Which Affiliate Programs Do I Personally Recommend?

By Tim Knox

I personally receive over a dozen checks and commission payments every month from various affiliate programs that I promote.

Last month, those checks totaled more than $10,000 and some months they have been as high as $25,000.

Given my success as an affiliate marketer, I'm often asked what affiliate programs I personally recommend.

The answer is easy because it's actually a pretty short list.

First, let me explain what an affiliate program is.

Affiliate programs are used by monster companies like Amazon, eBay, and many others to recruit resellers (affiliates) to help bring customers to their websites.

But the affiliate programs I prefer are those offered by smaller companies that sell digital products online. Those are the programs that pay up to 75% commission, while most larger
companies may pay just a few percent.

You can join an affiliate program usually by applying online at the company's website. Being accepted into the program gives you the right to market the company's products as an independent reseller and receive commissions when you make a sale.

I've looked at hundreds of affiliate programs over the years and have come up with my own personal Top 10 Affiliate Programs that I actively participate in and heartily recommend.

Some of these programs require that you pay a membership fee and some do not. The reason some programs charge a fee (including my own affiliate programs) is because you get more
value as an affiliate.

In most cases you get a full-blown website from which to sell the products and copies of most - if not all - of the products you'll be selling. For example, I charge $124.50 to join my program, but you get access to over $500 in products.

To make my list of the Top Affiliate Programs is not an easy task.

First of all, I have to personally be an affiliate of the program and must have earned considerable sums to prove its validity.

To make my list the program must also:

Offer quality products that offer real value, no fluff Offer high commissions (30% minimum, 50% preferred) Offer 2 tier commissions (if the 1st tier payout is substantial, I can live with a single tier)

Have a proven track record of success
Have a spotless reputation
Pay commissions on time, every time
Have well-known affiliates who will vouch for the program
Be more than 6 months old
Have a low rate or returns
Be referred to me by someone I trust.
That last one's a biggie for me. If one of my peers recommends a program, I know it's going to be good.

So, here is my personal Top 10 Affiliate Programs that make me thousands of dollars every month and with a little time and effort, there is no reason they can't do the same for you.

These are the programs that I personally participate in and recommend. If you're serious about starting your own affiliate marketing empire, take a close look at these.

Internet Marketing Center

IMC was founded by the late Corey Rudl and is now headed up by Derek Gehl, Corey's right hand man. IMC racked up $40 million in sales and pays out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to their affiliates. Their products are top notch, as is the support and the commissions. I regularly get checks from IMC that range from $3,000 to $7,000 a month. This program is free to join.

Click for details
DropshipDesign Turnkey Websites

This is the only turnkey dropship website company that I recommend and I have been their affiliate for 2 years now. I regularly earn $500 to $1,000 week as an affiliate and also have my own turnkey dropship product site that brings in revenue from orders placed by customers. You must sign on as a customer first, but doing so gets you your own turnkey website and affiliate marketing rights.

Click for details
Hot Item Finder

Dave Guindon is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet online. He's also one of the most talented programmers and product creators. His flagship product, Hot Item Finder, helps users identify what's hot and what's not on eBay. It's one of the best eBay related products I've ever seen. Dave's affiliate program is also tops in my book. His product converts like crazy and his support is second to none.

Click for details
1stPromotion.com

No one knows affiliate marketing better than Rick Davies and his brother Ron. They are considered "The Masters" at making a six-figure affiliate income from home with affiliate marketing. Using that expertise, the brothers Davies have created 1stPromotion.com, which is quickly becoming the top Clickbank affiliate site on the planet. Their turnkey system is great for
beginners at an extremely low cost.

Click for details
CBMall (Clickbank Mall)

I personally earn several thousand dollars in passive income every month with this system and there's no reason you can't do the same... and the great thing is, you don't even need a website to get started! No monthly charges. Great for beginners.

Click for details
Automatic Money Machine

Howard Mooreland's Automatic Money Machine has proven itself to be one of the top programs. Howard offers big commissions and his sales pages convert like mad. I never fail to generate
hundreds of dollars anytime I promote Howard's products, which help users build a web site in just a couple of hours that can literally start generating money instantly.

Click for details
Emergency Cash Generators

James Jones always delivers by providing his affiliates with excellent products that sell like mad. I have done so well promoting James' new book, Emergency Cash Generators, 101 Profit Generating Techniques, that it jumped into my Top 10 after just one month. You can't miss affiliating with James.

Click for details
MyClickPages.com

MyClickPages.com is the program I created specifically for Clickbank affiliates. http://myclickpages.com/ gives you a complete, professionally designed website from which you can sell my Clickbank registered products. I pay 50% commission on all sales. It's free to join, but please only do so if you are serious about affiliate marketing.

Click for details
DropshipWholesale.net

Naturally I have to recommend my own affiliate program. Yes, I charge for the affiliate license, but I also give affiliates a full blown website and copies of all my products and my track record is 2nd to none. I signed checks last year that paid out over several hundred thousand dollars to affiliates in 2004, so I know it works.

Click for details
Prosperity & Profits

My P&P affiliate program is one of the top programs on the web for serious internet marketers. As a P&P member and affiliate you get access to every section of the P&P website, including the wholesale database, the business opportunity and franchise database, the extensive ebook library, and more. Commissions are 50% of sales and paid monthly by check.

Click for details
There you go, my personal Top 10 Affiliate Programs, but don't think that is the definitive list. There are tens of thousands of products and companies that you can sign on with as an affiliate and earn commissions.

You can find most of them listed at Clickbank or Commission Junction.

About The Author:

Tim Knox Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker http://www.prosperityandprofit.com
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.timknox.com

Setting Up An Art Affiliate Site - Part 3

By Jeremy Zongker

The phrase "If you build it they will come" definitely does not pertain to websites. Getting visitors to your site is easy; doing it in a way that is profitable is very difficult and takes a lot of work. This is the most difficult and most critical phase to operating a profitable art affiliate site or any website for that matter. There's no magic formula to follow, but in the sections below you'll find some key pieces of advice that will greatly increase your odds of succeeding.

Step 8 - Monitoring Your Traffic

This is very important. Random odds dictates in part the number of sales you make, so if you do not monitor your traffic you will have no idea how well your efforts in getting traffic to your site are working. Your stats can provide a lot of valuable information such as how many visitors come to your site each day, how many pages they view, how long they spend on each page, where they came from, what path they followed from your site, etc. You can use this information to make changes to your site to help improve your traffic.

