A lot of the businesses that are using or are planning on using affiliate marketing have not kept up with how the industry as a whole has changed within the last decade or so. Brands still like to think that they can utilize the strategies they had in 2007 in order to accomplish their affiliate goals. The fact of the matter is that the affiliate marketing game has drastically changed and it is now much more difficult to recruit the better affiliates in the industry.

There are a lot of reasons why this is so. First of all, the number of affiliates who are operating in the industry has grown quite a lot. This has led to a rapid rise in the number of subpar affiliates. The ones that are the better options all get loads of daily requests for their affiliate services. Therefore, the situation has become such that you can get affiliates but the ones that will actually reap you some benefits are much, much harder to bring on board these days than compared to the early days of affiliate marketing. In the early days, in order to get an affiliate, all that you really needed to do was to post something on your social media platforms and you would have gotten something more often than not.

However, these days, good affiliate marketers all have their own contact information that you need to collect and then get in touch with them. That’s how much the game has changed. Gone are the days when you could just hit a potential affiliate partner up and get their services. Their services have never been more in demand and therefore, the process of getting a good affiliate partner has become that much more difficult.

In the following few passages, we will outline some of the key reasons as to why recruiting good affiliate partners has gotten so difficult.

1. Good affiliates are short in supply

While there has never been any period of time in history where there were so many affiliates operating, the fact remains that good affiliates are very limited in supply. What we are trying to say here is that attracting the right kind of affiliate that will suit your particular needs has become a lot more difficult than it used to be.

A few examples of some of the different types of affiliate marketers operating in the industry today include real-life influencers, influencers on social media, and bloggers. Then there are also places like forums, youtube channels, and coupon sites where you can get affiliate services.

One other thing that must be mentioned here is that there are also a lot of variants available among these types of affiliates. Therefore, you need to understand your strategy well and be sure of what you want to get out of the affiliate partnerships. This will not only ensure that you keep realistic expectations but will also help you in finding the right kind of affiliate to get the job done.

2. A lot of good affiliates are already tied up with competitor companies

In the event that you happen to find an affiliate who fits all of the requirements that you have, you may still find that they are already tied up with the companies of your competitors. This is because the better avenues of affiliate marketing are all highly congested.

These affiliate marketers are much more difficult to get a hold of. If these affiliates are already signed up with your competitors, then it is very likely that they will have a clause in their contract that prevents them from working with companies that provide the same services or manufacture the same products. This is quite normal and given the option, you would do the same. Once you partner up with an affiliate, you would not want them to showcase your competitor’s services or products.

3. The better types of affiliates all like to stay under the hood and under the radar

As we have already mentioned above quite a few times, you may find a lot of affiliates but in order to find one that is good and serves the purposes you have, you really do have to put in the work. This is mainly because the better affiliates all like to stay under the radar. One explanation for this could be that they are already getting more than enough affiliate opportunities and thus do not want to unnecessarily get spammed with more affiliate partnership opportunities.

This is a significant barrier to entry for a lot of businesses who want to start affiliate marketing. They can find affiliates but the ones that have the relevant traffic and follower base are under the radar. Therefore, while there never has been a better time to be pursuing affiliate marketing, in order to get the most out of it, you really need to do a lot of ground work before recruiting any affiliates.

4. Affiliate Recruitment Platforms

One of the other key reasons why recruiting a good affiliate has become so difficult is because of the affiliate recruitment platforms that are in operation. These platforms are all flooded with subpar affiliates because most are open platforms.

Finally

As we have mentioned before, owing to the fact that these platforms are filled with subpar affiliates, in order to find the right affiliate for your needs, a lot of time has to be spent pursuing that end.