Affiliate Programs - 7 Red Hot Tips For Affiliates

We often get asked by affiliates about how to successfully deal with affiliate programs. There are many ways - and different Internet "gurus" will give you different answers.

Here are the top seven tips that our top consulting editors normally give:

1. Make no mistake about it - merchants and Internet marketers are in business to make money for themselves. They are not interested in helping you to take cash away from them. Their mission is to make as much money as they can - and to give away the minimum they have to. Many merchants and marketers use "tricks" and "tactics" to ensure that they always get the best out of the deal.

2. You must be alert and awake - what tactics are merchants and marketers using to grab your traffic? Many of them will "steal" your traffic and you will not get as much as a simple "thank you" - let alone the bags of cash they all promise.

3. Do you carefully follow what the merchants and marketers tell you? They often give you "helpful advice" so that you may maximize your affiliate income. Here's the sad truth - if you follow them like "blind sheep" - you will increase their profits, not yours.

4. Do you monitor the level of traffic you generate for merchants and marketers? Does this convert to sales and cash? If not, what is happening to your traffic? You need to look into that.

5. Even when you get commissions, don't be too happy. The merchants and marketers will proceed to make 10 to 100 times more out of your traffic than they will ever share with you.

6. You are in business for yourself - when you market and promote affiliate programs, they must generate money and cash flow for your business. If you don't get reasonable returns on your time and cash investment, dump the merchant or marketer. The program is either not worth promoting or the merchant or marketer is abusing your efforts.

7. Promote affiliate programs under your own domain and branding - don't give free advertising to merchants and marketers who may not be interested in rewarding you for your efforts.

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About the Author

Consulting Editors, Authors and Mentors - http://www.AskProfessors.com - creators of the Affiliate Intelligence system. Don't throw away money or traffic


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Affiliate Programs 101!

Affiliate Programs 101!
by: BB Lee



Joining an affiliate program is one of the easiest ways to start an online business and generate income for your website. These revenue sharing programs are very popular on the net. And is the way many new entrepreneurs started online.



When you join an affiliate program your task is to promote the merchants services or products on your website or in your ezine. This is easier than you might think because the merchants supply members with banners or links back to their site to promote the product. Plus they tally up your clicks or sales.



But Beware!



Make sure you understand all the details of the program. Avoid MLM programs. Only the first tier group will reap rewards. Avoid any program where you recruit other affiliates. And your earnings are based on a percentage of their profits. Your profits plummet if your recruits abandon the program.



Affiliate programs pay their members a fixed amount for each sale, click through, lead, or banner impression.



Here's a simple breakdown of most payment plans:



-Pay per sale.



A commission is paid for each sale your site/ezine generates.



-Pay per click through.



You receive a payment for each valid click to the sponsors website.



-Pay per lead.



You receive a payment for each sales lead for a service or product.



-Pay per impression.



You receive a payment each time a merchants banner or link is displayed to the merchants site.



Joining an affiliate program is easy! Just be sure to select an affiliate program with appropriate services or products that match your targeted audience.



If your ezine/website attracts Rugged Out-doors motorcycle enthusiast, you certainly would not display maternity clothing or baby booties.



Or if your ezine/website attracts young teenagers, you certainly don't want to display senior citizen products like walkers or vitamins for older adults.



Always read the fine print. Make sure you understand the payment clause. Many affiliate programs will only send you payment after you've accumulated a certain sales amount. Anything from $10.00 and up.



Affiliates might pay every other week, per month or per quarter. You will receive a payment if you reach the minimum balance in sales during that pay period. Most balances are accumulative. So, if you do not reach the minimum during one pay period it will be rolled over to your next pay period and added to any sales balances. Once again, read the fine print in the affiliate agreement when you sign up for pertinent details.



Here are a few popular affiliate programs.



Clickbank http://www.clickbank.com



Commission Junction http://www.commisionjunction.com



To find more affiliate programs, go to one of the search engines like:

Google http://www.google.com


Type in affiliate programs. Click on the one's that interest you.

Are you a newbie and want an easy way to get into business fast? Join an affiliate program!




BB Lee
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Affiliate Program Scams To Watch Out For

Affiliate programs are a great way to earn extra money or even a good living if you do things right. But unfortunately, there are alot of people out there that know this and will do everything they can to swindle you into selling their products while not having to pay you a dime. There are some merchants that view affiliates as a source of free traffic and free marketing.

Here are a few things that should draw up a red flag when you come accross an affiliate program:

No Contact Information
If they don't post their contact information on their site then you should not bother with them. To me this tells me they are trying to hide something.

