How to Join an Affiliate Marketing Programme - Points to Consider
The notion that there is a secret to which is the top affiliate marketing programme is baloney. There are many good ones but none that is a “one-size-fits-all” ad network; what works great for one partner may not work at all for another. There are many points to consider when signing up as an affiliate and we are going to look at a few of them here.
Where to Join Up
Most merchants (advertisers) don’t run their own programs; they prefer to have affiliate networks handle the large job of dealing with thousands of partners, handling payments, recording click through rates, and many other technical issues. Conversely, networks are ideal for the partners too. When you join an affiliate marketing programme through a network such as Linkshare, Commission Junction or Shareasale, you’ll have the opportunity to apply to hundreds of advertisers’ programmes so you don’t have to visit each site individually to sign up.
In other words, these networks act as the middleman and perform an enormous number of administrative tasks for both advertisers and partners. There’s no cost to you or fee to pay since the networks get their cut of the action right off the top. When you have a website or blog you’re ready to monetize, just go to a network and sign up. It’s free.
But some advertisers do chose to run an affiliate marketing programme in-house. Large online retailers such as Amazon and eBay are the two biggest examples. eBay has anywhere from 10 to 15 million auction listings at any one time and is consistently one of the internet’s top advertisers. Even with all its advertising dollars and a large conversion rate, eBay has a positive attitude towards working with affiliates and relies on them to bring in even more traffic.
What to Look for When You Join
Before you join every merchant’s affiliate marketing programme that remotely relates to your website or blog, give some thought as to what they are offering you as a partner.
Take a look at their sales and other stats and see how successful other partners have been with them. These will be provided on the network’s site where you can view the 30-day EPC, conversion ratio, average total sale amount, and more.
Also, visit their website especially if they are a small business or you’ve never heard of them to check the quality of their site.
Be sure to read the Terms of the Agreement of each advertiser so that you don’t violate their restrictions. Most any affiliate marketing programme will not allow you to use the merchant’s brand name in PPC (pay per click) advertising. For example, if you are a partner for TurboTax, and you are buying Google Adwords to drive customers to your site to promote the online income tax service, you can not use search terms such as “turbotax” in your ad campaign, nor can you mention “turbotax,” or any misspellings of it, anywhere in your ad or URL address.
It’s important that you check to see if they will pay for leads as well as sales. (Lead payments, even if it’s only a $1 per registered customer can really add up!) Also, what is their commission rate on sales? (As a rule of thumb, 15% is very good; 5% is not unless you’re selling big ticket items.) Next, view their banners, text links, and customized links. Are they attractive and will they look good on your site? Can you opt to link to a specific product page?
Finally, check on the cookie length. This is very important when joining an affiliate marketing programme and one that many partners fail to understand. Even if a customer does not purchase an item on the first visit, the cookie that was installed on their machine will not expire for 10 to 60 days depending on the company. If the customer returns to the merchant’s site and makes a purchase within that time, you would still get the commission. So ask yourself, if Wal-Mart offers only a very short 12-day cookie, do you really want to do all that work promoting them and giving them free advertising?
Why Wait? Join Today if You’re Ready
The lure of affiliate marketing is extraordinary. The internet grows larger every day with more and more users coming online to shop and advertisers are following them, leaving the print media market (newspapers and magazines) in droves. Don’t think you can’t make it in an affiliate marketing programme as a partner. You’re not late to the party-- in fact it’s never too late to start an online business. The hundreds of millions even billions of dollars to be made in commissions on the internet will only continue to increase.
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