If you’re a small business with very little brand name recognition, how is anybody going to find your Web site to learn about your affiliate program? Affiliate program providers maintain a directory of participating online stores so that interested Web sites can quickly find merchants they want to work with. If you’re interested in setting up an affiliate program for your online store, start by getting in contact with the various affiliate program providers we listed earlier in the guide. When comparing affiliate program providers, think about the following questions:
1)pay-per-click programs—you pay a Web site for referring a visitor to your online store regardless of whether a sale results or not
2) pay-per-lead programs — you pay a Web site for referring a visitor to your Web site to fill out a form or perform another action that may lead to an online or offline sale
3) pay-per-sale — you pay a Web site for referring a visitor to your Web site who immediately buys a product or service What type of performance tracking is provided? How sophisticated is the performance tracking? What information do the performance reports contain? How frequently are the reports updated? Are the reports delivered by e-mail in addition to being available on the Web? How user-friendly is their affiliate management software? What account management features does their software offer? How easy is it for you to update or replace the ads being served by your affiliates?
What tools exist for communicating with your affiliates, both through the affiliate program provider’s Web site and by e-mail? Can you target certain affiliates with special offers?
Who issues the commission payments to your affiliates? Do you have to, or will the affiliate program provider do that for you?
How does the affiliate program provider guard against fraud? For example, what happens if the same person clicks on a link to your Web site 50 times – do you have to pay for that?
Is there any flexibility with regard to payout rates? Can you customize payout rates for different affiliates or do you have to give the same commission structure to everyone?
Does the affiliate program provider offer any client services to assist you with the implementation of your affiliate program, or are you expected to do it on your own? What technical support is available for both affiliates and merchants? Are any consulting services offered?
How easy is it for Web site owners to join an affiliate program and create links from their Web sites to yours? To get the answer to this question, we recommend you visit some of the leading affiliate program providers’ sites and try signing up with some of their merchants. By doing this, you’ll get a first-hand look at how the process works from an affiliate’s point of view.
What types of link options are available for your affiliates?
Does the affiliate program provide support for e-mail-based affiliate programs? For example, how easy is it for an affiliate to include links to your Web site in their e-mail messages to customers?
How many affiliates are part of the company’s network? What is the company doing to recruit new affiliates into their network? You find the answer for that and get better results for affiliate marketing technique. Courtesy:Jim corell and Rick broadhead