Commission To High
Yes, it is great when we find affiliate programs that pay high commissions. But you also have to be careful that they are not just trying to draw you into their affiliate program by using big numbers. It wouldn't be good to earn alot of money just to get scammed. If it is to good to be true then most likely it is. A merchant will never pay more on a commission then they would get for the sale. It is just not business smart.

No Replies To Your Emails
If they do have their email address on their site and you send them an email but they never reply then you should drop them like a hot rock. If you can't trust them to take one minute to give you a reply then you shouldn't trust them to spend a few more minutes cutting and mailing you a check.

Returned Affiliate Payment Checks
If they do send you a check and your bank returns it then this would be another reason to draw up the red flag of being scammed. Of course you should always contact the merchant to try to resolve the issue, it could be an honest mistake. But if it happens in conjuction with no email replies and lousy affiliate support then I wouldn't waste anymore of my time with them.

The bottom line is that you should always use your gut feeling when dealing with affiliate programs. If you are not sure about an affiliate program then search the search engines for the merchants name. If they are known for scamming affiliates you are sure to find it in the search engines and affiliate forums.

About the Author

Chet Brzezinski has been in the affiliate marketing and affiliate management industry since 1997. View more affiliate program related articles at any of Chet's sites below:
http://www.affiliate-program-review.com
http://www.proudmedia.com


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Affiliate Program Learn How To Build Internet Capitol

As I mention in almost all of my articles, 97% of Internet marketers never make a cent online. I mention this simple fact because it has a lot of power--it has the power to completely discourage people who are not succeeding, and it also has the power to encourage those same people who are failing to learn, so that they can succeed.



In this article, I will teach you exactly what it means to build Internet capital goods--and how it relates to entering that top 3%. When you finish reading this, you will have complete faith that you can succeed and you will understand exactly what it will take to do so.



So what are capital goods? You know that regular businesses purchase capital goods to increase production. You know that industrial businesses operate some of these capital goods to produce goods that they can then resell for profit. You know that capital goods can be land. They can be factories. They can be machinery. They can be people. . .



So how does this relate to marketing your affiliate program? It's quite simple--in order to succeed, you must build a large pile of Internet capital goods and then use them to pull in customers and retain them.



Most affiliates do not understand this concept. They start out with a boilerplate gateway webpage--that everyone else who sells the same product also uses--and then they use that page in conjunction with paid advertisement and hope for success. In almost every single case, they never make more than a couple sales, give up after 3 months at the absolute most, and then move on to the next opportunity.



If you do a simple analysis of successful affiliate program marketers (which, for practical reasons, will be easiest if you do it through websites), you will find that they either a) have purchased Internet capital goods and advertisement with a lot of money or b) have an enormous amount of Internet capital goods. (You can test this yourself by checking the top listings in search engines for any keyword combination).



What does this mean for you? It means that you either a) are already rich and can purchase that land, factory, machinery, and workers immediately (website, product rights, advertisement, etc) or b) you need to start building these Internet capital goods or you are definitely going to fail within 3 months.



So how do you know what is and isn't an Internet capital good? An Internet capital good is an item that, once you build or purchase it, will constantly add or create value for your business. This includes links, content, dynamic scripts, free tools that your targeted audience can use, and mailing lists that you can consistently offer your products to.



If you are not making an effort to build these Internet capital goods, you are the Internet equivalent of real life business that purchases frozen pizzas from the supermarket next door, heats them up in a microwave, and then tries to sell them. On top of that, your store has no napkins or condiments or tables or chairs or pizza boxes. Everyone must sit on and eat off of the floor.



Would you want to purchase pizza there? No, you would get it at the supermarket frozen at a cheaper price, or you would go next door, where they make it and then bake it in an oven, where you could sit down at a table in a chair.



Take the time to understand this point: If you want to succeed, you absolutely must either have money to buy your land, store, table, chairs, and oven--or you must build them yourself.



Fortunately for Internet marketers, you have a huge advantage over regular businesses--you can build all of these Internet capital goods; you do not need to pay for any of them.



You can build every Internet capital good I have mentioned above for no cost at all. And you will if you want to succeed on a limited budget. So setup your links. Make quotas; reach those quotas every week. Build content. Find legally reusable expert articles and add them to your website. Build pages that offer free tools to your customers. Use free advertising methods advertise this page as a useful stand-alone (which happens to be linked to your related website). Setup a free content ezine or marketing list that is related to your website. Register with free directories to get customers.



All of these Internet capital goods will not only draw customers to your business through a multitude of sources, but they will also retain customers that come to your website through free or paid advertisement by giving them the option to get free information or use free products.



