In my last article, Newbies Guide to Online Affiliate Marketing, I showed you how to promote affiliate links on your website. In this article, I am going to show you how to go about Choosing Your Affiliate Programs Wisely.
Affiliate marketing programs have rose in popularity in the past few years because it is one of the cheapest, fastest and easiest ways to start an online home business easily with out much risk.
There are many bloggers and internet marketers out there making hundreds and thousands of dollars daily, weekly and monthly but in order to succeed they had to work hard in building their site, their viewers, and promoting merchants products.
But when it comes down to it, there's a lot of questions you should try to get answered before jumping in and start placing links on your website. Some of them are
- How do you go about choosing the right affiliate program for you?
- What qualities should you look for in a program
- and which gives you a good chance of making a decent income?
- LinkShare One of the largest affiliate network, with over 10 million affiliate partnerships. LinkShare has over 2,500 affiliate programs to choose from with top merchants like 1-800-Flowers, Ashley Furniture, and many others
- Commission Junction The largest affiliate marketing network in North America with all the top merchants available to partner with.
- ShareASale ShareASale is another large affiliate network that has over 2,500 merchant programs and features brands such as HootSuite and PS Print.
- Amazon Associates This is
one of the largest and most diverse affiliate programs available. This is one of the best programs available because you are able to promote just about anything on their website and easily your website or blog.
What Type of Products Can You Promote?
A good sign that the affiliate program you are looking into is a a decent one is to see what products they allow you to promote. Is the product related to a current trend? Do they have products related to your website? Is it just one product or many different products you can promote? These are some of the question you should ask yourself and find out when you are looking at the type of products any affiliate program has to offer.
What Type of Product is best For Your Site?
Sometimes choosing one affiliate program over the next might be beneficial for you depending on the type of site you have and the products that they may allow you to promote. Obviously if you want to promote consumer products and want a large variety of choices, then the best choice may be signing up with amazon associates. Choose the best program that has the best products you can promote on your site.
How Much Commissions Does the Program Pay?
It is very important that you know how much you can expect to earn from each sale. There is no point in spending time and money promoting a product that pays very small commissions. If you use a paid marketing strategy, you could end up spending more on marketing than you 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.
How Much Traffic is their Website Getting?
To find out how much traffic a merchants site is getting, you can use Alexa.com which is a very useful tool for doing this research. Once a merchants website is ranked in the top 100,000, the merchant is getting a good volume of traffic, so it’s possible that there may already be too many affiliates and the niche is filled with competitors. If it is ranked below 500,000 it may be no good, or it could be a golden opportunity to make some real money by becoming one of the first affiliates!
Always research a merchant’s product if their website has a low traffic ranking. It may be a good idea to buy the product yourself if you can afford it to give a more technical review. Otherwise you could do a search to find out if there are any negative reviews about it on the internet. Be careful who you listen to though because many people are in the habit of bashing affiliate programs with nothing to really support their comments. If you find a large amount of negative reviews with little positive ones then it would probably be a good idea to stay away from that affiliate program.
How Often Are Affiliate Commissions Paid?
Some affiliate programs pay commissions every week; some once a month, others only pay every quarter. It is important that you know how often you can expect a pay check if you are going to have financial control over your business. Do you have the financial resources to continue to market a product if you have to wait a long time before you get paid? It would also be wise to find out the minimum commission that you have to earn before you get paid.
Does The Affiliate Program Use Tracking Cookies?
Many customers do not buy on their first visit to a merchant’s website. It is important therefore that the merchant uses cookies for their affiliate program, so that you get credit if the customer returns and buys at a later date. Check out how long the cookies last. The longer the cookies lasts; the better the chances of you getting paid!
Does the Affiliate Program Pay on Subsequent Sales?
Some programs will only pay commission on sales that come through customers visiting their site via a direct link from your site. They pay you nothing for any subsequent purchases that the customer makes if they visit the merchants site directly. It is important that you get paid no matter what route the customer returns by if you are to build a sustainable affiliate business. This is the example that I was explaining in Newbies Guide to Online Affiliate Marketing, about Amazon paying you for any purchase a customer makes once they clicked through from your site.
What Marketing Resources Does the Affiliate Program Offer?
Look at the type and quality of the marketing resources that they provide. Do they provide articles, advertisements, or other content that you can use to put on your site? Do they provide free guides, special offers, free viral e-books, or product samples that you can send to your list? If the marketing material they provide is good then it is likely that the business will provide good support for their affiliates. Many of the top affiliates programs have a network or a forum where other affiliates and online marketers discuss solutions, problems, tips and more. The key is to do your research first to see the type of program you will be signing up with.
Finding the right affiliate program for you can be tough to do. The best advice is to do your own research, follow the advice above, and listen to your instincts. Use the above questions as an aid to finding an affiliate program that enables you to reach your financial goals. You never know… You might just strike affiliate marketing gold!
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