Hi from Maui

[jayannscorp]

Hi everyone,

My name is Jayann Haasz from Jayanns Corporation, JAYANNS. I am new to affiliate marketing and am interested in offering an affiliate program for my company. If anyone has the time, would you please stop by my website and let me know what you think. I am contemplating offering 20% for affiliates. We offer quality affordable fashion accessories so this is a pretty large commission compared to our products, once you see how good our prices our you will understand. Please let me know if you have any advice on me getting started in offering an affiliate program for my company.

Thanks again,

Jayann

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Jayann,

Welcome to 5 Star.

This is the advice I give all new merchants that have a newer or untested site, in my phone consultations. Before you even think about an affiliate program you need to do some Pay Per Click advertising and test your conversion rates.

The best products and best prices won't do affiliates any good if your
site can't convert browsers to buyers.

The LAST thing you want to do is go to the time, trouble and money to set up an affiliate program and then discover later, your site was not ready for prime time.

TRUST ME ON THIS! You don't want to burn affiliates out that send you traffic because your site can't convert!

Put 2,000 in Google Adwords. Track your conversions. PRETEND to pay your self 20% commission. KEEP track of it. At the end of the exercise see if YOU would be happy with your conversions if you were your own affiliate!

WHY go through this? I personally from a quick look I don't think your site will convert very well. BUT I may be wrong and the FASTEST way to test is through targeted PPC traffic.

The POWERFUL thing about this exercise is that as the owner, as you see your money going down the drain YOU HAVE THE POWER to make changes. Tweak your site, your cart, your colors, your copy, try different landing pages and different styles of offers.

Average ecommerce conversion rates are around 2%. This varies based on
the type of products. But shoot for 2%.

"Wait - dont start and affiliate program yet", I'm sure is not the advice you wanted to hear HOWEVER it's the best advice anyone could ever give you!

[jayannscorp]

Thank you for your advice. Since, I am new I really need help trying to start. I really appreciate your time.

Jayann

[Linda Buquet]

Feel free to ask questions as you go along.
We can help you even if you are not quite ready for an affiliate program yet.

We have a section for questions about PPC and you can even request a site review and we'll give you some feedback there too.

[Larwee]

Jayann, there are two sticky threads right here in the Merchant and Affiliate Manager Discussion Forum which contain a great deal of helpful information. I don't know if you have read them yet. If not, you might want to give them some close attention.

Here are links to them:

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5s...es-how-do.html

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5s...-managers.html