What if 2026 was the year your affiliate program finally took off? Today, I’m sharing the resolutions smart affiliate managers are making this year. These are the type of resolutions that lead to bigger launches, more evergreen sales, and stronger affiliate relationships. If you want this to be your best year ever, listen up.
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Previous Episodes of The Affiliate Guy
The Future of Affiliate Marketing: 2026 Edition
How Affiliates Can Make More Money This Holiday Season
The Affiliate Manager Holiday Survival Guide
Why Every Author Should Be Using Affiliate Marketing
Inside the Mind of a Strategic Affiliate Marketer
New Year’s Resolutions for Affiliate Managers
What if 2026 was the year your affiliate program finally took off? Today, I’m sharing the resolutions that smart affiliate managers are making for the upcoming year. These are the type of resolutions that lead to bigger launches and more evergreen sales and stronger affiliate relationships. If you want this to be your best year ever, listen up.
So I know it’s not quite, quite New Year’s yet, but especially with the way that the holidays are falling this year, kind of that midweek, you know, anytime they fall on like a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, it feels like the world just kind of shuts down for two weeks.
And so a lot of us are already thinking ahead and we’re, maybe we’re not, we’re, we’re not working as much, but we can kind of use this, this magical in between two week period where things slow down just enough for us to breathe and reflect and we can start thinking about how we want to show up in the year ahead. So today I’m sharing some New Year’s resolutions. Not for your personal life, you’re on your own for that. Not for your fitness goals, you’re on your own for that one. But for you as an affiliate manager, as someone who’s running an affiliate program, whether you’re a full time affiliate manager, part time, you’re running an agency or you’re doing this just kind of like as a part of your duties, right?
As a solopreneur or a small company, this is for you. These are. I’ve got 15 resolutions for you for this upcoming year. And if you’re anything like me, you don’t want to just roll into January doing the same things the same way.
You want to grow, you want to improve, you want to make things smoother, you want to make things more efficient, you want to make things more impactful for both you and your affiliates. For me, you know, I’ve been doing this now this is going into my 21st year, I literally wrote the book on affiliate management, right? Literally. It’s called the book on affiliate management. If you missed that.
And I’ve been doing this forever and yet I still want to make 2026. I want to make it better. I want to make it. I want to. I want to do some things that I haven’t done this past year or even maybe in 10 years.
I want to get the basics down. I want to do the things I’m supposed to own to do the. All the things I write about in my book. Because here’s the thing. I’ll admit I write about 15 steps in the book now.
There are 15 New Year’s resolutions. They have nothing to do with those steps, just for the record. But I write about 15 steps. And you know something? When I start a new affiliate program for a client, I sometimes miss one or two of those steps.
I sometimes get them out of order. I sometimes don’t do all the things that I suggest that you do. And I want to do that this year. And I want to do more. I want to do more.
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Like, I want to. I specifically said when I wrote the book that, for example, that I wanted to have to re-release it every two years because I’ve added so much, because I’ve done so much new stuff. There’s already one thing that I’ve done with regards to, affiliates running ads that literally is a whole chapter. it came from at a mastermind meeting and we had like the head of compliance for meta on, there’s like 30 of us. And so I, you know, I got to ask 5, 6 minutes of questions and, I got some, like, really killer answers.
Like, just, I learned a ton about meta ads and so meaning Facebook and, you know, Instagram, etc. It was pretty cool. Like, things that I learned that I can share with affiliates as an affiliate manager. And so that’s something right there. Like, a month after I released a book, I’ve already got a new chapter that I could put in there.
And so, like, yeah, I want to do that. And so I want to try some stuff in 2026 that I’m like, I have to put that in the book. I want to try some stuff that, in 2026, I’m like, I have to share that on the podcast. So these are the resolutions that, that I’ve been making. Most of these I’ve been making for years.
These are things that I’ve put into practice here year after year. They’re the resolutions that I’ve been recommending over the past couple of weeks to, our coaching clients who want to scale their program without burning out. I have seen these work again and again. Now, before you get intimidated and go, there’s 15. You don’t have to do all 15, but I guarantee if you can do a few of them, it will help you.
