What Are Affiliate Programs And Which Are The Best Ones To Join
When it comes to affiliate programs the choice is endless. What you need to do is find affiliate programs that have products congruent with your niche market.
One of my main pieces of advice would be to do, as you do with your niche, the necessary research into the affiliate programs. There are as there is in any industry market leaders and towards the end of this post I will list some programs which in my opinion are tried and tested and safe to be involved with.
Also there are two types of products that you can promote. They are physical products and digital products.
Physical Products
This is fairly self-explanatory as it is something that is a physical item that can be delivered to your home or any building. This could range from concert tickets, electrical items, sports equipment, furniture or even food.
Digital Products
This is something that you can digitally download to your computer, tablet or smartphone. Typically this would include e-books, training courses, music and videos.
Most affiliate programs and networks will accept just about anybody so it is very easy to get access to thousands of products to promote. Some are a little bit more selective and may ask you to provide information of your website, traffic volume and may look at your site to see if it fits into their business model. Don’t let that put you off as I will shortly show you where to go.
In my opinion it is counterproductive to sign up to too many programs and networks. There are some really good programs that have vast catalogues of products which appeal to many different niches.
If you are promoting lots of promoting lots of products at the same time it can get very confusing. You will find that you have lots of campaigns running. It is all about testing. Once you find a product that is converting then scale it up.
Things To Look For In Affiliate Programs.
Commission Rates – Always look for how much the commission is on the sale of a product. Some programs offer up to 75% and some offer 10%.
So which is better?
The answer all depends on the sale price. If you get 75% of a $100 product you will receive $75. If you get 10% of a $1000 product you will receive $100 commission. So you actually get more revenue for a less percentage.
The Quality Of The Product – If possible always try and purchase the product. This allows you to experience the standard of service and also it lets you see the quality of the product. This will give you the confidence to recommend it to your customers.
How Do You Get Paid – Many programs will pay you digitally. Meaning direct to your bank account or PayPal account. Some still pay by cheque.
Some pay weekly, fortnightly, monthly or even bi-monthly. This is something to take into consideration as cash flow is crucial to any business.
Reputation – Research the company. Find reviews from other affiliates. Ask questions on forums. If people have trouble getting paid on time the personally I would steer clear.
Do They Offer Products With Recurring Income? – This is such an important factor but often overlooked. Think about this.
You promote a product for say $20 and you get paid 50% commission so you earn $10. If your advertising costs are say $2 then you have made $8 profit for the sale.
Now if the product is a subscription product which recurs month in month out then the time, effort and cost to you to get the initial sale is the same but you receive $10 every month after for as long as the subscriber keeps paying.
So over the course of a year your will receive $120 for the initial $2 advertising cost. Do the work once and keep getting paid!
As promised here are my recommended affiliate programs that I personally use.
Amazon Associates – The biggest retailer online an affiliate program. They offer a massive catalogue of products so you can be sure to find a product for every niche.
It is free to set up an account and your commission rates go up depending on how many sales you make.
Click here to go to Amazon Associates
Market Health – Huge selection of health related products. They offer revenue share and CPA (Cost Per Action) payments. They also have geographical specific promotions.
Click here to go to Market Health
Moreniche – Very similar to Market Health.
Commission Junction – Commission Junction (CJ.com) is the world’s largest Affiliate Network of products. They have both digital products, and tangible products offered in their vast marketplace. Companies like Ebay, Palm, The Home Depot, Buy.com, HP, and Yahoo Search Marketing are among the advertisers on this network. The main drawback to using CJ as an affiliate network is that the linking structure is quite difficult and confusing to use. Many people do not use CJ simply because gathering links is not easy. With this being said, CJ provides products in almost every genre.
Clickbank – Clickbank is the most easy to use, and highly effective Affiliate networks available. All products are digital in nature and can be instantly delivered over the internet. Although Clickbank is very easy to use and I highly recommend using it, there is a low level of fraud protection provided. Although the refund rates of many products are very small, some people have taken advantage of the guarantee available for all CB products.
Pay Dot Com – Very similar to Clickbank.
Click here to go to Pay Dot Com
Shareasale – Shareasale also offers full service to both merchants and affiliates. With over 2000 merchant products to promote there will be something in every category. From clothing, to cosmetics and nutrition, Shareasale is worth adding to your list of places to find products to sell online.
Click here to go to Shareasale
All of these programs and networks are free to join. I would not recommend joining any program that charges you a fee. Saying that obviously that is entirely up to you.
These are my personal favourites. You can always turn to Google for more information. Simply enter “affiliate programs” into the search box and an abundance of results will be returned to you.
Once last thing I would like to draw your attention to is just how does the affiliate program know who is sending them the customers. Whenever you join an affiliate program you have your own unique identification number.
The identification number is incorporated into the companies tracking url. Some may sound confusing so let me explain.
So let’s just say the company you join is www.abc123.com
Your name is Paul Smith so you identification number would be paulsmith.
You would expect you affiliate link to look something like this.
www.paulsmith.abc123.com
You then promote that link and leads and sales are tracked within the companies tracking software and when a sale is made then you are credited with it.
I hope that you have found this post on affiliate programs of great value.
Asl always I wish you well.
Pete Harris
Digital Marketer & Home Business Consultant
