Choosing Affiliate
Programs
SUMMARY:
Learn to blaze a trail through the forest of affiliate programs
so as to find the ones that are right for you.
There are
literally thousands of different affiliate programs on the Web.
Some will pay a few cents for each visitor you send their way,
some pay a commission of thousands of dollars on the sale of a
high value product or service. Faced with such an extreme
variety of programs, how can you choose the most suitable
affiliate programs for your situation?
You must
feel comfortable about the product or service you'll be
"selling"
Before
signing up for an affiliate program, take a good look at the
product or service you'll be endorsing. Because that's how most
visitors to your site are likely to view your review, link or
banner advertisement: an indication that you believe the product
or service is good enough to put in front of them (and
indirectly, to get paid for doing so.)
Resist the
temptation to promote a product or service that you don't
believe in. Naturally, you don't have to buy a product to
endorse it, but if you could not conceive of buying it under any
circumstances, how can you expect to "pitch" it successfully to
your visitors? If your site's visitors feel that you are
recommending a particular product or supplier because you
genuinely believe it is good, you will be more likely to close
sales and therefore get rewarded for your efforts.
Look for
affiliate programs that match your audience
If you're
running a site about fishing, you should look for affiliate
programs related to fishing (fishing gear, fishing books,
fishing holidays and so on). It's counter-productive trying to
"shoehorn" your audience into an affiliate program that doesn't
match their interests... unless your site traffic is totally
general in nature (e.g. free egreeting site, joke site, funny
pictures site).
No matter
what niche your site occupies, there are almost always dozens -
and sometimes hundreds - of affiliate programs covering that
niche.
Think
laterally: cross-sell and up-sell
Sometimes
your biggest paycheck will come from being able to identify
products and services that your site's audience will relate
to, but which lie somewhat outside your narrow niche. For
example, a site about domain names might do extremely well from
promoting web hosting packages, since most people will need
somewhere to host their domain names and web hosts offer very
generous affiliate rewards. Always be on the lookout for ways to
cross-sell your audience in this way.
Upselling
can also prove to be a lucrative way of tapping latent revenue
from your traffic. A classic example is "free-vs-fee", where a
site offering information about free services may be able to
upsell a percentage of its audience on paid versions of the same
services. Ultimately, it may be a far more rewarding proposition
to collect several dollars from the small percentage of people
willing to pay for a higher-level service than to accept a few
cents per free signup.
Don't let
greed colour your decision
There is
more to an affiliate program than the % commission it pays. Some
programs bend over backwards to help you set up your site easily
and attractively, by providing banners, buttons and other
graphics, search engine forms, audio or video clips, cover art
and more. Other affiliate programs leave everything up to you:
can you afford to invest the extra time to develop a
professional-looking site?
Equally, an
affiliate program in an unrelated subject area might pay a very
high commission, whereas one related to your site's topic pays
significantly less. For example, for webmasters willing to
dabble in this area, casino and online gambling ads can be
extremely lucrative, as can pharmaceutical ads. But if you're
running a site about fishing, or Shakespeare, or resume writing,
stamp collecting, Tuscany etc. you're almost always going to end
up making more money by sticking to affiliate programs that
either directly map onto your chosen niche, or which will be
closely relevant to your site's audience - even if the amount
per sale is much lower.
Key info
to take away
Look for
affiliate programs that match your site's audience, and look at
all aspects of the affiliate program, not just the $$$ it
promises. |