It will help you. My other caveat, I guess you could say is, no, you don’t have to do all 15, but what if you commit to do one of these and add one of these every month and you do 12? What if you pick 12 and do one a month? I guarantee you that is going to make a huge impact on your affiliate program this year. Now, for you affiliates out there next week, I’ve got New Year’s resolutions for affiliates.
So you don’t want to miss that. So as I always say at the end, make sure you hit subscribe. go ahead and hit it now. Hit subscribe. And, you know, do that so that you don’t miss the next episode, which is all about New Year’s resolutions for affiliate marketers.
One other favour before we get into the content. I always say this at the end, but it’s. It’s Christmas and it’s that time of year where giving is so important. the best gift you could give to me if you take 20 seconds is just to leave a rating and review. Biggest reason for that is it helps other people find the podcast.
So the best gift you can give to yourself and others is hit subscribe so you don’t m miss episodes. And the second best, best gift you can give to yourself and others is leave a rating and review. It’ll come back around, I promise. So with that in mind, let’s get into it with the first of the resolutions. Resolution number one is I will build real relationships this year.
The resolution here, or the message is stop treating affiliates like their names on a spreadsheet. I want you to treat them like and build real relationships with your affiliates. Treat them like people. Send voice messages, get on calls with them, make it personal. Your.
Your top affiliates, they’re not top performers. They’re not faceless. These are real people who want to feel seen. So resolve to develop deeper relationships with one new affiliate each week. Just one new affiliate each week.
Be intentional, because you can maintain that you can develop 52 new relationships this year. Now, if you take a couple weeks off, okay, 50, 48, whatever. But every week that you’re working, pick a day, make it, you know, don’t make it Monday, don’t make it Friday. Those are too busy usually. I personally, the days that I do two a week because I manage a lot of programs, so I do Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Tuesday, I Intentionally develop a relationship with one new affiliate, somebody that I’m currently working with or a prospect and I’m talking, I follow and I interact with them on social media.
I send a gift, I get on a phone call, I email them, I do something to really engage with them above and beyond. Here’s a new promotion, Here’s a new promotion. Will you promote this? Do you want to promote this? Here’s an offer, blah, blah, blah, right?
So for me it’s about 100 a year, about probably like 96 a year, you know, taking three to four weeks off. So whatever it is, but just resolve to do one now if you get to May and you’re like I, one has been pretty easy and you want to bump it up to two, bump it up to two, don’t try to do one a day. It’s, it’s going to, after two months you’re going to get overwhelmed and you’re going to drop it completely. And that’s what I don’t want. I want at the end of the year that you’ve built 45 to 50, you know, new real deep relationships rather than 200 that are kind of like eh, that’s, that’s not what we’re doing.
So that’s resolution number one. Number two, I will segment affiliates smarter when it comes to communication. One size fits all does not work anymore. It really never worked. But it definitely does not work now simply because 15 years ago, definitely 21 years ago when I got started, when I was reaching out to an affiliate, I was the only person in most weeks and I was one of two in a busy week reaching out to an affiliate.
That is not the case anymore. I’m now one of five, one of ten just this week or I should say last week actually. So last week when, so I pulled the stats this week I was actually just curious just that I could find, just that made it to my inbox, didn’t get caught by spam, or weren’t disguised in some way that I didn’t identify them as a affiliate pitch to me in a seven day period last week I had 24 affiliate pitches, people pitching me to promote their product. Now if maybe you’re not the affiliate guy, so what if yours is a third, that’s eight a week. Again, I used to be one of only two in a busy week and now there’s 8 or 10 or 15 or 24.
And I honestly don’t think that last week was that busy of a week compared to some weeks. if you go back to mid October, I would be willing to bet that it’s some week in October. I got over 30 if I got 24 last week. You know, we’ve reached the time of year now where they’re doing less inviting, you know, and more like scrambling to just keep up with their stuff. So I know I’m not reaching out to prospective affiliates a lot right now because I’m running big things in Q4 and focused on, you know, maximizing Q4.
I’ll worry about Q1 when we get to Q1, but so, I guarantee I’m. There are weeks where I’m getting 40 plus. So you have to segment so that your communication stands out. So segment by performance level, segment by promotional style. If they’re only promoting on Instagram, don’t include email, swipe copy.