The good news is your host most likely provides a free utility for monitoring your stats, but you may have to turn on the stats monitoring or request that your host do this for you. If your host does not provide a tool for doing this or the tool they provide doesn't provide much information then you can visit StatCounter for a free one.

Step 9 - Build Links

To be successful it's important to have a fair percentage of your traffic to be "free traffic". The primary source of this free traffic is going to be from search engines and other sites. We already discussed how to optimize your pages to increase your search engine ranking, but that's only half the equation the other half is links to your site.

To get links to your site the easiest way to start is by submitting to directories. There are hundreds if not thousands of these directories that will accept your website for free. It's important when you submit to these directories or do any link building that you use your keywords as the link text such as Tropical Art. This helps your rankings by having other sites
affirm that your site is about the keywords you selected.

This is work is something anyone can do but is also time consuming. If you don't have the time, once again you can use a site such as RentACoder to hire someone to do this for you. Let me just point out two things you do not need to do and shouldn't do. The first is submit to search engines. Once you have some other sites linking to yours they will find it, and you're better off if they find it on their own instead of you having to tell them about your site. The second is submitting to link farms or free for all (FFA) sites. This will gain you nothing and is a waste of time and money.

Step 10 - Pay for Traffic

Some directories such as Yahoo Directory and other websites require you to pay for inclusion. Some are worth it, others are not. It's going to be up to you to decide. One benefit of paying for this type of traffic versus pay per click is it will also help your sites ranking by providing you with extra back links.

Another option is to use Pay Per Click (PPC) programs such as Google Adwords. With these programs you pay for each visitor that comes to your site. This can be a great way to gain traffic but you also have to be careful with it in order to be profitable. What you need to know is how much you earn per average user. For example if last month you had 500 visitors and made $75 in commission, then on average each visitor made you $0.15. Knowing that you can bid below $0.15 per click and will most likely make a profit on the visitors referred to you from the PPC program.

Step 11 - Wait, Analyze and Revise

It takes time to get your site to rank with search engines. Usually you'll be able to find first on MSN within weeks, then Yahoo within a few months and finally Google possibly up to a year or more later. At the time of writing this MSN gets about 5% of search traffic, Yahoo gets about 15% and Google gets a whopping 75%. Your traffic will come in phases and it will take a long time to see the large payoffs.

Each month you need to analyze your stats again and determine what adjustments need to be made. You may need to increase or decrease how much you are paying per click on PPC sites, adjust your site layout to get more visitors to purchase or perform more link building to improve your sites rank. Just keep with it, continue to read and learn more and not give up and eventually your efforts will pay off. Good luck with your site!

About The Author:

This article has been provided courtesy of Art Affiliate, http://www.artaffiliate.com .

Can The Average Person Really Make A Living Online?

By Douglas Rogers

Can you really make money online? The answer is a resounding "Yes!"

First, though, you need to understand how this game really works.

The right mindset is crucial to your success.

You've probably come across numerous business opportunities already. I know you're actively searching for information. I hope you haven't become jaded already by the con artists out there who make false promises.

The fact is you can profit significantly and, yes, even quickly once you learn the right way to do business online. So, approach this article with an open mind.

What E-Commerce is really all about

There's nothing magic about the Internet. It's really just another medium of communication. The difference between doing business online versus doing business in a brick and mortar
establishment is this:

1. Your potential customer base spans across the globe if you so desire. You aren't limited by your location.

2. Your business operates 24/7. You can still make sales even when the workday ends.

3. Your overhead is significantly lower than it would be in a traditional business, and the barriers to entry are lower as well.

4. You can create non-traditional businesses which will have no parallel in the offline world.

As an online entrepreneur, you also enjoy a wider range of options in number of products you sell, their method of delivery and your profit margin after expenses.

Sounds great, right? It truly is an ideal situation for the small, home based business owner; but don't quit your job just yet.

An online business requires just as much focus and dedication to get off the ground as any other business, so forget about working at home in your underwear right off the bat.

The first thing you need to do is investigate your options. What type of business can you start online? Which businesses are the easiest to set up?

If you already possess some business knowledge and common sense, you're off to a great start. The real challenge comes when you start translating this knowledge to match the rules of online commerce. The game is played a bit differently on the internet than it is on the streets.

Newcomers often have difficulty sorting out the differences between business models versus business strategies.

Here are some of the most common online business models:

1. Selling tangible goods (ie, Ebay)

2. Selling information products (intangible/downloaded)

3. Affiliate marketing

It takes a certain personality to thrive in any one of these. Let's take a look at the traits associated with each.

The Seller of Tangible Goods

This type of entrepreneur usually possesses previous experience in the retail industry, though it is not totally necessary to have previous experience in order to succeed. However, an inexperienced online retailer faces the biggest learning curve.

In order to sell tangible goods, you'll need to learn the ins and outs of wholesale for product sourcing. You'll need to learn how to set the optimal price point for your products to remain profitable and competitive. You must deal with shipping and returns.

If you run a one-person operation, it will be near impossible to ship products in the necessary volume. In this case, you'll need to find companies which can "drop ship" your product. Drop
shipping is a fulfillment service.

This sounds ideal - but be forewarned. Most real wholesalers have minimum order requirements and will not ship single items.

Drop ship wholesalers who do ship single items often mark up their prices and you end up paying at least 10%-15% above the true wholesale cost. This isn't a small price to pay when your
objective is competitive pricing. Even a small mark up can kill your profit margin.

If you choose this route, be prepared for a lot of hard work! Online retail requires persistence, patience, strategic planning and a high degree of risk.

The Seller of Intangible/Information Products

Information products present an good opportunity for small, home-based business owners. Your costs of development and overhead are low, while your potential profit margin is high.

You will need a new skill set if you choose this path. Primarily, you will need to learn good copywriting skills and how to sell people on what they desire, not on what they think they need. It's relatively simple to entice a visitor to purchase, say, an MP3 player when they're already looking for one. This doesn't require convincing sales copy.

An information product, though, does require good copy. You're asking your potential customer to invest in a product they aren't familiar with - something they can't see or touch or play with like a tangible product.

Information marketing is very much "all in the mind". It rests on your ability to stir up people's passions and secret wishes. If you pride yourself on seeing "the big picture" and have the heart of a teacher or communicator, information marketing could be the right choice for you.

The Affiliate Marketer

Being an affiliate marketer can be the Ideal business for most people. They make a living selling products they do not own. Profits come from commissions paid on sales that they refer to other merchants.

A good affiliate can reap an enormous full-time income marketing a whole suite of products that he does not own. He doesn't pay for product creation, doesn't have to ship anything and doesn't deal with customer service issues or returns.

