Merchant Setup Wizard Walkthrough – Part 2: Attract Affiliates

Here is where you plant the seed that given the water and fertilizer, will grow into a mighty Affiliate Tree! It is important to understand that, even though you want you Affiliates to be working for you, you will still need to sell your brand and image to them – basically, get them excited to work with you! The more you time and attention you pay to optimizing your program tools, the greater your opportunity for success, and the easier it will all be. Starting with Your Program Bio (insert link to step 2 in setup wizard)

Program Bio

Your Program Bio is your first opportunity to engage with your Affiliates. You’ll really want to seize the opportunity to present your best self. You can utilize HTML to add branding, pictures, and format the page in ways that are pleasing!

The idea is to appear as attractive as possible to Affiliates. This is where you outline who you are (your company’s history, etc), what commissions you are offering, bonuses/incentives, cookie duration and any other important info that you want potential Affiliates to see. Your program bio is also one of the five things our Affiliate Search function looks through when a keyword search is performed. The more detailed and specific you can be the better

Noob Tip: Click HERE to learn about the HTML program bio.

Pro Tip: click on the “Preview bio” button to make sure your HTML isn’t all wonky. 

Keywords/Categories

Maximization is key! Use all 255 Characters! Spaces after commas are under-utilized characters…there’s no need for them! This is how people search for you! Make sure that you include your brand name and/or website along with any other terms that will help you get discovered. Generally speaking, the terms will be somewhat similar to your SEO terms. Click HERE for more information about keywords.

You can choose one category to start with and you can choose an additional category to be featured if you feel it necessary (at a cost of $350). If you have the time to spend optimizing the other areas of your program, I would suggest focusing on that first.

Company Logo

Your company logo is cool and attractive, so SHOW IT OFF. The main logo shouldn’t be bigger than 500 x 500 pixels as it will be the main image that is displayed on your Merchant details and your co-branded page.

“What’s a co-branded page”, you ask? This page is what we put together for you so that you can recruit Affiliates to your program with ease! The link looks a lot like this where your Merchant ID will replace that number on the end: 

http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm?merchantid=47

Aside from your main company logo, you are also given the opportunity for four additional creative sizes!  “WHOA!”, you might be saying because that’s pretty sweet! Those four logos can be used by Affiliates and to help you get more FREE exposure!

Now that you’ve done everything you can to Look Sharp, let’s move on to Step 3 so we can help your Affiliates know how to Be Sharp.