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Optimizing Your Merchant Partners: A Guide for Affiliate Publishers

Updated

As you build your merchant  advertiser partnerships, a crucial step is to ensure your active partnerships are performing at their highest level. These simple steps can significantly increase your program's effectiveness and revenue. Here are some steps to help you:
 

OPTIMIZE ACCOUNT

  • Review your company name, this is what merchants see in a preview in the network. Make sure you feature your website or social page name rather than a business name, you can always add a dba. 
  • Make sure your site/social page description is current and describes your true value proposition to merchants/brands. Since you can not add hyperlinks to your website description for security reasons, you can add a URL for more information, media kit and about us page on your site. Include monthly views, social followers. 

OPTIMIZE MERCHANT RELATIONSHIPS

  • Identify Top Performers: 
    • Use the Dashboard report: Reports > Performance Reports > Performance Summary by Merchant, set Date Range to “Last Year,” and Compare To “Year Over Year.”
    • From this report, identify high‑performing merchants and look for common success factors such as placement type, promotion cadence, or creative used.
    • Reach out to these partners, highlight your audience across all sites and social channels, and offer a brief call to discuss how you can scale results together.
  • Monitor  Declines: 
    • From the report generated above, review merchants with declining sales.
    • Reach out to explore potential solutions or if they need additional efforts.
  • Review Denied Applications: 
    • If your audience has grown since you were declined by a merchant advertiser, now it's time to revisit denied applications. 
    • When re‑applying, include a concise media pitch that summarizes your audience, traffic sources, and a sample campaign concept. Click on Merchant Name to get contact info. Offer your media campaign. 
  • Segment Partnerships: 
    • Group merchants based on performance, niche, or audience type, and tailor your efforts and promotions accordingly.
    • Use these segments to tailor how often you feature merchants, what placements they receive, and which offers you prioritize.

DEVELOP A GAME PLAN 

  • Offer a Personalized Plan
    • Review underperforming merchants to ensure their brand is being promoted appropriately.
    • Ensure links to their products are functional and look for ways you can feature them.
    • Offer a tailored media campaign to include content articles, videos, social posts, podcasts and newsletter insertions.
  • Ask for Additional Incentives
    • Ask whether the merchant offers complimentary products for honest reviews or giveaway campaigns, and make sure you follow all disclosure guidelines.​
    • Where performance supports it, request a temporary or ongoing commission increase in exchange for expanded placements or a defined promotional push.​
    • Confirm whether they can provide exclusive coupon codes for your audience and align them with content updates or campaign dates.

  • Encourage Collaboration

    • Partner Promotions: Collaborate with merchants on campaigns to increase the exposure of their brand. 
    • Content Sharing: Share your user-generated content or success stories for merchants to repost on their platforms with a link back to your site.
    • Regular Updates: Sign-up for merchant newsletters and follow their social pages to keep informed about new products, promotions, and updates in their program. Ask for a marketing calendar and creative assets.

REVIEW YOUR OPTIMIZATION SUCCESS

  • Feedback Loop: Encourage merchants to share feedback on your program and to listen to their needs.
  • Review Segment Performance: Review your segments by running a "Performance Summary by Tag Group" report to compare how different merchant segments respond to your optimization efforts and refine your plan accordingly..

CONCLUSION

Continual outreach and thoughtful optimization help you position merchants as true partners rather than just another sales channel. If you’d like help reviewing your account or brainstorming new campaign ideas, contact the AvantLink team at am@avantlink.com.

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