Choosing an Affiliate Program

[enlytend]

It's about time we had a good, informational thread here - so I'm posting one .

How do you go about choosing a GOOD affiliate program and steer clear of the losers? Here are some of the things I look for:

1) Feedback from other affiliates

If a program is bad, word gets around. Google is your friend! Look for reports of transactions not tracking, excessive chargebacks, withholding payment or dropping affiliates for questionable reasons, not paying / not paying on time.

Pay attention to post dates - programs can start bad and turn things around, or start well and go downhill. Try to spot trends.

Be wary of glowing reviews of multi-level programs.

2) The merchant's reputation

Look at customer reviews and BBB ratings. The company that cheats their customers will cheat their affiliates.

3) What does their site / landing page look like?
The landing page should provide a clear path leading the visitor to a purchase. Watch for: sites which are hard to navigate or look "broken" (visitor gives up and leaves), distracting elements on the landing page (visitor gets sidetracked and doesn't buy), Adsense on the landing page (the WORST! You send traffic, the merchant gets Adsense revenue, you get nada) confusing or difficult checkout experience (abandoned shopping carts).
4) Can YOU effectively and convincingly promote this merchant?

This is not like Adsense or parking. If you don't know jack about the product, you'll do better promoting something you know.

5) Payout
Important, but shouldn't be the first or only thing you consider. It sounds great to get 75% of the order or $100 per sale, right? Well, 75% of nothing is nothing and $100 per sale times 0 sales = $0. OTOH, if you can drive a few hundred orders a month, a modest $1-$5/order adds up fast.

6) Network Performance (if in a network)
Useful information, but look at it in context of other factors.

Those are my top priorities - anything I left out?

 

[cdboard]

merchant "offers more than one thing"


multiple items or services give you more things to advertise

multiple items or services let the shopper buy "something else", not just the original thing that the affiliate advertised.


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ease/difficulty of getting accepted into the program


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minimum payout

 

[enlytend]

Definitely all good things to consider!

merchant "offers more than one thing"
multiple items or services give you more things to advertise
multiple items or services let the shopper buy "something else", not just the original thing that the affiliate advertised.

In my experience, this varies a LOT from merchant to merchant. Amazon? Absolutely! But Amazon is extremely popular, has a good reputation and does an OUTSTANDING job cross-selling their products and targeting their visitors. I've worked with others who carry a huge variety of items but don't do those things as well - the purchases were always very narrowly related to what I sent them to look at, very little evidence that the visitors stayed on-site and shopped for other things.

Then there are the "problem" merchants: like a famous NY department store with a long history of tracking issues., or a certain big online discount outlet (one which has dabbled in single digit domain names) which has pissed off most of their former affiliates by rescinding commissions (due to THEIR categorization errors) months after they were paid. Programs like those suck no matter how many things they sell.

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ease/difficulty of getting accepted into the program

Many programs (in networks) auto-reject if your site/account doesn't meet certain criteria. Can be tough if you're new. If you are serious about promoting them (and I don't mean "stick a banner somewhere and forget it" ), contact the affiliate manager and make your case - if you're convincing, they may let you in and give you a chance.

minimum payout

Yeah, programs with a ridiculous minimum may not pan out for you . Depends on what you're selling though - how many orders would it take to meet that minimum and can you do that?

 

[cdboard]

two of the three things I mentioned are "helped" by using a system like viglink or skimlinks for text links.

ease: you only have to join one program to be able to advertise many merchants

minimum payout: they consolidate the small amounts so you only have to meet one minimum.

downside: they take a percentage.


I think they are a good choice for the beginning or casual affiliate.

 

[enlytend]

Kind of like Adsense for affiliates. They make me nervous from an SEO standpoint - they're both footprint-able and should Google (not a fan of affiliate marketers to begin with) decide it doesn't like that kind of link or that too many sites using them are "poor quality" (by their definition du jour) ... too easy to drop a hammer across the board
Even though Google is an investor behind Vigilink.
Rakuten Popshops Express works on the same concept.

Networks all consolidate. I think minimums at CJ are still $25. Most of the other networks are $50. Amazon is $10. I've worked with a couple independent programs where it's $100 - those are usually bigger orders though, which makes it pretty easy to meet.

 

[Erin Nagata]

This is true, thanks for sharing such helpful post, choose affiliate brand, service or brand that you can actually love doing with.

 

[Effy]

I think another thing to consider is whether you would purchase any of their products yourself and, if you would, to buy a product so you know more about it. For example, if it's an ebook or something, consider the amount you'd make from affiliate marketing and compare that to the cost of the ebook. Chances are you're more likely to sell it well/better(and work in some inbound links later on for your review/whatever post about it) when you've experienced it firsthand and know exactly what's in it.

Sometimes the affiliate's products you invest in make the affiliate program more profitable, thus I look for ones with potential products I could use myself.

 

[comicsans]

Look at what your established competition is promoting, easiest way to see what's working.

 

[melisata]

It's about time we had a good, informational thread here - so I'm posting one .

How do you go about choosing a GOOD affiliate program and steer clear of the losers? Here are some of the things I look for:

1) Feedback from other affiliates

If a program is bad, word gets around. Google is your friend! Look for reports of transactions not tracking, excessive chargebacks, withholding payment or dropping affiliates for questionable reasons, not paying / not paying on time.

Pay attention to post dates - programs can start bad and turn things around, or start well and go downhill. Try to spot trends.

Be wary of glowing reviews of multi-level programs.

2) The merchant's reputation

Look at customer reviews and BBB ratings. The company that cheats their customers will cheat their affiliates.

3) What does their site / landing page look like?
The landing page should provide a clear path leading the visitor to a purchase. Watch for: sites which are hard to navigate or look "broken" (visitor gives up and leaves), distracting elements on the landing page (visitor gets sidetracked and doesn't buy), Adsense on the landing page (the WORST! You send traffic, the merchant gets Adsense revenue, you get nada) confusing or difficult checkout experience (abandoned shopping carts).
4) Can YOU effectively and convincingly promote this merchant?

This is not like Adsense or parking. If you don't know jack about the product, you'll do better promoting something you know.

5) Payout
Important, but shouldn't be the first or only thing you consider. It sounds great to get 75% of the order or $100 per sale, right? Well, 75% of nothing is nothing and $100 per sale times 0 sales = $0. OTOH, if you can drive a few hundred orders a month, a modest $1-$5/order adds up fast.

6) Network Performance (if in a network)
Useful information, but look at it in context of other factors.

Those are my top priorities - anything I left out?

enlytend, thanks for sharing.
What you say above all make sense. But i especially love point 5.