BuckWorks Marketing Articles

Affiliate Programs: Your Way to Make Money from Online Partnerships

Websites can make money by hosting links and sending customers to online merchants

Many people have Internet business ideas, and dream of ways to make money online, developing a stable income that can be administered from the comfort of their personal computer. It CAN be done. Why not by you?

It takes three things:

• an effective web site
• targeted traffic, the more the better
• attractive, competitive products or services

You can sell your own products and services, you can help other merchants sell theirs, or both. Thousands of online merchants, large and small, are willing to reward other websites for hosting their links and sending customers. If you have a website you can make money from online partnerships called affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs pay for performance, rather than advertising space. The results you'll be paid for are generally measured in the following ways (sometimes a combination):

• ClickThroughs: users visit merchant's site by clicking a link on your site.
• Leads: users form a relationship with the merchant by registering, requesting a newsletter, downloading something, etc. Valid contact information is required.
• Sales: users actually buy something from the merchant, commission is paid to referring site.

Paying for results means risks are small for the merchant, but possibilities are big for you if you invest effort and skill to develop targeted traffic. There are no guarantees about what money you can make -- but no limits, either!

Your task is to send targeted visitors to the merchant's site, and do it in such a way that they are open to buy if they like what they find. Sounds easy, but it takes work and skill! The merchant will give you special tracking links to place on your pages, so when someone clicks through from your site to theirs you are credited for the visitor's actions. The merchant handles everything else: closing the sale, managing money, shipping products, maintaining inventory.

Remember that targeting is the key to success. Whatever you feature, finding ways to promote to people who already have related interests will be more effective and more profitable than advertising randomly to the world at large.

Ask yourself: Why do visitors come to your pages? What is the main theme of your content? Answer those and you'll have a better idea what to feature.

Example: If your site was a documentary about how you restored a 1958 Jeep, few visitors would respond to banners about knitting supplies. But if you mentioned an online source for, say, auto repair manuals, some would be keenly interested. If you had an affiliate relationship with that merchant, traffic from your site to theirs could make money for both of you.

Once you've chosen a merchant (or several) and installed their links on your site, here are some important numbers to track:

• how many visitors click through to the merchants' site
• how many visitors it takes, on average, before someone "converts" - does something that you get paid for
• how much you make when that happens

Knowing these, you can calculate how much it is worth to you to send traffic to this or that merchant. As a rough guideline, if one in a hundred of the visitors you send buys something, you're probably doing okay. The percentage who become leads is often higher. In my own promotions for different companies (I do a lot of promotion in pay-per-click search engines), conversion ratios have ranged from as high as one in eight to less than one in 1000. (Guess which one I dropped?) For a variety of reasons, some online merchants are simply better than others at turning your traffic into leads or customers. Don't hesitate to test several merchants to see where your traffic is most profitably sent.

Effective "pre-selling" can improve your conversion rates. You don't have to give a full-blown sales pitch; let the merchant do that. But

• say enough that visitors arrive at the merchant in a positive mood, open to buy if they like what they find.

The merchant's sales process will take it from there. Many affiliate programs find that

• text links tend to perform better than banners, and
• text links in the context of positive personal comments do best of all.

Be willing to write about why you like this product or that service. People DO read intelligent commentary. (Hey, you read this far!) As well, it is often more effective to feature specific products rather than just general ads for the merchant. Consider that your local grocery store doesn't just say "We Sell Food" - their promotion might be "Get Your Barbecue Ready: Steak is on Sale This Week!"

Remember that people visit sites for their own reasons, not yourss. In otherwords, they visit to find content, not ads. Build focused, fast-loading pages with intelligent, useful content, and make sure that any merchants or products you feature relate well to your content. "Flea-market" pages or banner farms rarely perform as well, although tightly themed listings might be useful enough to attract traffic. If you want to promote more products, create more pages and build traffic for them, rather than jamming too many ads onto existing pages. Some people who earn hundreds every month, even thousands, have small sites featuring just a few products. The key is that they promote effectively and have built well-targeted traffic.

Some programs pay bonuses based on the sales of other affiliates that you bring into the program. This sounds great, but subaffiliates with solid promoting skills are a rare and precious breed. Do not think you can just recruit others and then retire with buckets of money. My advice: Focus on becoming an effective internet marketer yourself, and consider any money you make from two-tier bonuses as a pleasant extra. It would help if you could teach your subaffiliates what you know about online marketing, but on the Internet you rarely even know who they are. I do have one suggestion for helping subaffiliates make money online: wherever you place your recruiting links in the first place, also promote the free e-mail courses by Ken Evoy. He gives some of the most effective advice you'll find anywhere about building a website and promoting it. If you had subaffiliates who understood and and did what Ken teaches, that could be a dynamite combination. (Of course, I commend it to you, too!)

.What To Look For In Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs have varying features. Here are some things to consider before you join a program. Be sure to read all the fine print carefully so you understand what you're agreeing to. Surprises can be lots of fun, but not here.

Let us begin at the beginning:

Will the merchant accept you as an affiliate? Merchants don't have to accept everyone who applies to their affiliate programs. They may want specific kinds of sites, certain traffic levels, people in certain countries, or any of a hundred other requirements. If a merchant says no to you, don't take it personally. Find another merchant.

Do the products or services relate well to your site's content? Enough said already, I hope! :-)

Can you recommend the products or services with pride? Use your website to promote ethical, competent merchants who sell quality products. Remember that the quality of sites you link to will affect your own reputation. You'll make more money in the long run if people trust you.