One major skill an affiliate marketer needs to develop as is the ability to generate highly targeted traffic. You also need to learn how to capture that traffic and do a bit of extra selling before they hit the merchant's site.

If you don't capture the visitor's e-mail address, they're gone for good - and you'll get stuck trying to generate volumes of traffic over and over again just to capture enough "luck of the draw" sales to get by. It's like throwing your ad budget down a hole.

If you want to make money online, there are two ways to go about it. The first is trial and error, spending hundreds of hours in front of your computer, buying e-books and struggling perhaps a year or two before you make a dime. The second and best way is to learn from someone who has already achieved success online and can coach and guide you every step of the way.

But beware, there are many out there who will sell you garbage e-books and courses full of ideas on how to make money on the internet, but most fall short of giving you an easy to follow and workable plan. Especially if your a newbie to internet marketing.

I know first hand about this because I spent a full year struggling to make money on the internet. I bought almost every so called Guru system out there only to be let down and was still left struggling to make money. But my determination to make a living on the internet paid off and now I produce a fantastic full time income for my family solely from my online affiliate business.

Whether your a newbie or have been struggling for some time, you can achieve online success too if you don't give up and learn the right skills from a proven Internet Wealth Building Coach. Just stay focused, proactive and stay positive - and soon you'll be well on your way to making outstanding money online!

About The Author:

Doug Rogers is an Internet marketing coach who has helped the lives of many acheive success with there own Internet business. To learn how you can be a part of an Inner
Circle Success Group and try a Proven, Fail-Proof System for online success. visit: http://www.superbsystem.com

Grow An Affiliate Biz

By Kirsten Hawkins

The biggest failure in affiliate marketing is not collecting prospects' email addresses. If you only send your prospects to your affiliate website, you are promoting someone else's business, not your own. Your goal should be not to sell affiliate products, but to grow your own business.

Here is how you build an affiliate business.

1. Use a lead-capture page.

Get your own website and build a home page. Don't write a sales letter for your affiliate product. Instead, write an email course focusing on the strongest benefits of your product. Highlight these benefits in a short sales letter that is designed for one thing only-to get people to subscribe to your course. Then, in your course, promote your affiliate product. The value in this method is that you are actually building a direct marketing business and gaining your own customers.

2. Build your own list.

Spend your time, effort, and money driving targeted traffic to your website. The more visitors you get, the more subscribers you get, and hopefully the more money you make. You can never underestimate the long-term value in having your own customer list. Keep building it. Spend at least 65% of your time in building your list.

3. Reinvest in your business.

When you make a sale, congratulate yourself! Take some of the profits and spend them on yourself. Take your spouse to dinner, go to a movie, or buy another internet marketing ebook! But your goal should be to grow your business. You should take at least 60% of your profits and reinvest them back into your business. How? By buying more ezine ads, adding another pay-per-click campaign, or using some other kind of advertising. Perhaps you could buy an ebook with reprint rights instead of marketing affiliate products-that way you keep all of the profits.

4. Keep marketing to your list.

You should always be on the lookout for new products to promote. Whenever you find one, write another email series, add it to your autoresponder, and keep promoting to your list. Focus on adding at least one new product and series to your autoresponder every month. Some will get tired of the information you send and unsubscribe, but if you are focused on building your list you will always have many more subscribers for each unsubscribe you receive.

If you follow these steps, your affiliate business will grow into a very profitable direct marketing business.

About The Author:

Kirsten Hawkins is an online marketing specialist from Nashville, TN. Visit
http://www.pageranksite.com/ for more great online marketing tips and webmaster resources.

Affiliate Tip - Create A Newsletter

By Nell Taliercio

The average person has to be exposed to a product seven times before he makes a decision to buy. What does that mean to you as an affiliate marketer? You need to be able to get the product you are offering in front of your visitors repeatedly. One of the best ways to do this is by getting the visitors of your website to sign up for a newsletter.

By capturing their email address and getting them on your newsletter list, you can keep bringing them back to your site. You will also be able to repeat your offer several times in your newsletter, and if you can't get them to buy the first product, you move on to something else. Sooner or later they will start buying and you will get your commission from the sale.

A newsletter is also a great relationship-building tool. Think about it, who are you more likely to buy from? A complete stranger or someone that has already provided you with great content on the subject you are interested in. You'd probably buy from someone that has given you great information already.

The same goes for your visitors. To turn them into customers, allow them to get to know you, show them that you know what you are doing and provide them with good content in your newsletter. Then offer them your affiliate product.

The biggest mistake I see new affiliate marketers make when it comes to newsletters, is to try to use their personal email client (like Microsoft Outlook) to run a newsletter. It is very time consuming to manually add and remove subscribers from your list. You also run the risk of being shut down by your webhost if you send to many emails at once.

I recommend you use an autoreponder service like aweber right from the start. You will be able to create signup forms for your website. Adding and removing of subscribers is done automatically, and you can schedule messages to go out at a certain date and time.

You can use the actual autoresponder feature to your advantage by creating a series of newsletters that are not time sensitive. Each new subscriber will receive the newsletter editions you have written in sequence starting with message 1. All you have to do is add a new message each week, or month. Of course you can also send time sensitive messages - like a holiday promotion - to your entire list right away.

To encourage visitors to your site to subscribe to the newsletter, add a signup form on each page of your site. It also helps to offer them something free for subscribing. Create a report, or even an ebook related to the topic of your newsletter and use the autoreponder feature to automatically send it to them when they sign up.

Try to stay in touch with your subscriber list at least once per month; preferably twice per month or even weekly. You could see the first sales coming in within a few weeks. I encourage
you to give it a try. Newsletters are one of the most powerful affiliate tools and they are easy to implement.

About The Author:

For more information about newsletters go to http://www.mommysplace.net and for more information about affiliate marketing go to http://www.nellnews.com

Affiliate Tip - Build A Website

By Nell Taliercio

One of the first things you should do as an affiliate marketer is to build you own website. Yes, you can market affiliate programs without it by adding links to your email or signature file on message boards, but you will be very limited in how much you can earn this way. Building a website allows you to expose the products you are promoting to a much larger audience with less effort.

Decide on a Topic

Your first step is to decide what you would like your website to be about. Find a topic you like, something you are passionate about. You will be spending a lot of time creating content for your site, so it may as well be something you enjoy reading and writing about. Your enthusiasm for the subject will shine through as well, and will get your visitors interested. Once you have your topic, make sure there are affiliate products available that compliment the site and that there are people interested in buying it.

