Best way to find affiliates?

Try to check some mastermind groups in this forum that might be interested with your product.
You may also join some FB groups that are relevant to your niche. Then, ask the group moderator if you can post an invitation for their members to subscribe as an affiliate.

I take a look at the competition,

The leaders in SEM SEO on page one
and the know industry leaders in the vertical.

Then I just scrape all their back links, drop them
into a DB. First I look for banner images, then
I look for sales copy.

Next I go to Alexa and analyze competitors
upstream and downstream traffic.

These two techniques combined will point you
in the right direction.

blane

To answer your 3rd question, I personally like when there's promotional tools available. If you can manage to create a page that makes promoting your product a bit easier on affiliates, that always helps...

I pretty much agree with Blane. Just check out your competitors and you should get all the answers you need.

Simply put,

Yahoo Groups
Facebook Groups
Skype Groups
Chosen Websites

Seach for the term “internet marketer groups” or find sites you like.

Email them, and request a potential JV (affiliate)

generally if it is software marketers will want a bigger percentage. check IM forums like this one, blackhatworld, **********,etc..

As an affiliate it is great to start with a swipe file of copy for email or pre-sale pages. I won't keep it the same, but starting from something is better than starting from scratch.

Banners that are branded with your company information.
Giveaway pdf that can be branded with affiliate links with GREAT information about how the software will make my day.

I have liked some of the marketing for software recently that shows you exactly what the product does and how you can do it manually - at about 20x the amount of time it takes the software to do. The transparency about what is being accomplished and the time savings is a great enticement to buy.

As an affiliate it is good to know that you have tested your sales process and it is converting. A video of what the software does for the end user is a given.

OOOPS! You asked commissions and incentives. Well, I guess I should have read that more carefully!

Check the competition and the commissions they are offering affiliates - make your prize better. More money is not necessarily better - but the incentives + money drives the work. Those incentives don't have to be equal for each affiliate either. Get to know your affiliates and find out what makes them tick - what they need in their business.

Also consider an affiliate contest during the launch and another earned incentive type of payment after the launch is over.

Personally I've either relied on the community of Clickbank and JVZoo... literally contacting people in the WF JV section... or best bet using a JV Manager/Promoter. They are around the forum and also on Safe Swaps.

In terms of commsission, you set the price. You are absolutely in control of that

I love To Know More in Depth About This Topic from Other Great Members

1. Ad Intelligence Tools
- SIteScout, WhatRunsWhere, Keyword Spy, etc.

Those will help you identify the who, what, where of what ads are running for competing services/products and will help you identify prospective affiliates.

2. While this is much more involved and often requires a decent amount of capital, setting up CPA/Affiliate campaigns as an advertiser on various networks is a way to tap into an existing pool of established affiliates.

3. Cross channel promotions with other companies/sites not in direct competition with you but whose customers may also be interested in your product and visa versa.

i.e. Tanning salon and a Gym OR a organic food store + Supplement shop


Best regards,

P.S. If you need help with any of the following from a strategic consulting standpoint or for execution of a campaign feel free to reach out to us.

holy hell!
those are some great ideas... thank you all for your contribution!

One thing I don't think anyone has mentioned yet. Create a really good product. If it's really good, some affiliates will find their way to you. Also, giving a review copy of that really good product to a few influential people could do you a lot of good as well.

target places where affiliates hang out. Or go to Commision Junction, CPA networks, Clickbank and get in there. Of course having something affiliates want to promote helps

If you create a good product and even more important: a converting sales letter.
All top affiliates will want to promote your product. Because if you have an offer that it's converting that means they will make money and it's also a good product. So that's perfect for the guru.
You can get any affiliate you want if you have the right product for their list...

This seems pretty obvious but some people think they need to be an expert on their field to get affiliates on board, that's wrong. The gurus only want a converting product.

Just sell it everywhere and then contact other vendors in your niche with a bonus offer (extra 10% commission or something)

LOL Finding affiliates is a delicate process at times... I think my best affiliates have always been the ones that I have built a personal relationship with.. That takes time. I try to interact as much as possible and people tend to want to help you especially if you want to help them.. I am an affiliate for most of my affiliates and we mutually benefit. So I guess the key is time and willingness to help one another.

Forums like this are a good place to start, or maybe one geared towards software slightly? When I launched one of my info products, I stuck it up on Clickbank and it was one of the most promoted products in the niche at the time. Clickbank is definitely good for it too.

Empower Network: Make Money Now

Not to self plug, but this is the exact issue we developed our affiliate exchange for. Check out The Bevo Media Exchange - The Performance Marketing Exchange For Affiliate Marketing and let me know if you have any questions!