Have a separate email that goes out to people who only do Instagram. You know, segment by niche. If you’ve got two groups of affiliates, one is they are all, homeschoolers. This is a real life example. They’re all homeschoolers.
And the other is all speaking to entrepreneurial audiences. Those are two different messages. Now can you get, can you get overwhelmed with this? Can you have. Well, I only have, you know, homeschoolers who do Instagram.
Well, yeah, if you’ve got two distinct, you know, segments of affiliates and you’ve got only the ones who do Instagram on there and only the ones who do email on their only ones, you know. Yeah, you could get a little bit overboard. But segment, you know, have at least three segments, maybe four or five. Here’s the thing. I’ve got one program, I’ve got six segments, right?
When it comes down to it, six different segments of affiliates that I communicate with very differently. It only takes me twice as long to create the second through fifth pieces of content as it does the first. I basically create the generic newsletter that goes out. Not newsletter, but email that goes out to about 40 to 50% of the affiliates that are kind of in that general thing. And then I tweak it for the.
Specifically, for the. I don’t have a home school Instagram only, but I’ve got the home school bloggers audience. And then I’ve got the big homeschool company’s audience. And then I’ve got the entrepreneurial audience. I’ve got the entrepreneurial social media only audience.
And then I’ve got the social media, primarily email marketing, you know, audience. Those are actually, sorry, it’s five segments because I don’t Have a generic entrepreneurial one. So there’s five segments there to create. The first one, you know, takes me, you know, 25 minutes total formatting and everything and like making sure that I’ve got it right. Yes.
I use my own tools like Affiliate Email Pro to write that email, which takes it down from hours down to seconds, you know. But yeah, the total thing is about 20 to 25 minutes. To create that tool or to create that email to create the variations only takes about the four variations, only takes about 20 minutes total. So again, takes twice as long as to do five to have five times better results. That’s a good investment.
Resolution number three, I will update, my swipe copy and really, I will update my assets in general. Right. I will update all my affiliate stuff this year I want you to commit in Q1 of this year to spend a little time, look at your swipe copy, look at your graphics. Did you design your graphics and in 2000? Definitely, if you design them in 1999, but in 2019, could you update them, make a, you know, something fresh, freshen them up a little bit.
you know, your swipe copy, if it’s too complicated, maybe you need to take a look at it and make it a little bit more better, you know, a little bit more simple. Some short punchy copy that’s easy to post, easy to, to tweak, easy to, to use. Like I said use AI to make dozens of variations or personalize it for each affiliate. You know, I’ve talked so many times. Like I have AI chats and projects.
I have a pro, I have over 50 now projects in Claude, which is the one I use for writing Claude. I think I’m. What are we on Sonnet 4. 5? yeah, Sonnet 4.
- Okay, so, in Claude, Sonnet 4. 5, I’ve got over 50 projects now. It’s two page downs and there’s 54, 55. Got Ah, 55 projects.
Now each of those projects is for a specific affiliate. And so if I want to write specific copy and give it to affiliate A, I go to that project and I say here’s the product, here’s a, brief, here’s some ideas that I’ve had, maybe, or here’s some generic swipe copy that I wrote, write copy for this person and it does. So I want you to resolve to create at least three variations of your swipe copy and make it easy to use in 20, 26. Okay, I want you to resolve to take a look at each of your graphics. Delete any that are.
They look like they’re from 2014. Delete them. Delete any that aren’t performing. Delete any that nobody’s using. Add some new ones.
Like, one of the big resolutions I made technically for Q4 of this year was to add some more fun and creative graphics. It’s so easy to do it now with AI that I could create some. So I created some comic strip ones and I created just some, some bolder ones. And we’ve actually been applying those to our, to our meta ads with some of our clients and they’re working on there. So we taking those, like, I’m in constant communication with our clients to say, like, what’s working?
ad wise, let’s pull those images and give them to affiliates. And so there’s one, for example, that’s for a memory supplement, Sharper Memory. And the ad that I created had to do with the intestines and the gut brain connection. And the image I created is, it’s an AI image of the intestines in the brain connected. But I purposely made it like really colourful.