Pick a Domain Name

Use a site like register.com, or your web host's site to research available domain names. It helps to have one of your major keywords in your domain name. So if you decided your website will be about growing roses, try to work "rose" in the domain name. You want your domain name to be easy to remember and easy to type. Try to avoid using dashes in the name and find something that's available as a dot com address.

Hosting

The next step is to set up a web hosting account. You should be able to get by with a basic personal website package to begin with. Get some recommendations from others when it comes to choosing the actual hosting company. You want a service that is reliable and has good customer service. After all, you won't be making any money when you site is down. I have been using Dayana hosting for years and highly recommend them.

Site Builder or Software

Let's talk about how you can build your website. Your options are using a site builder, like internetbasedfamilies.com or software like Microsoft FrontPage, or my favorite x-site pro. A site builder is usually easier to use in the beginning and hosting is included. You will pay a monthly fee for the software and hosting combined. If you build your site using software like x-site pro or FrontPage, you have the added initial expense of buying the software, but your monthly hosting costs are usually lower. Of course a third option is to have someone else design the site for you. You should still get familiar with the site builder or software, so you can make changes to the site.

Getting Traffic To The Site

Your last step will be getting traffic to your site. Optimize your pages for search engines to get free traffic. You can also write articles and submit them to article directories. Pay per click advertising and buying ads on other related sites or newsletters are also great ways to drive traffic to your site.

About The Author:

For more information about websites go to http://www.mommysplace.net and for more information about affiliate marketing go to http://www.nellnews.com

How To Start Your Own Affiliate Program

By Stephen Pope

1. Why Start Your Own Affiliate Program?

Multiple web sites and distributors selling your product can result in increased sales and profits. Unlike conventional advertising, affiliate programs pay only for performance. Commissions are not paid out unless sales are made.

Also, with many more web sites linking to yours, your link popularity is sure to increase in search engines, resulting in additional traffic and income.

2. Combine a Merchant Account with Your Affiliate Program

If your product is downloadable (such as electronic books or software), you might consider ClickBank.com. For a $49.95 initial fee, you can process credit cards and on-line cheques for $1.00 per transaction plus 7.5% of sales. As an added bonus, you have your own built-in affiliate program.

ClickBank gives you a listing on their web site and visitors can buy your products and join your affiliate program. You choose the commission rate you are willing to pay. All commission payments are handled by ClickBank. One downside is that you can`t run a two-tiered program.

3. Use an Affiliate Program Script

If you are comfortable with running CGI scripts, you may wish to install your own affiliate program on your server and administer the affiliate program yourself.

Be forewarned, though, that this is a lot of work. You will be responsible for all the testing, security, commission payments, promotion and so on. Another downside: Will your potential affiliates trust you since their commissions are not tracked and paid by an independent third party?

4. Use a Hosted Solution

There are good reasons for not hosting your affiliate program on your server. Perhaps you don`t have the time to administer all the aspects of an affiliate program. Maybe your time could
be used more productively in other areas of your business. Additionally, an independent third party tracking and paying affiliate commissions inspires confidence in prospective affiliates. Finally, you just might benefit from the additional exposure that an affiliate network brings you.

ClixGalore.com is an example of an affiliate network. You will need to pay a $75.00 deposit to cover affiliate commissions. They charge 25% of any affiliate commissions paid. For example, if you paid an affiliate a 10% commission on a $100.00 sale, you would pay the affiliate $10.00 and ClixGalore $2.50.

With ClixGalore, you can also have a two-tier program. Taking the above example, if you paid affiliates for finding other affiliates, you might pay 2% on your second tier. That would be another $2.00 commission and $ .50 affiliate network fee for a total of $15.00 in commissions on both levels.

5. For All Affiliate Programs

Setup your own web page (or pages) outlining the benefits of your affiliate program. Offer articles, suggestions, text and banner links, and other useful support for your affiliates.

Offer a generous commission so that others feel motivated to sell for you. Obtain the e-mail addresses of your affiliates so that you can keep in touch with them to aid them to sell more.

For increased traffic, sales and profits, start your own affiliate program.

About The Author:

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years. To learn more about affiliate programs and other profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/affiliate.html

How to Choose Your Affiliate Program Wisely

By Trent Brownrigg

Affiliate marketing programs have sky-rocketed in popularity in the past few years. As one of the fastest and easiest ways to start an online home business people are jumping on this wave by the millions. Affiliate programs offer merchants the opportunity to employ vast armies of sales people who get paid for the results they achieve.

The rewards for affiliates can be very good, and the skilled affiliate marketer can earn many thousands of dollars a month. This win-win situation has led to an explosion in the number of affiliate programs that are available to affiliate marketers.

With this growth of affiliate opportunities have come many questions, such as: how do you go about choosing the right affiliate program for you? What qualities should you look for in a program and which gives you a good chance of making a sustainable income? Below are some tips that will help you to evaluate affiliate programs, and help you to avoid wasting time and money.

What Commissions Does the Program Pay?

It is very important that you know how much you can expect to earn from a sale. There is no point in spending time and money promoting a product that pays very small commissions. You could end up spending more on marketing than you make on sales. It is probably best to stick with marketing products with a high commission value, unless you have found a niche market where you can sell vast quantities of product, and make substantial commissions on your volume of sales.

How Much Traffic is their Website Getting?

Try to discover the amount of traffic the affiliate owner's website is already receiving. Alexa.com is a very useful tool for doing this research. If the website is ranked in the top 100,000, the merchant is getting a good volume of traffic, so it's possible that there may already be too many affiliates. If it is ranked below 500,000 it may be no good, or it could be a golden opportunity to make some real money by becoming one of the first affiliates!

Always research a merchant's product if their website has a low traffic ranking. It may be a good idea to buy the product yourself if you can afford it. Otherwise you could do a search to find out if there are any negative reviews about it on the internet. Be careful who you listen to
though because many people are in the habit of bashing affiliate programs with nothing to really support their comments. If you find a large amount of negative reviews with little positive ones then it would probably be a good idea to stay away from that affiliate program.

How Often Are Affiliate Commissions Paid?

Some affiliate programs pay commissions every week; some once a month, others only pay every quarter. It is important that you know how often you can expect a pay check if you are going to have financial control over your business. Do you have the financial resources to ontinue to market a product if you have to wait a long time before you get paid? It would also be wise to find out the minimum commission that you have to earn before you get paid.

Does The Affiliate Program Use Tracking Cookies?

