Setting up Your Own Affiliate Program (part two)
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Setting up Your Own Affiliate Program (part two)
This article is the second of a two part series on setting up
your own affiliate program. In addition to starting an affiliate
program, you must manage it and keep track of it. The following
information will show you how Managing and tracking your
affiliate programs
The key to any business is to promote your products and services
to people who need them. Your affiliate business is no
different. In order to earn commissions you must put your
products in front of the people who need them. The beauty of
marketing affiliate programs is that it is anybody's ball game.
This is the one place you can burrow deep into your own niche
and stick it to the so-called 'big wigs'.
You may create your own affiliate program or you may promote
other popular affiliate programs that are related to your
product or service. The best way to manage and track affiliate
programs is by creating your own affiliate program website. This
is where you can list all your affiliate programs.
= = = = = = = = = = Staying Organized = = = = = = = = = =
There are many affiliate networks that provide multiple
affiliate programs and merchants. Keeping a track of all
affiliate programs in a single network is easy. You would
generally be given one username and password as well as a single
interface that controls all the programs. However, if you have
many of your own affiliate programs or you promote several
stand-alone affiliate programs from your website, the task of
staying organized becomes a bit more complex.
There are many software programs available on the Internet that
organize and keep track of all data associated with affiliate
programs. Some of these are My Affiliate Program 2000 and
Affiliate Assistant 1.0. These programs maintain databases
pertaining to information about all your affiliate programs. A
typical database would consist of the following fields:
* Program Name * Date joined or created * Contact Name * URL *
Email Address * ID * Password * 1st Tier Percent * 1st Tier Sale
* 2nd Tier Percent * 2nd Tier Sale * Total Income * Additional
comments
Once the program information has been entered, you can add
information about individual sales made and checks received. The
program then keeps track of sales to date, amount collected and
receivables. Besides, some of the advanced software programs
also provide analysis and comparison tools for all affiliate
programs. If you take the time to input collected data about
clicks, sales, and page views, impressions, emails sent etc.
from your various campaigns and enter all of it into the
program, it will show you:
* Click to Sale Ratios * Impression to Sale Ratios * Amount
Earned Per Impression * Amount Earned Per Click
Apart from these are a few other tips that might help you manage
your affiliate programs.
* Always ensure that your website is up and running. On a Daily
basis type your URL into your browser's address bar, refresh the
page and find out. The danger in not knowing that your site is
down comes when you are running a pay per click advertising
campaign. The click costs add up whether your site is functional
or not. If your site is down, you are paying for advertising,
but no one is buying.
* Check your statistics daily, maybe even twice a day. This will
give you a better idea of your income trends and also highlight
affiliate programs that bring your business. Visit the
statistics interface for each network and individual affiliate
partner and input your total revenues into any accounting
software. Using such software frequently will also keep you
informed as to whether certain checks have become overdue.
* Be prompt in answering any queries from affiliate partners or
customers, especially when these are about your products or
services. This probably means that the customer trusts your site
and is thinking of buying your product.
* One of the main aspects of any affiliate program is residual
income. You've got to make the most of each and every customer
you receive. The best way to do this is by promoting affiliate
programs that offer residual commission.
* This allows you to repeatedly get paid for work you do once.
For example, if a visitor arrives at your site and purchases
auto responder services, newsletter subscriptions, ISP/hosting
services, you will collect a portion of the monthly fees for as
long as they remain a paying customer. Membership sites are a
good way to collect residual commissions and are steadily
growing in popularity. There are many affiliate programs that
offer residual commission.
* A well placed recommendation placed at the end of an outgoing
email can bring in extra sales. Target your audience, what are
their specific needs? If you can offer them a product they
need/want, often times the end result will be a sale.
* Finally, track all your affiliate links. The best way to
accomplish this is by setting up tracking software for your
affiliate links. There are a number of scripts that will do the
job. Most tracking programs typically allow you to setup
tracking links for any product you promote, telling you how many
hits each product has received, and where the hits are coming
from. A more detailed view of tracking and analysis is given in
the section below.
* It is not enough to have a few banners and classified ads. You
must provide as much help as possible for your associates if you
want them to be successful. You should have tested and proven
endorsements, testimonials, sig files, ezine ads, and other
unique tools and techniques. You must also make yourself
available, either through email or the phone, to help your
affiliates implement these tools and to answer any questions
they may have.
* Whether you run your own or participate in an affiliate
program, you must be able to determine what methods work best in
a particular medium. For instance, which ezine ads work best and
in what ezine; which banner ads produce the greatest
clickthroughs and from which sites or banner exchanges; and
where on your website is the most effective spot to include a
testimonial.
* Some affiliate programs, have implemented unique payment
procedures to get affiliates their commission checks on a timely
basis. Some of these procedures include: online electronic
payment services, direct bank deposits and checks by fax. If you
can solidify your payment procedures from the start, you will
save yourself an administrative headache and more importantly,
keep your affiliates happy and working to promote your program.
This concludes my series on starting your own affiliate
program. This information should be all you need to start,
manage and track your own affiliate program. = = = = = = = = = =
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