Competitive analysis.
For your affiliate program to be competitive and, in the same time, attractive to affiliates, it needs to be differentiated from its competition inside 2Performant. Therefore, the first step in launching an affiliate program is to conduct a competitive analysis to see what your site has to offer in relation to the network competitors. Keep in mind that for an affiliate program, the competition doesn’t mean just affiliate programs in the same category, but all programs inside the network from any category.
Try to answer the following questions:
- What commissions the top advertisers offer?
- What are your direct and indirect competitors?
- Which of your competitors have affiliate programs?
- What commissions other affiliate programs from the same category offer?
- How other advertisers reward their affiliates?
The affiliate program directory from 2Performant is the main resource you can use for this analysis, because it gives you the opportunity to view all active affiliate programs sorted by the categories they belong to. For each advertiser you can see detailed information such as:
- The commission grid offered to affiliates;
- Cookie life;
- Types of available promoting tool;
- Benefits for approved affiliates inside the affiliate program;
- The rank of the program inside the network – the most important ranking indicator is the value of approved and paid commissions in the last few days (Approval Rate).
Once you have finished the competitive analysis, you’ve discovered who your competitors are inside the platform, with the advantages and disadvantages you have in relation to them, it’s time to structure your affiliate program according to its specific. Your affiliate program should focus primarily on the advantages your site has to offer in relation to the network competitors.