Many customers do not buy on their first visit to a merchant's website. It is important therefore that the merchant uses cookies for their affiliate program, so that you get credit if the customer returns and buys at a later date. Check out how long the cookies last. The longer the cookies lasts; the better the chances of you getting paid!

Does the Affiliate Program Pay on Subsequent Sales?

Some programs will only pay commission on sales that come through customers visiting their site via a direct link from your site. They pay you nothing for any subsequent purchases that the customer makes if they visit the merchants site directly. It is important that you get paid no matter what route the customer returns by if you are to build a sustainable affiliate business.

What Marketing Resources Does the Affiliate Program Offer?

Look at the type and quality of the marketing resources that they provide. Do they provide articles, advertisements, or other content that you can use to put on your site? Do they provide free guides, special offers, free viral e-books, or product samples that you can send to your list? If the marketing material they provide is good then it is likely that the business will provide good support for their affiliates.

Finding the right affiliate program for you can be tough to do. The best advice is to do your own research, follow the advice above, and listen to your instincts. Use the above questions as an aid to finding an affiliate program that enables you to reach your financial goals. You never know... You might just strike affiliate marketing gold!

About the author:

Trent Brownrigg is a successful affiliate marketer. You can find the best affiliate programs at http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com/top_10.html

How To Motivate Affiliates To Generate More Sales

By Pawel Reszka

A set of motivated and enthusiastic affiliates mean more money and revenue for your affiliate business. If you want to retain high quality affiliates, then here are some tricks to keep them motivated and inspired.

1. Commission rates

Let's face it at the end of the day we are all driven by rewards and remuneration. So if you want your affiliates to perform to their best ability you need to provide substantial commissions too. Usually in the case of high-end goods like digital products, you can provide a 70-30 percent commission break-up. That means you get to retain the 30% commission and provide the affiliates with 70% of the profits. That will surely keep your affiliates motivated and encouraged to work well.

2. Long term commissions

On a long term basis, you could consider even providing a 100% commission to your affiliates. Once they know that they are going to get a substantial profit, they will tend to work harder
and promote your products heavily. While such an approach is sure to eat into your profit margin, it will ensure retrieving more customers onto your database. So although you might not
earn much initially due to the 100% commission package, you will make up for it with an influx of good quality customers in the long run.

3. Ready, pluggable content

The good quality affiliates always like affiliate merchants who have ready available content. It enables them to work immediately and start on promoting and earning commissions. So if you want to start getting headway into sales and product promotions, make sure your affiliates have instant access to good quality promotional material.

4. Imbibe best practices

There's a reason why some affiliate programs are really successful. It might help if you were to sign up for such programs as an affiliate. That way you get to see firsthand how the programs get managed. You can look at their business model up close and even use parts of it for your own affiliate business as well.

5. Realistic goals

Nothing de-motivates an affiliate more than unachievable goals and unrealistic expectations. When it comes to your affiliate products, make sure you have lain down some definite criteria
and goals which are perfectly achievable. That way, once those goals are achieved, the confidence and morale of the affiliates will be boosted.

6. Don't ignore the smaller ones

One mistake affiliate merchants make is to focus on the motivated performing affiliates and completely ignore the smaller revenue earning ones. This is a big mistake because although they may not be performing as well as the others, they are still bringing in a certain chunk of revenue. If you ignore them, they might get de-motivated enough to leave your affiliate program. That will result in a huge setback to your business.

7. Establish a 2 Tier program

Two tier programs are very much sought after these days. They not only allow an affiliate to capitalize on the actual sale but also when they recommend and include a new candidate one level below. This is a double incentive kind of program which is sure to keep your affiliates motivated. Plus, it also gets you more promotion and sales.

8. Train them adequately

It is essential to train and educate your affiliates as much as possible. It's only when they have a fair understanding of the product that they can propagate and promote it effectively. So make sure to conduct workshops, training sessions and seminars to provide as much information and practical know-how of the product.

9. Create tools which affiliates like

Another tactic which really helps is to develop tools and resources which affiliates like to use. This way you get to attract more top quality talent. Plus, it's essentially a win-win situation where both you and the affiliate get more commissions and sales. While your affiliates will promote your products better, you will earn more profits and they will earn more commissions.

10. Targeted affiliates

One of the tricks to keeping your affiliates always motivated and happy is by finding affiliates who are interested in what you are selling. If they aren't interested, you cannot possibly expect them to promote your products effectively. Therefore, you could try searching in relevant sites and even in competitor websites to search for affiliates who promote similar products online.

About The Author:

Would you like to increase your affiliate marketing profits? You should get yourself Affiliate Elite software at http://www.affelite.com/ - Also read this clickbank guide at http://www.affhelper.com/clickbank-mini-guide.html

Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Strategies

By Pawel Reszka

Being an affiliate marketer can be tough. Not only do you always have to reinvent yourself, you also need to stay ahead in the race. Here are the best 10 ways in which you can ensure your affiliate marketing stays on top:

a. Content

The content on your site needs to be catchy, interesting and search engine friendly. You need to talk about your products in an unbiased and neutral manner, while also highlighting their benefits. You could include product reviews which describe the products in a neutral manner. It's all about employing your creativity, uniqueness while also including useful, informative articles which educate readers.

b. Include testimonials

Customer testimonials aren't just about fancy comments and glorified praises. They help establish credibility in your products, enable other customers to trust you and your products. Try and make it a practice to include as many testimonials and quotes from customers as you possibly can. This will help build your brand identity and reputation to a great extent.

c. Optins

Optins are a great way to increase your customer base. You could request customers to subscribe to newsletters and products etc. on your site. This way you get to add to the list of customer contacts in your database. It also helps in the long run, when you need to reach out to customers for future marketing and promotional campaigns. Whenever you need to launch a new product or start a new marketing campaign, you can just email promotional material to these very same customers.

d. Relevant traffic

Many affiliate marketers make the big mistake of attracting traffic for the sake of it. When it comes to affiliate marketing, what's more important is quality as opposed to quantity. It makes sense to have targeted and relevant traffic come into your site, rather than having an influx of visitors who aren't interested in purchasing anything on your site. By attracting relevant traffic, you are essentially bringing in a `warm market' on your site, which in turn guarantees better conversion rates and hence sales.

e. Theme based

When you have an affiliate site you need to have a central theme and essence to build on your brand better. Therefore, if your website theme is all about cars and spare parts, the products you advertise should also refer to such relevant topics. By having associated products on your site, you establish a better brand reputation. Besides, customers are more likely to take you seriously when you show focus in your website.

