Affiliate Networks
Affiliate Networks are companies that manage affiliate programs for hundreds or thousands of merchants. What makes affiliate networks different from individual affiliate programs? There are many companies and products to promote under one roof, making it easier for the merchant and the affiliate.
Affiliate Networks are an excellent way to join many individual affiliate programs. They help eliminate searching for individual products to promote.
Sometimes the affiliate network will keep track of the sales, collect the money and distribute it to the merchant and affiliate, after they take a percentage for their service. Clickbank® works this way.
Affiliate Network Cautions
As with any business venture it's best to know about the company your thinking of doing business with. Always do a search on the internet for the company name in forums(ex.= name + forum). Watch out for review pages because these are mostly sales sites. They usually give the highest commission paying merchant the best review, wouldn't you?
I am calling these all networks but some that you will sign up with will be individual companies that run their own affiliate program. Just because they don't belong to a network doesn't mean that you can't trust them. In fact the opposite may be true, by running their own program they can be much more particular about who the let join. However you still check everyone out.
The bottom line is no matter who you sign up with, a network, an individual company or an individual person. Check them and their products or services out on the internet. There are a lot of unscrupulous people and companies out there. The internet is different from a brick and mortar business because you are somewhat limited to what you can do if you think you have been cheated.
Here is an address for internet complaints. It involves 21 nations http://www.econsumer.gov/, here is the address for the federal trade commission for the US http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/consumer.shtm
There should never be a charge to join an affiliate network or an individual affiliate program. Don't confuse this with affiliate sites that teach you how to become an internet marketer.
Affiliate Network Caution List
How is their reputation?
Do a good search on a company and their policies even if you know about them. Check out terms of service for an affiliate. Make sure you can cancel your agreement with them when you want and not on their terms if they seem unreasonable.
Conducting a Check
The best way to check out a company or website or a person for that matter is to do a search on the internet. If you have the web address put it into your browser where your web addresses are shown. If you don't know their address you can do a search in your search window. When you do the search add complaints, reviews, performance or anything else that you think would apply to it.
Do I Need a Website
Some networks require that you have a website and some do not. The type of site may matter to some also. With some networks the individual vendors will decide if they want you to join their program. What they are looking for if a website is required is that your site matches their products or services. If they sell office supplies they would like your site to be in approximately a similar line like business software or something on that order but not actually a direct competitor.
Amount of Visitors
Some that require a website also require a certain minimum amount of visitors to your site. If you are just starting you won't be able to sign up with these. You can come back later when you are up and running.
Affiliate Sign-up is free
If you run across one that wants you to pay something avoid it. This is not affiliate marketing as we are learning about. There should never be a charge to join an affiliate program. You are a free advertiser for this company.
What Type of Action
There are several ways to be paid in an affiliate marketing setup. One is a pay per lead (PPL), this is where you get the prospect to go to the company by an email or any other way. This isn't very popular anymore. The company has to make the sale. Pay per click is almost the same except they click a link and go to the company site. The most popular is the pay per sale. This is good for the vendor company because they only have to pay you if a sale goes through.
Cookies
Most sales are tracked with cookies that the site places on customers computer. This also contains information for your sales credit. Different vendors use different lengths of time for these. As an affiliate the longer the better. Check the network or vendor to see how long they keep them active. Many people don't buy the first time that's why it's important to an affiliate.
Commission
Always find out what percentage and how much money you are going to make per sale. You have to know this to be able to start advertising. If it is a low priced commission you won't be able to bid on high costing keywords. This does not mean you won't be able to make money with this product, you just have to go about it differently.
How and when do I get Paid
You must find out in what currency you are paid. This depends on what country the company is in. Most pay in US dollars. You also have to find out when you get paid and if there is a minimum amount in your account you must have before you get paid.
You also need to know when you get paid; bi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, yearly. Most pay bi-monthly or monthly. They may pay you with a check, paypal, or direct deposit. Make sure you know who you are dealing with before you give any bank account info to anyone.
Recurring Commissions
Some vendors will let you keep a customer for multiple sales and some don't. The vendors that don't won't have to pay anyone for that customers future purchases, not good for the affiliate. If the company doesn't find another one that does.
Residual Commissions
A residual commission is where you get paid every time your original customer renews a subscription or a membership for a particular product. What can happen here is if your customer decides to try another product within the original site, like an upgrade you won't be paid because it is a different product. Residual is product specific. This is still a good deal but the next one is better.
Lifetime Commissions
This is the best one if you can find a spot to sneak in and get some sales. As long as your original customer stays at the original website or service anything he purchases gives you a commission.
Two Tier Programs
I am not familiar with how these work exactly at this time, so I won't comment on them. If you do know what they are and how to work with them go ahead.
Sales Tracking
Do they offer any kind of sales tracking and find out if it is real time. This is what we want, you don't want to wait for your data, a short delay like an hour is OK but not days.
Affiliate Programs
There are many programs out there to promote. Always check to see what the merchant will give you to help you promote their product. You will always get a link so your sales can be credited to you, but some offer text ad's and preformatted links, banner ads, e-mail samples and images.
Most of your merchants will give you something to get started with but sometimes I think it's best to create your own ad or article to make it unique, the images can be helpful, but make sure you do not change that sales link or you won't get paid.
Affiliate Program Marketing
Affiliate marketing has many descriptions, but it all means one thing. You are selling someone else's product or service. Very much like a salesperson in any store. Affiliate marketing is a huge business on the internet because the market covers the entire world for any downloadable product that's speaking your language.
Affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income or a part time job from home or an office. Affiliate networks work by having merchants and affiliates signed up with the network. Affiliate networks provide a place where companies who have something to sell (merchants) meet with companies who know how to sell it (Publishers, advertisers).
