Need help in Determining the right affiliate program for you?

November 7th, 2009 by posting

For those who are new in internet marketing, it’s easy to make affiliate program as one of your top choices in launching your own business. The incentive for this is the simplicity of the program functionality. However, some things need to be done before you make a determination to join an affiliate program. First of all, it is wise to narrow down your selection instead of choosing just one program. Once you narrow down your choices, come up with questions that you like to get answer for, and do research on each program selected to get your questions answered. Think about what you will want to bring about later, this will be determined by the answers that you get.

The number one question that you want to ask is about cost; whether or not there is a charge involved in joining the program. Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. Hence, there is no reason for us to take part in paid affiliate program if most of the programs being offered are free. The fact that they are free does not decrease the quality of these programs. However, even though the quality of these programs are on par, both programs may not offer the same benefits, such as passive or residual income that most free affiliate programs do not offer.

Besides knowing the quality of the program and the benefit it offers it is also important that you know the periodicity of commission check issuance for each program, because it differs from program to program. Some programs dispense their checks on a monthly basis, and others on a quarterly basis. Some people may not be able to wait for the whole quarter before receiving their payment, while it is not a problem for others. Whatever your preference is it is important to know this ahead of time and to opt for the payment method suited to your needs. Many of these affiliate programs set a minimum earned commission amount that you must meet or exceed in order for them to dispense their checks.

As an affiliate, your job is to create traffic to the merchant’s site. Therefore, you want to know how much traffic needs to be driven before you can start seeing sales. This is called hit per sale, an important statistics in affiliate marketing.

What about the tracking system? This is also another important element to consider. How does the merchant track affiliate’s referrals? How long do these referrals remain in the system? Ask yourself if you can depend on the merchant’s tracking system. Since your commission payment will be based on the tracking system, it is of utmost important that you have enough confidence in the program’s tracking system. Moreover, the time period that the visitors stay in the system is also important. Since a lot of visitors do not like to disburse their money right away, you will have visitors that will come back once or several more times before they actually make a conclusion to buy. In this case you want to know whether or not you will still get the credit for the sale it’s done months the customer’s first visit.

What about the availability of affiliate stats? Whatever program you select should have the ability of offering detailed stats. Detailed stats such as how many impressions, hits, and sales have been generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the advertisement, whether it be in the form of banner or text link, is shown to the visitors of your site. A hit is when the visitor actually clicks on any of the advertisement. You need to have this information to not only assess the effectiveness of the ads, but also to know whether or not your attempt in channeling traffic to the site is paying off. This information should be available online anytime you desire to check them out.

Besides commissions on sales, does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions? This is another significant point to look at. It would be better if the program also pays for these impressions and hits because that will boost your bottom line. This is especially important if the program you are in offers low sales to be able to hit ratio.

What about the company background and history? The more research you do the more you will know about the company. You need to know whom you are doing business with, whether or not the company you are thinking about is a solid company. Study their offers, find out the average amount they have achieved so far, and decide whether or not the program is really for you. The more you know about the company the better it is for you. This can only be done by performing as much due diligence as you can.

Is the program a one or two tier program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program not only pays for your business but it also pays you a commission on the sales produced by any affiliate you sponsor. Some of these programs ask for one time payment only for their products and, yet, some others require the affiliates to pay monthly membership fees in order for them to be able to compensate all their affiliates. Each affiliate success depends on the success of the affiliates they sponsor. The benefit you get from such program is that if you train your sponsors correctly, and they’re able to duplicate your success, you will acquire passive or residual income from your sponsored affiliates.

Lastly, what is the amount of commission paid? Most programs pay about 5% – 20% commission, but some others pay even higher commission percentages. The programs that do pay for impressions don’t usually pay much at all. .01% – .05% is the amount paid for each hit. From these figures you understand why it is significant to know the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio.

The above is just some of the components that you need to think about in each program; there is more, of course. However, you can at least familiarize yourself with the elements presented above, and get your questions answered. The answer to your questions will help you in determining on the right affiliate program for you.