f. Printer friendly

When you publish content on your site, most people will want to read it offline as well. This is truer, if your content is lengthy. If an article is lengthy but interesting enough, people will want to take a printout of the article and then read it at their leisure. So ensure that you have a link at the bottom of the article stating that it's printer friendly.

g. Navigability

You always need to have a site map for easy access to users. In today's fierce competition, if users can't find what they're looking for on your site, they'll go elsewhere. That's why, it's important to place a site map through which they can easily access the particular section they are looking for.

h. Freebies

Nothing attracts customers more than freebies - and the more the freebies the more customers you will have on your list. Plus, in this way you can spread the word about your business to other customers. Free resources and products are always sought after by customers and it greatly enhances your brand value online.

i. FAQs

Customers always have questions they will want to ask about your products on the site. You could probably think and act like a customer would and come up with a set of probable questions customers would ask. Try and categorize the FAQs so that customers can easily find the answers they are looking for.

j. Contact details and feedback

Make sure you include your contact information on the site. That way, customers can easily reach out to you if they need to ask something or post a feedback. Also ensure to include a feedback form on your site so customers can leave their suggestions and opinions about your site.

About The Author:

Would you like to increase your affiliate marketing profits? You should get yourself Affiliate Elite software at http://www.affelite.com - Also read this clickbank guide at http://www.affhelper.com/clickbank-mini-guide.html

Top 3 Affiliate Internet Marketing Tips For Your Online Business

By Darryl Harris

Affiliate marketing is one of the quickest and best ways to start an online business and start to make profits.

Don't forget these powerful affiliate internet marketing tips if you want to get started making fast commissions.

1. Do some research to find the top product to promote. You of course, are looking to promote the product that will get you a great profit in a very short time.

Find products that fit your target market, pay high commissions, and you want to find out if they have a good reputation of paying their affiliates on time.

To help set yourself apart from the crowd that may be promoting the same product, write free reports or short ebooks.

Add some valuable, free information on your niche in your reports. Plus, give recommendations on your chosen product. You will gain credibility in the eyes of the reader and they are far more likely to try out what you offer.

2. Continuing with your affiliate internet marketing tips, collect and save all of the email addresses of those who downloaded your free report or book. Studies have shown that the majority of people do not purchase on the first offer. But, now you can contact them many times as you feel unless they ask you to stop.

You now have the opportunity to give them more recommendations on your chosen product or any product you wish as long as it fits the niche you are targeting.

You risk loosing the sale from a customer forever if you send them directly to your vendor's sales website. Be sure to get a prospect's email information before you send them to a site so you can send follow-up messages periodically. Keep in mind you only get paid if you make a sale.

You can have a customer for life this way, sending them other offers for products instead of having a one-time sale.

Also, publish an online newsletter or ezine. When a product is recommended from someone subscribers have grown to know and trust always wins hands down over that of a stranger.

You must give your readers good information in your newsletter, not just pound them over the head with sales pitches all the time. You have to find that delicate balance between providing useful information and sales pitches.

You could start out with a 7 part report or a 7 part course. Anything that you can send out to a prospect at least 7 times.

Statistics show it usually takes about 7 contacts to earn someones trust and get them to buy from you. Once your initial 7 emails are sent you can then start gently easing in some sales pitches.

3. Once you are successful with a particular promotion, ask for higher than normal commission percentage from your merchant. Simply send them an email explaining your success in selling their product.

They will more than likely grant your request rather than lose a valuable asset in you, if they are smart.

Try using these affiliate internet marketing tips and check out the difference you can get in your commission checks in a short time.

About The Author:

Darryl Harris shows you exactly step by step how he grabbed the #1 search position on Google without spending a dime on pay per click or any other paid advertising in his new ebook. Download your free copy of #1 on Google in 2 Days right now at http://seotrafficreviews.com/1google.html

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Affiliate Marketing - Learn The Basics

By Elston Tuitt

Many people are surprised at the number of sophisticated ways advertisers try to reach them. Most Internet surfers could identify a banner or text ad, but the majority could not tell you about performance marketing also known as affiliate marketing and pay-for-performance marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is one channel of marketing products and services online. It traditionally includes a retailer and a publisher, sometimes known as an affiliate.

For this article, we define a publisher, as an independent party that promotes the products or services of an advertiser in exchange for a commission on leads or sales.

An affiliate displays ads, text links, or product links on its Web site, in email campaigns, or in search listings and is paid a commission by the advertiser when a visitor takes a specific action, such as filling out a form, making a purchase or subscribing to a service.

A merchant, also known as an advertiser or retailer, is a Web site or company that sells a product or service online, accepts payments and completes orders.

If you place an ad or link to the merchant's products and/or services on your Web site and the merchant pays you a commission for leads or sales that result from your site.

What it Takes to Succeed

Those publishers suited best for affiliate marketing have some consistent characteristics:

1. They must have a Web site designed for a specific niche of consumers or audience. While not all affiliates have content sites, it is a simple way to enter into the affiliate marketing industry and a solid foundation to build upon if you later branch out to other marketing channels such as search engine marketing



2. You should have basic HTML skills to be able to insert and track advertisements such as banners, buttons and links



3. A set amount of time per day to dedicate to the program depending on number of Web sites



4. Learn the Language - Affliliate Marketers Speak

Just like in any industry, affiliate marketing has its own language. Don't be intimidated; pretty soon these terms will be second nature.

Application Service Provider (ASP ) - An ASP is an online network that is accessible through the Internet instead of through the installation of software. It is quickly integrated with other Web sites and the services are easily implemented and scalable. An example of an ASP is the CJ Account ManagerT.

Transparency - A characteristic of the CJ Marketplace, where the performance of advertisers, publishers, and ads is published openly within the CJ Account Manager. Publishers may create a Commission Junction account and join the CJ Marketplace at no cost. Publishers must regularly generate activity within the network (within 90 days) in order to maintain an active Commission Junction account.

Commission Payout - An amount of income received by a affiliate for some quantifiable action such as selling an advertiser's product and/or service on the publisher's Web site.

Click-through Ratio (CTR) - Also known as a click. The action a consumer takes when they are referred from a Web site through a link or advertisement and is taken to another Web site.

Click-through ratio is the percentage of click for the number of advertising impressions displayed.

Cost per action (CPA) - A metric for online advertising where a rate is set for every action that is taken by an end-user. It is also known as pay for performance.

Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) - A metric for online advertising where a rate is set for every thousand impressions.

Conversion rate- The percentage of visitors who take a desired action. The action that determines conversion is determined by the advertiser and may be a sale on the advertiser's Web site, a completed lead form, or another action.

