I went to Linkshare today in search of their affiliate agreement (was curious about how the different networks looked at forced clicks). Usually the fastest path to a network affiliate agreement is to click join. They’re almost always worked into the join form in one way or another and the join form is ALWAYS easy to find. Right?

So I visited Linkshare today and… Umm… Where the crap is the join link? Scan, scan, scan, nope, not a single join link anywhere in site. You have to actually mouse over the word ”Publishers” in the top nav. Doing so triggers a hidden menu to drop down, finally revealing the golden join link.

Feeling like Indiana Jones, I click and… Still no. Okay, now I’m getting cross. Instead of the join form I’m expecting I get yet another join link. Didn’t I just click the join link? Groundhog Day then?

Click.

Oh, for the love of Mike! Is Linkshare trying to avoid my application altogether?!?!

Instead of that elusive join form, this time I land on an error page telling me that my application could not be processed and to reconfigure my browser’s security settings if I’m having any trouble.

Linkshare, rather than ask this thread’s title question again, here’s my free consult of the day:

Keep it simple. This isn’t, and should never be, rocket science. Plain links, plain HTML forms, easy peasy, lemon squeazy. You’ll get more affiliates and make more money.

You have two goals; get your current affiliates in the door to the marketing tools and recruit new affiliates. Get in either’s way too much and you’ve lost them. I speak from experience. You lost me years ago just by making it harder for me to login (hint to Shareasale, I still don’t like the new login).

Lastly, think for a second. Is telling a potential new affiliate that they need to reset their security settings to work with you really the message you want to send? First impressions tend to last.