It’s kind of, it’s, it’s not realistic, a realistic view of the intestines. It’s bright pinks and turquoise and it pops a little bit and it is crushing it on meta. And I’m like, well, we need to share that with affiliates. And then I created, you know, some ads where it’s got a person with their face split and it talks about, you know, the kind of like the before and after. Right.
It’s really cool stuff. We created another ad. Let me see if I can actually pull up the copy here because it’s pretty good. Here we are. And so, you know, I, created a bunch of different versions of toilets and they are real.
Like some of them are just generic toilets. But then I created some with some bright, like almost like ambient lighting in the toilet. And it talks about the world’s smartest toilet, you know, And I say, you know, it says, introducing the world’s smartest toilet. What makes it the world’s smartest toilet? You ask?
You. Yes, you. Well, more specifically, your poop. Those brain supplements you’ve been taking, the ones that are supposed to give you more focus and better memory. All the good stuff is going straight through you like a regrettable late night taco run.
And it goes on to talk about bioavailable ingredients and stuff like that. Well, again, it was an experiment, but it worked. So we gave that to affiliates because they need to have that because it will work for them too. So resolve to create variations of swipe Copy, create more graphics, make them easy to find and easy to use. Number four, resolution.
I will educate my affiliates, not just ask them to promote. Your affiliates don’t need to be asked to promote more. Probably you’re doing a pretty decent job of that. If you’re not doing a decent job of that, ask them to promote more but also give them strategy, give them education, share content on list building and storytelling and positioning to help them become better marketers. Tell them about our affiliate training.
If you want to know how to train your affiliates, check the show notes. Check the show notes. I’ve got a link in there to our affiliate training. We will literally give you the, I think there’s like a Key Note version, a PDF version, a PowerPoint version, whatever, a Google Sheets version, Google what does that call? Google presentation.
What is that even called? I don’t even know. Google Slides version. We got multiple versions. We give you the notes, the slides, we give you a sample training so you can watch it.
There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be training your affiliates. I show you how for free. So resolve in 2026 to host at least one quarterly, at least a quarterly training. Four times, just four trainings this year. Okay, four times this year I want you to host a training.
Make them about different topics. Train them one quarter on just general best practices. Train them another quarter on how to close sales. Train them another quarter on, you know, how to do social media marketing. Train them on another quarter about how to use swipe copy.
if you want these like go grab my book, I mentioned it earlier, the book on affiliate management. Grab the book and there’s an entire chapter. So above and beyond that training I just talked about where I give you the slides and all that. I walk you through each of the trainings that we the each of like the four core trainings that we do for affiliates. And I walk you through, I give you the scripts in the book.
So you just copy and paste them and tweak them to fit, you know, your affiliate program. So go grab the book, I’ll make it super, super easy for you. All right, Resolution number five, I will automate affiliate onboarding. The reason for this so that no one falls through the cracks. Alright, so I want you to set up ever an evergreen onboarding funnel where you deliver the assets, you answer questions, you give welcome messages, anything like that, the stuff that you send personally.
I still want you to send personal notes by the way, but I want you to make sure that you automate affiliate onboarding. The first five to ten emails that they get, the first five to ten messages that they get are on autopilot, so no one falls through the cracks. So I want you to resolve to automate at least the first email they get by the end of January of next year or this year, whatever year you’re in, by the end of January, the end of the month that you’re in right now. Automate that first email. Number six.
I will track what actually works when I talk to other affiliate managers, especially those who have been doing it for two or less years and maybe they’re not professionals at it. There’s a lot of guessing. That’s one of the biggest differences between, one first, second year affiliate manager, someone doing it part time, and someone who is a professional affiliate manager. We don’t guess what’s working. We don’t guess which bonuses are working.
We don’t guess which emails are converting. We don’t guess what banners, what, what graphics, what ads are working. We know. We know. So this year I want you to start tracking affiliate specific performance.
Apply that data. my friend Stu McLaren so famously says, do less of what’s not working and more of what is. How can you do that if you don’t know? So I want you to resolve to track at least two major metrics with each promotion and learn from them. you don’t have to track everything to start with.
