Trading and investing in cryptocurrency is not the only way to profit from it. Bitcoin and other crypto affiliate programs can be exceptionally lucrative too. With the variety of crypto projects these days, affiliates have a wide choice of programs to join. However, with abundance comes perplexity: how does one choose the best crypto affiliate program? What affiliate program pays the most? How to avoid getting scammed by an affiliate program?
Let’s roll with some hand-picked tips.
Tips for choosing the best crypto affiliate program
As an icebreaker, let’s recap what an affiliate program is.
An affiliate program is a type of marketing activity launched by a company to increase its customer base, net sales, or turnover with the help of affiliates — partners who promote the company’s products for a commission.
So, since the whole affiliate model is based on referring users to it, let’s start with the basics.
- Recommend products that you use yourself
If you’re a crypto enthusiast, you’re probably already using products that have affiliate programs. In the long run, there’s nothing more important in business than trust and the crypto business is no exception. Promoting products that you use yourself demonstrates integrity and grants you trust from your users, not to mention that promoting a great product just feels different.
One of the examples is an instant crypto exchange. This is one of the most convenient ways to buy crypto for fiat money or swap coins, and services like this often launch their affiliate programs to increase the number of transactions.
For instance, ChangeNOW, an instant crypto exchange, has one of the most profitable and easy-to-use affiliate programs on the market. It has a great balance of payout rates, clear conditions and versatility of tools for affiliates of all levels of expertise. Whether you’re a social media influencer, a blogger, a website owner or simply an enthusiast willing to share your knowledge with some friends, with the ChangeNOW affiliate program, you’ll be able to create a passive revenue stream.
- Research new products: take time out to evaluate
If a new product shows up on the market and starts an aggressive promotion campaign, e.g. pushes the boat out with their payouts, don’t rush in but rather take a time-out for evaluation. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a dubious product but you do need to check online reviews, ask around in the crypto community or have a “test-drive”. Don’t forget that by promoting products as an affiliate, you take all the reputational risks upon yourself.
- Choose in-house programs for higher payouts and management for a safer experience
An important point for any affiliate program is who runs it. It can be operated in-house; if an exchange service starts its own program or is managed by an affiliate network like CJ Affiliate. In-house programs usually provide higher payouts (as there’s no middle man) but affiliate networks know the ropes about working with crypto offers and can provide the support you need.
- Expect clear conditions
If you’re working with an in-house program, first and foremost, check its description. Are the conditions clear to you? Do you like the page, does it look appealing enough to participate in? These questions may seem trivial but the amount of work the company puts into attracting affiliates correlates with how they do business. If the conditions are unclear, if something doesn’t make sense to you or you can’t figure out how much you will be making, that’s a bad sign.
- Research the platform: tools for affiliates, statistics, help with marketing collateral
Before you start referring people to the product, check out the interface of the affiliate platform. There are several things to look for:
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- Referral tools. Referral links are not the only way to refer users to the program. Depending on the product you’re promoting, there can be banners, widgets and even API code to integrate a service into your app or platform.
- If the program helps with the marketing collateral (banners, social media images, etc.) that’s a nice touch.
- Analytics. It should always be clear how much money you’re going to make. If the platform (affiliate profile, a dashboard – call it whatever you prefer) doesn’t have a page to monitor your performance (users attracted, deposits, transactions. Etc.), chances are, you won’t get what you were promised.
So, these are the things that you’ll need at hand once you get into the affiliate business: a simple tool to generate referral links, an analytics tool to monitor your progress and revenue, and a responsive support service (ideally, a personal affiliate manager). Using the example from before, the ChangeNOW affiliate platform has it all. It allows you to generate reflinks, design buttons, or customize exchange widgets for a site – whatever referral tool is most convenient for your audience. Plus, the statistics page is updated online so you’ll always have a clear picture of where your earnings are coming from.
