Affiliate programs offer merchants the opportunity to employ vast armies of people as their affiliates who only be paid for the results they achieve. On the other hand, the rewards for affiliates are also high. Skilled affiliate marketer can earn many thousands of dollars a month. This win-win situation has led to an explosion in the number of affiliate programs that are available to the would-be marketer. With this proliferation of opportunities has come the question: what qualities should you look for in a top affiliate program that will give you a good chance to make sustainable income?
Below are some tips that will help you to evaluate merchants and their programs to help you to avoid wasting time and money.
1. Does it have high commission rate?
It is very important that you know how much you can expect to earn from a sale. There is no point in spending time and money promoting a product that does not pay well. You could end up spending more on marketing than you are likely to make on sales.
It is probably best to stick with marketing products with a high commission value, unless you have found a niche market where you can sell vast quantities of product, and make substantial commissions on your volume of sales.
2. Does the program have high traffic?
Discover the amount of traffic the merchant’s website is already receiving. Alexa.com could be a useful tool for doing this research. If the website is ranked in the top 100,000, the merchant is getting a good volume of traffic, and there may already be too many affiliates. If it is below 500.000, it is either no good or it could just be a great opportunity to make some good income.
It is always wise to do some more research on the program if their website has a low traffic ranking. You should visit forums to find out if there are any adverse comments about the program. It will be a good idea to buy the product yourself if you can afford to. (more…)
Affiliate programs part 2 is the continuation of my last post.
I am trying to find out if the affiliate that I choose to join will also pay me for hits and impressions in conjunction with the stated commissions. It is important to me if impressions and hits are also paid, because it will add to the earnings I will get from the sales commission. I learnt that this is especially important if the program I choose to join, offers low sales to be able to hit the required ratio.
I love doing business with real people especially those who will communicate with me. What if I have questions; who do I ask? I like finding out who owns the business; to know if it is really a solid company. Know the products they are selling and the average amount they are making. The more I know about the retailer offering me the affiliate program, the easier it will be for me to know if that program is really for me and if I will promote it on my site.
I have to you a little secret, not many people know this; I actually dropped out of management school I was doing my post graduate degree. I know you are wondering why I am sharing this secret and its relevance to subject at hand. Just to let you know things like these are a bit boring to me. Take a question like: Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program? Well I found out that a single tier program will pay me only for the business I myself have generated. While a two tier program will pay me for the business, plus it will also pay me a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate I sponsor in my program. I heard that some two-tier programs will even pay small fees on each new affiliate that I sponsor. More like a recruitment fee.
Now check this out; most of these affiliate programs pays 5% - 20% is the commission. Then 01% - .05% is the amount paid for each hit. If you find a program that also pays for impressions, the amount paid is not much at all. Considering the stated figures, you will now understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is important.
I have to be familiar with the many important aspects that my chosen program should have before promoting them on your website. These are just some of the questions that needed answering first before I will enter into any affiliate program. Try to ask your affiliate program choices these questions. These can help you select the right program for your site from among the many available. The search continues and I will let you know as I try to understand this world of affiliate programs.
I found out about this affiliate summit started by Shawn collins of affiliatetips blog on his website he has some tips on video for newbie affiliates. The video below is from the affiliate summit, hope you gained some affiliate marketing tips from there.Don’t forget to come back to know more about my search.
I am trying to join an affiliate program. I am still researching the choices of program that I intend to join. If I get some feedback from the ones I have checked; that will determine which ones I will be joining.
I will like to join affiliate programs that are absolutely free of charge. I won’t want those that will charge me some dollars before I join.
I have found out that every program is different. Some issue their checks once a month, every quarter, 2 weeks. I will select the one that will suit me most in terms payment time. Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must reach in order for their checks to be issued.
I must check the affiliate hit per sale ratio. That is the average number of hits on a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This factor I learnt is extremely important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you can earn a commission from the sale. How I am supposed to do this?
Some people said that I should check how referrals from an affiliate’s site is tracked and for how long they will remain in the system. You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. Know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.
What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? My choice of an affiliate program should be able to offer detailed stats. They should be made available online anytime I decide to check on them. Checking my individual stats constantly is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales that I generate from my site. Impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor of your site. A hit is the one clicking on the banner or text links. I still have more things to find out before I can make up my mind. I will tell you those ones next time because I don’t want to bore you my friend with my affiliate search. I signed up for a click bank account yesterday but research still continues.
Posted By tyna 
Sep 3, 2008 