As every marketing study has indicated, multiple impressions of a product increase a person's chance of buying it--and multiple contacts with a salesperson increases the conversion rate. By retaining customers you will both increase the impression of your product and expose them to your sale copy, which will dramatically increase your conversion rates.



If you get nothing else out of this article, please remember this fact: the only way to successfully build and expand an Internet business is by building Internet capital goods and staying around until you have enough to constantly draw and retain customers. If you do not have the money to purchase these capital goods, start building them today for free or you will probably be ready to give up in about 3 months.



Copyright 2004 Isaiah Hull




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Affiliate Program Intro

What is an affiliate program? Everyone who surfs the web has come across affiliate programs. You may have seen a banner on a website that says, "click here", and once you do, you get access to whatever's being promoted. Or you could click on a link in an email you've received. You're using someone's affiliate program.
Basically, the company that sells the product sets up an automated way for people to be paid a set amount to help them promote their products or services. The links send you to the company's website where you can buy the product. The owner of the originating website or email gets a fee for taking you there.
The bookstore Amazon was the first company to heavily promote affiliate marketing on the internet. Although this type of marketing is ideal for businesses that only operate online, it's also become popular with businesses that have both an online and bricks and mortar presence.
Affiliate programs are an ideal way to make your web site profitable. With the huge range of affiliate programs now available, there's almost bound to be something to suit you and your website.
How it works
Perhaps you've created a website about the city where you live. People find your website while searching for information about your city. Once they've read your pages they check out your recommendations. They might click a link to book a flight there. You get paid a commission. Then they clink your link that points them to somewhere they can book a hotel room. Another commission for you. Then they might want to buy a guide-book or street map. Yet another commission.
Or perhaps you have a website connected with your hobby. Maybe you want to share your enthusiasm about the crafts you do. Your website could point people towards suppliers, books on the subject, magazine subscriptions.the list is endless. And all the time you're earning your commission.
The commission is paid in different ways according to the company you're affiliated to. You can be paid per impression, per click, per lead or per sale. The stronger the likelihood of a sale, the higher your commission will be.

The advantages for you
There's no need for you to develop the products - it's already been done. All you need to do is to pick the best out of those available. You don't need to spend money on making or storing the product. Sending people to your affiliate merchants means you don't need to take or process a single order, or worry about processing payments. You don't have to handle or mail the product - your merchants do that. You don't have to offer customer support. Affiliate programs are usually free to join. You can run your affiliate business part time for a little extra cash while making minimal effort.
Choosing your affiliates
It's worth spending some time making sure that you choose the right companies to affiliate with. Different companies have different requirements. Some require you to have a minimum number of visitors to your website, while others require you to have your own domain name.
The best way to choose an affliate program that will suit you is according to the type of people who visit your website. If your website is about guitars, you're unlikely to have much success with affiliating with a company that sells gardening products. The first thing you need to do is know your target audience.
You also might consider whether you want to join every single affliate program that comes your way. A lot of people find that they make the most money from using only a small number of programs. Also, concentrating your advertisements may allow you to be paid faster.
Sometimes, it can be hard to choose between two similar companies. What works well for someone else may not be the best choice for you. It's not just about how much money you can make - you'll want to feel confident in your recommendations.
You can maximize your income by thinking beyond the obvious. If your website is aimed at parents, obviously you might think of affiliating to a toy company. But what about books, clothes, videos, DVDs, child oriented software.
If you're thinking about affiliating with two similar websites, you might want to choose the one that easiest to use or offers the greater benefit to a visitor, even if it pays less in commissions. You'll do best with programs that represent a subject you're personally interested in. Your own interest in the subject will entice others.
To join an affiliate program, you simply go to the site and complete their online application form. Some programs approve you instantly, while others check out your application before it is approved. Once it's approved, you're given some HTML code that you can cut and paste onto your web page.
How do I make my money?
Before joining any program, you should probably be aware of the different payment programs available.
Pay Per Impression
Here you are paid according to the number of times the advertiser's banner is displayed on your site. The amount paid is usually small, but it is easy to earn as everytime a visitor loads the page, you earn. The more vistors your site attracts, the more you earn.
Pay Per Click
With this method you're only paid when visitors click the advertiser's banner on your site. It generally pays higher than the pay per impression program. You'll get better results if your banners are carefully selected to suit your target audience.
Pay Per Sale or Lead
You only earn if your visitors click through the banner and buy the product or service.
Often, to avoid wasting resources in issuing checks for very small amounts, advertisers will accrue the amount owed to you until it reaches a certain amount before they pay you.
How do they keep track of referrals?
Every affiliate banner or link that a visitor clicks on has some type of coding added to the URL - this differentiates it from other affiliates' links. The most common means of tracking affiliate links is by "cookies" Cookies are tiny files stored on your computer by a web browser when you click on an advertising link.
Cookies are generated to track visitors to websites. This is how they can "remember" what you bought when you visit there again. For an affiliate company, the cookie records information on which affiliate referred the visitor to the company, and when.
As some computer users block or delete cookies, there are other methods used to track referrals. For example, CGI-based scripts related to the individuals affiliate code attached to the URL links and database matching algorithms are used.
Second tier programs
A two tier program allows you as an affiliate to sign up other affiliates under you. You earn a smaller commission on the referrals or sales that arise from their advertising efforts as well as your own.
This costs you far less time and money for each sale if some of them aren't yours. In effect, you have your own sales force and pay a commission to your sub-affiliates. Except that the commission comes out of the affiliate company's profits rather than yours.

