How To Choose A Successful Affiliate Program
The ultimate question for you should be which affiliate program do I choose? But also: Is it right for me? Do I get everything I envisioned out of it? With the amount of information available today, it is a difficult task to begin with. And most important, are the sources even trustworthy? In some situations, you could face legal consequences; be aware and use your common sense and seek legal advice if you’re unclear on anything concerning your business.
You can earn commissions by promoting credit cards from some of the largest banks in the United States. While It is very competitive, yes, it also pays a large commission amount – but how much money do you have to spend to promote it?
Your Action Plan should be: Research – Research – Research ……… and again Research There are some affiliate programs that offer only one way to make money, there are others that give you a combination of ways to earn your commission. In order to accomplish your objective of referring prospects to your advertisers program, choosing an affiliate program that offers you more than one way to earn money is the best choice.
Finding a program that will pay for a combination of actions is hard to find, however this is the BEST and fastest way to make money. Examples include: The click of your referral link. The lead when they complete a signup box on their site. The trial download of their product or service. Their purchase of the product or service. At the end you want a program which gives you the most return of your investment, Period!
Pay Per Sale (PPS) is the most frequently used form of affiliate marketing; You are paid a commission when a visitor clicks on your link and then purchases a product from the website. This method is most often used by large retailers. The best advantage this type of affiliate marketing provides is the high commission these internet retailers pay out. Top shelf items equals top shelf commission; take for instance software programs such as Dreamweaver (software for designing your own site pages) which retails at $899-a 25% commission on this is $224.75! The only thing you need to watch out for is low pay -outs and the fact that returned items also strip you of your commission.
PPL or Pay Per Lead – another option of affiliate marketing. Essentially, the potential customer leaves very little personal information in exchange for some free information. Since there is no purchase required for sign up, he or she will be more likely to fill out the form, leaving you receiving a commission. By the nature of this approach, the percentage isn’t going to be very lucrative; future purchases from this customer are crucial.
In Pay Per Action the objective is essentially to find potential customers to invest a little more time in the product or service you are promoting by downloading a trial version of a software program for example. Again, such as in Pay Per Action, commission will be less generous because there is no actual purchase made. Risk: If the performance of the product or service fails to impress the visitor, they will simply cancel the program rather than purchase it.
Pay Per Click The first and most famous of all affiliate marketing programs is called Pay Per Click. Thousands of merchants lost money when this affiliate marketing program technology became the target of malicious hackers. The sophisticated software programs that they developed to circumvent the tracking methods caused this form of affiliate marketing to become unpopular. However, the pay per click model is enjoying a rebound in use. It has been adopted by contextual (“text”) advertising companies, who are using encrypted reporting and tracking features behind this technology to prevent fraud. Advantage: The easiest affiliate marketing programs to promote, with a growing number of contextual ad providers to choose from. Risk: Many of these contextual ad providers’ referral links use a large amount of website page space. Commissions can be very small i.e., $.005 per click or have extremely high payout levels, i.e. commissions only paid after 1,000 clicks.
Stay tuned for part two: Making Visitors Remember Their Visit To Your Site.
If you are into affiliate marketing look at Johns website for one of the best paying affiliate marketing products out there – Period! The question isn’t really affiliate marketing versus selling one’s own products it’s the dream you have to succeed. Copyright information…. This article is free for reproduction but must be reproduced in its entirety & this copyright statement must be included.