How to Choose an Affiliate Program

What works for one may not work for all... so how do you know what will work for you? Asking yourself a few simple questions will help lead you in the right direction for a successful and enjoyable affiliate partnership.

1. Your Audience

Who visits your site? Who is your target audience? For example, if your site is about whitewater rafting, you might want to promote sites about health and wellness and outdoor living. You could promote camping equipment, health supplements, life insurance, outdoor clothing, bikes, etc. Once you have chosen your product of choice, then proceed on with your search for the best programs within those categories.

2. Commissions

Just as you would shop around for the best price on a car, shop around for the best commission rates. Compare programs that promote similar products or services. Look for programs that pay at least 20% of the profit the merchant makes. For example, if you are promoting watches that sell for $100, a $20.00 commission would be reasonable. Even programs that pay on a per lead basis, you should be able to calculate the % of their payment. For example, company "A" sells mortgage leads to their clients for $20.00. a 20% commission would be $4.00. At the very least, they should pay you $4.00 for the lead.

3. Payment Frequency

It is common to find programs that pay monthly or every 45 days. Others will pay weekly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. Keep in mind that some programs have minimum payout and will only issue a payment once you have earned a certain amount. Choose your preference based upon your needs and select programs accordingly.

4. Conversion Rates

This is probably one of the most crucial factors in choosing a program. The higher their conversion rates the higher your volume of sales or leads you'll have. Check with the program manager and inquire about their conversion rates. Most should tell you and if they do not, that's not really a good sign.

5. Marketing Materials

What is the quality of their landing pages? What are their banners and other links like? You may not be able to view these until after you join, but you can certainly ask the program manager to share some examples with you. If their materials are not high quality you're not going to get the traffic you need to generate your sales.

6. Personal Support

Look for programs that have a dedicated affiliate program manager and a support staff. You should be able to easily reach some one at the company to discuss your campaigns, their promotions, or the program as a whole.

7. Accurate Online Tracking and Reports

To ensure that your marketing efforts are in fact effective, the program should provide you with accurate up to the minute tracking and statistics. These should be available to you online for easy access and analysis. Look for programs that will display the amount of impressions, clicks, conversions, and earnings. This will help you derive your EPC (earnings per click) and ECPM (earnings per 1 million impressions).

8. Obvious Contact Information

A program running an affiliate program should make available their phone number and address. You may also want to check with the Better Business Bureau of their state to review the ratings on the company.

9. Is there a Market?

So you found this great program that sells widgets... Are they many people searching for widgets online? If you're not sure, a great way to tell is to review keyword searches and see if anyone is searching for the term widgets. A great online tool is WordTracker.com. This will tell you how many people searched for this term within the last 60 days. If no one is searching, the chances of you making money from promoting the widget are slim to none.

10. How Saturated is the Market?

How do you plan to market the product? For example, you might choose pay per click marketing to drive traffic to your merchant's site. This can be a very effective way, however it can also be very costly if there is lots of competition for the clicks. For example, you would like to drive traffic to a car insurance site. You would like to bid on the term car insurance. This could get very costly very quickly if you're not careful. There could be hundreds of other people trying to bid on that term. Either choose other terms or another product to promote. After determining an estimated cost to promote the program, review their commission payments. If you're not going to make money, move on.

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