Wow, where to begin for newbie?

[dezign89]

Information Overload!!! I just (almost) finished my website, product is manufactured and packaged, ready to go. I was thinking of setting up an affiliate program but am overwhelmed with information. In anyones expert opinion would I be better off skipping the affiliate program for now and just advertising myself? Most affiliate programs seem to be fairly expensive to join but is that a better investment than doing a ppc campaign by myself? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Linda Buquet]

Hi dezign89,

I STRONGLY recommend not even thinking about an affiliate program until AFTER you do some PPC and conversion testing yourself for awhile 1st. There is no way to know if your site is good at closing sales until you get some quick targeted traffic and PPC is the fastest way to do it.

As your PPC $ flows out of your own pocket you may find you can't convert enough visitors to sales. Could be your price, your offer, your site, your cart or a variety of other things.

But you need to test and tweak and get your conversions up before you start an affiliate program. Affiliate programs can be expensive and take time to build. One of the hardest parts is recruiting good affiliates. The last thing you want to do is build a program, use affiliates as your guinea pigs and THEN find out your site does not cut it. You'll lost the affiliates and all your effort will be wasted along with valuable time.

AFTER you've done your conversion testing, if you decide to start a program it can be your best ROI marketing channel - IF you do it right! But it's not instant like PPC, takes time to build gradually and takes an upfront investment before you start to see a good return.

I'd rather hit you with reality and set your expectation than have you be one of thousands of merchants that prematurely threw up a program, hoping it will be a quick and easy magic pill, then give up thinking affiliate marketing does not work. If your site isn't set up right for conversions, affiliates can't fix it.
So build a solid foundation 1st, then if you want to start a program we can give you some ideas.

[dezign89]

Thanks Linda. I just finished reading one of you posts with a similar question and answer. It sounds like good advice. I will do some self promotion and ppc to find out my conversion % and worry about an affiliate program at a later time. Gracias!