This is a great article and the advice helped me jump out of noobiedom. I hate internet marketing gurus, but unfortunately you have to deal with a few to succeed online. These questions help you weed out the snakes and actually make money. Question #1: Is the product or service offered for resale something you would use and personally recommend? Question #2: Does the affiliate product you are considering promoting "fit" with your web site's theme? Question #3: Is the company reputable? Question #4: Do they stand behind their product with a solid guarantee and excellent after-sales service? Question #5: How good a job does the company web site do of selling their product? Question #6: How are commissions paid? a)How much commission will you earn on each sale? b)Is the program one-tier or two-tier? c)Will you earn a one-time commission or residual income? d)How much commission do you have to earn before the affiliate program issues you a check? e)What currency is the check issued in? (this is why I hate internet marketing gurus!) f)Can you check your sales statistics online? g)Within what time period do your visitors have to make a purchase for you to be credited with the sale? (cookies anyone?) Question #7: What advertising and promotional tools do they provide you with? I hope this helps you though most should be known by any affiliate already or you are losing money. Here is the list of affiliate programs i use that actually make a few bucks from only a few visitors. Clickbank: Allot of people don't like clickbank because they basically let anyone join. When they first started they sucked way hard but now they weed out the losers and if you do the same it is a very profitable affiliate program. If you place a crappy product on your site or blog, you will lose customers, so pick carefully and only use the products you stand behind. I send my people to http://getafreewebsite.info (for more info) but its really just a clickbank mall site, but it is brilliant in its presentation. http://huhchu.com This is a freelancer and outsourcer online freelance job marketplace. The pay is good the place is honest and they pay right away. What more could you ask? Thats about it. I use what works and those are what works for me here. I hope i helped a few folks. And as funny as the list of affiliates is that i use, it took a really long time to find honest people with honest book-keeping and pay. It is not always (rarely) the big guys. And if you are serious about a affiliate after awhile buy a domain and forward to it.
They still let anybody in... I came across a product the other day that I was interested in selling, so I bought the product to review it (through my own affiliate link of course) I noticed that I DID NOT recieve an affiliate commission in my ClickBank account so I went through the process of ordering it again ( through my affiliate link) and when I clicked on the order page and scrolled down to the bottom it said [affiliate=None] Upon further investigation I discovered that the Merchant had implemented an URL redirect that replaced my cookie with his. I contacted ClickBank and exposed the Merchant and all they did was make him get rid of the URL redirect... What they should have done is BANNED his sorry ASS ClickBank is wayyyyyyy too lenient on Merchants that violate their TOS
Personally, I love to go with affiliate programs that provide excellent and comprehensive tools to help their affiliates to make more sales. Q7 rings a tone with me. I simply cannot understand why many product owners do not even bother to do that. Obviously, it can be seen as a way to gauge their professionalism. If they are interested to help their affiliates, then there is a higher chance of them making more sales. It is mutually beneficial.
I think that landing pages and conversion rates are some of the most problematic things regarding affiliate programs. In some cases you can do the greatest work in the world and create huge traffic to a certain site, but their page does not convert, the page is not costumer friendly, client do not know what to do next and on. Based on my short experience, I do send remarks to site owners and tell them my opinion, since it's going to help both of us. In case of falling with someone who is not willing to listen - I just check if it pays off or not. Bottom line - I agree with almost everything you wrote.
Good tips. CJ and clickbank meet all/most of those requirements, as does VMCsatellite (See my signature). It's important to find someone who will actually pay, as I had that problem a few years back.
OMG! I just read this again after 3 years and its still full of great tips - I did a good job on this If i must say so myself. (shameface on)
good questions, but sometimes it is not to get answer to question 5, because it is private for competitors and so.
Just curious Husla3x... why do you hate internet gurus? Sure there are lots of sharks around, but the likes of Ewen Chia, Mike Filsaime, Russell Brunson, Jeremy Gislason, the Callen brothers and the guy that runs Simpleology amongst others, seem to be really "putting something back" at times. We've certainly benefited from them.