And if you say, okay, in my first promo, the one in the middle of January, I’m going to track which graphics get the most clicks and I’m going to track which, know which affiliates are using, like what bonuses. I’m just going to monitor affiliate bonuses and see which ones convert better and learn from them. And start to learn. So that when you have a conversation with an affiliate in April, you can actually say, here’s what’s been working. Again, do more of what works and less of what does not work.
Very simple. Number seven, I will refresh my program terms. Okay, what this means here is you probably haven’t looked at your affiliate terms. If your program is 10 years old, I’m, going to go out on a limit. So you probably haven’t looked at your terms in 10 years, or if you’re 4 years old in 4 years and what worked in 2025 might not work in 2026, what worked in 2022 definitely might not work in 2026.
So I want you to reassess Everything. Reassess your rules. Make sure that your program is competitive, but make sure your terms are clear. Check out Affiliate Terms wizard for, I don’t even know, 39, 40 bucks, you know, 50 bucks. Definitely less than 50 bucks.
It will review your terms if you already have some, if you don’t have some, it’ll write them for you. Takes you 5 to 10 minutes to answer some questions. There’s some things where it’s like, well, do you want to do this or this? You know, they’re personal to your program. And instead of paying an attorney 5, 6, $700 to review your program terms and make a few suggestions and things that you know, a tool, you know, an AI trained AI tool can do in, you know, 10 minutes for 50 bucks.
Instead of having to go in an attorney, it’s just, it’s right there for you and it’s done for you. Again, if you don’t have any, it’ll write them for you. And it knows, I mean we’ve trained it on hundreds and hundreds of terms, that have been written over the years for us and others. I mean I’ve spent well into six figures on attorney fees writing affiliate terms. Now m.
I don’t, you know, poor Jeremy. He’s our attorney, he no longer writes affiliate terms. We use AI to do it. So check out Affiliate Terms Wizard. Make sure you are updating your terms in 2026.
Ready to turn your passions into a profitable business? Check out my new book here!
Resolution number eight is I will offer more mid promo bonuses. Okay, so you’ve got a big promo, it’s a week long, you got a launch, it’s two week long and you’ve got a bunch of bonuses at the beginning and you got that last minute push. Those are both great and they create the V. Right? Massive sales on day one, massive sales on the final day and nothing in the middle.
Mid promo incentives can create more of a w. They can create some momentum, they can re engage some of those fence sitters in the middle of the promo. And, and from a just a purely psychological standpoint, when, as an affiliate manager, when you have, let’s just look at it on a m. M. A.
On a micro level, you got one affiliate, affiliate A and he makes 30 sales on day one and it’s a 10 day promo, even a five day promo. you know, 10 day promo. It’s like by day four he’s made 30. On day one he’s only made two more sales and he’s getting demoralized and it will hurt his sales at the end of the. Because he’s just plugging along Making one sale a day.
And it’s frustrating, but if around day four, day five, maybe from days like four through six, you do a mid promo push, it lifts his spirits. He makes 20 sales, 15 sales, and it’s like, okay, I’m making some progress. Even if you look at it from a, purely mathematical standpoint, even if all it did was move some of those last minute sales to the middle, it actually increases the last minute sales because it keeps them engaged when you need them. If you have that down, it just gets demoralizing for them. So I want you to resolve with, at least depending upon how many promotions you do, with at least 20% of your promos.
So if you do 50 this year, do this on at least 10. I want you to do some sort of mid promo bonus. So pick your longest promos. If, if all of your promos are three days, this probably isn’t as relevant. But if any of your promos are five days or longer.
So if your longest promo is five days, well then commit to doing one of these on day three, you know, at least a few times. If you do a monthly promo and they’re all one week long, then at least with three of these, I want you to do something around, you know, day four, day three, four, five, somewhere in there, right? vary them up. Some of them can be one day promos or you know, one day bonus, two day bonuses, for longer ones you could do a three day, but typically one or two works better for some of your short ones. If you got like a four day promo, then do one, you know, early on day three, but make it like four hours only.
Something that really gets people excited. Resolution number nine is I will reengage my dormant or inactive affiliates. every affiliate program has a bunch of inactive affiliates. Like if you’re lucky and you’re really good and you have a small program, you might have a 30% activation rate. You know, if you have 10 affiliates, you might have 80%, but if you’re over 100, but less than a thousand and you know you’re really good, you might have a 30% activation rate.
