An Affiliate Marketing Program- Things To Consider
January 2, 2011 by Stu Bowes
Filed under Affiliate Marketing
An affiliate marketing program involves a situation where the business of one person is promoted by websites or other publishers. Basically, there is an affiliate or an associate that is going to be compensated each and every time a sale or trade is made through the activity of the affiliate. An example of this would be if someone where to place an ad on their website for other peoples business and that business receives customers through that ad’s link.
There are actually two ways to handle such marketing. You can have an affiliate marketing programs where you enlist others or you can be someone is an affiliate for another business.
If you are the one handling an affiliate program, you will pay your affiliates or associates a cut for every sale or lead they bring to your website. The main purpose for this is to look for affiliates that can get to untapped markets. Introducing a proposition using someone else’s “trusted” business can seize the interest of prospects that might not have been reached on your own.
It is important to also make sure that you are putting the affiliate business on stable groundwork right from the start. It will take a good bit of time to develop truly profitable affiliate programs for marketing but when it is done correctly, you will find that it is more than worth the effort. It will become one of your most excellent financial assets.
If you would rather be an affiliate for other businesses, you need to make sure that the business you are working for is not a so-so company, scam-artist, or quality merchant-partner. Therefore, there are criteria to look for when evaluating a specific program.
First, evaluate the quality of the service or product or check for good recommendations Bear in mind that it will be your reputation that would be placed on line, so do not advocate products that are under-delivered. If you sign up to affiliate programs that have a questionable reputation, you will be squandering your money and time in the long run, since your prospects will not want to buy through you in the future.
You will also want to confirm that the merchant has an above par site that also has an excellent sales page. It is important to make sure that it has good usability and that it allows you to link right to the individual products versus a regular boring home page.
Make sure that you are evaluating the accessibility of the promotional tools and the support to both the customer and also the affiliate. You will need to do this in order to make sure that everyone is going to be happy. Look for the affiliate programs that will make your job the easiest possible.
Also pay attention tot he terms of the program. You will want to consider the type of payment scheme. “Pay-per-lead” and “Pay-per-trade” are common. In both cases, if the referred visitor hands over the desired reaction, you get paid. In addition, the program must have no charges collected in order to join. There is no need also to purchase the product being endorsed.
Also, be sure to lean more towards the products and services that you have interest in as each one of these will be the affiliate marketing program that you will have more fun promoting. When you do this, you will have much more fun with it and you will be more likely to make more money with it
The Affiliate Marketing Institute has created an excellent affiliate marketing e-course. Visit the site to get more information and to sign up for their 14 day trial membership for less than $3.00.