How To Get Approved For Affiliate Programs

This question comes from David who answered me on a G+ post when I was asking for topics.

If you find yourself getting declined from a lot of affiliate programs that you apply for there must be a reason. I am wondering if the site you are applying with is put together poorly or is it one of the many other things that I generally decline applications for. You may be getting a lot of automatic declines because a lot of affiliate programs only want USA publishers.

It could be that you are applying and you have a coupon site listed in your bunch of sites in your profile. Some merchants don't want to work with coupon sites and having one listed will get you declined. The affiliate manager may have no choice in the matter. Some merchants don't offer coupons and they feel that it weakens their brand being on coupon sites.

To get approved into affiliate programs more often I would only put one or two sites in your profile when you are applying. There is no reason to have 35 half done sites in there. You may think it looks good but after I go in and see the 5th site that is not close to done and hasn't been updated in 2 years odds are you will be declined.

If there is an area in the application like Shareasale has make sure you add something into that box. One or two sentences about what site you will use and how you get traffic is hugely helpful. Just having something in the application gets you on the affiliate managers radar quicker.

I can tell you when I log in to approve affiliates in the affiliate programs if they used the additional information box to put in some information they go to the top of the list. It shows that you are serious  and probably can't wait to put up links and make some money. This puts you ahead of your competition I am amazed that everyone doesn't do this. It is always good to have a leg up on the competition.

Affiliate managers go through hundreds of sites a day and most are either not a fit for the program or have other issues.

Some things that will get you declined:

• Banner farm
• Old non updated website
• Copied content
• Wrong Whois information
• Private registration
• Click to reveal coupon site
• Not having a website
• Using blogspot or Squidoo pages
• Saying your website is Google.com (I love that one)

If all else fails shoot the affiliate manager a quick email and tell him you should be approved and ask why you were declined. I bet you will end up getting into the program. If the affiliate manager doesn't respond then it is a program that you don't want to be in in the first place. Go find the competition and promote them.

If you are serious about affiliate marketing as a business you should have a handful of affiliate managers that you get to know and you work on their programs. Applying to programs hoping you get in will be a thing of the past.