We want to get it to 34, 35, right, something like that. So do the things you need to do. If you need some help, I’ve got a whole, I got a bunch of stuff for you. and I’ll put a link in the show notes to how you can activate inactive affiliates. But really, it comes down to reaching out personally, asking them what’s going on, offering to help them.
Sometimes all they need is a nudge. So check out two tools. Number one, the inactive affiliates report. I’ve got that. Again, I’ll put the link in the show notes.
I don’t remember the link right now. And check out affiliate email pro mattmcwilliams.com/AEP, use those tools. It will write emails for you that will help you to activate your affiliates based on what the, like, what is it? You know, is it somebody who was active six months ago but now they’re inactive?
Is it somebody that’s never been active? Are they a, are they on Instagram? Are they heavy on Instagram and they’re inactive? Or they email and they’re inactive? What segment are they like?
Again, it manages all this. It makes it super easy to use. So check out both of those in the show notes. Number 10. I will try new promotion formats.
I’m talking giving your affiliates everything. Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts, you know, podcast stuff. Like your top affiliates might be itching and they probably are itching to try something new. So give them the freedom, give them the tools to experiment. One of the best ways to do this is to theme your month around or a week.
You know, it doesn’t have to be the entire month, but theme like a week around. Hey guys, we’re going to run a contest, the affiliate who. Every affiliate who does a YouTube short making mentioning our product, send me the link and you’re entering into a drawing and then teach them about how to do YouTube shorts. Same thing with Instagram reels. Same thing with everybody who does a podcast ad.
You know, here’s some stuff. Give them some scripts they could use to talk about you on the podcast. Even go so far as like give them an actual pre produced podcast ad where they insert it into their episode. It’s an actual ad with background music and everything, right? You know, give them, you know, talking points for how they could work in your product into a podcast.
June is podcast month and make it all about that. So resolve to try at least one new promotion method each quarter. That’s four for the year. Maybe you do one every other month. That makes six.
If you do one every month, that’s 12. But something that you’ve never tried before. That’s why I recommend every quarter because you know, that’s four. That’s a little bit easier to manage. Six is easy to manage.
Trying to come up with something new every 12 months or every month is 12 times over the years a little bit harder. You know, I mean like off the top of my head, I can’t think of eight things that I’ve never done that we would try. You know, so 12 would be really hard. But make something, you know, make just and then focus on that for a couple of months or so and run contests around that and training around that. Again, it ties back to the training.
Maybe that’s what your training is about. This quarter we’re talking all about Instagram and you train on Instagram and make it all about all the stuff around Instagram. Hey, if any sales from Instagram you earn, you know, bonuses and things like that. So one new promotion each quarter. Prediction, prediction.
Resolution number 11. You’ll see a second why I, I said prediction is I will recruit more micro influencers. Because I talked about this in the predictions episode that just released, I think one or two episodes ago. You don’t need whales to grow micro influencers like I predicted. We’re going to see a massive increase in micro influencers and the percentage of sales that they’re going to make up for affiliate programs.
Again, they’re more engaged, they’re easier to work with, they are hungry to prove themselves. Go back if you missed the episode where I talked about predictions. Not only were there some powerful predictions that you need to know about for 2026, but I talked about micro influencers and why you need them. So here’s your resolution. I want you to resolve to recruit at least 100 micro influencers in 2026, 102 a week, every week for, you know, 50 weeks and take a couple of weeks off.
So 100 micro influencers in 2026 that are hyper engaged. So not micro. Like they have seven followers, you know, more than a thousand, but less than 10,000. And they have ridiculously high engagement rates. I want you looking for a hundred of those and getting 100 of those on board in 2026.
Number 12, I will make room for co creation. What I mean by co creation is involve affiliates in the creation of your stuff. Let affiliates give feedback on your sales page. Let affiliates give feedback on bonuses, even the product itself. When people are involved, this is human nature, human psychology 101, right?
When people are involved in the creation of something, when they help shape it, they’re far more invested in selling it. So how do we co create with our affiliates? Two very simple words. You ask. You ask for their feedback.
