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Making Money with Affiliate Programs ? Part II
In this holiday season online shopping is hotter than ever!According to US Commerce Department online sales continue togrow with a robust 25-27 percent this year over 1992. Onlineholiday shopping at a rate of 10 percent is also considerablyoutpacing the 5.7 percent growth of overall retail sales. GoldmanSachs predicts 23 percent of all gift-buying this holiday seasonwill take place online! So, if you don't have a product of your own to sell online, howcan you profit from this exciting trend? One of the finest ways of making money online is to promoteother people's products or services by becoming theiraffiliates. Affiliate is a term used for a website that drivestraffic to another website in exchange for a predeterminedcommission. Thanks to the success of several affiliate programs inthe early days of online business, most merchant websites,today, use some kind of affiliate programs to promote theirsites and generate sales. Considering the sheer numbers of affiliate programsavailable on the Internet, you may feel overwhelmed.However, if you set some basic criteria, it would be loteasier to find a good program that suits your need. Free sign up The affiliate program that you are planning to join mustbe absolutely free. There are way too many good programsavailable for free, why should you pay for one? Moreover,the programs that require payments to join are mostly multiLevel Marketing (MLM) programs. Although, there may be many good MLM programs existing on the Internet, I don't thinkit's a viable option for an average person. Good commission You deserve handsome compensation for all your hard work!No matter, how you look into it, in most of the cases, promoting a product or service is not an easy job. Since youare doing the uphill struggle of bringing the client to themerchant's door, your commission should be real good one.What is an acceptable commission anyway? If you are promotingan information product, don't go for less than 50 percent.For more tangible products and services your bare minimumcommission should be 15 percent of the sale. If you arepromoting monthly subscription, choose a program that paysa portion of subscription fee as recurring commission toyou as long as the client referred by you stays subscribed. Tow-tier affiliate program An affiliate program which pays certain percent as acommission from the sale for bringing in a client andanother if that client brings in other clients. Two-tieraffiliate programs are more preferable since once a clientbase is built, it becomes a great source of residualincome. Quality affiliate tracking system The merchant should have a very good and well-organizedaffiliate sales tracking management software system. Youhave to be absolutely comfortable with the statisticsgenerated by the affiliate program. The program shouldshow such important aspects as repurchase, if any, by theclient referred by you, your second tier affiliates,activities by your second tier clients, etc.If you do notfeel comfortable with the tracking system provided by amerchant, better stick to the merchants, who use third partyaffiliate managing system. At least, you will know that adishonest merchant won't be able to defraud you. Efficient customer support You should feel satisfied with the service and support youget from your affiliate program owner. A good program highly values its affiliates and gives priority to its customersupport system. As the clients that you are sending to the merchant are primarily your site's visitors, you should beextremely picky about the quality of customer service theprogram renders. After all, your own site's reputation isalso at stake here! Promotional materials If you are planning to promote an affiliate program, youwill need more materials then mere banners. Unfortunately,even many high-end affiliate programs do not carry enoughpromotional materials to satisfy the need of the affiliates. Promotional material should include: contents to buildmini-sites, various ad articles, different kind of textlinks, product brochures or presentation, etc. Commission payment policy The affiliate program should have a sort of minimum paymentpolicy, where you can receive commissions if even you havemade just one or two sales. A reasonable amount is US $25.Less than that is not viable due to processing costs.Commission should be paid each month. If you are locatedoutside of US, see if the merchant makes payment throughPaypal or other similar services or not. For most of thecountries checks issued in other countries are not a goodoption. If an affiliate program meets all these above mentionedcriteria, you can consider joining in this program. However,to get best result from your efforts, before signing up, youshould also consider the following rules: You have to like the product you are promoting Any salesman will confirm you that this is one of thefundamental rules of selling. If you are selling a productor service you must have confidence in it. If you like theproduct and will use it yourself gladly, you found a productto promote! Don't waste your time with a product that is not up to your taste! Promote a product or service consistent to your website's subject matter If your site is all about soccer, you willbe better off with products and service related to soccer.If this same site promotes,for example: pesticides, no matterhow hard you try your success will be very limited! Beforejoining in any affiliate program first you should identifywho your visitors are, what do they like and which productsthey will probably buy online. Once you know your niche market it's lot easier to find products or services for it. Many webmasters think that in order to make money throughaffiliate programs, all you have to do is to come up with asite and fill up the site with affiliate links. Sooner alllater people will click on them. Unfortunately this does notwork! Making money through affiliate programs is also abusiness and like any business you have to have a properbusiness plan. Only a well prepared businessplan followedby its meticulous implementation can bring success toyour affiliate endeavor. Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and presentCEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, hehas wide experience in Business Consulting, InternationalTrade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplacewith solutions to start and run online business. You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com,http://ezine.rusbiz.com, http://www.rusbiz.com
