Selecting Affiliate Programs

Affiliate networks, because they handle the payments, reporting, etc. for the merchants that use them, provide you with their own affiliate agreement before joining with them. Even though these terms are pretty standard in most cases, you should still read them.

Many of the in-network merchants have additional affiliate terms that you must agree to before you can join with them. You need to read these agreements from start to finish as well. You don't want any surprises along the way.
Back to list

Is There a Fee?
This one is pretty cut-and-dry. If you have to pay to join an affiliate program, then it's not really an affiliate program and you don't want to go there. Once again, move on to the next affiliate program.
Back to list

Exclusivity?
This is not as much of an issue as it used to be. Most merchants seem to have figured out by now that they cannot put too much control on how an affiliate runs their business. Exclusivity is a condition that will be outlined in the affiliate agreement stating that an affiliate cannot promote products or services of a direct competitor of that merchant.

For example, if you run a pet supply related web site and you affiliate with 'XYZ Pet Supplies' who has an exclusivity condition, then you cannot affiliate with PETsMART, PETCO, 1-800-PETMEDS, or any of the other big online merchants. This obviously puts a severe damper on your ability to run your business.

If you do happen to run across an affiliate program with an exclusivity clause, then don't even bother with them. Move on to the next affiliate program.
Back to list

Is your Web Site Eligible?
Obviously, if your web site does not meet the eligibility requirements of a particular affiliate program, there's no sense applying. Many merchants simply want to make sure your site is not offensive in any way, so as to not drive away customers. Other merchants are very picky about who they allow to affiliate with them, which in some cases makes sense for their business.

Using the pet supply web site example again, why would a merchant want you to promote their line of auto parts, when your site is related to pet supplies? On the other hand, maybe this merchant is a big corporation like Wal-Mart or K-Mart that sells pet related products in addition to auto parts. In that case, it might make sense for you to affiliate with them and your application will probably be accepted.
Back to list

Network Affiliate?
If the merchant is a member of one of the affiliate networks like Commission Junction or Linkshare, then you can skip this step. This question is important because you are basically confirming the good reputation of a merchant. An affiliate network will alert you to merchants who are low on funds, or on hold while awaiting payment. They will also let you know how long a merchant has been a network member and provide you with earning statistics. You can easily weed out the merchants that you don't feel comfortable dealing with.

This becomes more of an issue when dealing with an unknown merchant that runs their own in-house affiliate program. If the affiliate program has not received a favorable review by one of the affiliate directories, you really don't have a good way to tell whether the merchant is reliable. If you find yourself in this situation, the best thing I can suggest is to determine how many back links the merchant has to its web site. Run the following query at a search engine like MSN or AltaVista. DO NOT run this at Google since they only show you results that they deem to be "worthy".

link:www.companyxyz.com

Once you've satisfied yourself with the first list of questions, it's time to ask another set of questions. Unlike the first set, where if you got a "NO" answer, you simply moved on, these questions are more subjective to your preferences, and you will have to decide whether or not you want to proceed with that affiliate program.

1. What is the commission?
2. Why, How and When do you get paid?
3. Is there a minimum payout amount?
4. What is the cookie duration?
5. Do you get credit for recurring sales?
6. Are sales statistics available? How often are they available?

This becomes more of an issue when you are comparing competing affiliate programs. In cases where there are only two or three affiliate programs available, you may decide to promote products or services from all three. In many cases, however, there are just too many competitors to make this solution reasonable. You need to pick and choose affiliate programs carefully and the first item you should look at is the commission. But don't let the commission structure alone sway your decision. As you'll see, the answers to the following questions need to also be weighed.
Back to list

Why, How and When are you Paid?
Why do you get paid? Do you make your commission when your link leads to a sale or a lead? Do you get paid a small amount each time a customer clicks on one of your affiliate links? Essentially, you're asking if this is a PPS, PPL, or PPC affiliate program? The way you plan to operate your web site and what you are promoting makes a big diffence in whether or not you even want to consider a pay-per-click affiliate program. For a PPC to make you any money, you have to draw literally thousands of visitors per month to your site. Depending on your niche, this may or may not be possible.

How do you get paid? Are you paid in US dollars, Indian Rupees, or gift certificates from the merchant? Are you paid by check, direct deposit, PayPal? You see what I'm getting at, don't you? The answers to these questions can make a big difference.

When do you get paid? Are you paid weekly, monthly, quarterly? The answer to this question can influence how or if you plan to pay for advertising or other up-front costs. If you plan to invest a lot of money in a pay per click or Google Adwords campaign, you probably don't want to rely on an affiliate program that pays you semi-annually.
Back to list

Is There a Minimum Payout Amount?
Many affiliate networks and in-house affiliate programs alike set a minimum payout amount to cut down on costs. At Commission Junction, the lowest payout amount you can select is $25.00. At Shareasale, it's $50.00. In other words, your total commissions have to amount to this number or greater before you get paid. If you don't hit the minimum payout amount during a given period, then any commissions that you've earned are rolled over to the next pay period. This probably won't make a difference to most of you, but it's worth mentioning.
Back to list

What is the Cookie Duration?
A cookie is a benign piece of information that is stored on a customer's computer to identify that customer to the merchant during subsequent visits to the merchant site. In the case of affiliate sales, this cookie contains information showing that the customer came from a particular affiliate's site on a certain date and time and from what type of link, etc. and so on.

A cookie duration is the amount of time that a cookie has before it expires. Let's say that you lead a customer to a merchant site that uses 90 day cookies but the customer does not purchase anything during that visit. If the customer returns at a later time during that 90 days and does purchase something, then you will still get credit for the sale. The beauty of the cookie is that the customer can go directly to the merchant site during that 90 days without using the link from your web site. The cookie information on that customer's computer shows that you brought in the business initially.

On the downside, if a customer links back to that merchant through another affiliate's link, then the cookie is typically reset with that affiliate's information. The customer would have to link back once again through your site before you could benefit from a sale.

Now obviously, if you are comparing two nearly identical affiliate programs, but one provides a 90 day cookie while the other provides a 15 day cookie, then you'll want to go with the one that has the longer cookie duration.
Back to list

Credit for Recurring Sales?
In some cases, an affilate program will pay you commissions on recurring sales. An example of this might be a subscription renewal or a domain registration renewal. So, even if you quit promoting that affiliate program, if one of your customers continues to renew the service, then you continue to receive commissions.
Back to list

Sales Statistics?
Most affiliate networks and in-house affiliate programs will provide you with sales statistics. These stats can be very detailed on an item by item basis or more general in nature. The key thing to look at here is whether or not the statistics are updated in real-time. If you're trying to optimize your web site, you want to have access to statistics in real-time so that you can analyze trends, popularity of items, link type conversions, etc. If your affiliate program only provides you with stale, weekly or monthly sales data, then it's not going to do you much good.
Back to list

With all the information you now possess, you can select the best niche from your list and move ahead with it. Remember not to join any affiliate programs at this time, simply select the ones that you want to promote. Knowing the products or services you will promote ahead of time can help you during the design of your web site. In the rare event that you did not have any luck finding good affiliate programs that fit your niche, then you may have to go back to the drawing board and find new niches.

Let's now go over some approaches you can take to build a business web site.

	Web www.internetbusiness-home.com