How to Build an Equine Affiliate Program Horse Professionals Actually Use

By Jamie Birch, Co-Founder and CEO of EquineRevShare

“Just send me a link.”

Those six words helped inspire EquineRevShare.

Our trainer told us what our daughter needed. I trusted her judgment. I wanted to buy the right products and get on with our day.

For an equine retailer, that sounds like a pretty good situation.

A knowledgeable professional recommends your product. A customer trusts that recommendation. The customer is ready to purchase.

But building an affiliate program that supports that interaction takes more than turning on tracking and sending out an announcement.

Someone has to do the work.

In the first article in this series, I explained why equine brands should be leveraging affiliate marketing. In the second, I outlined the eight costly mistakes that cause equine affiliate programs to fail.

Now let’s talk about what to build instead.

During nearly 30 years in affiliate marketing, I’ve learned that the strongest programs grow through consistent attention to individual partners. The software matters. So do the offers, products and economics.

But someone still needs to pick up the phone.

1. Give One Person Responsibility-and Time-to Run the Program

Start by naming the person responsible for making this work.

Who recruits partners? Who welcomes them? Who answers questions when a link doesn’t work? Who gets new promotions out before the promotion starts?

Put a name next to those responsibilities.

Then give that person time, resources and the authority to solve problems.

Adding “manage the affiliate program” to someone’s already impossible workload does not magically create a functioning program. Neither does assuming the affiliate network will handle everything.

An employee, an agency or another qualified partner can manage the work. What matters is that everyone understands who owns it and what that person is expected to accomplish. If you are looking for an affiliate agency that can really grow your acquisitions, check out JEBCommerce.com.

That includes activity before the sale: recruiting relevant partners, helping them get started, supporting recommendations and removing obstacles.

Sales are the result of that work.

2. Recruit for Customer Fit and Purchasing Influence

Before you recruit anyone, define the customer you want to reach.

What discipline are they involved in? What do they buy? What questions do they ask before buying? Whose advice do they trust?

Then look for partners who reach those people.

That might be a trainer, farrier, publisher, creator, association or educator. Different products will call for different relationships.

A trainer with a small social following may have clients who purchase exactly what that trainer recommends. A publisher may reach thousands of people researching a specific piece of equipment. An association may have a member audience that fits your business beautifully.

Ask how the partner reaches customers and influences decisions.

Follower count alone cannot answer that question.

3. Welcome New Partners and Help Them Make the First Recommendation

An approval email should begin the relationship.

Tell the partner who to contact, how the program works, where to find products and links, and what to expect from reporting and payments.

Make the next step clear.

For a horse professional, I’d start with a product they know, trust and recommend regularly. Help them find it, create the correct link and understand how to share it when a client asks.

Walk through the process on a phone. I know, crazy, but lots of business is still done over the phone. Hard to build relationships with text only.

If the product is hard to find, the link is difficult to create or the instructions require a dictionary of marketing terms, fix those things.

Remember where this recommendation may happen.

In the arena.

At a show.

Standing next to a client’s horse.

The program needs to fit that moment.

4. Communicate Regularly and Give Partners Something Useful

Your partners should hear from you consistently.

Send them offers, coupons, top-selling products, new products, updated creative and relevant seasonal opportunities.

But give them enough information to do something with what you send.

If you’re promoting blankets, explain which products are included, when the offer starts and ends, any exclusions, and where to find the links and images.

If you have a top-selling saddle pad, tell partners what customers like about it and which riders or situations it is designed for. Give them accurate information they can use when answering questions.

Send promotions early enough that a publisher can prepare an article or an association can include the offer in its newsletter.

A reasonable starting point is a useful weekly or every-other-week partner update, with additional messages for timely opportunities. Adjust that schedule based on what your partners need.

And keep talking to people individually.

A newsletter helps keep the whole program informed. Personal conversations help you build the partnerships inside it.

5. List Your Contact Information. Yes, Even Your Phone Number.

I know. Aghast.

Give your partners your email address.

And, yes, your phone number.

Throughout my career, I’ve encouraged brands and program managers to be available. The fear is often that publishing contact information will result in an endless stream of calls and messages.

In my experience, that fear has usually been much larger than the reality.

What you do get is the opportunity to answer a question, fix a problem or hear an idea before a partner gives up and works with someone else.

Put your contact information in the welcome email, partner updates and program materials.

Then respond.

If you cannot solve something immediately, acknowledge it and tell the partner what happens next.

