Selecting Affiliate Programs
A critical part of being a successful affiliate marketer is selecting the best affiliate products.
When applying to an affiliate
program you may find that some affiliate
merchants want to review your web site before
they approve you as an affiliate. If you don't
have your site already published, you're
likely to experience refusal. This is not true
for all affiliate merchants, but just in case,
I like to have my site ready before I start
applying to affiliate programs.
Where To
Find Affiliate Products &
Programs
There are a number of ways you can find affiliate programs, let's take a look...
- Find Affiliate Products On
Your Own
You can research affiliate
products on you own by entering the products
you are looking for into your favorite search
engine along with the words 'affiliate
program'. So for example if you were
looking for 'acoustic guitars' you would
enter:
acoustic+ guitars+ affiliate
Be sure to use the plus signs, they will ensure that those words appear on the pages in the search results.
This will display a list of
merchants that offer affiliate programs for
products you are looking for.
-
Affiliate Programs Search
Engine
Here's a handy search engine
just for finding affiliate programs. It lists
affiliate programs based on your niche and
lists programs by options such as
'pay-per-lead', 'pay-per-click',
'pay-per-action' and two-tier
programs.
You can check it out
here:
http://www.affiliateprogramsearchengine.com/
- Use Affiliate Networks to
find Products
You can also use
affiliate networks like commission junction
which I mentioned earlier. There are many
affiliate networks on the net.
Here are a few of the most popular ones to get you started:
These networks are organized by subject and they make it easy to find affiliate programs that will suit your needs.
Once you find a few affiliate programs, don't simply pick the first one you see and go with it. Do a little snooping around first.
How to Size Up a Good Affiliate Program
Not all affiliate programs are created the same, obviously some are much better than others in terms of what they offer you, the affiliate and in how well they sell.
The following is a list of what to look for in a quality affiliate program:
- Is the Website or Business a place YOU would buy from? Does the affiliate site look professional? Would you purchase from the site? What's your overall impression of the site? Do they offer a compelling sales pitch? Read through the sales letter or product descriptions. Are they making a compelling sales offer?
- How easy is it to navigate the site? If you're confused on what the site is about, or can't find what you need, your viewers will be too.
- Does the site accept credit Cards? I use to promote an affiliate product that didn't accept credit cards. I made very few, if any sales, why? Because buyers couldn't use their credit cards. Online that's a sure way to limit the number of buyers.
- Does the site ship worldwide or just to the U.S.? If your visitors come from all over the world this could be a problem if they are just U.S.
- Does the affiliate site have Adsense ads or other ads that send viewers elsewhere? If the affiliate site has Adsense or other ads on the site, don't affiliate with them. You don't want to send your visitors to an affiliate site that encourages Adsense ad clicks, that helps the affiliate merchant make money, not you.
Are there recurring and/or lifetime commissions? Does the affiliate site have products or services that a customer pays for on a monthly basis like subscription services? If they do you are entitled to a recurring commission for every month the subscriber remains a member.
Likewise look for affiliate merchants that offer lifetime commissions as well. For example if you promote a web hosting service and the customer upgrades his service you would also get a commission for his upgrade, in other words the customer you referred is yours for life for any future products he buys.
Are there sales tools offered? A good affiliate program looks out for their affiliates and they will offer sales tools to help you make as many sales as possible, things like ecourses, branded guides that contain your affiliate link, banner ads, advertising copy, etc. These are things that make your job easier.
- What's the Commission Rate? Of course, you want to find a program that has a good commission rate but I don't want to stress this too much. Affiliate marketers tend to look for high paying affiliate programs and that's natural but don't sacrifice a high commission for a poor program. A good quality program with a high sales rate that pays 10% will yield much better commissions for you than a program that pays 50% but has a poor reputation and doesn't sell well.
Until Next time,
Your Partner
In Success
Elizabeth