The affiliate company benefits by a possible exponential growth of its sales force for no more effort on its part - you're providing that. It's not hard to recruit people under you in two tier programs.
A second level can be a great advantage to you as an affiliate. Even if you only spread the word amongst friends and family, you never know when someone who signs up under you will really take off. They could earn you a lot by their own efforts in spreading the word about a program. You might not get rich, but you'll get some welcome extra income.
A multi tier affiliate program builds on the concept of a two-tier program.
Not only can you earn from sub-affiliates, but you can also earn from their sub-affiliates, and perhaps their sub-affiliates. With a two tier program, you have an incentive to sign up sub-affiliates. A multi-tier program gives you the incentive to help your sub affiliates sign up others.

Is it for me?

If you have a website then there's guaranteed to be an affiliate program to suit your needs and audience. For minimal effort you can make your website earn money, even while you're happily sleeping. Perhaps it won't make you a fortune overnight. And it's true that no-one hands you money for doing nothing. But with some careful thought and planning, choosing an affiliate program that fits in with YOUR website and sells products that YOU are confident in is a straightforward way of increasing YOUR income. And it costs you nothing.


About the Author

Shanon Lewis is a web marketing specialist with over 7 years of search engine placement, e-mail marketing and affiliate management experience. She is part of the expert team at affiliateprograms.com, the premiere affiliate programs directory online.


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Affiliate Program Checklist

Affiliate and other cooperative programs are announced almost
daily. Website owners are flocking to these programs. Enthusiasm
is high. But.........why not compare and evaluate first?

The following checklist was prepared from the point of view of one
seeking a program to affiliatae with. But it can also help a program
initiator compare current programs in order to make his better.

A. Does the Program Offer a Strategic Fit to Your Business?

1. PROGRAM PURPOSE - Define in broad terms
2. COMPLEMENTS YOUR PURPOSE - Does it help you better
realize your website long-range goals?
3. VISITOR LEARNING - Are your visitors interested and will
the
program help them learn?

B. Do You Trust the Business Initiating the Program?

4. SUCCESS - Does the business have a history of successes?
5. BELIEVABLE ADVERTISING - Does it promise impossible
rewards: get-rich-quick and MLM schemes? Or is it honest and
realistic?
6. REPUTATION - What does the business literature tell you about
their past operations?
7. WHAT CLIENTS SAY - Contact current clients and ask for
their opinions. Would they recommend this business
organization? Are they benefiting from it?

C. Is the Program Well Designed?

8. AFFILIATE QUALIFICATIONS - Are they signing up
everyone? Or are they being picky? Picky is better.
9. AFFILIATE RESPONSIBILITIES - Better, too, if there are
specific responsibilities. Are affiliates asked to do
promotion, communication with customers, sales?
10. INITIATOR RESPONSIBILITIES - Does the outfit offer help
in promotion, sales and after-sales support?
11. PAYMENT & TERMS - Is there a fee or commission
structure? How frequently are payments made? Does affiliate
get credit for future sales?
12. TRANSACTION TRANSPARENCY - How frequently are
transaction reports made? Are transactions independently
checkable by the affiliate? Is there a third-party audit?
13. CONFLICT RESOLUTION - Is there a SIMPLE method for
resolving conflicts?
14. RETURN TO SITE - Is there a simple way for a website
visitor to return to the site of the affiliate after a
transaction is executed?

