Why Didn’t I Get Accepted For The Affiliate Program?

Posted by Karl Foxley in Affiliate Marketing, Blog, Coaching

Yesterday I wrote a post about how you can inject cash into your website by promoting affiliate products. A few hours after writing the post I had an email from a Facebook acquaintance (David) who said:

“I read your post about joining affiliate programs to increase website revenue but I have found that a lot of the merchants I contact are refusing my application, what can I do?”

We fired a few emails backwards and forwards and I took a look at his website to see what the problem could be. I feel some of the problems holding him back are as follows:

• Incomplete website – the site is using WordPress as a CMS and a Theme from Studio Press which is great but David had not updated all pages. The About Me page still had the default WordPress text. My first recommendation, make sure your website is complete and there are no broken links or incomplete pages.
• Adsense - Google have a ad platform, Adsense, that allows you to earn money from their website by plugging in Adsense ads into your theme and content. This is okay and won’t get see your application being rejected if the ads are reasonable but Dave’s was using a very large ad square. This meant that on every blog post you would have to scroll down before you even got to the body text. My second recommendation, if you have ads on your website already make sure they are ‘reasonable’ in size and fit your business. If you have large size ads above your content it appears that your intention is to get ‘ad clicks’ rather than to share good content.
• Your Details - Dave mentioned that when he applies to affiliate programs he uses a free email address from Google, his Gmail address. My third recommendation, use your domain email address that matches the website you are applying with. This not only looks more professional, some services auto-approve on this alone whereas if you use a free account the authenticity of your application may need to be verified. Remeber, nowadays you are more likely to have to go through a double opt-in process to confirm your application and only the Webmaster (and staff) should have access to a domain email account. So instead of karlfoxley [@] gmail.com I use contact [@] foxleymarketingsolutions.com.
• The Programs – discussing with Dave I discovered that, because he had been refused so often, he had started to apply to any and every program available. Some of the banners on his site were a very bad fit for his target audience and, he confirmed this, by adding that they recieved little to no clicks per day. My fourth recommendation, try to add banners or affiliate products to your website that are a match to your niche or business area. Try not to just add any old banner from an affiliate program just because 1), it was the only one to accept your application, and 2), it pays a high commission.

Dave has made the changes to his website and has started to re-apply. He is going to give me feedback on this in a week or so and I’ll share his results with you here in the near future.

You probably have your very own experiences of getting approved or denied for affiliate programs, if you would like share these or add anything you believe I have not covered then leave a comment below.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

photo credit: striatic

About Karl Foxley

Karl Foxley has written 127 post(s) for FMS SEO.

Karl Foxley is an SEO Consultant, Internet Marketer, Small Business Advisor and Co-Founder of FMS SEO. Karl seeks to make SEO and Internet Marketing jargon free for the every day user.

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