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Choosing an Affiliate Program - What You Need to Consider

Written by: Michael Laleye

Article Overview: Choosing to market an given affiliate program should follow a specific process before you put time, money and energy into promoting their products , services, or the affiliate opportunity itself. Learn some of the considerations you need to make before joining an affiliate program.

Choosing an Affiliate Program - What You Need to Consider

Is the company reputable?

Even though most of the affiliate programs that you come across in your search for affiliate opportunities will be reputable it is still a good idea to do some research first. Just because an affiliate program may have a fancy website with all the bells and whistles doesn't mean that they are a reputable program. In order to avoid being scammed you can do a number of things to find out more about the company before you click the "join" button. The first way to learn more about an affiliate program is to do a quick search on google fo the name of the program.

Does this search bring back only a few listings or are there thousands? The more the better, and that is because you can then look at any reviews for the company. You then have to ask yourself, are there glowing reviews? Are there many other affiliate websites built around this company? This type of research will let you know that this affiliate program is here to stay and won't be folding in a year or two after you've worked hard to build your business.

Is there a fee to join the program?

almost all affiliate programs are free to join. This makes sense because the operator of the affiliate program uses your effort to make money from the products you promote for them. You make a percentage and the merchant makes a percentage. Network marketing is a structure where you may be required you to purchase products or pay a membership fee in order to qualify for the sales earnings you have generated in a month. Affiliate programs don't have such requirements. Many people do very well under both structures.

what is the commission structure?

How you are compensated for your work is the most important aspect of researching affiliate programs before you join. Some affiliate programs pay a fixed dollar amount per sale, some pay you for having people fill out surveys and information, and others will pay for each click you route to their website. Once you have this information you'll need to find out the commission rate or percentage you will be paid. If you are building a website around a number of affiliate programs you would probably want to showcase the product that pays you the most commissions.

Comparing affiliate programs based on their commission structure will be the ultimate factor in determining how much money you will can generate from the program. Another important factor is whether the company will pay you for repeat sales from the same customer. In other words, If you sell a product through an affiliate company will you be paid for any future sales from that customer? The best affiliate programs have a re-occurring sales feature feature.

Another important commission factor is whether the affiliate program uses a 2-tier system. Having a 2 tier system provides you with two sources of income. The first source comes from selling product, and the second comes from recruiting new affiliates who also sell product. Each affiliate program has different rules so some will pay you for each new affiliate you sign up, while others will pay you a percentage of these affiliates sales.

There are many factors to consider when choosing to join an affiliate program. The last thing you want to do is have a website built around products that are not of good quality, or find out later that the commissions structure was not as you had thought and therefore you end up making less money than you had anticipated. Choosing a reputable affiliate program that has products and services that benefit the consumer is the easiest way to profit with affiliate programs.

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  How To Make Good Affiliate Marketing Revenue
  How To REALLY Earn Money
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Article Tags: affiliate opportunities, affiliate program, affiliate programs, bells and whistles, commission structure, earnings, fancy website, google, membership fee, money, network marketing, reputable program, surveys



Related Forum Posts
Re: How to develop sales contacts? - Everyone has the right idea here. Depending on your business, there are different techniques that you could use. For consultants and sales heavy businesses, there are three tactics that I have found especially useful in my business: 1. Attend Networking Events 2. Cold Calling 3. Referral Program 4. Affiliate Program (most successful) The affiliate program was successful for me, as I hooked up with a franchise consultant, and he gave multiple unit businesses that needed my credit card processing services. I highly suggest you hook up with a sales partner, and give him a cut of the monthly revenue.
Re: Affiliate Marketing - Open for Discussion - Carol, Mary and David - thanks for your great input and insight on Affiliate Marketing! This is the kind of discussion I was hoping for in this thread. There are pros and cons to Affiliate Marketing, just as there are to any business. As has been suggested, he best policy is to proceed with caution and do some research before jumping in. As Carol has recommended, this topic thread in the EvanCarmichael.com forum is the ideal place to ask questions and seek further input on available Affiliate Marketing programs. If a person is serious about building an online business and is interested in Affiliate Marketing plans, they should approach the process as they would any other form of business. Research, ask questions, compare opportunities, participate in forums on online business and Affiliate Marketing. GT :-]
Re: Affiliate Marketing - Open for Discussion - You made some very good points here Jeff and I agree with you, Affiliate Marketing should not be something that you concentrate all your efforts into. As i said earlier I have learned a lot with Affiliate Marketing and continue to do so, and it has helped me tremendously to understand what I am going to have to do in my chosen niche(s). I am also being coached by the same group of mentors as GT and we are all moving forward daily to achieve our ultimate goals. Take care, Carol
Re: Affiliate Marketing - Open for Discussion - Hi GT Affiliate Marketing is one of the easier ways to get started making money online, but it does take quite a bit of work before you see any great results as you have to keep promoting constantly. It does teach you one hell of a lot about all aspects of Internet Marketing though as you will need to learn how to write and submit articles, create and maintain a blog, social networking is a great help to affiliates too..the list goes on and on. In fact from what you learn from Affiliate Marketing you can apply to any niche and be sure to succeed, take care, Carol
Think like an Association - Hey Sebastian, Maybe you could try thinking like an Association... I would study the structure or formats used by other Associations. What are they doing to add value for their members? The BBB plays a monitoring role for consumers by gathering data about business' that are behaving badly. And they're pretty successful at it too. Maybe you can offer a 'Platinum Program' that franchisors buy into. Accredited members only. Criteria could be strict: 1. Age (stability): 10+ years 2. Satisfied franchisees: 85% + satisfaction 3. Size (stability again): 250 units 4. Strong profits 5. Great management -Maybe a 'Gold Program' for those Franchisors that aren't quite at that level, but can strive to reach it... -Top 100, 500, 1000 Listing for qualified members... maybe a slap at Entrepreneur.com and their biased top 10 lists... -Maybe act as a monitor like BBB? -Maybe team up with FranSurvey OR do something similar for each member (not sure about Fransurvey's rep, but I like the concept) There's so much discontent within the franchising arena that I think if you were part of the solution, then you could create a win/win with your Association. The only downside is that this power can get abused if there aren't good checks and balances within the association.


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