|  | | | RELATED ARTICLES Make Money Online With Affiliate Programs If you have wanted to find a way to make money from home without all the hassle of selling products out of your own home yourself, perhaps you should take a look at affiliate programs. The Secret Shady Practices of Affiliate Marketing You've probably heard it a hundred times...affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. Joint Venture 101 - The Quickest Way To Build Your eBusiness - PART 1 This article reveal the same techniques that many Internet marketing experts uses every day to make millions of dollars in profits - no kidding! In my own opinion it is the most profitable and powerful concept ever used on the Internet field. So, stay close and read it carefully. Affiliate Marketing - A Quick Overview For Beginners It's simply a kind of marketing in the internet where marketers sell products or services of certain merchants. Those Internet Marketers earn commissions on sales. Most of the merchants even also pay them for clicks and leads to their promotional websites. Adsense: How to Make Money With Ads by Google The chances are that you've seen "Ads by Google" on a variety of websites and perhaps wondered what they were all about. The fact is that you can probably get "Ads by Google" on your own site and if you do, you can look forward to getting paid by Google. How to Make Real Money from Affiliate Programs It is an often quoted statistic that about 90% of affiliates make no money from affiliate programs. Selling Merchandise On Your Website If you take away poker, dating, and naked ladies, custom merchandising is the big success story of the Internet. The ultimate combination of e-commerce and affiliate marketing, millions of websites around the world turn to online merchandising companies - both to market their URL and to extract some cash from loyal visitors. Free and Effective Affiliate Marketing Using Articles and Traffic Exchange Sites Affiliate marketing is an extremely tricky subject and so is website advertising. Higher Commission Is Not Always Better I have seen it a million times, especially from newer affiliates. They find two similar affiliate programs and immediately assume that the one that pays the highest commission is automatically the better affiliate program... not true! As an affiliate you need to look beyond the commission and evaluate the entire program. Yes, high commission are always nice to have but there are some things to look for that can make a high commission affiliate program practically worthless and a waste of your valuable time. Are You Building a Business or a Downline? A common mistake *A LOT* of affiliates make is to focus too much Energy on building their second tier and not enough on selling Their business on the first tier. How To Build An Email List As An Affiliate You have probably heard "the money is in the list" at least athousand times. But it is true; the money is in the list. The Prosperous Affiliate Merry-Go-Round In the affiliate world, just as in the rest of the world, what goes around comes around. Design Web Site Around Affiliate Programs When starting a Web business, most people choose a topic for their Web site and then look for products and affiliate programs related to that topic. In this article, I suggest searching for a group of related affiliate programs first, then designing your Web site around those programs. AdSense Stats and Performance 101 As more and more people are getting into the AdSense game, there seem to be many questions asked again and again by the newcomers. Here, I have compiled detailed explanations to some common AdSense terms, facts, and performance tips. 9 Ways to Catapult Your Affiliate Marketing Career Affiliate marketing involves the promotion of a website by a person known as the affiliate.He is the one who acts as the middleman between the merchant and the customer.The nature of an affiliate's job is to advertise and promote a merchant's website through his own. Affiliate Marketing Secrets that You Can Use Affiliate marketing is a very hot topic on the web right now. Not surprising when you consider the fact that a vast majority of successful online entrepreneurs make their money from affiliate schemes and programs. Since the earlydays when Amazon was being set up and founder, Jeff Bezos was establishing affiliates as key marketing tools for any online enterprise, affiliates and affiliate marketing has come of age. 13 Killer Ways To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions 1.Start a private web site.Use it as a free bonus if people buy the product you resell.You could also allow people to join for free and you could advertise the affiliate program you've joined. 5 Tips If You Want To Be A Reseller If you are planning to be a reseller for a product or many products, here are five great tips you can use for your own! Dont Make This Mistake...New Affiliate Joining more than 2 programs at a time is something you don't want to do. I did this when I started as an Affiliate. If I were to advise a 'newbie' getting involved online I would tell them to promote, market or endorse only '1' product or service at a time. Affiliate Marketing--Huh? In my search for a presence on the internet, I searched many avenues, but was finding more scams and dead ends than I would care to speak about. |
