Affiliate Advertising for Recruitment Agencies: Results, Process and Recommended Networks [2026]

In attracting candidates for a recruitment agency, affiliate advertising is effective, but it is fiddly to start and therefore easy to put off.

This article is for recruitment agencies that

are considering affiliate advertising
are looking at ways to attract candidates beyond scouting and Indeed
want to know how effective affiliate advertising is

and it explains both the effect and how to go about it.

(Material for recruitment agencies) A strategy for recruiting through affiliates

1. What affiliate advertising is

Affiliate advertising is a form of web advertising.
Advertising conducted between three parties: the advertiser, the service provider and the publisher

It works as follows.

1. A publisher (an affiliate) places a link to the advertiser’s service on their own blog or website
2. A reader of that blog or site follows the link and buys something on the advertiser’s site
3. The publisher receives a payment from the advertiser based on the number of purchases

An affiliate service provider stands between advertiser and publisher, connecting the many publishers out there with advertisers smoothly.

2. What affiliate advertising means for a recruitment agency

When a recruitment agency runs affiliate advertising, it places links to its own service on the media candidates read, aiming to have them register..

For example, an article titled something like The top recruitment agencies for people in their twenties is the kind that candidates keen to move jobs often read.

Ranking articles of that kind appear on the first page of Google and Yahoo! for searches such as recruitment agency ranking, and a great many publishers write them.

The aim is to have your own registration page placed on the media that carry the articles people keen to use an agency are likely to search for and read, and so increase registrations.

Besides recruitment agency ranking, other terms worth aiming at include

best recruitment agency
recruitment agency reputation
recruitment agency reviews

Articles appearing for these are likely to be read by candidates and are searched for often, which makes them worth targeting. Connecting through affiliate advertising with the media that carry such articles can bring a large number of registrations.

(Material for recruitment agencies) A strategy for recruiting through affiliates

3. How effective affiliate advertising is for a recruitment agency

There are four main benefits for a recruitment agency.

1. The volume it can bring is large
2. It has lasting value
3. It pays on results
4. It counters poor reviews

3.1 The volume it can bring is large

Among the recruitment agencies we support, some receive more than 1,000 candidate registrations a month through affiliate advertising..

An article ranking first for best recruitment agency is read tens to hundreds of thousands of times a month,
and of those, several hundred register with a single agency.

That is how effective it is to have a link to your site on a term such as best recruitment agency.

In a major life decision such as changing or finding a job, people want third-party information: recommendations, rankings, reviews.
Affiliate advertising is a way of attracting candidates that rests on exactly that need.

3.2 It has lasting value

The second benefit is lasting value.

By that we mean
candidates keep coming without further work
it does not suddenly disappear
and even where it does not lead to a registration, it builds awareness
.

The other ways a recruitment agency attracts candidates, scouting, Indeed, search advertising, need a certain amount of ongoing work and updating before they produce results. That is, they take internal resource.

Affiliate advertising, by contrast, generally keeps bringing candidates with almost no further work once the listing is up..

And because a publisher rarely disappears suddenly, it is unusual for the flow to stop from one day to the next.

What is more, being listed means candidates see your name even where they do not register, which builds awareness.

3.3 It pays on results

The third is that it pays on results.

With affiliate advertising you can set the conditions under which a registration through a publisher is charged for, and you pay only for registrations meeting them.

Examples of charging conditions

Chargeable
People aged 20 to 29
People wanting to work in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama or Chiba

Not chargeable
More than one application from the same household
Those who cannot be reached by email or telephone
Incomplete entries, pranks and duplicates
Those with no intention of using the service
Breaches of the search advertising rules

You cannot set conditions that put the publisher at an unreasonable disadvantage, but within reason you can set them, and unlike other advertising, which requires spending up front, you pay only against results..

3.4 It counters poor reviews

The fourth is that it counters poor reviews.

As affiliate advertising progresses, your information appears not only for terms such as recruitment agency ranking but in articles that come up for searches such as your company name plus reputation.

Such media are strong at ranking well, so they come to occupy the top of the results when someone searches
your company name plus reputation.

So even if a site or social post criticising you appears, the affiliate media, which also write positively, occupy the top of the results and the criticism is less prominent.

(Material for recruitment agencies) A strategy for recruiting through affiliates

4. How to go about affiliate advertising

Here is how to proceed in concrete terms.

The broad flow is as follows.

1. Prepare a landing page for acquisition
2. Choose an affiliate service provider
3. Sign with them
4. Set the payment per result and the charging conditions, and prepare banners
5. Working with your contact at the provider, increase the number of publishers carrying you
6. When a registration comes in, sort whether it is one you pay for
7. Adjust the payment per result, negotiate with publishers, and raise or lower the volume

4.1 Prepare a landing page for acquisition

Being listed means placing a link to your own site, and we recommend that the link goes to a landing page built for acquisition.

