Are these programs any good?

[Pugilist]

I was thinking about being a affiliate for one of the following:

Dental Plans
Net quote
Prospect
Quicken loans


What do u guys think of these

Thanks

[Oregon Coast Guy]

It really has to depend on your website niche. The question needs to be, "Will any of these affiliate types fit with my website content?"

People who go to a website about cross-stitch won't be interested in an affiliate link to Quicken loans.

Find the programs that fit your content and you'll be on solid ground. Good luck!

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Pugilist,

Prospect - assume you mean ProspectZone? if so then they, Dental Plans
and Net quote are all 5 Star programs so I know they are all good ones.
Quicken loans is managed by one of our clients PartnerCentric so I know it's well managed too.

Do you have insurance and loan type traffic?

Which market would be the best match for your traffic?

Do you prefer pay per lead or pay per sale?

Answers to those questions should help narrow it down.
Note some of the above are PPS and some are PPL.

[Linda Buquet]

Oh, need to add...

If you are a newbie, although financial programs can make some of the highest commission checks they are also among the MOST competitive!!!

Typically not a good place to start.

A) Lots of other affiliate pros are already established.

B) Take insurance for example, you are also competing with thousands of insurance companies, independent reps and insurance brokers.

Loans, you also compete with all the banks in addition to all the mortgage brokerages, not to mention savvy established affiliates.

Not saying don't promote financial programs, just suggesting don't START there.

[EnigmaValdez]

There are many excellent programs available, but you need to think about your web site visitors. Type in a few keywords that deal with your particular nich and notice the results that come up. Also notice the google ads that come up. Those products and services are an indicator of the kind of affiliate programs you may need to include on your site.

But sometimes it takes a little thought and meditation on it. For example, you may have a site on fishing enthusiasts. The most obvious thing would be to find some kind of programs that deal with fishing gear right? Well...yea but maybe you could dig further and find out the average age group of the guys and gals that visit your site. Maybe you have a large percent of retired persons. What would interest them? What do they need?

This is where an ASK campaign would come in. Simply put, its asking your current web site visitors what their most important question is about_______ (enter your product or service).

Hope this helps!
All the best to you!
Enigma Valdez

[AIA]

If you're thinking at all about going with Netquote, please consider this. With that program you're not only getting paid very poorly but you're also promoting a terrible business. Netquote is in the insurance lead business, not the completed quote business. So every time you send a visitor to them and they fill out the information expecting to get a real-time quote what they instead get is a "Thank you" and then I believe up to 5 insurance agents calling them on the phone.

The majority of insurance affiliate programs out there use this exact tactic. Why? Because it's easier and more profitable in the short term to send 5 insurance agents a lead for $10 and call it a day.

If you spend a lot of money on marketing you're going to want some kind of retention and I don't think programs like Netquote are going to offer that...there are better programs out there for sure.

On my site I outline a few of the top insurance affiliate programs that are available, including a breakdown of what payout is. Feel free to check that out if you're interested in comparison.

[AIA]

If you're going to promote loans, make sure and find a good debt consolidation program. I knew of one on CJ a few years ago that converted very well at $6.00/lead, but they quit the program. I think Debt Saviors is still around. At any rate, you'll want to make sure and cross sell as best you can in that area as loan conversion can be SUPER low, like 5%.

You may want to consider adding Adsense/YPN! to these pages as well and monetization will be great for targeted traffic with this combination.

As for Quicken loans. I tried them a few years ago and sent a few hundred targeted uniques - not a single lead. Not saying that's typical, because people are definitely making money.

One program you may want to try is NCSreporting. They deal with credit cards and have partnered with a lot of the top credit card companies. I saw quite a few leads through this program but the traffic can be expensive...however, if you're already paying for loan traffic you could cross sell credit cards and debt consolidation.

[Linda Buquet]

"With that program you're not only getting paid very poorly but you're also promoting a terrible business."

Knocking the competition is not the best way to build your program up. As you point out they use the same model many other lead based progrms do, so you can't say its bad. Their 7 day EPC on CJ is $46 which is not "terrible" by any stretch and their in-house program is much stronger than CJ (they don't focus much on the CJ program at all). They are also a 5 Star client, which does not mean I would defend them if they did something "wrong" but it means I would defend them from someone who said they are "terrible" because they are not!

I know you have a different model that you think is superior. There is a way to educate people about how your model is different, without knocking the competition and without self promoting.

[AIA]

That's really not fair to say I'm knocking NetQuote's program because I'm promoting mine, that isn't the case at all. In fact, I would recommend plenty of other affiliate programs out there, as long as they didn't use this model. Like GEICO for instance, a great program you can join through CJ. Not the highest paying but conversion is great.

But back to NetQuote. I'm speaking from experience. 3 years ago I sent plenty of leads through NetQuote but it just ethically wasn't the program for me, I didn't feel good about sending people over to a website that was more about selling their information to the highest bidder instead of actually fulfilling a quote request.

I really do understand this entire insurance industry and I would be more than happy to recommend other programs out there that aren't directly tied to my program at all. It's all business, and in the end if you're in it to make a lot of money and you can deliver high volume targeted traffic you'll do well with any company out there, including NetQuote.

[Linda Buquet]

I think you just could have gotten your point accross without calling a competitor "terrible" like you did more appropriately in your last 2 paragraphs. Educating people about the difference in the model I think accomplishes more than calling a company terrible, which is a matter of opinion and a strong word.

Just talking about models, some consumers DO like getting competitive quotes - in lots of different industries. And many companies, not just the insurance industry use this model. The car sales industry is one. So whether there are better models or not, this one is popular and successful and lots of companies use it.

"I didn't feel good about sending people over to a website that was more about selling their information to the highest bidder instead of actually fulfilling a quote request."

When my daughter needed car insurance and when I needed health insurance we both used Netquote and got faster, better quotes than we would have by shopping companies one by one. She got her car insurance the same day from a Netquote lead and got a much lower price than the other companies she tried to shop on her own. Neither of us "got our info sold to the highest bidder". We both got contacted by 5 companies offering competitive rates and trying to get our business. That's what we wanted.