what to look for when selecting a good affiliate program

I am thinking of selecting some affiliate programs to promote.

What are factors to look for when selecting a good affiliate program.


I am thinking Payout amount. What are other ways to determine a good affiliate program.

 

There are many things to consider.

How often they payout

What's their minimum payout level. Avoid the ones that have something like a $250 - $500 payout level as that may mean that they are a fraud.

What are their support like

How professional are their site - if their site looks unprofessional then you may find it harder to convert your clicks into sales.

How competitive is their commissions

How many options of payouts they have.

How many ways of contacting do they have. Do they just use email or do they also have phone and messenger support.

Make sure that the affiliate program / website has a phone number and an address that you can contact them on. Some sites only allow you to contact them via email and they are likely to ignore your emails if you have late payments. Atleast if they have a phone number you can give them a call and sort things out much better.

 

I always like to promote recurring commission affiliate products so that you can earn a steady income in future months/years with no additional effort needed.

Examples include membership sites, web hosting, autoresponders, forex platforms, etc.

I also look for high-paying products as if I'm going to put some work into promoting a product I want to be well rewarded financially.

Other factors include good sales pages, a quality product, methods of payment, and how many other affiliates are promoting the product.

 

I agree there, residual income programs are good. These programs also help to grow your monthly earnings as you will keep earning from the sales that you got from the previous months aswell as the sale that you get for this months.

Sometimes these type of programs can be hard to find, but recurring programs can be found in most affiliate program directories. I have quite a few in mine in the "residual income" category for example.

So that is something that I missed out from the above post is that the type of commission that you will get also is important to consider

Some other things:
Do they have a 2-tier or 1-tier program
Do they offer bonuses when you sell or earn a certain amount
Etc...

 

Good points all!

I don't think anyone mentioned cookies.
Longer cookies give you more chances to make a sale.

Conversion rates are almost more important than commission amount.
One merchant can pay 20% per sale but there site doesnt convert or is
full of leaks (see below) so you make 0 sales. The other merchant could pay less, say 15% but convert well so you make 10 sales.

Unfortunately it's hard to tell if a merchant site will convert well without testing unless you know what to look for.

Also check programs for commission leaks like big 800#s, Adsense or other ads on the merchant pages. These are ways the traffic you send could buy without you getting credit or click off the site giving the merchant commission but you get nothing.

Hope this helps.

 

Almost everything is covered above.

Just one thing, Program should be new so you can stay and earn for longer time. In my eyes older affiliate program is like a dead horse. You can't recruit more members.

Bill

 

You can recruit new members just that it is harder. The reasons why you can recruit new members is because most affiliates on the web is not signed up to one program in particular. Even Adsense there is still alot of affiliates that are not signed up with them. There are new people getting involved into affiliate marketing on a daily basis, there are people changing their ways of earning on a daily basis to.

Just because a program is old doesn't mean that it is dead, it is just quite a bit harder to get referral signups I guess.

About the cookie, that is a good idea. The longer the cookie the better and people actual take this in mind when joining an affiliate program.

 

Personally, I look for the following:

1) Affiliate Programs that are hand-picked to suit my interests. And what can be better that signing up once and getting the most out of ALL affiliate programs related to my choice?

2) Provides the highest conversion rates.

3) Excellent and on-time payouts using method that's most convenient to me.

4) Real -time commission reporting.

5) Dedicated and live staff or affiliate personnel who can assist me whenever I need them.

 

Look at the payout history of the merchant. Also look at the competition of the keyword you are going to use to promote the site.

 

Hello Mr. Craigslist! I just wonder, as an affiliate how can you look at the competition of the keyword you are going to use to promote the site? Is there any software or tool used for this?

 

Well my biggest concern is how much support they have to offer their affiliates, then of course what kind of commissions I can make. Are their products good and will they sell? What kind of resources do they offer me, Free website design, banners, articles, seo help. I then see how other affiliates promoting the program are doing and what they think.

Check out my site below I have reviews for several top programs and many more to come, plus excellent affiliate marketing articles that will help you get started.

 

I would imagin that you can do this via Google. Search for the keyword and see how many results come up and if there is alot then you know there is alot of competition for that keyword. You will also be able to see in Adwords if you use it. You will be able to see roughly what the bids are for that keyword.

 

Why don't you just join a CPA affiliate network? There are many really good ones out there, Clickbooth, Azoogle.

 

Yes and there are over 100 in my sig. CPA was rather big then it slowly died off, but is becoming big again. It is making some people alot of money and infact some people are earning much more from CPA than what they are from Google when it comes to eCPM.

 

To Gsellars: I was caught by what you said about FREE WEB SITE DESIGN. This is something that most Affiliate Programs don't have. Most of the time, once you sign up as an affiliate, it's expected that you already have a ready affiliate site. Web site design and all are left to you. BTW, do you make reviews for free?

To John: You're right! I tried using Google Adwords Keyword Tool and the Keyword Selector Tool of Yahoo. Are those correct tools?

I'm not being discriminative here OK but I was just wondering, if an Affiliate Program does not belong to a CPA Affiliate Network, does that mean, it's not good?

 

I believe it's not just about a good affiliate program, but an affiliate program that works best for YOU. The products, services and/or information provided must be a good fit for your web site visitors. The links or banners must be attention getters enough and well placed enough to then make that visitor see it and believe they need it.

Artistopia.com

 

I believe quality offers and strength of advertisers in the industry before I choose.

 

saturation

payout

ease of sale

 

Some excellent tips and links here, thank you. I have tried a few affiliate programs but have not really made any money. Its hard to find a good product with heaps of demand that everyone else and his dog isn't promoting!

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To me its about:

1) Good Conversion
2) Good Support
3) How often it payout