11 Tips for Joining Affiliate Programs

Here are some things that I look for before joining an affiliate
program. They are items I feel are imperative to being in a
successful affiliate program.

1. The affiliate program has a great payment structure. For me, a
high commission that is also a high percentage of the purchase price
is essential. Nothing under 25% commission.

2. Make sure the affiliate program you are joining has a good looking
site. You do not want to be sending visitors to a site that you do
not like yourself.

3. Make sure they offer a comprehensive affiliate statistics page
that lists the number of click throughs, number of sales and amount
earned. This should be broken down per month.

4. Also make sure that the affiliate statistics are updated
automatically and immediately. You do not want to find out today
about a sale you made a week ago.

5. Ensure they give a wide variety of text links, banners and
graphics to put on your web page. Although I prefer text links,
certain types of banners and graphics still work well.

6. Know how often you are going to be paid. If you are tossing up
between 2 programs and one pays monthly and the other pays quarterly,
the one that pays monthly is better. You do not want to wait months
before getting paid for your hard work!

7. See if the affiliate program gives examples of how the top
affiliates are doing. This can be a great pointer to whether it is
good or not. If some affiliates are earning many thousands per month,
it is a good affiliate program.

8. Along these lines, also see if they give examples of what
marketing methods these successful affiliates are using to get the
best results.

9. An affiliate program that offers a special monthly newsletter just
for the affiliates is great. Here you can get extra tips and
techniques that are working well.

10. See if they offer email notification when you make a sale or get
an affiliate signed up under you (if it is a 2-tier program). It is
good to see `You have made another sale' in your inbox.

11. Ensure top level support is given. If they cannot answer your
query straight away make sure they can respond within 48 hours.

There is tremendous demand for affiliate programs and choosing the
right one is no easy task. Make sure you do plenty of research before
joining one.

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Free Ways to Promote Your Affiliate Program

After learning of the success many online businesses have had increasing their sales with an affiliate program, you decided to follow suit. You hammered out a compensation plan both encouraging to affiliates and profitable to your business. You’ve got tracking software in place. You’ve turned the key in the ignition of your marketing machine… and nothing’s happening.

Your army of affiliates can be viewed metaphorically as a tree. Full grown, it will thrive in rain and sunshine. Strong changing winds can shake its branches, but the tree will continue to grow. In the early seed stage, however, special care is needed if you want your tree to break through the surface.

You spent a great deal of time, energy, and likely at least a little money creating your affiliate program. You need to attract strong affiliates that can rapidly build your customer base and return your investment. How can you bring these powerful marketing dynamos into your camp, ideally without drawing on your already diminished cash reserves?

1.) Submit to Online Directories
The method that will show the most immediate increase in new affiliates is listing your program in online affiliate directories. These reference sites are the first stop for hungry potential affiliates looking for the income opportunity that is going to allow them to quit their 9 to 5 jobs. Many such directories exist, and obviously some will bring you better results than others. Since submitting to almost all of these directories is free, though, get listed on as many as you can. Here are a few links to submission pages to get you started, but by no means should you stop with just these few:

http://www.becomeanaffiliate.com/cgi-bin/add.cgi
http://www.affiliatesoftware.info/joinaffiliatedirectory.php
http://www.affiliatescreen.com/suggest_program.php
http://www.affiliatematch.com/cgi-bin/links/add.cgi
http://www.2-tier.com/cgi-bin/add_url.cgi
http://www.affiliatesdirectory.com/links/add.cgi
http://www.earnfind.com/addprogram-howto.php

2.) Advertise in Your Own Newsletter
Hopefully you’ve been collecting email addresses from your website and sending a regular newsletter to your visitors. (If not, read this article: http://www.zeromillion.com/ebiz/creating-an-email-newsletter.html) Your newsletter subscribers are a precious handful of people that have expressed direct interest in keeping abreast of the latest developments with your product/service and company. Give them what they want! You can kick off your affiliate program with an article in your newsletter explaining the benefits and encouraging your subscribers to participate. Your future newsletters can contain short blurbs about the affiliate program and how it’s progressing to inform new subscribers and remind your original readers.

