So you’ve built an amazing affiliate website, you’ve found the merchant whose products you wish to promote, you’ve joined the relevant affiliate network and applied to join the merchant’s affiliate program. Then they reject you. Why?
It sucks to be rejected, but don’t go jumping to conclusions. Your first thoughts may be that your site doesn’t look classy enough, or you don’t have a big enough name, or even you don’t have enough traffic, but in fact there are many reasons why you may be rejected and none of them are permanent.
Potential reasons include:
- Not enough traffic
- Not enough clicks
- Not a recognisable brand
- Shopping basket
- Content of the site (e.g. Independence headline?)
- Methods of promotion of the website
- Conversion rates are not high enough
- Adult material
- No phone number, no answer at phone or no skype contact
- Inaccurate or incomplete information on the application form (e.g. home address, not business address, no phone number etc)
- Brand does not match their aesthetics
- We broke their terms and conditions (e.g. advertised on forbidden keywords)
- Brokers/networks not accepted for this merchant (this is going to be the likeliest rejection reason for crave.link)
- They don’t allow deeplinks (yes, this is possible!)
- No terms and conditions or clear contact details displayed on site
That’s a lot of potential reasons you may have been rejected and probably your first thought for why was only one of these reasons.
The standard situation with affiliate websites is to send out a templated rejection email. If you’ve received one of these, don’t worry too much. They will always include contact details so you can enquire as to the specific reason your website was rejected. Here’s what to do:
How to get your website accepted to ANY affiliate program
The first step is to understand that people decide whether or not you get accepted to an affiliate program but algorithms typically send out the templated rejection emails. So – first step, email back the affiliate manager and tell them specifically how much you love this specific merchant and how you can help promote their brand through your website, social media, email list or whatever promotion techniques you love the most.
If you don’t get a positive response within 24 hours, pick up the phone. Remember, people are in control of the decision and if you can speak passionately as to why you love this merchant and can promote their products then the person at the other end of the line will typically capitulate at this point.
If you still don’t get anywhere after speaking to the affiliate managers on the phone, start looking for direct contacts for the merchant. LinkedIn can help you here – find an affiliate manager who works directly for the merchant, ideally who has a similar background to you, and send them a friendly InMail explaining the situation. These people don’t normally receive InMails for this kind of thing so they will appreciate your passion and if you ask them, they will get in touch with the network affiliate manager and get your website approved for you.
If this still fails to get you accepted to the merchant affiliate program of your dreams then wow, they’re playing hard ball – I’ve never made it to this situation personally. Therefore, I can’t speak from experience but what I would recommend you do at this point is to try and find a merchant aggregator who covers your merchants products and promote their products through them – e.g. Amazon or eBay.
I hope this helps – remember, it’s people who ultimately are in control of your website being accepted to affiliate programs but algorithms that control the first templated email so don’t be disheartened. Get an email out to the affiliate manager and follow it up with a phone call and in 95+% of situations, you’ll get sorted out right away.
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