Here at Hayneedle, we receive hundreds of applications every week for our affiliate program. We also personally review every single application to ensure that you will be promoting us in a way that is honest and ethical and also that your site fits in with our promotion methods. If you haven’t signed up with an affiliate network yet, that will be your first step. The good news is that the tips we give you here will help you get approved for the network as well.
Tips for a Good Affiliate Application
- All information is filled out
- This may sound ridiculously simple, but you’d be surprised at how many applications we receive that are missing critical information. The questions are there for a reason. Fill everything out and if you have questions, contact someone at the network or the Hayneedle team.
- Include correct and up to date contact information
- Having correct contact information from our affiliate partners is vitally important to how well we work with you. If we have questions about your site(s) or application and are unable to reach you, you will probably just get declined.
- Have a live website
- It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t even have to be pretty, but you do need an active website. We understand that many of you are just starting out and don’t have much to work with. It doesn’t matter – as long as we can see generally what your site will look like and how you will be promoting us, you’ll likely be accepted.
- If you are new, it’s also helpful to contact us before submitting an application so that we know to watch for you. If you explain to us through email or on the phone what your situation is, we’ll be much more likely to accept you into our affiliate program.
- List your best website first
- If you have multiple websites, list your most developed and best-looking site first. We generally go down the list of websites that you provide and if the first thing we see is a really ugly site that has nothing to do with any of our products, it’s going to leave a bad taste in our mouth and we’ll be hesitant to approve you.
- Tell us how you’ll be promoting our products
- One of the key things we look for in potential affiliate partners is how they will be promoting us. Your site should speak for itself, but if it is underdeveloped or you’re planning on incorporating some new types of promotion, let us know. The more information we have about you, the better chance that you’ll get approved.
- Develop websites that are related to what we sell
- You would not believe how many applications we receive from sites that have absolutely nothing to do with anything that we sell. That’s pretty amazing considering the wide variety of products that we sell at Hayneedle. Most of the time these applicants are planning on launching new sites about our products, but fail to let us know that. A simple email or note on your application is plenty to let us know what you are planning on doing and most of the time we will accept you if your promotion methods are acceptable.
Hopefully what we’ve outlined above has given you a good idea of what we’re looking for in our affiliate partners. On the other hand, there are a few sure-fire ways to get your application declined:
How to Get Your Affiliate Application Immediately Declined
- Have an inactive website or parked domain with no explanation
- Have offensive or inappropriate content
- This includes but is not limited to racism, pornography, foul language and hate language
- List a site that you actually do not own
- Under the websites section of the application, do not list Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia or any other site that you don’t actually own. We have ways of finding out who actually owns your site so beware!
- Use PPC as your only means of promotion
- We currently do not allow our affiliate partners to use PPC ads to drive traffic to our websites. To be a Hayneedle affiliate, you must have your own website that provides the consumer with unique information.
- Have a butt-ugly site with no relevance
- We need our affiliate partners to be a good representation of our brand. If your site is ugly, difficult to navigate or is unrelated to our products, we have little choice but to decline your application.
Hopefully this has helped you understand what we’re looking for in our affiliate partners, if you have any questions, feel free to comment or contact us. We’re here to help and look forward to working with you!
