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How To
Make More Money With Affiliate Programs
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by:
Mario Sanchez
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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.
About the Author
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest (
http://www.theinternetdigest.net ) a collection of tips and suggestions
to help you design a better website and market it more effectively.
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