Do your homework to determine the best affiliate programs for your web site.
Affiliate (aka Associate) programs are a win-win situation for everyone involved. Internet-based merchants hook up with affiliates to generate traffic to their web sites. Affiliates get paid if the traffic from their site visits the merchant web page. The smart Internet entrepreneur does some research to determine the best affiliate programs for her business.
Where to Look
Affiliate networks are the middle man between affiliates and web sites with affiliate programs. Look for affiliate networks that provide all the tools needed to set up and maintain an affiliate program.
What to Look for
The best affiliate programs will be those that target your customer base. An on-line florist would get little traffic from a pet supply website. You want an affiliate whose business is similar or comparable to your product. Avoid affiliates with low quality products. Ask to speak to existing affiliates to find out if a company is reputable.
Referral traffic may link to the merchant site and not buy initially but return to make a purchase weeks later. Look for affiliate programs that remember your site was responsible for that customer. The best affiliate programs remember you for 60 days by using cookies to tag the customer's computer when he visits the merchant site.
The best affiliate programs offer reliable support such as ads, logos, and sales advice. Good programs also provide timely updates on click through sales and earnings, and, respond to questions or problems within 24 hours.
Getting Paid
There are three common affiliate payment plans. With pay per sale, the merchant pays when the affiliate sends a customer who buys from the merchant's site. The payment could be a set amount or a percentage of the sale.
In a pay per click set up, the affiliate is paid based on the number of people who visit the merchant's web site regardless if a purchase was made.
With pay per lead programs, affiliates are paid based on the number of people who sign up as leads. A lead would be a visitor who filled out an information page on the merchant web site thus becoming a potential customer.
Multi-level payment plans allow affiliates to earn commission on sales, clicks, or leads from their sites as well as commission based on activity generated by affiliate sites they refer to the merchant site. Another form of payment is residual commission. Affiliates continue earning money after the original sale has been made. This is common in situations where customers pay monthly fees for merchant services.
The best affiliate programs pay at least 25% commission with some going as high as 50%. Payments should be made at least once a month although some affiliate programs pay quarterly or twice a year.
Honorable Mentions
There are hundreds of good, reputable affiliate programs. Programs should offer offers excellent marketing and educational information; a good site for web development merchants.
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The term "digital product" means that the product is delivered electronically. The customers will download the product to their computers. Some examples of digital products are downloadable e-books, audio/MP3, graphics (clipart and stock photography), video and software.
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Affiliates send visitors to other companies' websites and get paid a percentage of all the sales they refer. You don't have to worry about creating websites, dealing with customers, shipping and payment processing. Your only job is to advertise those websites and send people there. People will buy products from those websites and you will be paid your commission.
When you become an affiliate, you will be given a unique link with a tracking code. In your advertising, you will send people to that link. This unique code will ensure that all the sales will be properly credited to you.
Sell Advertising
If you have a website that gets a lot of visitors, you can sell advertising on it. Other companies will pay you for advertising space on your site, just like they pay to advertise in magazines and newspapers.
That's how all those "free websites" make money - they sell advertising. Free content attracts a lot of visitors. The higher is the number of people who visit the website, the more money you can make from advertising.
Provide Services
There are many types of services that can be done on the computer through the Internet. The most common examples of such services are website design, programming, graphic design, writing, data entry and transcription.
Many companies will gladly pay someone to do computer work for them on a project basis, so they don't have to hire full-time employees. As long as the work can be done without face-to-face interaction, you can do it from home on your computer and make money.
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