4 Key Reasons to Provide Your Affiliates with Swipe Copy
Getting affiliates to join your affiliate program is one thing. Getting them to actually promote your offer… well, that’s a whole other ball game and one that swipe copy is a key player in.
Whether you have an online course, an eCommerce store, a SaaS subscription, or even a video game to sell, when someone signs up to your affiliate or referral program, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to actually promote your offer.
That’s where swipe copy comes in.
But what IS swipe copy in regards to affiliate marketing?
Affiliate swipe copy is pre-written content that you provide to your affiliates to help them promote your offer. This can include things like email newsletters, social media posts, personal DMs, etc - it’s, essentially, done-for-them content that they can take & tweak.
In this post, we’ll walk you through the four main reasons to spend time crafting swipe copy for your affiliates. Plus, you can get a list of other promotional assets you can create to help your affiliates share your offer and get their links out into the world!
Keep reading to learn more!
Consistent messaging across your affiliate promotions
In an affiliate program, you can have a wide range of people promoting your offers: sharing to a variety of people, across many platforms, and talking about your offer in different ways.
This is all great stuff - after all, isn’t your affiliate program all about reaching new people? - buuut there can be some downsides to lots of different people promoting the same offers if they aren’t given any guidance on how to do so.
For example, an affiliate could share incorrect information about what’s included in your online course, or a content creator could tell their audience that your product is all about X when it’s actually all about Y and they got things mixed up.
By writing swipe copy, you can retain an element of creative control over how your affiliates position your offer & refer you to their clients, customers, communities, and connections.
This means you can:
better control how your offer is positioned to potential new leads, clients, and customers
ensure your affiliates are sharing accurate information about your offer
help your affiliates better understand how to position your offer to their audience
create consistent messaging among your affiliates, so people across multiple affiliate audiences will see the same brand message again and again
Shows your affiliates that you care
Providing swipe copy isn’t just about maintaining control over your brand's message or increasing leads & conversions, it's also about showing your affiliates that you are supporting them and you care about their success. Here’s how:
Makes it easier for your affiliates. Your affiliates already have lives (& maybe businesses) of their own and promoting your offer takes time and effort. When you provide swipe copy, even if you’re making things even a smidge faster and a touch easier for your affiliates, it’s worth it. When you make promoting your offer as easy as possible, your affiliates have less of a barrier to get them to actually share their links - and swipe copy is a huge part of that!
Saving your affiliates time. By supplying ready-to-use content to your affiliates, you’re saving them a loooot of time. Instead of spending time drafting emails or social media posts from scratch, they can focus on what they do best—connecting with their audience and driving sales!
Building meaningful relationships. When affiliates feel supported and valued, they’re more likely to develop a strong, long-term relationship with your brand. This leads to better collaboration, increased brand loyalty, and ultimately, more successful promotions with your affiliates.
Makes it easier for your affiliates to promote
Affiliates are more likely to share your offer if they don't have to start from scratch. Even your most engaged affiliates can struggle with what to say or how to say it. Swipe copy gives them a template that they can personalise, saving them from the dreaded blank Google Doc and creating content from nothing.
High-quality swipe copy also includes positioning ideas and key selling points that a) affiliates might not think of on their own and b) you will be much likely to be privy to as the main seller of your offer. This helps your affiliates to better communicate the value of your offer to their audience, even when they don’t want to copy & paste your swipe copy directly.
Swipe copy can also help keep affiliates compliant by including necessary disclosures and disclaimers, ensuring that they follow legal and regulatory requirements without having to worry about the details. Keeping it as easy as possible for your affiliates to get promoting without any extra barriers.
Great swipe copy can increase affiliate performance
When you provide well-crafted swipe copy, you're not just making life easier for your affiliates; you're also setting them up for success as high-converting swipe can help affiliates get more leads & sales for you.
By using messaging that you’ve previously tested, optimised, and proven to convert, you’re more likely to:
resonate with your affiliates’ audiences
drive more clicks to your affiliates’ links
and generate more leads for your offers
You can also make sure to include everything you need to in your swipe, instead of relying on affiliates to fit in all of the most important bits. This means affiliates don’t have to guess what to include or accidentally leave out critical details of your offer, including things like cart close dates, limited-time bonuses, or features you want to highlight.
Providing swipe copy that actually converts into clicks to your site will result in more sales for your affiliates, which will build up more trust in your affiliate program & your brand! (Psst: affiliates who make sales tend to keep recommending your offers for longer. Who knew? 😉)
Get your $0 Promotional Assets Creation List
Swipe copy is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to providing promotional assets to your affiliates. To help you further, we’ve created a comprehensive project plan that details all the things you can create to help your affiliates and referral partners promote your offer(s).
This plan includes:
a list of everything you could create
a description & tag for each item
status & due date fields
and is available in a Google Sheet or Notion format for you to duplicate and use for your own affiliate program.
