How to choose an affiliate program
Saturday, March 21st, 2009Affiliate marketing has become very popular for the past couple of years. This is because affiliate programs present merchants with the opportunity to employ huge armies of sales people who only get rewarded for the results they achieve. It is also popular because even the beginners of affiliate marketing can enjoy the fact that they can begin an Internet business even if they only have a small budget. All the affiliate programs usually come complete with a website all set to take orders. They even come with various support sales paraphernalia such as sales letters and ads that you can use.
A skilled affiliate marketer can earn as many thousands of dollars a month so the rewards are high. This win-win state has led to an explosion in the number of affiliate programs that are available in the web for would-be marketers. With this increase of opportunities has come many questions such as how do you choose the right affiliate program for you. Here are some tips in how you would choose the right affiliate program:
1. You should initially ask how much commission you will receive. This is an obvious one since you are here to earn. You have to know how much you would expect to earn from each sell and also other bonuses that might come with it. Bonuses are pretty common. For instance, they give additional payout if you have generated enough sales or the visitor has availed of other special services and products. It is best to stick with products that have high commission value unless you have a niche market where you can sell in vast amount of quantities. It is recommended that you stick with more or less 50% commission or you might be spending a lot more in advertising than you could earn.
2. You should try to know how much traffic the merchant website is currently generating. It is also obvious to choose merchant websites that are getting more hits. This is because its chances of making money for you is better than low traffic websites. But you should also take chances on the new and low traffic sites that you think has good products. Low traffic means that there are still a few affiliates to the site and might be an actual goldmine for you. You better initially try their products out since you are going to recommend them. If not, search for comments and reviews of the sites on the Internet.
3. You should also learn how often the merchant pays its commissions. It is important since you want to have financial control of the business. If this is just a source of additional income, it might be fine for you if the payment is not frequently handed out. But if this is your main income, irregular payouts won’t work for you. Some merchants also have minimum commission levels before the merchants hand out your commission, which means that these merchants wait for your commissions to accumulate until a certain set amount is reached. It is always recommended that the faster they pay the better. It is best of they give you the commission just after the sale.
4. It is also good to know if they use cookies to track customers. This is very important since most customers don’t buy on their first visit to the site. The use of cookies will determine if a customer comes back directly to the site and makes purchases since the sale must still be credited to you. It is also important to know if subsequent purchases by the same customer must still be credited to you. It is recommended that you affiliate with companies that use cookies to track customer and the cookies has long expiration periods.