D. Will You be Part of a Community?

15. COMMUNICATION MEDIUM - Does the program have a
newsletter, a mailing list, a forum, or some other means of
communicating among all affiliates?
16. AFFILIATE DECISION-MAKING - Does each affiliate have
a voice in making decisions that affect all affiliates?
17. MUTUAL PROBLEM SOLVING - Is there a method whereby
affiliates can pose problems and have them solved by the
affiliate community?- - - - - - - - - - - -

Be extremely careful when evaluating an affiliate program. Most
people dwell on the financial arrangements. These are important, of
course. But more important, I believe, are efforts made to achieve
community. These efforts may bolster your ability to achieve
greater financial goals.

Spend time in evaluation. It will pay off in the long run.

-------------------------------

Paul -the soarING- Siegel is the founder of the Learning Fountain
Network (* Excellence * Honesty * Ethics), at
http://www.learningfountain.com; and editor of LearningFOUNT, a
newsletter focusing on Helpfulness Marketing. To subscribe, send
email to: mailto:LearningFOUNT-subscribe@topica.com.

Live your vision

About the Author

Paul "the soarING" Siegel, mailto:paul@learningfountain.com



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Affiliate Program Basics

Affiliate Program Basics
by: Albert Hallado



Affiliate Program is a ground floor opportunity. All you have to do is send visitors to your affiliate web site by placing a textlink or banner on your website and receive a commission on each sale, without the complication and expense of selling anything yourself.



Instead, you earn a commission for producing a ransaction. Affiliate programs, also known as Referral Programs, Associate Programs, Profit Sharing Programs or Reseller programs, give affiliates the ability to create an online business selling thousands products and services.



One of the first affiliate programs was run by the mega- bookstore, Amazon.com. They still have the largest base of affiliates on the net although they may not be the best affiliate program for many! with over 600,000 web sites being affiliated.



Affiliate programs are generally offered by sites selling goods or services, although some affiliate programs reward other types of transaction such as getting a visitor to sign up for a free newsletter, or a download.



Some affiliate programs pay per lead rather than per sale, in other words, you bring them a prospective customer and they pay a fixed "finder's fee" for the chance to market to that customer.



This is a typical arrangement for affiliate programs in the insurance, real estate and credit card industries, for example:



Types of Affiliate Programs



Pay per sale: If you refer a visitor to the online merchant's site and if visitor makes a purchase you get a percentage of the sale as commission.



Pay per lead: You get paid a one-time fee for generating a lead for the merchant. Usually you get paid $2-$5 if the visitor you referred fills out an application.



Pay per click: You get paid for every visitor you send to the online merchant regardless of any sale or purchase. Usually companies pay $0.05 - $0.15 per click.



Two-Tier: You get commission on direct sales you generate and also you get commission on sales generated by affiliates you recruited. Usually companies pay 25% commission for direct sales and 5% for sales generated by your affiliates.



Bounty: You get a one-time finder's fee payment for the visitor you referred. You will not get commission on any future purchases that customer makes.



When you join an affiliate program, you will be given a specially formatted URL (Links) that you should use to link to the affiliate provider's site.



This will enable the affiliate provider to monitor traffic to your site and pay according to the type of affiliate program.



The Benefit of an Affiliate Program



Is that you just need to drive traffic to your affiliate site. Write a few articles and provide a few links.



You don't need to find or deal with brokers, wholesalers, inventory, process orders, shipping & handling, customer service, tech support, handle returns, warranties, employees, etc-



An affiliate doesn't even have to be present, your site will keep earning money while you're sick, on vacation, or just doing something else.



Another advantage of being an affiliate, is that you do it from almost anywhere in the world..



How The System Works?



Many affiliate programs pay a commission based on a percentage of the revenue generated by purchases made by visitors coming from your website.



For example; if you're participating in an affiliate program that offers a 25% commission and you



send a visitor who purchases US$100 worth of products, you've just earned US$25 in commissions.



The commission rate itself can vary from 20% up- to 50%+ in the case of intangible products such as eBooks or website subscriptions.



Affiliate programs vary widely in terms of overall quality, reliability, commission , statistics, the amount of help that the merchant site offers in marketing the products or services it sells, and so on.



By thoroughly understanding an affiliate program, you'll minimize the risk of not getting paid - and maximize your potential earnings.


Albert Hallado
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Affiliate Program As It Should Be

Affiliate Program As It Should Be
by: Pavel Lenshin



Every off- or online business has a target of growing its market share. Under all other equal conditions the percent of the market, occupied by a company, means certain level of recognition, brand, exposure and, therefore, sales and income.



