Thread: Want to become a successful affiliate, here's some tips.

The major attraction of being able to work online as an affiliate is that there is little or no risk. For example you have no overheads such as salaries, rent on premises, stock to maintain or advertising costs etc, so you do not have a large cash investment at stake.

However there is one big risk! If your merchant goes out of business, it takes you along with it. So how do we as affiliates reduce this risk. After you have looked at the affiliate directories you may have a good selection, how do you know which are solid and how many should you have. As for being solid..You really don't know.

It is possible to sort the good from the bad by doing some basic research which I cover below. But to be honest most of us don't have the ability to analyze a company, check its financial situation or business model etc, let alone have the time involved.

So what you need to do is spread the risk across as many programs that fit with your niche, however there are some important considerations. For instance if you represent ten programs don't place them all on one single keyword focused content page. Only the ones that are tightly related to that page subject.

If you plan to work online promoting just one type of product quite heavily then choose two of the best programs for that product. What I mean is, suppose you can imagine being able to have many links to books from your site. So you choose two best of breed online book stores. If store A and store B are a good fit for your site concept then use these two but no more.

Keeping a check on each program takes up your time so don't have too many, ten programs should be enough and if one of them goes by the way side nothing is lost. Your best results will come from focusing your attention on a small selection from within your group of ten programs. Their products must fit your site concept, compliment each other and of course be excellent products.

If you want to work online as an affiliate here are some plus points to look out for...

Their products must be top quality, you don't want to recommend poor quality or overpriced products.

The merchant has a good site that sells effectively.

You as an affiliate should be able to link directly to a product. As opposed to just the home page, if this happens your conversion rate could be low because the visitor has to start searching for the product.

Payment types, both pay per lead and pay per sale are good, and what about pay per click, I'll come onto that below.

Affiliate support should be reliable, accurate and in real time with online accounting. Email notification when a sale occurs, helpful marketing assistance and sales getting tools. There should also be a quality newsletter that both educates and trains.

Other good points to look for are...

It must be free to join. Lifetime commission, if the program pays a commission on future orders by a customer referred by you this is very good. Two tier commission, if the program pays a commission on affiliates which join because of you this is also very good.

Lifetime cookie, do you get a commission if the customer returns and buys after 1 month, 3 months? The cookie that tracks this should not expire.

A restriction on the number of affiliates! there are not so many of these and if you do come across one I would say take it. The program should also have a monthly payout with a reasonable minimum.

Do all the above need to be present, not at all but after having said that the more the better.

Some of the negatives...

I said previously I would mention pay per click where you get paid for a visitor just clicking on your link, no purchase necessary. Unfortunately its vulnerable to abuse by people who create incentives for other people to click on their links. The merchants pay for nothing eventually quitting and this program usually soon changes into something different.

Multi tier commission, which is basically online multi level marketing and is perfectly legal. If the name of the game however is to make money by signing other people up you are probably dealing with a pyramid scheme. And to be fair lots of people confuse honest and legal MLM with a scammy pyramid scheme.

Other negative signs can be.. A defective sign up procedure, Hmmm, if they cant get this one right. Slow or poor support, allowing spam or appearing to send spam. Unethical practices of any type, reports of late or no payment. Little or no information as regards the program and if there are signs of get rich quick schemes don't walk away..Run!

Hope this helps, I'm nearly always looking for new affiliates to join my program which is considered the best on the web. I like to help newbies and you don't need a website to get started. If you are interested just PM me.

Regards
Mr P

I think no matter what you do, there will also be risk. For someone who goes full time into affiliate marketing, there is this opportunity cost that he is risking where he could be holding a permanent job. However, it really boils down to what is the goal that one is trying to achieve.

If you do have a full time job its easy to carry out IM as a part time opportunity.

Don't give up the day job folks

Mr P

Mr P, good advice. I do almost as good online as I do at my day job but it's nice having both income sources. If you have good systems down you can get a lot done in a couple hours each night.