You are asking people to help grow your business. Make it easy for them to talk to you.

6. Build a Plan With Each Partner

An affiliate program is a collection of individual partnerships.

Manage it that way.

Attempt to schedule time with each partner so you can learn about their traffic, audience and business model. Some will want a call. Others will prefer email. Make the effort either way.

Ask what their audience needs, how they reach people, what has worked with other brands and what would help them promote your products.

Then build something together.

A trainer may need a short list of recommended products and links that are easy to send to clients.

A creator may need samples, product details and images suited to the content they produce.

A publisher may need a current product feed and enough advance notice to prepare a comparison article.

An association may need an educational resource and an offer that makes sense for its members.

The campaign, creative and promotion should fit the partner.

Agree on what each of you will do, when you will do it and when you will review the results.

You’ll learn much more from that conversation than from sending everyone the same banner and hoping for the best.

7. Make Room for Emerging Partners

This is something I care about a great deal.

Throughout my career, I encouraged new partners to try our programs. I worked with some for years before they became big.

Many became brands you would recognize today.

When they were small, we talked. We tried things. We helped them find opportunities with the brands we managed.

We grew together.

Those partners developed an affinity for the programs, the brands and the people who were willing to work with them early.

That relationship mattered.

Don’t look at someone’s audience count and reject them simply because they aren’t everything you want today.

Ask whether they reach the right people. Ask whether they are building something useful. Ask whether they are willing to learn and work with you.

You can maintain standards around relevance, quality and appropriate promotional practices while giving emerging partners a chance.

Time changes things.

The trainer starting an educational channel today may build a valuable audience over the next few years. The small publisher may become an important resource in a discipline your company wants to reach.

You cannot know who will grow. But you can decide whether your program welcomes people with potential.

People remember the brands that helped them get started.

8. Keep the Products, Links and Information Dependable

A partner can be enthusiastic about your company and still struggle to produce results if the tools fail.

Keep product information current. Maintain your feeds. Remove expired offers. Make sure links lead to the intended products.

Explain commission rates, eligible purchases, review periods and payment expectations clearly.

Test the experience yourself, including on a phone.

Can someone find the product? Can they create a link? Does the customer arrive at the right page? Can the resulting activity be reconciled in your reporting?

If a partner reports a problem, treat that feedback as valuable.

They are showing you where a recommendation may be getting lost.

9. Create a Routine You Can Repeat

Put the work on the calendar.

Each week, recruit relevant partners, follow up with new ones, send useful information and check on relationships that need attention.

Review which partners are creating activity, which have stalled and where the process is breaking down.

A partner who hasn’t produced a sale may need help finding the right product. Another may have shared links that generate clicks but no purchases. Those situations call for different conversations.

Track the steps leading to sales as well as the sales themselves.

You need to understand where people get stuck before you can help them move forward.

We’ll go deeper into measurement in the next article in this series. For now, establish a routine that helps you learn and act every week.

Where EquineRevShare Fits

We built EquineRevShare to make it easier for horse professionals to participate in this kind of program.

Instead of joining a separate program and learning another system for each retailer, a professional can search participating retailers’ products in one place, copy a trackable link and send it to a client.

For retailers, that creates a way to develop a sales channel through trusted horse professionals.

It also gives those professionals a practical way to receive credit when their recommendations lead to eligible purchases.

Retailers still have an important role: accurate product information, current feeds, dependable tracking, useful offers and responsive communication.

The easier we make the process together, the easier it becomes for a professional to help a customer buy the right product.

Start With the People

If you’re building or rebuilding an equine affiliate program, start by choosing who will own it.

Identify the partners you want to reach.

Contact them.

Learn how their businesses work.

Help them make the first recommendation, and keep helping them after that.

Some will produce quickly. Some will take time. Some may become relationships you value for years.

I’ve seen what can happen when a brand is willing to do that work.

And I’ve seen what happens when it opens a program and waits.

If your company wants to build relationships with horse professionals and grow through their recommendations, learn more about working with EquineRevShare or email me at jamie@equinerevshare.com.

Let’s talk about your products, your customers and the partners who could help connect the two.

About Jamie Birch

Jamie Birch is the co-founder and CEO of EquineRevShare and the founder of JEBCommerce, an affiliate marketing agency he later sold. During nearly 30 years in affiliate marketing, he has built, managed and repaired programs across multiple industries. Today, he combines that experience with his life as a horse owner and adult amateur to help equine retailers and horse professionals grow through trusted recommendations.