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> Get Articles > Affiliate and Associate Programs > Top 8 Tips In Choosing Affiliate Programs

Top 8 Tips In Choosing Affiliate Programs


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Jean Lam
jeanzineguru.com

Zine Guru
http://www.zineguru.com


You probably already know that joining an affiliate program is a

good start to earn money on the Internet without many of the

hassles that come in selling your own product. You are just

promoting someone else business and products and you collect a

commission when you make a sale. You don't ever need to worry

about:



(1) Collecting the money

(2) Delivering the product

(3) Customer Service



Among one of the best affiliate programs, you have the Internet

Marketing Center at http://www.zineguru.com/affiliate



If you have come across other affiliate programs and don't know

which one to choose, consider the top 8 tips that I am giving you

below.





(1) Go for quality



When you promote someone else product, ensure that the latter is

of good quality. Do your homework first by either buying and

testing the product or getting testimonials and recommendations

from other people who have bought it. Remember that any

recommendation you make will reflect directly on you.



If you recommend a good quality product or service that is

reasonably priced, your customers will continue to trust you and

be interested in future recommendations that you make.



If your customers have a bad experience with a product or service

that you recommend, however, they will likely hesitate to act on

any new offers you send them.



Don't ever promote something that's going to hurt your reputation!





(2) Look for a program that offers top commissions.



It is perfectly reasonable for you to expect to be paid 20% to

50% of the profits on each product sold -- 5% to 10% is really

low. Ultimately, you should look for companies who understand the

"lifetime value" of new customers you send them, and who

appreciate your efforts enough to compensate you generously.





(3) Make sure they have a high sales conversion ratio.



When joining an affiliate program, make sure that the site is

turning a reasonable number of visitors into sales. If they're

not, your efforts directing traffic to their web site will be

completely wasted.



Look for sites that have at least a 1% conversion ratio (i.e. 1

out of every 100 visitors buy). Check out their web site and

their sales copy to see if it "makes you want to buy." After all,

while it's your job to send them targeted traffic, it's their job

to turn these prospects into paying customers.





(4) Choose a program that matches the theme of your website



If your site is about internet marketing, then you shouldn't

choose affiliate products related to car books to promote on your

web site. Your customers see you as an internet marketing expert

-- not a car expert.



You should sell for instance books or ebooks about web marketing.

So it makes sense that while they will be very interested to

learn what marketing books or ebooks you recommend, you are going

to lose their trust and respect if you start trying to recommend

car books to them.



Find out what your target market is looking for and then choose

affiliate products that meet their needs while complementing your

own product or service.





(5) Be sure that you're getting credit for all of your sales.



Find out what kind of tracking software the affiliate program that

you're interested in joining uses. You want to go with a company

that uses quality affiliate tracking software that is reliable and

tracks ALL of your sales.



Why I emphasize "all" is because you want to make sure they track

online, phone, fax, and snail mail orders. Many companies only

track online orders, and this means that you will never get credit

for anywhere from 5 - 10% of your affiliate sales!



Also, make sure the affiliate program you join uses "cookie

tracking" because this helps to ensure that you will be credited

for the sales of people who don't buy the first time they visit,

but come back later to make a purchase.





(6) Look for programs that allow you to access all of your sales

statistics in Real Time.



Real Time statistics are important because they allow you to see

how different banners, text links, and recommendations are doing.

For example, on your site you might discover after some testing

that a banner on your resource page doesn't pull nearly as well

as a personal recommendation under your newsletter subscription

box.



So you can adjust which banners and text links you use, and where

they are placed, based on what you learn from your Real Time sales

statistics.





(7) Look for a program that teaches you the "best" techniques.



A good affiliate program will provide you with everything you need

to be successful. They'll provide you with traffic-generating

banners, text links, and recommendation letter templates. And

they'll also tell you which techniques work well in which

circumstances.



Because their success is linked with yours, the affiliate program

you join should be ready, willing, and able to teach you everything

you need to know to start earning excellent commissions.





(8) Make sure the payments are made often enough



Last but not least, you would like to have your commission cheques

mailed to you often, preferably once a month. Every 3 to 6 months is

quite long.





Ok now, that you have these top 8 tips, you should bear these in mind

before joining any affiliate program. If it meets these criteria, you

probably have a winner. If not, look for a better program.



© 2003 By Jean Lam



---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jean Lam publishes a bi-monthly ezine "Zine Guru". To subscribe for

cutting-edge internet marketing tips, go to http://www.zineguru.com

and receive 4 valuable ebooks. To discover the truth about online

success, go to http://www.zineguru.com/secrets





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