Impression- The viewing of an advertising banner, link, or product.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM ) - The act of marketing a Web site via search engines. This can be done by "natural" or "organic" search which refers to all unpaid search results based on relevance in the content site or "paid" search which refers to all pay-per-click advertising (such as on MSN, Yahoo! or Google).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)- The process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. Varied techniques are used by content site publishers to improve a Web page's results.

About The Author:

Elston Tuitt has a flair for writing articles on a diverse range of subjects. He helps anyone who wants to build a successful proven home business. He is a business owner, entrepreneur and a website owner. Elston recommends you visit his website: http://www.Work-At-Home-4U.com and blog: http://www.work-at-home-4-u.blogspot.com You Can Download Your Own Getting Started Guide Here: http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-18087/dotcomology.html

Using Blogs For Affilate And Adsense Profits Combined

By Chris Taylor

How do you set up a blog for effective affilate and Adsense profits?

Here is the low down of how it's done and some of the in's and outs of rss.

For this example I will use web hosting as the affilate product we selling on the blog.

1. Rss is great for getting the robots to visit but it will not get you visitors until

*You have quite a number of pages
*Have decent page rank.

2. Best blog platform. http://www.wordpress.org

3. Blog page - index page.

*A two column blog I find works the best
*The sidebar should be on the right hand of the page for SEO purposes
*Heading for your affiliate reviews shouls be first. something like "In-Dpeth, Top 5 Cheap Hosting Reviews". Two links underneath, one going to reviews and the other to "why our reviews are more relaible than other sites"

4. Reviews of your products.

4 to 10 reviews, make them long and give info of what benefits one product has over the other and a rating for different aspects. Do not put adsense on your reviews page.

This site does it really well - http://www.keywordworkshop.com and it's a blog to boot.

5. Next heading in the sidebar - "Articles"

A link going to current articles followed by a search box for your articles. Each article page is where your Adsense sits and here are some good tips.

*All links including Adsense, one color underlined.
*Research has shown the normal blue and darker blue get's the best hits
*Adsense in the middle and at the end of all your articles. You will get less click troughs with Adsense in the borders

6. Next heading "contact Me"

Blurb. A little confused with all the info, so many choices or an aspect of one of "hosting reviews" (Linked to your review page. Feel free drop me an email any time.. blah blah

Then more headings after this is you wish. "My fav top ten hosting tips articles". "Top 5 Domain Name Website Reviews"? and so on.

The way I see it, is if they are customers coming for information on a given product, service or business area, why not stick some products up and make some more money!

If they are just interested in the articles monetize those with Adsense.

And then if for any reason you have a bad Adsense month, the affilate income is there as a backup.

The final tip is to keep your blogs clean so people can easily find the information they are looking for whether that be a product or articles. Heres one of my article directories as an example.

http://www.thewebtrafficco.com/adb/

About The Author:

Chris Taylor is the director of Catdynamics, an established online company which specializes in all areas of online business implementation, internet marketing and search engine optimization - http://www.catdynamics.com/web-master-affiliate-program.html

Craigslist And Affiliate Marketing

By Janet Russell

For people looking for an online community with a lot to offer, Craigslist is a natural choice. With billions of page views every month it's not a surprise that Craigslist has the ability to offer many financial opportunities for the alert internet marketer willing to learn how to cash in on Craigslist's popularity. Internet marketers in the know use affiliate marketing to increase their online profitability. Craigslist is beneficial to ecommerce business owners looking for affiliate marketers to promote their offers. It is also beneficial for people who do affiliate marketing searching for new businesses to promote for. This article is an overview of locating affiliates to promote for you or to locate affiliate offers to promote.

Affiliate Marketing Basics

Basically, affiliate marketing is a marketing technique where business owners pay someone (an affiliate) on a performance basis. In conventional marketing business owners pay upfront for advertising. No matter what outcome is produced by the ads. Affiliate marketing is different in that business owners pay only when specific actions occur. Businesses typically pay online affiliates for performing one of three certain actions. This could be paying per click (PPC), per sale(PPS), or per lead(PPL). All three of these are also referred to as 'pay per action' or PPA.

In PPC affiliate marketing campaigns an affiliate uses a coded link in their email or website. Each time someone clicks the coded link it goes to business' website. The business can tell which affiliate generated the click using the code embedded in the link. The affiliate then receives the agreed upon payment. For PPC this usually varies from fractions of cents to several cents.

With PPS campaigns an affiliate doesn't get compensated just for sending visitors to the sponsoring website. The visitor also has to purchase something for the affiliate to get credit. Again, payment varies. Typically ranging from several cents to several dollars per sale or sales. This can be a flat rate or percentage of sales the affiliate generates.

In PPL programs an affiliate gets paid if visitors click through the affiliates coded link and then follows through on giving the additional information the sponsoring business wants. This could be as simple as visitors sharing their email address for an online newsletter, or as complex as filling out a loan application. Again, payment varies, but is usually a flat rate.

Finding Potential Affiliates

A business owner that is interested in locating affiliates for promoting their offer can use Craigslist to help them find such affiliates. Though it seems logical to list affiliate opportunities under the jobs category at Craigslist, it's important to know that this goes against the sites rules for job postings. This simply means that if you are looking to find affiliates you'll have to do so by using different areas on Craigslist.

Any discussion forums that are related to your offer are a way to locate potential affiliates. If you use this method, though, be careful to avoid spamming the forums with sign up links for your program. Spamming techniques like this make you look unprofessional to any potential affiliates and if the Craigslist moderators see fit, they will ban you from the forums. Making a logical and relevant contribution to discussions and getting to know other forum participants is an ideal way to connect with potential affiliates. Then you can add a link for more information about your affiliate offer when you make posts.

Affiliate Opportunities

People who earn an income by being an affiliate promoter for business owners can locate new affiliate programs on Craigslist. Even though there are rules against it, sometimes such listings do end up in the jobs section. These ads will probably removed quickly, but it's possible to take advantage of them if you act before they are taken down. Of course, some forum postings may contain links to affiliate programs as well. Another way is to post requests in the services or resumes section.

More information on Craigslist can be found at: http://www.guidetocraigslist.com

About The Author:

Graduate Student who has spent a lot of time on Craigslist and decided to "put up" an information site on it after finding out that a lot of people still have NO idea what it is. http://www.guidetocraigslist.com

Affiliate Tracking Options: Diy Or Affiliate Manager?

