Tweet

The Power of Your Own Affiliate Program

Written by: Michael Fleischner

Article Overview: Increasing sales of your products and services can come through a number of marketing tactics. One of the best ways to ramp up sales quickly is to develop your own affiliate program. Learn how to create an affiliate program quickly and easily with some helpful advice.

The Power of Your Own Affiliate Program

One of the best ways to improve traffic to your website is with the help of targeted websites who earn money promoting other peoples products. One of the websites I work on generates more than 35% of its revenue from other sites selling their products and services. If developed correctly, affiliate programs can have a significant impact on your revenue.

What Is and Affililate Program?

An affiliate program is a way for you to sell your products through other websites. Essentially the process is simple. You provide another website with the necessary promotional items to sell your product(s). However, the affiliate never takes actually inventory of the product you are selling.

A great example of this is the website that sells mystery novels. For this example, let’s call the primary website Mystery Novels Central dot com. The website provides an affiliate website (affiliatewebsite1) with some banners and buttons promoting mystery novels. When a browser of affiliatewebsite1 clicks on the banner, it redirects him to Mystery Novels Central dot com. If the user purchases a novel, Mystery Novels Central dot comp pays affiliatewebstie1 a percentage of the sale – also known as a commission.

How Do Affiliate Programs Work?

When your promotional assets are placed on another website, each asset has a tracking URL. This tracking URL is invisible to the browser but keeps track of his activities. When he passes through the purchase process and receives a payment confirmation page, additional tracking code confirms a sale. This information is captured and tracked back to the initiator of the sale (i.e. the affiliate).

In its most simple form, an affiliate program works like a real life sales force. Imagine having sales reps spread our across the Internet selling your product to each of their new and existing customers. Each time that sales rep sells your product, you fulfill the order and pay the rep a small commission. In a nutshell that’s an affiliate program.

How Can I Start My Own Affiliate Program?

You can start your own affiliate program in a variety of ways. One of the most simple methods is to use and affiliate marketplace like ClickBank or PayDotCom. These affiliate sites aggregate many affiliate products. For a small fee, and sometimes simply a percentage of the sale without an upfront fee, you can join their program.

When you join, you agree to let the marketplace add your product to a list of products that third party websites can promote. When you do so, you also agree to let the affiliate marketplace (ClickBank or PayDotCom) receive a percentage of each sale. Remember, you will also have to pay a commission to the actual affiliate website that promotes and sells your product. The fees can add up quickly but are worthwhile if your product has a good margin.

There are other programs from well established companies like Commission Junction, but they charge a significant fee for joining and a larger percentage of each sale. For those starting out, CB or PayDotCom is your best choice.

What I particularly like about affiliate programs is the scale you can achieve. Affiliate programs are relatively easy to set up and can have a significant impact on your top line. If you have a product to sell and haven’t started using affiliates to promote your program, get started today.

Related Articles
  How To Make Good Affiliate Marketing Revenue
  Discover A Residual Income Affiliate Program
  Choosing A Profitable Affiliate Program
  Internet Marketing Business Ideas-Try 2 Tier Affiliate Programs
  Finding the Best Internet Affiliate Program

Article Tags: affiliate program works, affiliate programs work, affiliate website, assets, central dot, existing customers, initiator, money, mystery novels, novel, nutshell, payment confirmation, peoples products, promotional items, sales rep, sales reps, significant impact, traffic



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: Traffic! How do you get it? - Hi Mal, Thanks for pointing out that Linkdirectorysubmitter is included in the Affiliate Power Group membership package. It's very easy to overlook freebies, even the useful ones. I'll go and check it out.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - Well done GT for achieving your Alexa goal for Affiliate Power Central. Alan Mater has done very well with his site's ranking too. I managed to get my site, grasp-the-nettle.com, below 200,000 for a brief while, but took my foot of the gas... Hope to rebuild momentum in the next 2-3 months!
Re: 10 Year Veteran at your service... - Hey Jeff, Happy new year, it's great to see you here, I was delighted to pop into the forum today and see your introduction. Your help and support over at the Affiliate Power Group is much appreciated and I am sure your vast experience and general savvy will be a great asset to this forum. regards, Mal.
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 :-]


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Download a template or see a lawyer?

African Technology Development

Steps For Starting A Small Business

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.