I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. What are affiliate programs looking for when you sign up? How do you get approved?
Are you providing them with the website you're going to promote on? Can you please provide more information on what you're providing them? We might be able to help if we know what more.
Are they looking for a high-traffic website? I have websites, but I'm planning on using Facebook to drive traffic to the affiliate offer. Do I have to lie and show them my high-traffic website to get approved?
No, they don't necessarily look for websites with high traffic. I've gotten accepted with a brand new site that I hadn't put out there, so it was definitely not a high traffic website . But most affiliate programs do require that you provide a website that you're going to advertise on. You should always tell the truth and never lie. Are you telling them that you want to use Facebook as your form of advertising?
Yes, and I do see a lot of people doing that (using Facebook ads to advertise their affiliate offers).
better to contact them via phone call and explain how will you promote them.. you need a website , it doesnot matter how much traffic you have on your website but your website must be appear either professional or high traffic.
Can it be any website I own? Because essentially I will join the affiliate program to SEARCH for offers, right?
yup almost any website! better to have a website in hot niches (Auto, Cellphones[ringtones,sms], Gaming, Music , Health ) for easy approval .. Try to write some unique articles using longtail keywords so that you can get higher rank and decent traffic too. I Hope this will help.
Use your highest-traffic website as the referral (make sure it's above board) and call them, don't wait for them to call you. Make sure you sound confident about your traffic driving strategies and future growth plans.
No need to lie any reasonable website will be met with approval, as already mentioned here, I think this is just to weed out some scammers and spammers, Facebook is no problem either as it's ppc, mention only that you will be using approved methods, as some things are frowned upon with some networks, and any kind of email campaign usually requires prior approval. I suppose nowadays there are so many marketers the various networks can afford to pick and choose, depending on what you want to promote you could try plimus.com, they should accept you no problem. Hope this helps.
It's best if you CALL them directly and explain you are going to promote their offers using facebook. I was initially rejected by several cpa networks until I called them on the phone. Frankly, they appreciate pro-active publishers who're serious about working with them.
Make sure your niches work with theirs. Let them know what types of offers you promote. Let them know where you run traffic. Provide a referral, if you have one. And of course, be honest!