Affiliate Marketing requires choices. The first choice you have to make is what products you'll promote. Hopefully you've already researched and found a lucrative market to target, and you have a promotion plan in place to start making money. So now you need to choose good affiliate products, programs, and merchants that fit into your overall niche and plan.
Choosing affiliate marketing programs can be very difficult. For many beginners, it's a difficult trial and error process for awhile too. But it doesn't have to be. Here are several key points to consider when looking at affiliate programs to promote.
- How much commission will you be paid? This tends to be the first thing new affiliates look at, because they want to know how much money they can make with each sale. And most people choose to promote products which offer very high commission rates. What they don't realize is that sometimes you can make much more money with lower commissions.
You see, it's not the commission rate that's really important. It's the dollar amount you'll be paid. If you choose to promote a product that sells for $25 just because you'll earn 75% of the sale, you're only going to get $18.75 each time you make a sale.
And while that's nothing to sneeze at, there might be much better options. Let's say another product sells for $100, but it only offers 30% commissions. Would you pass it by just because the commission "look" lower? Many would, and do. Do the math though, and you'll realize something: 30% of $100 sale is $30. Almost twice what you can make with the 75% commissioned product.
- The next important factor to consider is conversion ratio. If you send 100 targeted visitors to an affiliate sales page, how many of those visitors will actually pull out their credit card and buy?
In this instance, percentages count a lot. If 1% of people buy, that's a 1% conversion ratio. That means 1 person out of 100 will buy on average. If however, a product has a 5% conversion ratio, then 5 people out of 100 will buy.
Larry and I have been in this business quite some time, and 5% is a good conversion ratio!
If you combine conversion ratios with commission rates, you can get further insight on which product might be the best to promote. Let's say a 75% commission product has a 2% conversion ratio, and the 30% one has a 3%. Since you already know you make more actual dollars with the 30% product, it's a no brainer to stick with it because it has a higher conversion ratio too. If however, the 75% product has a 10% conversion and the 30% product has a measly 0.5% conversion ratio, you would probably change your mind about which one to promote. Because no matter how much money a product can earn you, it's worthless if people won't buy it.
- Look at the sales page. This is a step many new affiliate marketers miss. The sales page may offer opportunities for your referral to do something other than buy the product. There may be other advertising on the page to divert their eagerness. Try not to promote programs that are designed to steal from you.
Another problem can sometimes crop up with merchants who sell physical products. It's not uncommon to find a phone number on the sales pages. Often this is a toll free number. The merchant needs to have a contact number so sales aren't lost, but if they make the number huge and in the way of everything else, chances are the potential customer you sent to the page will just pick up the phone and bypass you all together.
Some merchants handle this issue well though, and they put a referral code next to their phone number, then they ask for that code when the prospective customer calls. That referral number tracks back to you, and you still earn commissions from the sales.
- What are the merchant's terms? This is another key area most new affiliates don't look at closely enough.
Some merchants put sneaky exception clauses into their terms of service, and affiliates don't realize they won't get paid for various types of sales. Some for instance, might say that affiliates will not earn commissions on any orders taken over the phone. Others might say affiliates can only earn commissions on X items, but not any others. And sometimes they'll even say that affiliates can only earn commissions on products under a certain dollar value.
- What are the Payout terms? Related to the previous item, you also need to pay attention to the payment terms. Some merchants will only send commission to you every three months. Some will not pay you until you've generated $100 in commissions. And some will not pay you unless you first generate a certain amount of money, then wait a certain amount of time, then request the payment. Yes, there are affiliate programs out there that will not automatically send you the money, you have to actually ask for it instead.
This is not an exhaustive list, but these items are what I believe are the most important. In general though, do your research. Find out exactly how the program works and if possible, find out how other affiliates feel about the program before committing too much time or money to it yourself.
Our mission here at http://www.homebusinessop.com is to provide you with real information updated regularly to help you make the right choices. Sure we promote some multi-tier programs and want you to join our organization. But we also tell you about one-tier programs and other affiliate marketing programs for which we receive no compensation.