By Nick Stamoulis

When it comes to tracking your affiliates, should you use a manager or do it yourself? To be sure, there are pros and cons to both approaches. If you do it yourself and you have a lot of affiliates you could find yourself spending most of your time managing affiliates and not running your business. On the other hand, if you hire a manager to oversee your affiliate program for you then you could have some out of pocket expenses, which could get expensive if you don't have any affiliates or if you go a long time with only a few affiliates who are producing anything for you.

A good rule of thumb is only spend money when you can justify the expense. In other words, when you first start your affiliate program try doing it yourself for awhile then hire a manager when you have at least one affiliate who is producing enough sales for you to justify hiring a manager. A good affiliate manager will cost you 15%-20% of your total affiliate volume, but some managers charge a flat fee in addition to a percentage of the volume and that's where you could have some unnecessary expenses.

You may have heard of the 80/20 rule. It is a reasonable expectation that 20% of your affiliates will produce 80% of your sales volume. In other words, you will likely have to get 5 affiliates before you find one that really does much for you. Even then, he will likely only produce 80% of your total volume, so if your total average monthly sales volume from your 5 affiliates is $100 then probably $80 of that is coming from one affiliate. That's not a whole lot of business. That's probably where you want to be before you start shelling out $15-$30 per month on an affiliate manager. At any rate, whatever your monthly cost for an affiliate manager, you want at least that much coming in the door from your affiliate sales before you turn over management to a manager.

About The Author:

Nick Stamoulis and experts at Brick Marketing provide companies with Internet Marketing services. Nick Stamoulis writes daily in his blog the Search Engine Optimization Journal. Call 877-295-0620 or visit: http://www.brickmarketing.com

How To Set Up A Simple Affiliate Program?

By Jaison Jacob

I recommended affiliate programs as a great way to increase web site revenue. This article explains how to set up a simple affiliate program. This article will cover just that.

The webmasters who contacted me, operate sites that generate anywhere from zero to thousands of dollars in weekly sales. For this reason I've decided to present affiliate program solutions for both ends of the spectrum.

What is an affiliate program?

Simple. They all provide workathome income opportunities. The idea behind an affiliate, or associate program is to recruit other webmasters to help you sell your wares by paying them for each visitor or sale they bring you.

Before you decide NOT to offer an affiliate program at your website, read the following...

"By 2002, 25 percent of the expected $37.5 billion in Internet retail sales, not including autos, will have originated on affiliate sites" -- Nicole Vanderbilt, Jupiter Communications

Now you are up to speed. If you're considering starting an affiliate program at your site, read on....

An affiliate program is really not as difficult to set up as you may think. Thanks to the high demand for affiliate systems recently, there are now lots of ways to set up your own program.

Here's what you need to set one up...

1. A web site with your own domain name.
2. At least one product or service that you own completely.
3. A system to handle commission tracking and payment.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, actually it is! And it's getting easier all the time.

The first two items listed above are pretty much self-explanatory. Naturally, you need your own website and your own product or service. You can't very well set up an associate program if you don't own the site or the product(s) you will be promoting. If you have not taken these two steps, you'll need to do this first. Once you've managed to get by these two steps, you can move right to step three, setting up your program.

The next few paragraphs will explain exactly how I set up my program. If your business is tiny with a limited budget, this plan may work well for you. If you have a little more capital to work with, you may decide to use one of the many associate management systems available today. I'll cover those a little later. First, I'd like to give you the details on how I designed my own associate program.

Step one: Defining my objectives.

I decided that the key to an effective associate program would be to allow my associates to promote a URL, or web page and let the program process sales and track orders automatically.

I saw many "home-made" tracking systems failing at this. These other systems required customers to enter a number that identified the associate. In my opinion, this does not work. Customers are not interested in remembering a code so that an associate gets credit for the sale. Many customers have no idea there is as associate involved at all. When they see this they are.

About The Author:

Jaison Jacob is a father of three started his on line business 2 years ago. You can see a variety of
workathome income opportunities at http://www.workathome-income-opportunities.com

How To Choose An Affiliate Programme Out Of So Many

By Radiance Johnson

Everyday we are bombarded with all kinds of affiliate programmes promising heaven and earth and claiming to be your ultimate recipe for financial success. There are several ingenious marketers who are daily releasing programmes that appear to be the answer you need to embark on your journey to financial freedom. Often times, you are rudely shocked to realize that the programme you have joined is far from what you had expected and that your financial investments have gone down the drain.

Hence the need to ask questions. Let me repeat that it is absolutely necessary for you to ASK a ton of questions before you join any affiliate programme as it will save you avoidable heartache later. Take time to conduct some modest research about the features of the affiliate programme you are considering as you are going to be devoting time and financial resources on it.

Some of these questions shall include whether it will cost you anything to join. However, it is given that this will be free as most lucrative affiliate programmes that abound today cost you nothing to join. Therefore do not consider any programme that requires you to make some payment prior to joining.

Next point to consider will be the hit- per- sale ratio. In other words how many hits to a banner or text link will you have to record to record a sale? This is important because it will assist you to work out the traffic level that is required to generate a given desired number of sales. And of course it has a direct bearing on the amount of commissions that you qualify to be paid by the merchant.

Similarly, you will do well to find out when your earned commission checks will be ready for collection and how often you will be paid in a month. How many sales will you have to record to be entitled for a commission check? What is the minimum amount required for the commission check to be issued? Anyway, you have to choose the option that you feel is the most suitable to you.

The next question for which you must find an answer before you decide on any affiliate programme is the accuracy of the tracking system. How are referrals from an affiliate's site
tracked? Will the tracking system remain long enough such that when ever a prospect that you refer decides to purchase several weeks later you will still be credited with that sale? You must
therefore find a programme that has a good tracking system that has this capacity.

Another important parameter that you should also consider is the group of affiliate statistics that are available to you from the merchant processing system. Such statistics should be detailed covering all relevant indices and available online real time 24/7. This will assist you in determining and monitoring your progress or lack thereof. Naturally, you will be very much
interested in the average daily hits, impressions, sales and the like as these data are important in deciding whether you should modify your ads, banners etc.

You can also, depending on the nature of the affiliate programme, find out whether you can also be paid for hits and impressions in addition to the sales recorded. This is particularly important where the programme you are associated with offers low sales - to- hit ratio.

A very important consideration in choosing your affiliate programme is the percentage of commission that is paid out to the affiliates per sale. Considering the fact that it costs virtually the same effort and financial resources to promote your affiliate programmes you must insist on reasonably adequate commission payments. 50% appears to be the dominant practice these days but anything higher will be appreciated.

Similarly, is the affiliate programme a one-tier or two-tie