3.) Post to Affiliate Forums and Newsgroups
Approach this method with caution. No one will be impressed if you post a blatant advertisement or a plea to join your affiliate program. If you find a forum that contains such messages, don’t even bother making a post there. The forum probably isn’t moderated, and almost certainly isn’t read by many people. The place to include information about your website and program is in your profile (and in your signature line if other posters do so). A serious forum, read by the type of people you want to have as affiliates, will only contain posts with relevant and useful content instead of advertising fluff messages.

How can you add relevant and useful content? The first step is to read some of the existing posts and get a feel for the general personality of the forum. At best, reading old posts will spark questions that can be turned into relevant posts and generate interested responses. At worst, you’ll see what’s been talked about recently, so you don’t make the awkward mistake of asking a question that was answered a few days ago.

If no topics come to mind after reading old posts, a possible strategy is to ask for the advice of some experienced affiliates in how you could improve your program. You’ll find different ideas on what constitutes a solid compensation plan, tracking system, or incentive program. Beyond getting attention for your program, this is a great opportunity to improve your program by picking the brains of people who’ve been in the game longer than you.

This list is obviously not comprehensive, but it contains a few forums worth investigating:

http://www.ablake.net/forum/
http://iwiz2.richdad.com/jive/application2/forum.jsp?forum=33
http://www.affiliatesdirectory.com/forum/gforum.cgi?forum=7

About the Author

Clay Mabbitt writes articles about evaluating online
money-making opportunities. Need in-depth reviews of
the latest affiliate programs? Find them at
http://www.affiliatescreen.com/

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Affiliate Programs-An Easy Start to Online Income

If you have been longing to start a business online you may
be coming across terms you've never heard before. You may
also have found the opportunities available are
overwhelming. Where do you begin?

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS - EASY START

Affiliate programs may be the easiest online business to
start running. Why?

With any online business you must have a product or service
to sell. First you must create this product or service and
then you must be able to fill orders.

Selling your own product or service also means creating a
website, learning how to write ad copy, setting up a
marketing plan, being able to accept payments online and
obviously doing the work. If you're selling a physical
product then you will need to make or buy the item, package
it and pay for shipping costs. If you provide a service
than you will likely have to start by doing free jobs to
build your credibility and then when you are charging for
your service you are still limited by how much work you can
actually handle.

THE MAGIC OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Affiliate programs are a great way to get started in an
online business. In fact there are even some 'Super
Affiliates' who are making fabulous incomes from affiliate
programs. So, what ARE affiliate programs?

Affiliate programs allow you to sell another company's
service or product and make a commission on every sale or
lead. You do not even need to build a website or handle the
transaction. Your job is to drive traffic (customers) to
your affiliate link.

An affiliate link is a special URL code that will identify
customers coming to the company's site from your
advertising. It will likely be the website address with a
code attached to the end.

Some affiliate programs also have tiers. That means if
someone who is interested in SELLING the product comes
through your link and signs up you will also get a small
percentage of THEIR earnings.

HOW DO I CHOOSE A PROGRAM?

You should research the popularity of some of your
interests. Try to determine if people are buying that
product or service online. There are many sources for
finding that information including free ones such as the
Overture keyword tool.

When you have found an area that is popular then type the
subject along with 'affiliate program' into your search
engine and see which programs have services or products for
that area. You can also use an affiliate program directory.

When you have found a program that looks interesting you
should read the terms of the program. Make sure that payouts
are not based on a high commission earning or you may never
see your money. Also try to choose programs with high
commission rates. Often you will find ebooks and
downloadable software has the highest rates as there is no
physical product to make or ship. If you are satisfied with
the terms then you need to sign up - usually a simple
process.

START MARKETING

The reason affiliate programs are so great for beginners is
that you only need to focus on marketing - not making - your
product.

Many affiliate programs have information on how to market
and give you tools such as banners, product feeds and more.
You can also look for other information on marketing
including writing articles, creating pay-per-click
campaigns, commenting in online forums etc. As you gain
experience marketing you will make adjustments to your
selling and start creating a wonderful income!

Brennan Howe

About the Author

Brennan Howe is the owner of http://www.opportunity4all.net
Intenet Opportunities for the Average Person. Sign up to
receive a 10 part internet marketing course and free downloads.

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