Is the merchant's website well-designed and easy to use? Sites that make it *easy* for visitors to do business with them will be better at turning visitors into buyers. Look for things like fast-loading pages, informative sales copy, easy-to-understand navigation, a logical, secure ordering process. Another thing to watch for is that the site is not full of ads for other companies, because that will siphon off some of the traffic you send. The merchant might get credit for sales on those other sites, but you won't.

Will you get detailed, reliable statistics? To make money from online partnerships, you need to know what you've earned, which pages send the most visitors, and which links are most profitable. You need to know what works (or doesn't) in your promotions, so you know what to do more of!

When does the transaction have to occur for you to get credit? Be sure you understand this. Some affiliate programs pay sales commission if the visitor purchases on the first visit from your link, but not if they just look around and buy on a later visit. Others track and give you credit for sales that happen weeks, months, even years later. That's what I look for, although the first type might make money for you if the product was exactly right for your site and the merchant's conversion rate was good. Either way, be sure you know what to expect.

Will you be credited for repeat business, or just the first order? Many affiliate programs pay commission only on the first order, while others consider the customer "yours" for longer periods. This opens up pleasant possibilities for ongoing residual income as you build a customer base (assuming the merchant stays in business, of course!)

Some examples: If you send a booklover to Amazon.com, you only get paid sales commissions if they buy on the same visit they come directly from your link. If they look around, go somewhere else, and return to Amazon to buy later, you get no credit. In comparison, merchants in Commission Junction (more about CJ below) set cookies to give you credit for the first sale even if it occurs on a later visit (so if you want to promote books, consider some of CJ's booksellers as well as Amazon). Planet-Holiday credits you for any hotel bookings your visitors make within a year, including repeat business. Some merchants think of their affiliates as full-fledged partners. With programs such as SiteSell

How stable are the Terms of Service? Many affiliate programs include clauses allowing the merchants to change their mind about anything, anytime, for any reason. Such blanket provisions make me uneasy. However, so many programs have them (probably because of nervous lawyers) that you might just have to live with it. Some (such as SiteSell) reserve the right to make changes, but make a specific promise that they will not make arbitrary changes that are unreasonable or unfair to their affiliates. It's a matter of good faith.

Is the company stable and well-managed? Do some research to find out who the owners are, how long they've been in business, what their business track record is online and off, what other affiliates say about them. In the end, you'll have to make a judgement call.

Always remember: Stuff Happens. Protect yourself by diversifying. Look for several merchants whose products go well with your site and with each other, and get them performing for you. Think "multiple streams of income." Then if one company has problems you have others to fall back on. Of course, this needs to be balanced against the need not to spread yourself too thin, management-wise, and also what makes sense for your site.

.Where to Find Affiliate Merchants

Many online merchants run their own affiliate programs, while others are represented by companies which manage affiliate programs for a variety of merchants, sometimes hundreds. You can make money online either way, as long as you promote products that suit your site.

Commission Junction is my first recommendation. CJ represents hundreds of merchants who will pay you to host their links and send customers. You're sure to find products and services that suit your site, no matter what it's about. CJ is a great choice for webmasters just starting to make money with online partnerships, as well as for experienced promoters who want to add to what they're already doing. First you join CJ (free), then you sign up with the merchants you want to work with. Pay is per click, per lead, per sale or sometimes a combination, depending on the merchant. The tracking gives you credit for sales to visitors you send even if they don't buy on the first visit.

One thing I especially like is that you don't have to earn the minimum with each merchant individually to get a check; the money you make from all merchants is rolled into one check. This means you'll start getting paid sooner. It also makes it easy to test links and promote products from different merchants. If you only make a small amount then decide to try another merchant, you won't lose out for not earning the minimum. The minimum you must earn to receive a check from CJ is $25 if you're in the US, higher for internationals. Commission Junction has excellent tracking and reporting statistics so you can see which aspects of your promotion are most profitable. As you see what works best you can do more of it!

Other Services: You can find hundreds more online merchants through these management services:

Affiliate Window- UK-based affiliate network specializing in UK and European-specific merchants
ClickBank - lots of small niche merchants
QuinStreet- a smaller affiliate network but some big names among their merchants
LinkShare- several hundred merchants to choose from, but each one pays separately
Reporting.net - lots more merchants to choose from here
Performics - about a hundred merchants to choose from - some big names

One thing to watch for is that sometimes merchants participate in more than one affiliate network. If you decide to promote a certain merchant, check to see if they are listed in more than one place. You might prefer to work through one program rather than another, for any number of reasons. For example, as I write this Magellan's is listed in both Commission Junction and Performics, but I use the links from CJ to promote them. This is mainly because I got started with CJ first, but sometimes you'll find differences that are significant to you. Different link choices, better cookies, you prefer one program's stats reporting, and so on. This is not a big issue, just something to keep in mind if you do a lot of affiliate promotion.

Independent merchants: Most of my affiliate experience has been through the programs listed above, but I have also had good results with merchants who run their own affiliate programs (assuming I send them enough traffic, of course!) One that I like is SiteSell. SiteSell provides a variety of webmaster resources, including the best book anywhere on designing a site that will actually SELL to visitors. What do I like here? SiteSell pays follow-up sales commissions on repeat orders from your customers. These are worth looking into if the products suit your site.

Reminder: Free Email Courses from the creators of Make Your Site Sell. Just send a blank email to sign up. Recommended! Affiliate Masters | Netwriting Masters | InfoProduct Masters | Pricing Masters