[Disclaimer], [More hints, tips and essays], [The Associate and affiliate programs]
Choosing the best associate or affiliate program can make a HUGE difference to your monthly pay cheque. This is the most important decision, but thankfully it is one that you can change your mind on at any time. It is better to aim for the best, but also to continually experiment. That way your results should improve as you become more experienced in selecting programs that you can use effectively. This is partly a personal issue. There is no single best program to pick, because how that program will be used will vary from person to person. Getting good results need not be the end of the road, with practice, you will get better and better.
If that last sentence seems a little daunting, like you are about to set out to climb a mountain, please do not be discouraged. The information on this page should help you to get off to a good start, and you will hopefully be seeing good results within a few days!
Features that I look for in a program are:
(in no particular order)
Quick and easy to join
This shows that effort has been put into the design of the program. Hopefully the design of the rest of the site will be just as good, and this will help to generate a lot of sales. If you hope to make a lot of money on the second and subsequent tiers of a program, then this is a more important feature.
Good percentage payouts for each sale (no "pay-per-clicks")
I've written more about pay-per-click programs here, and explained why I avoid them. Although a high percentage is what most people look for in a program, it is much less important than the quantity of sales that you will be able to generate. Looking from a financial angle, it is better to compare programs by how much you can earn with them in a month. Unfortunately this is less easy to do, unless you try both programs side by side and see what happens.
Reliable tracking of sales
You would be amazed how many programs have unreliable tracking. It's vital that you are confident with the tracking of both clicks and orders. Don't take reliability for granted. Most programs have real time click through statistics, which makes these easy to test. Don't neglect it just because it is easy to do! Order tracking is more difficult to check up on. If ordering is primarily done online, then you are much safer than with phone ordering (as a general rule). Investigate as much as you can, and email the company for reassurance if you are not happy.
Multi-Tiered structure
Again this is a sign of a well designed associate or affiliate program. The single tiered model is fundamentally floored, in that it requires the company to promote the associate program. Not forgetting that the whole point of an associate program from the companies point of view is to get someone else to do the promoting for them. (More about this here).
A multi-tiered program also gives you a larger income in the long run. It is inevitable that, if you do well promoting a particular program, some people will decide to follow your lead. With a multi-tier program, you will receive a part of their commission, and this will continue even after you have stopped actively promoting the program. If you are looking for a short term income, then this is of less consequence to you, but if you are interested in the longer term, then this becomes considerably more important.
Although this is still a fairly new concept, it is fast becoming the norm with all the best programs.
A decent site that will actually generate sales when I send my visitors to it.
Probably the most important factor of all! In order to make money, you have to make sales. Let us look at this example of two sites:
The first site is a decent site. Sending just ten visitors to the site will generate one sale and earn you $5. The second is not as good, but pays you more per sale. Lets say that this site requires 1000 visitors before a single sale netting you $40 is achieved. Over the space of a year, you may be able to send anywhere between 100 and 100,000 visitors to these sites. Here is how your years commission will look for a few values:
Number of Visitors in One Year
1st Programs Yearly Commission (on average)
2nd Programs Yearly Commission (on average)
500
$250
0 to $40
5000
$2500
$80 to $120
50,000
$25,000
$1000
500,000
$250,000
$10,000
It is easy to see that, although a higher commission is nice, it is a lot less important than the ability to generate sales. If you can find a program capable of generating lots of sales, that also has a large commission per item, then you have found a VERY profitable program! Some of the best examples of these programs are detailed here.
A decent product
This is the other factor that will dramatically increase the number of sales you make. Let's face it, if the product on offer is no good, then why would anyone buy it? This factor is too easy to overlook when blinded by dollar signs, so you have to make sure to remember it.
If you can find a product that you have used and liked, then you can actually recommend it to people! This is possibly the best way of using an associate or affiliate program!
A popular product
Some products fly off the shelves and others sit there gathering dust. Choosing products that a reasonable number of people want to buy will make your job a lot easier. This point needs to be looked at with the following one.
An uncompetitive product
If there are tousands of other people selling the same product then what is the chance that you will get the sale? You have to see the popularity of the product next to the competitiveness of the market and decide how easy you think a product will be to sell.
They also have to convince me that they will pay me, and not just disappear owing me money. Testimonials are best. If they can convince me that their business has been running for a long time, and will continue in the future, then they have succeeded here.
Discalimer: These pages contain only hints, tips and suggestions that I hope you will find useful. I give no guarentee that any of them will work for you, and will not be liable for the consequences of following the advice on this site. Do so at your own risk!