- Research the payouts
Check out the program’s payout model thoroughly. If the company offers a shared commission, learn how this commission is calculated. Sometimes, companies offer signing bonuses for new promising affiliates. Check it before you start. The more options the company has, the better.
- Ref tiers. How often do conditions change?
Affiliate programs have requirements for participation which should be clearly stated in the program conditions. Often, this involves the number of followers on social media, previous experience in affiliate marketing, or the number of users an affiliate can refer per month.
These factors not only affect your eligibility for the program but also determine your compensation tier. It is quite common for affiliate programs to motivate their affiliates for better performance by setting a progressive compensation scale. In a nutshell, better rates will be applied to calculate your revenue.
- Research penalties
Many affiliate programs, especially from bigger companies, deny incentivized traffic and apply penalties to affiliates who try to tamper with the program. For example, you can’t invite users to use the product in exchange for a share of your affiliate profits. Check out the penalties that the company can impose — they are usually specified in the Terms and Conditions.
- Analyze your traffic (stable/not stable, cold/warm)
Make sure to analyze your traffic. Who are the people that you’re going to be referring to the program? Where will you find them? How loyal is this audience?
For example, if you own a blog with several thousand readers, this audience might be engaged but still a little cautious. Thus, programs with the requirement of a high first deposit might seem like too much of a commitment. Instead, these users might be interested in making crypto swaps so installing an exchange widget on one of your pages will be a good idea.
If you’re an admin of a crypto community on social media, for instance, a Telegram channel or a Facebook group, your audience might be warmer and ready for products with a higher entrance bar, e.g. crypto exchanges.
- Check out the support service
Try to contact the support team or an affiliate manager if the program provides you with one and answer the following questions:
- Are they responsive? How fast do they reply?
- Do they speak your language?
- Are they friendly?
- Are they helpful?
- Are they flexible in helping you solve your issue?
A reliable program trains managers to hold your hand along the way from registration to troubleshooting issues on the platform. If this is the case with your program, that means they are interested in seeing their affiliates prosper.
The bottom line is, if you’re not getting the assistance during a test call, imagine contacting them on a more pressing matter.
Look out for the red flags
If you have been in the crypto space for a while, you have probably heard stories of fraud and digital heists. With that being true, the times when crypto was the wild west of finance are long gone. However, if you’re about to participate in a crypto affiliate program, just keep the following red flags in mind. These are some things you DON’T want in your affiliate program:
- Conditions and payouts that are too good to be true. What they say about free cheese and where to find it — that fully applies here. Crypto companies that launch affiliate programs operate on the same market, which means the conditions may differ but within the margins of common sense. It is highly unlikely that one program offers 30% in commission and another 300%.
- Little information online about the project or the existing information being too positive or coming solely from the project owner. This is just shady so avoid joining programs like this. At best, you won’t get paid for your hard work. At worst, your users will lose money and you’ll risk your reputation.
- Vague condition description. If the company is being vague about how they are going to pay you, what their goal (and your CPA) is, or how the reward is compensated
- Payouts in internal tokens only. Although it might be convenient for the program owners, it’s not as convenient for affiliates.
- Unprofessional customer support/affiliate managers. Once you start driving traffic to the program, you may face issues that will require assistance. If the support team is not responsive, there is no need to waste your time on it. There are hundreds of more professional programs out there. Moreover, an affiliate manager should be able to consult you on the types of traffic the program accepts, the best approaches to promoting the project or even help with creatives for your campaign. A decent affiliate program always provides these things.
Wrapping up
When signing up to promote another company’s products, ensure you’re working with a trusted partner. There are tons of crypto affiliate programs on the market and that’s a good thing. Competition cultivates higher levels of service and the more affiliate programs compete with one another for affiliates, and ultimately new users, the more convenient conditions they provide. Do your due diligence and with the right approach to driving traffic, you’ll end up with a substantial passive revenue stream.
Disclaimer: This is a paid post and should not be treated as news/advice.
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