How To Make More Money With Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are one of the web's most effective marketing
techniques. They create a win-win situation by which site A
refers a visitor to site B, and site B pays site A a commission
if that visitor purchases something. If you are the referrer
site (affiliate), you can make money with no overhead (no
product, no warehouse, no collection risk). On the other hand,
the destination site receives a steady stream of qualified leads
from hundreds, maybe thousands of affiliate sites, and doesn't
have to spend a dime unless a visitor purchases something.
To maximize effectiveness, affiliate sites need to keep in mind
some common sense suggestions:
1) Resist the temptation to add too many affiliate links.
Affiliate link overkill confuses visitors and hurts credibility.
You want your visitors to view your site as a value-adding
destination and not just a cheesy sales site. Recommend links to
products you have tried, or that come from good, solid
companies. Don't recommend something you don't know just because
you're getting paid. Give your visitors the best advice and they
will reward you.
2) If you write articles for your website, try not to include
the affiliate links in the body of your articles: it will give
the impression that you have a vested interest in recommending
them. You want your visitors to trust your advice, so don't turn
your article into an excuse to promote products and make a
commission. It's OK to include affiliate links, but do it on a
side bar or on a resource table. Whenever possible, link to your
affiliate partners with text links (since banner ad
click-through is at its lower rate ever, and people tend to
ignore banners).
3) Include only affiliate links that are related to your
business and the topic of interest to your visitors. Links to
unrelated products will not generate good leads for the
destination sites (and therefore won't be a source of
significant commissions for you), so they are best avoided.
4) Managing your affiliate programs can be a hassle if you have
to deal with many different companies. Try to sign up with a
site that administers many affiliate programs to chose from (one
of the best out there are Commission Junction [www.cj.com] and
Befree.com [www.befree.com]). These sites give you hundreds of
affiliate programs to chose from, and act as a one-stop shop
where you can sign up with multiple vendors using only one
account and receiving one consolidated commission check.
5) Chose affiliate partners that offer long term cookies. A
cookie is a mechanism that allows the destination site to know
when a visitor is referred by your site. A long term cookie (for
example, a three months cookie) means that a visitor who follows
a link to one of your affiliate partners today but doesn't
purchase anything, can come back and purchase at anytime during
the next three months and you will still be paid a commission.
The best programs are those who offer unlimited cookies
(although there are not so many of them around). However, a
90-day cookie or more is very good.
6) Link directly to the product page and not to the main page of
the destination site. If you link to the main page, the visitor
will have to find its way to the product and may not find it,
making you lose commissions. By linking directly to the product,
you will increase the prospects of the visitor buying the
product (and of you making a commission). Many destination
sites, like Amazon, recognize this fact and offer a higher
commission to affiliates that link directly to the product pages
than to those who only link to the main page.
Follow these simple guidelines and you will improve your chances
of success with all your affiliate programs.