Affiliate programs

5 Tips For Affiliates Programs Newbies

2010-09-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

Affiliate programs is the starting place for a big majority of home entrepreneurs and beginners in Internet Marketing, because of the small amount of work involved.There is some elements that you must absolutely look for before you start promoting an affiliate product...

Tip #1. Promote a unique product to get better results.

Promoting a product which is already being sold by hundreds or affiliates will not give you the same results as if you have a unique proposition. A different product that only some affiliates distribute. That kind of program is a little bit difficult to find because it is not in the interest of the merchant to do so in the short term.

Tip #2. Powerful and effective affiliates tools.

When you are ready to promote, you may be lost if you are new to affiliates marketing. Actually, most of the beginners take months to make their first sale, because the merchant doesn't help them in their hard work. So be sure to find a powerful and clear affiliates resource section. That will skyrocket your chances of success. Also, a good communication with the merchant is hard to find, but it is a must. Try to find these resources, or some of them.

Tip #3. Example of effective resources:

Brandable ebooks to give away or sell at a little price with your own affiliate ID links to generate leads... and sales.
Sales letters provided.
Templates of the emails to send to your list(s), pre-writen email or even better.
Free promotional tips provided, to make money without spending thousands in the beginning (a must for beginners)
Advices and tips for paid promotional techniques (don't loose all your money in something that don't bring results).
Redirect links through your own website. For example: http://slobinitiketi.blogspot.com/
Banners

Tip #4. Good Tracking software.

It is a very important part. You must be able to monitor almost everything in your resources section: you must be able to track your sales, how many visitors came to your site and to the merchant site, by which page they enter to the merchant site(here is the importance of the redirect links).
You must be able to view your payment history, and also how many people signed up underneath you if it is a two tiers affiliate program.

Tip #5. Cookies plus IP addresses.

Today, it is a common practice by Internet users to clear their cookies daily or weekly. So if you spend money on PPC or any other paid advertising to get a customer, you do not want to see another affiliate get the commission you should have received. So try to choose an affiliate program with a tracking software which take also the IP address of your future customer. By the way, recurring commissions are a must.

Last but not least, try to find associate programs with generous compensation plan, and give a preference to the two tiers affiliates programs because you will be paid on two levels. Good promotion, and enjoy your affiliate life.

Affiliate Networks

2009-04-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers (affiliates) and merchant affiliate programs. It allows website publishers to more easily find and participate in affiliate programs which are suitable for their website (and thus generate income from those programs), and allows websites offering affiliate programs (typically online merchants) to reach a larger audience by promoting their affiliate programs to all of the publishers participating in the affiliate network.

The big 4 affiliate networks

Commission Junction
Probably the most popular affiliate network, Commission Junction also has its share of critics. Finding and joining an appropriate affiliate program is easy. CJ also makes things easy for affiliates by consolidating all payouts into one check. It displays EPC (which to CJ rather oddly means "earnings per 100 clicks", not earnings per click). CJ is owned by ValueClick, which merged with Be Free.

LinkShare
LinkShare has more than 600 merchants in its affiliate network. Choose from categories such as books, music, flowers, fashion, computers, etc. You'll find some big name companies here, including Dell, Nordstrom, Target, Disney and American Express. LinkShare is owned by Rakuten, which also owns the controversial OneCause toolbar.

ClickBank
Offers a huge array of downloadable products, mainly ebooks. Because it is cheap and easy for merchants to join, the quality of the products provided varies enormously, from very good to downright awful. It's a popular place to search for overlooked niches.

Google Affiliate Network
Highly professional site with some well known brands. Clients include: America Online, Blair Corp., Bose, CompUSA, Eddie Bauer, HP Shopping, PC Connection, RedEnvelope, Verizon Wireless, and more than 100 others.

and some others:
ShareaSale - highly recommended
Affiliate Window
Click2Sales
MaxBounty
Pepperjam Network

Forums: Participate & Learn

2007-03-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Forums are excellent places to learn about affiliate and Internet marketing from
others and to share your own knowledge. So, get in there, ask questions and
speak up! Forums are an area of the Internet where particular topics are discussed.
I’ve listed those forums , that I find most useful.
Don’t restrict yourself to just the forums listed below:
Affiliate Talk Forum
Ablake
Associate Programs
Geek Village
Search Engine Forums

How to launch your own affiliate program?

2007-01-27T12:59:00.000-08:00

If you join an affiliate program and promote it on your site or blog , you can make some money from the traffic you get to your site.
As you can join someone else’s affiliate program , you can set up your own . You don’t have to be a programming genius to set some , because there are many companies that offer affiliate kits and many other services you didn’t even heard about.
When you set up the program , you ‘ll just need to log in once in a month to write down the affiliates , their home addresses , contact info and the money you owed. Best way to export the payments owed is a check printing service qchex.com.
You can also run your affiliate program using powerful server based affiliate tracking systems like 1shoppingcart.com or clickbank.com. In that case you don’t need to install any software on your server.

Selecting an affiliate program

2007-01-26T08:39:00.000-08:00

Here are some tips that can help you in searching for an lucrative affiliate program.
1. Don’t accept less than 20% commission.
You can find affiliate programs with high percentages of the purchase price in almoust every field. They also have great payment structures . Some programs pay even 50% commissions.
2. Top level of support must be given
If you can’t find all the answers to your questions , then don’t work with them.
3. Listen to the successful affiliates
You can find many examples of marketing methods that pros are using to get the big money.
4. Promotional tools
Look for that programs that offer text links , banners , brandable ebooks , free content , articles , etc.
5. Payment schedule
Most of the programs pay monthly , but make sure that payment schedule meets your expectations.
6. Statistics
You don’t have to look after this one , because every stats pages list the number of click-through , sales and earnings .