I hear a lot of affiliates ask this question, wondering why their applications to some affiliate programs are declined. As an affiliate manager, there’s a lot of reasons why I might decline an application. I’m a very responsive affiliate manager, and will always answer this question when asked, however I know there are many managers out there that are, shall we say, less than stellar in the communications department. In an effort to bridge this gap, here are some things affiliates should consider when their applications are declined.

Are my website URLs correct?
I’ve seen instances where affiliates have misspelled their domain names accidentally, added an extra http://, left off the extension (.com? .net?). Many affiliate managers are, of course, savvy enough to just omit the extra http:// or try adding the .com to see if a website comes up, but I know some are not so diligent, so it’s best that you make checking your websites as easy as possible for the affiliate manager.

Have I been declined a lot?
There may be a bigger issue at hand, like your website’s hosting company being down or your pages not loading correctly. If you’re experiencing a lot of declined applications, you should check to ensure that all your sites are up and running and displaying properly. Try viewing your website in different browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, etc) to see if something isn’t loading correctly. Some affiliate programs are very sensitive to the content and look of a site where their advertisements will potentially be seen.

Do I have any unprofessional or questionable content on my website?
Some brands are much more sensitive when it comes to the content on a website where their ad will appear. For example, the Apple Store has very strict guidelines relating to website content and where you can and cannot place the banner advertisements for the Apple Store. Larger brands tend to have more guidelines regarding their advertising, and may choose to decline you if your websites do not convey a likewise professional image that is on par with the brand. You can consider changing your website, removing the possibly unprofessional content, or finding an alternative merchant with more lenient standards on the website content.

Are all my websites listed in my profile?
Of course, some networks like Linkshare and Google Affiliate Network give you a separate profile to apply per website, so this isn’t necessarily a blanket issue. But in other networks, this may be a detriment not to list all your sites. Often affiliate managers are checking the affiliate’s websites and looking for a good niche or category fit. If you’re applying for a sports gear affiliate program and only have your knitting website listed, the affiliate manager may not see a good fit and choose to decline you. Having all your websites listed shows the affiliate manager that you work in different verticals and they can see more potential for appropriate promotions. Personally, I don’t know why an affiliate would ever not list a website unless it was less than ethical, but please comment if you have a good reason for not listing all websites.

I’m sure there are hundreds of other individual reasons why you might be declined. Some affiliate managers really check content for a good niche fit, while others allow multiple categories in. It all ultimately depends on the merchant and if their product would appeal to a wider audience or a more narrow audience of customer. Always attempt to reach out to the affiliate manager if you’ve been declined for a program you really want to promote. Most of the time you should receive some kind of response, either explaining why you were declined or giving you a chance to promote the program.

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I’ve already talked long ago of how awesome I think Entrecard is.  Any free traffic source is great, let alone a free advertising medium as well.  A couple weeks ago, they got even more awesome in my eyes with the launch of their Entrecard Toolbar.

Similar to what SiteHoppin’ was offering, Entrecard has taken it upon themselves to offer a tool to allow EC users to jump from blog to blog within different categories to see what else is out there – and efficiently drop your EC card to receive credits.  I really enjoy being able to use the “Next Ten Sites” button within the toolbar to have 10 tabs open up in Firefox and be able to wander through them as I desire.

Yes, it’s great for effectively dropping ECs, but I’ve always said that I actually LIKE going around to different blogs and checking out their content, site design, what ads they’re running, etc.  So this serves that purpose as well.

This is a screen shot of my toolbar right now – I just went and spent all my saved EC’s on ads so I’m starting from scratch.  It doesn’t take up a lot of room at all, and offers you different choices of category to browse within and different ways to order the results: Most popular, Newest, Cheapest, Most expensive, Most advertised, and Random.  The final benefit – and best – is that while you’re surfing these blogs the toolbar updates to tell you how many ECs an ad on that site costs, if you already have an advert in the queue for that site, and allows you to purchase adverts by clicking on the button that shows the price.  You can also add the blog to your favorites site by clicking on the heart.

The only downside to the toolbar is that it’s a toolbar.  Sounds weird, I know, but what I mean is that I have two other toolbars and I can’t toggle this one on or off like the StumbleUpon toolbar to save screen space.  This isn’t a problem for me, but currently the toolbar only runs on Firefox 3 as an add-on, so anyone still using Internet Explorer to switching over to Google’s new browser Chrome will have to do things the old fashion way!  This is the first release of the toolbar with a second beta release out now, so hopefully in future releases they’ll address the browser compatibility issue.

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