and 1
- Do not use the letters o and i
I will occasionally come back to this chat thread to ask for more affiliate codes. Each new code you generate should be unique.
Suggest affiliate management platforms
Depending on the complexity of your program, you may want to consider using an affiliate platform to manage everything from code generation to sales tracking to payout management.
What are some affiliate management platforms I can use to manage my affiliate program?
Create an affiliate tracking spreadsheet
You can also start by simply tracking everything in a spreadsheet.
Generate a spreadsheet template where I can track my affiliate partners.
Congratulations! You’re well on your way to launching your affiliate program. You have a program designed, a corresponding affiliate agreement, outreach email, and tracking spreadsheet.
This tutorial was created by Jonah.