Hey guys, we got a brand new promo coming up in three weeks and here’s the new sales page. Would love for you to take a look at it. You would be amazed at the feedback that you get like this is better than running it through any AI tool. This is better than you taking a look at it for the 75th time. These are new eyes.
And even if all they do is look at the first 10% of the page and give you feedback on the headline and you get enough of those, it is super powerful. So again, there is a use for AI in that because if I get 75 pieces of feedback, it’s a little bit hard for me to manage. And which ones should I take, which ones should I not? So I actually feed those in the AI and then I get kind of like more, what’s the word I’m looking for? Clean.
There’s a different word though. Organized. Clean and organized suggestions and thoughts. But involve them in the creation of things. I’ve talked about this so many times that one of the best ways to get them excited about stuff is just to let them in behind the scenes.
So when I was picking my book cover, for example, with turn your passions into profits, about eight months out, we had 60 or 70% of our affiliates lined up and my son is here and he just started doing the six seven, six, seven. So we had like 60 or 70% of our affiliates lined up seven or eight months out. And we were able to ask them to vote on the COVID of the book. And I told them they were the first voters. Like we had eight to 10 covers at that time.
And I was like, you guys are the first voters. Y’ all are going to help me narrow this down to like four and then we’ll open up the voting to a larger audience. And we ended up with over a thousand votes for the final covers. And that’s how I picked my cover. But the first kind of feedback was, you know, 150 to 200 affiliates who gave feedback on that, you know, that book.
And we asked like 400, but only about 150 to 200 participated and it created this co creation thing. So again, you can do this with so many different things. You know, product labeling, again, sales pages, ad copy, all that. So resolve, resolve in 2026 to find at least four ways that you can co create with affiliates. Four ways once a quarter again to co create with your affiliates.
Number 13 resolution is I will highlight affiliates publicly. Caveat if they’re okay with it. So ask them first. But if you have a newsletter, do an affiliate highlight, highlight affiliate success stories on social media webinars in your affiliate Facebook group, which we’re going to talk about in a second. This Recognition.
Just find ways to recognize affiliates. When you do your training. If you share a tip that you’ve learned from another affiliate with permission, make sure you talk about them like, this is something I noticed. We had an affiliate who promoted Stu McLaren a few years ago and I shared a post that they did. Again, I asked first, just to be clear.
I shared a post that they did and this affiliate reported back to me and said that on a normal day she gets about 20 to 25 new followers on this is the post she did on Instagram. She gets about 20 to 25 new followers on Instagram that I should say her net growth is 20 to 25 per day, meaning she might gain 30 and lose, you know, 5 to 10, but her net growth was 20 to 25 per day. And in the two days after I shared this in the, in the, with our affiliates that she added over 75 both days, meaning she had an additional, let me think, 100 followers over those two days. She got a ton out of it. You know, this was like.
And these are. The other thing is these are people who are infinitely more likely to spend money with her now. So they get something out of this recognition. It inspires others to step up too. So resolve to make this a, thing this year at least once a month, whether it’s a Facebook group post, email, whatever, share like what other affiliates are doing and highlight them publicly.
Speaking of a private affiliate, Facebook group resolution number 14 is I will start a private affiliate group. I don’t care if it’s Facebook. It could be Voxer, it could be Slack, it could be telegram. Give your affiliates a place to ask questions publicly. Give your affiliates a place where they can share wins and where you can share wins, and it becomes a multiplying effect because I’ve seen it so many times that when you open the door to affiliates sharing, then they share.
And I mentioned this, I don’t know, a couple years ago on the show, but I remember very specifically and I wish I’d kept it and I didn’t, but I remember there was a thread in this is probably 2017 or 18. There was a thread in Michael Hyatt’s affiliate Facebook group that we started where the somebody had asked a question and then, you know, one of the other affiliates answered and one of the other affiliates answered and I answered. Our team jumped in and then Jeff Walker wrote like a thousand to two thousand word response to this person. This person is an affiliate who I think ended up making like 7 sales in this promo compared To Jeff, who had over 500 sales. And he answered this question and it was like a masterclass in how to promote this product.
