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Ask HN: Would you pay for a service that will recruit partners/affiliates?

7 points by going_to_800 ↗ HN
The major problem with affiliate/partner programs is that is hard to find high quality affiliates.

What do you think about this: - pay a monthly fee + a performance fee(%) to get high targeted affiliates to your affiliate/partner program

9 comments

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adzeds
Certainly something that sounds interesting..

Guess it depends on the cost of the monthly fee? If this is solely performance based I would argue that you would not need the monthly fee?

going_to_800
On the beginning the monthly fee will be required to reinvest the money into promotion and outreach. When the performance fee will get big enough, it won't be really necessary.
dangrossman
Search "affiliate management" or "affiliate recruitment" on Google to find companies already doing this. I've gotten spam from a variety of companies offering exactly this service for at least the past 10 years. Most of the big affiliate networks are happy to directly sell management/recruiting services to their merchants as well.
going_to_800
I'm a former affiliate(7 years in the industry) and I know how the networks do this, it's not targeted recruitment...they put you in their network and promote your offer to their, often low quality, affiliates... they don't actively look after any targeted affiliates for your business.

I'm willing to offer a high quality services for SaaS companies using outreach campaigns and targeting more consultants, web developers, agencies etc than bloggers or marketers(unless they are influencers).

Eventually to also be able to manage and build the program...example of a great program http://www.leadforensics.com/partners/

nekopa
If you go performance fee only, you show complete faith in your product, and it's a no-brainer for your potential customers.

If you want, go one time setup fee to reduce spammers/time-wasters who may use your system.

Gustomaximus
Surprisingly few companies do this while they commonly pay ~10-20% of spend for media like Adwords to an agency. I've never understood that, especially when affiliate can be such a force multiplier or snake oil sales. It's really worth getting someone that knows what they are doing to manage affiliate and how to structure, price and measure the deals.

Also if you are looking into affiliate sales, having access to good affiliates often requires a 121 relationship with companies at the quality end. If you put your business on the common aggregator sites you're unlikely to get high volumes and there are a bunch of people looking for ways to take your money without generating new and genuine sales.

luckystrike
Yes, we would be keen to try out such a service.

To make it a no-brainer for any business, find them a list of potential partners/affiliates through your research as part of their trial period. Don't reach out to them yet. If your trial customer likes it, they can sign up and start paying you monthly for this service. May be you can remove this trial later once you have established yourself or have enough case studies.

My contact information is in my profile. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss further.

All the best.

bbcbasic
Clickbank. Commission Junction. Clickbooth?
going_to_800
Low quality. Not targeted. Network owns the affiliates. Most of them are marketers not businesses or individuals as potential partners.