For small business owner a shift from 0.01% internet market share to 0.04% may result in tremendous four times income growth, the problem is in the limits of resources this particular owner has access to. Usually they are weak enough to allow such expansion at their own cost.



Help may come from two massive marketing instruments: - viral marketing; - business partnership based on outsourcing necessary resources.



Today we are going to speak about latter instrument of gaining exposure you deserve.



Business partnership is an agreement between two or more legal entities to cooperate together in order to reach mutually beneficial results. By extrapolating such statement into a framework of gaining market exposure, we can narrow this meaning down by focusing on uniting promotional efforts for reaching mutually beneficial results.



In practice the owner of affiliate program with the aim of gaining extensive market exposure attracts fellow marketers to promote the owner's(s') product(s) for a reward usually in the form of commission from retail price per sale. A commission for popular info products may vary from 5% to 70%.



Promotional materials (like, endorsement letters, reviews and articles) can greatly assist your partners in promoting your product as highly effective pre-selling tools.



The dilemma of joining affiliate programs



The most common mistake beginners do is registering with all possible and impossible affiliate programs they see in hope to promote them all and collect all the money they were promised to get on the page of respective affiliate program owners.



In dominating majority of cases they end up with wasted time and money. The reason is simple, they don't have necessary resource - a database of consumers, subscribers, business partners - people who may be interested in such type of offers. Instead, those newcomers decide to start their online businesses by promoting other people's products, what is extremely hard, because you will build client database and credibility for the company products of which you promote, not for yourself. The only thing you can do is to grow the subscription database, unfortunately, the most valuable asset - loyal clients - won't be accessible in any case.



Some well-known internet millionaires, making fortunes cross-promoting 3rd party products may truly support the idea of "easy income with affiliate programs", but they tend to forget that all their profits were possible due to huge subscriber databases, thousand of affiliates and customers a newcomer does not have!



That is why start wise by creating your own product, grow your credibility, circle of loyal customers and then join and promote as much 3rd party products as you consider necessary.



Setting up partner program



Every partner program you will create or setup should have, at least, basic must-have features:






Database driven registration of affiliates.


Tracking affiliate sales in order to count commission.


Admin control panel to support affiliates and track their sales.





There are 3 basic methods of having fully functional partner programs application, not going far into science, they are "do it yourself", "setup 3rd party application", "use 3rd party service".



The first method is for those, who are knowledgeable programmers and fortunate enough to invest a lot of time in creating such a solution for personal needs or those, who are lucky to have a lot of money and hire those knowledgeable programmers. Responsibility for taking under control all support and function-related issues would lie on your shoulders.



Setting up 3rd party affiliate program solution requires much less time or money, if any. The result will be the same as above - fully functional partner program and inevitable support problems. The only difference is that you won't be able to develop that partner application the way you need and like.



The main advantage of 3rd party service is the ability to stay unaware of how your partners sign up, track sales, receive checks and so forth, because in this case servicing your partners or affiliates will be the headache of independent company, not yours. For such "reluctance" 3rd party affiliate program provider would charge you on monthly or per sale basis, slightly decreasing your net profit at each sale.



Having your own affiliate program in place enables you to expand your market boundaries exponentially.


Pavel Lenshin


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Achieving Success With Affiliate Programs

No product... not even a product idea. What's a would-be
online entrepreneur to do?

For many beginners, affiliate programs seem like a dream
come true: earn a commission selling another company's
products or services. No need to create one of your own!
What's even better is that you only have to place a couple
of banners or links on your website, and this hot product
will sell itself! Right?

No. Just like with any other online business, earning money
from affiliate programs requires education and experience
with Internet marketing. Affiliate programs are a great
way to learn the basics of marketing online. Although it's
the rare person who makes a significant full-time income
from them, many people find that they provide an excellent
supplementary income stream.

Many newbies to the 'net are so eager to get started that
they sign up with every affiliate program that looks good
to them. They advertise like crazy, often spend hundreds
of dollars -- only to be disappointed at their complete
lack of sales.

So what does it take to make money with an affiliate
program? Here are a few key tips ...

__Make Smart Choices.

To get started, choose only one or two high-quality
programs that are a good fit with your website audience.
For example, if you're running a crafts website, don't
advertise technical software.

One or two programs will provide you with plenty of work
to begin with. More than that and you may find yourself
frantically trying to promote too many and having little
success. It's better to start earning money with a
couple of good programs first, then gradually add
additional income streams later on.

You may also find, over time, that your audience responds
to a certain type of product and not to others. Test
different offers to see which ones your audience like
best.