It was just a masterclass in affiliate marketing. And it came from Jeff Walker, who’s a legend in the industry. And it was like, oh my gosh, can you imagine being the recipient of that message? Like, I learned a lot. And everybody who read that comment, which was probably over 100 people, learned so much just from a pure financial standpoint, I guarantee you that comment, which only was possible because we had a affiliate Facebook group, that comment made us $20,000.
No doubt about it, easily made us $20,000. That comment probably made us well over $50,000 over the next couple of years because that’s how much of an impact it made. Not to mention it just made people feel amazing. And it gave more value to our affiliate program because it’s like, wow, you run the type of aff where Jeff Walker leads, leaves thoughtful comments and answers other affiliate questions versus just emailing me. And I answer it.
And not only does he only get my response, but only one person sees it. Nobody else benefits from anybody emailing or texting me. That’s the beauty of that group. And then our final resolution number 15 is I will celebrate progress, not just results. This stuff, affiliate management, it takes time to master.
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Most of you haven’t been doing this for 21 years. Most of you haven’t been doing this for 15 years or 10 years. Most of you have been doing this less than three years. So don’t just celebrate sales. Don’t just celebrate massive growth.
I want you to celebrate effort. I want you to celebrate improvement. I want you to celebrate consistency. If you do the things that I mentioned. If at the end of the year you do four trainings and you, you update your swipe copy and you update your graphics.
Like, take a moment to celebrate just releasing new graphics. Take a moment to celebrate when you engage one new Dorman affiliate. Take a moment to celebrate when you update your terms. Take a moment to celebrate when you, you know, you automate your affiliate onboarding. Because here’s the thing, if you automate the affiliate onboarding, that might save you 5, 10, 15 hours in 20, 26 that you can now get on the phone with some of your top affiliates or spend time engaging with them on social media or whatever it is.
So m celebrate those small progresses, not just the results. That’s how you build long term loyalty. And the same goes for your affiliates. Because you want to build long term loyalty, celebrate the little things that they do celebrate the effort that they make. Celebrate.
Just, Just resolve to find one reason each day to celebrate. Celebrate one affiliate. Celebrate one little success of yours. Anything, one reason each day. That’s the only thing I want you doing each day.
It’s just to celebrate something at the end of the day. Celebrate if it helps, keep a, doesn’t need to be a journal or anything fancy. Keep a sheet where you write down one success, 10 to 20 words. Doesn’t need to be anything huge. Updated our swipe copy.
John Smith made his first sale. released new affiliate terms. Did an awesome training with affiliates. Highlighted Joan Johnson’s Instagram post. That’s it, that’s, that’s five right there.
You know, like if you do one of those a day, then at the end of the year look back on it. Oh my goodness. It’s going to, change the way you look at all of this. So that is it for today. 15 powerful resolutions for affiliate managers heading into the new year.
Remember, you don’t need to do all of them, but if you do, it will completely change how your program performs in 2026. Even doing five to 10 of them will completely shift how everything goes in 2026. So maybe this is the year that you finally automate onboarding or you start building real relationships that lead to long term loyalty and results. Whatever it is, make it intentional. Make it intentional.
And this doesn’t just apply to you, it applies to affiliates. And that’s why next week, as I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be sharing the New Year’s resolutions for affiliates. So if you work with affiliates, make sure you send them to that episode when it drops. It’s a great way to help your affiliates kick off the year strong too. And make sure you listen because here’s a little tip.
Any of the episodes I do for affiliates, you should be kind of like stealing that content and sharing with them. If you don’t just send them to it, steal it and you know, and, and share it. You can kind of drip it out over the course of a few weeks, even with your affiliates. And if you got questions about anything I share today, you can text me directly at 260-217-4619. I like love to help however I can.
If this episode helped you take a second like I mentioned earlier, leave a rating and review wherever you’re listening. It helps more than you know, share it with someone who could use it. That’s another way is just share, spread the love. Make sure that other people are getting this content. And of course, make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode where I share those New Year’s resolutions for affiliates or any of the ones coming out in the New Year here.
I’ll see you then. Thank you so much for listening today. If you know someone who would benefit from hearing this episode, make sure to share it with them. And if you have a question, you can ask it at asktheaffiliateguy.com Questions make my best episode, and it’s a great way to get featured right here on the podcast.
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