Rather than a page with other links on it, like a corporate site, a landing page built for acquisition with the highest registration rate maximises the effect.

4.2 Choose an affiliate service provider

In short, there are seven providers a recruitment agency should consider.

Pricing of each provider

Name		Set-up fee	Monthly fee	Notes
A8	Fan Communications	¥50,000	¥36,300*	An additional 30% of the monthly results payment applies For example, at 10,000 yen per result with 20 approved in a month, the results payment is 200,000 yen, plus a further 30% of that, 60,000 yen.
afb	For-it	¥50,000	¥40,000	–
Access Trade	Interspace	¥50,000	¥40,000	–
ValueCommerce	ValueCommerce	¥50,000	¥50,000	–
Medipartner	Optimizer ※PR	Free	Free	–
Presco	Segment	Free	Free	–
Rentracks	Rentracks	Free	Free	–

Each has its own network of publishers, and signing with more of them raises the chances of connecting with more publishers.
Some publishers work with several providers, so there is overlap.

That said, as the table shows, some providers carry a cost, so the contracts need weighing carefully.

In short,

where the budget for affiliate advertising is under two million yen
sign with Medipartner, PRESCO and Rentracks

where it is over two million yen
sign with all seven

is what we recommend.

A8 has one of the largest networks of publishers in Japan and can bring the most registrations, so it is worth considering first.
And because Medipartner, PRESCO and Rentracks charge neither a set-up fee nor a monthly fee, there is no risk and nothing to lose in signing with them from the outset.

4.3 Sign with the providers

Next, complete the contracts with the providers you have chosen.
Enquire through their service pages and follow the process they set out.

4.4 Set the payment per result and the charging conditions, and prepare banners

The things to prepare with particular care are
the payment per result, the charging conditions and the banners..

The right payment per result changes with the going rate at the time.
So tell your contact at the provider, who understands the market, how many registrations a month you want and the maximum cost per registration you have set internally, and agree a figure that works for you.

Set the charging conditions with your contact, using the examples below, according to the kind of candidate you want.

Examples of charging conditions

Chargeable
People aged 20 to 29
People wanting to work in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama or Chiba

Not chargeable
More than one application from the same household
Those who cannot be reached by email or telephone
Incomplete entries, pranks and duplicates
Those with no intention of using the service
Breaches of the search advertising rules

Banners are needed in many sizes, to suit the various formats publishers use.
Discuss the design with your contact; preparing the sizes in the figure above will generally cover every provider.

4.5 Working with your contact, increase the number of publishers carrying you

Once the contracts and the initial settings are done, you move on to being listed, and this part is generally handled by your contact at the provider.

But the following do help them find publishers, so they are worth doing.
Share material and information about your service
Raise the payment per result by 2,000 to 3,000 yen at the outset only
Give them a list of the publishers you would like to appear on
　Find those publishers from the search terms that suit you

4.6 When a registration comes in, sort whether it is one you pay for

Having done all of the above, it takes roughly one to two months before registrations actually begin.

When they do, you need to sort each month which registrations qualify for payment, against the charging conditions.

That is easily done in the provider’s console, which you can log into once the contract is in place.

4.7 Adjust the payment per result, negotiate with publishers, and raise or lower the volume

Once registrations are coming in, you keep running it.

What you can mainly do is control the payment per result in line with the going rate.
Raise it temporarily when you want more candidates, lower it when you want fewer, adjusting finely.

We recommend meeting your contact regularly to understand the current rate and the rate needed to hit your target.

For publishers already carrying you, check one by one the wording and banners they use to describe your service; you can also ask them, through your contact, to change the wording where you think another version would bring more registrations.
Each of those changes affects the registration rate, so we recommend that someone who knows your service well checks the wording.

5. In closing

We hope that was useful.
To recap, there are five points.

1. For a recruitment agency, affiliate advertising is an effective way to win candidates through the web

2. Affiliate advertising
The volume it can bring is large
It has lasting value
Because it pays on results, the return tends to be good
It counters poor reviews
are its advantages

3. In going about it, we recommend signing first with Medipartner, PRESCO, Rentracks and A8

4. After signing, following your contact’s instructions brings actual registrations within one to two months

5. Rather than leaving everything to your contact, taking an active part in what you can do yourself matters

For recruitment agencies we support bringing affiliate advertising in-house, and run it on their behalf..
If that interests you, do get in touch below.

Thank you for reading to the end.