Some things to consider before you join an affiliate program

Affiliate programs are one of the most popular ways to earn an income from a website. Unfortunately, all affiliate programs are not created equal. All programs are designed to reward you for a sale or lead... but that's where the similarities end.

Finding and joining the right programs can be difficult, confusing and time-consuming... and your conversions can very greatly from one merchant to the next. So it's important to choose programs that are best for you and your website.

The goal of this article is to provide some guidance and information about affiliate programs, and to help you narrow down your choices to the affiliate programs that are most likely to do well for you in the long run.

My own experience with affiliate programs goes back to late 1999, (a long time in 'net terms) when I started my first website. So, from my own experiences, here are several things you should consider when looking for an affiliate program to promote:

One of the first things to do is look at the merchant site. In particular, look for things that would make the website "Leaky". By "Leaky" I mean anything that encourages the surfer to by-pass the process that you get paid for, or prominent links that go to another website.

To give you one example, look at funny-tshirts.com - they have affiliates, but they also advertise for other t-shirt websites. So you send them traffic, but some of that traffic will click the advertisements and buy something else, then funny-tshirts.com gets the commission and you get nothing.

Another example would be any website that has an 800-number that is prominently displayed, and no indication that there is any method of tracking your referral. For instance - click here - see the "Source ID 63336" directly under the 800-number at the top? That shows that they at least try to track off-line purchases.

If they pass that 'test', then the following points are the most important. Any of these questions, if not answered to my satisfaction, are enough to make me close the window and look elsewhere.

(The answers to the following questions are most often found somewhere in the merchants "Join Us" section and/or the Affiliate Agreement, other sources of information are listed below.)

1. Is there a dedicated staff or person in charge of the affiliate program? Is the affiliate manager approachable, or does he hide behind an anonymous email address?

2. What linking options do they provide? Are you allowed to make your own, or are you restricted to just two banners and a wordy text ad they wrote two years ago?

3. What is their commission amount, payment schedule, and minimum payment amount?

4. What kind of help do they offer for program promotion? Are there articles, recipes, half-page ads, anything at all that you can re-publish and use for content to help pre-sell the products?

5. How long does their tracking cookie last?

The following points are the secondary features I look for. These things are preferred, but if I don't like the answer I won't automatically eliminate the program.

6. Do they offer data feeds or page-builders?

7. Do they offer a 2-tier or webmaster referral program?

8. Do they offer lifetime commissions for repeat customers?

9. Can you use sub-IDs to track different advertising campaigns?

10. Do they offer many, many different linking options, including search boxes, deep-linking, coupons, etc.?

11. Do they offer a direct-deposit or PayPal payment option?

It is nearly impossible to judge the true quality of any given program when all you can see is what the merchant decides to tell you on their "Join Us" page... that information is often one-sided and lacking the details that you most need to know.

So don't depend on just the information that the merchant provides. A good source of information is other affiliates. I strongly recommend that you join the affiliate forums at ABestWeb - search for entries that mention the merchants you are investigating. You may be surprised at how much you can learn.

For instance: a merchant is bound by the agreement to pay when they say they will, and all of them will claim a history of on-time payments... but if they have a real-life history of late payments you will find it discussed at ABestWeb.

(Other affiliates are a valuable source of information, but take what you learn from them with a healthy dose of skepticism. A program that works great and gets glowing reviews from "Bob's Bait & Boat" won't necessarily work for you.... and the opposite is true too; just because a program didn't work for "Bob" is no real indication that it isn't a well-run program.)

Some other prime considerations:

Is the company stable and financially sound?
How long have they been in business, and just as important: How long have they been online? The last thing you need is to spend a lot of time promoting a company that may vanish before they send your paycheck.

Conversely, they may still be there next month, but if their web experience is minimal and they don't convert any of your traffic to customers, or if half the traffic you send "leaks" out, then there is still no paycheck for you.

To get information about a company try the Better Business Bureau. You can also try a google search for other discussion forums where that company is mentioned, and www.credit.net has a one week free trial offer that you can use to gather specific info on different companies.

When comparing two or more programs that offer the same type of products:

Compare cookie length - a merchant that sets a 14-day cookie may not make as much for you as a merchant that sets a 45-day cookie, even if they pay 5 percent more...

Some merchants offer cookies that last a year, and a small number offer lifetime cookies. A very few merchants code their links so that any customer you refer is yours for life - regardless of cookie durations, because it's not tracked by cookies.

Compare their websites for usability - which website seems more professional and better designed? Which one is more likely to lead the customer to the sale? These things may be hard to judge, but try to decide which one you would rather do business with as a customer.

Whatever else you do: Don't loose sight of who your audience is, and don't destroy your own credibility with them.

What I mean is, simply, don't try to promote something based only on what it pays per sale. Instead promote only legitimate, good-value-for-your-money items that your average visitor is most likely to be interested in.

Try to think of an affiliate program not as a way to make money, but rather as another service that you can offer your visitors... a way to help them find products that they are already interested in.

Provide good products, at good prices, with a merchant they can trust, and you will profit.

Work on pre-selling the products through your own page content: articles, reviews, personal endorsements, etc. Keep the number of "Buy Me" ads to a minimum. Over-commercialize your website and you will only drive your visitors away.

One more thing: Don't give up too soon. If a program seems like it should be making more, try a different approach in your advertising and pre-selling efforts before you try a different merchant or product.

Sometimes all it takes is a little "tweaking" of your website or your advertising to make a big difference in your paycheck.

To Your Success!
Tim

By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.

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