__Don't Rely on Your Downline.

2-tier affiliate programs offer additional commissions
everytime someone in your 'downline' makes a sale. Your
'downline' are those people you refer to the program who
also become affiliates.

Don't become obssessed about recruiting subaffiliates.
Remember that you can only control your own efforts;
you can't control what other people do. Concentrate
on making your own sales... and if your subaffiliates
make sales too, consider it a nice bonus!

__Hard Work, Determination, and a Willingness to Learn

Don't let anyone tell you different: Internet marketing
is hard work. It does *not* consist of slapping up a
few banners, blasting out a few ads, or - heaven forbid
- spamming millions of people.

You'll need the determination to keep you going through
the 'tough' periods. People tend to expect instant
results on the Internet. Unless you're a marketing
genius or already have a targeted, high-traffic site,
chances are you won't see immediate results. Keep in
mind that everyone's different - some people will see
profits in a few weeks, others in a few months.

__Experimentation and Adaptability

One day, after plenty of hard work, you may finally see
the coveted 'You've made a sale!' notification. That's
wonderful! Now HOW and WHY did you make that sale?

Don't be afraid to experiment with different marketing
methods. If one thing doesn't work, try another. If
something works, keep using it or even try to improve
upon it.

For all of this experimentation to be successful you must
track the results of each marketing campaign. This is the
only way to truly determine which methods are bringing in
profits, and which ones should be replaced with something
more effective.

While it's true that most people never make money from
affiliate programs, it doesn't have to be true for you.
Only you can determine the outcome!



About the Author

_________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela is the editor of Online Business Basics, a practical
guide to building an Internet business on a shoestring
budget. If you're tired of hype and just want solid,
down-to-earth information, then visit us today -- and in
moments you can have access to loads of instantly useable
tips, specifically chosen for beginners!
http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/article.html



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Tips For A Successful Affiliate Program

Look around at other competing businesses that offer affiliate programs, and think of ways that you can make your
affiliate program more attractive.

Pay your affiliates well for their efforts.

If you're thinking about offering a 10% commission for sales of your product and a competing business is paying a 50%
commission for referrals, you'll lose affiliates to your competitor.

Make your affiliate program more lucrative by offering residual commissions.

This is an excellent choice if you offer a product that is paid for on a residual basis such as webhosting or access to your membership site.

Offer lifetime commissions.

Your affiliates will see the power of lifetime commissions, and work hard to promote your business and send you more
sales.

Make your affiliate program two-tier.

Reward your affiliates by giving them a commission on the sales of people they refer to your affiliate program.

Don't leave your affiliates out in the cold.

Provide your affiliates with lots of sales items that they can use to successfully promote your products.

Some items you could offer your affiliates:

- e-zine ads (sponsor ads, classified ads, 2 liners)
- signature file ads
- sales letters/solo ads
- brandable ebooks
- sample recommendations
- email courses
- your articles that they can reprint with their affiliate URLs in your resource box.

Be quick to respond to your affiliates' emails.

An easy way to lose your affiliates is to not respond to their questions in a timely manner, or to not respond to their e-mails at all.

It shows that you don't value them, and since their are tons of other affiliate programs, you would be losing potentially
very good affiliates to other businesses.

Provide your own tips and advice.

Follow up with your affiliates with tips and strategies that they can use to increase their commissions.

Reward your top affiliates with higher commissions and bonuses.

You'll be able to achieve more sales over the long term because your top affiliates won't jump to another affiliate program where their efforts are more appreciated.

Publish an affiliate's newsletter.

Your affiliate's newsletter will help you to share your tips with your affiliates, and keep them going in the right direction.

You could also use your newsletter to keep your top affiliates excited about your program.

Some effective ways to do this are:

- Share what your top affiliates do to earn big commission checks.
- Showcase their sites and tell why their sites sell.
- List your 5 or 10 highest earning affiliates for the month.

Track your affiliates' sales accurately.

Your affiliates will find out if they send you customers and you don't credit them with their commissions.

Your affiliate program will lose credibility and you'll end up losing your affiliates as word gets around.

Participate in affiliate marketing forums.

Share your valuable advice and expertise with the members of the forums you participate in.

Include your signature file that promotes your affiliate program, and always follow the rules of the forums you join.

author: Article by Ken Hill
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Reasons why Affiliate Programs are the better option

Many people are confused when they first become iterested in internet businesses, they find themselves asking what type of busisness is best for me?

Well I can't answer this for you but I can certainly give you a few pointers in the right direction and my personal opinion.
So here they are:

1. No emplyees. There is no need to employ people to do the work for you.

2. Low costs. Most affiliate programs are free to join, you don't have to buy the product to sell it. Some programs have a upgrade option to make which makes your earninig capacity somewhat larger.

3. No storage. The merchant is responsible for the storage of product so you don't need to worry about space or storage costs

4. No shipping and handling. The merchant is also responsible for the product arrival, so there's also another cost you don't need to worry about and running around you won't have to do.

5. You don't deal with customer service. Another problem you don't need is customers who are not happy, if they are not happy the merchant deals with it.

6. No account keeping. There is no need to store customer information such as credit card details, addresses and phone numbers, this is yet another merchant responsibility.

7. No trading time for a wage. You can spend as little or as much time as you like selling your product. How much money you want to make is entirely up to you.

8. There are literally thousands of options out there for you.
If you have a favourite niche market go for it, in my experience if it is a product that you are really happy with then it will be easy to sell.

If this doesn't clear things up for you, I don't know what will! What better way to make money online then to watch the company do all the hard work. All you have to do is promote, promote, promote,and when it is something you are happy with it's easy!
by: Sara Bonnet
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Basic Rules for Choosing The Right Affiliate Program

Joining an Affiliate Program is a great way to start earning a sizeable income on the Internet without many of the hassles that come with running your own business.
But the problem is. there are so much affiliate programs out there for you. In this article I will guide you to choose the most suitable and profitable Affiliate Program for you. I recommend you to follow this rule before choosing an Affiliate Program.

1. Find a great quality product or service

Remember that any recommendation you make will reflect directly on you. If you recommend a great quality product, the people you recommended will always trusted you and be interested in future recommendations that you make. If you recommend a bad quality product, and I'll guarantee that they will likely hesitate to act on any offers you recommend.

Don't get greedy. Only recommend products that you truly believe in.

2. Look for a program that offers top commissions.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to expect to be paid 30% to 50% of the profits on each product sold. 5% to 10% is very low. You should look for companies who understand the "lifetime value" of new customers you refer and appreciate your efforts.

Only consider joining programs that show a similar level of respect for their affiliates.

3. Make sure they have a high sales conversion ratio.

Make sure that the affiliate program is turning a reasonable number of visitors into sales. If not, then your efforts directing traffic to their website will be completely wasted. A 1% conversion ratio (1 out of every 100 visitors) is quite good, 2%+ is better.

4. Be sure you'll be credited for every sales you make.

You should find out what kind of tracking software the Affiliate Program that you're interested in joining uses. You MUST look for a program that uses quality affiliate tracking software that is reliable and tracks ALL (online, by phone, fax, mail orders, etc), because there are many companies only track online orders, and this means that you will never get credit for anywhere from 5% - 10% of your affiliate sales!.

Make sure they have a high sales conversion ratio and a good tracking software.

5. They should allow you to access your sales statistics real time.

What I mean is that the Affiliate Program you join should give you a special username and password that you can use to access your own personal affiliate sales information right on their website. Many affiliate programs have done this, you don't have to worry about that, but incase they don't, you should reconsider to join them.

6. Look for a program that teaches you to maximize your affiliate sales.

A good affiliate program will provide you with everything you need to be successful. They'll provide you with traffic-generating banners, text-links, and recommendation letter templates. They'll tell you which techniques work well in which circumstances.

Find an affiliate program that is similarly dedicated to educating their affiliates.

7. Make sure they are reputable.

I still feel I should mention the importance of doing business with a reputable company. I know many people who have worked really hard, made a lot of sales for a company, but then they have never been paid or forced to wait months and months to get their money, I've been there too. If you have any concerns about a company that you are thinking of doing business with, ask for references and do some checks on them before you join them.

8. Be sure to read all contracts and agreements.

Before you join any affiliate program, just make sure that you read all contracts and agreements very carefully. Pay very close attention to exclusivity clauses in the agreement. Be careful that any affiliate agreement or contract you sign does not restrict you.

Copyright 2005 Syahriansyah
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7 Tips to Choosing a Successful Affiliate Program

When selecting an affiliate program to join you need to know how to choose a successful affiliate program.

Look in the wrong place and you might find a dud but look in the right place and you might be on to a winner.

Here are 7 tips to help you choose a successful affiliate program to join:

1. Look at associateprograms.com This is the ‘affiliate central' of affiliate programs. You can virtually guarantee to find a successful program here and you can choose from tons of subject areas.

2. Look at clickbank.com Nearly every product they have for sale has an affiliate program. Many of them are extremely good and most pay very high commissions. (some over 50%)

3. Affiliate resource sites usually offer their best affiliate programs. As affiliate resources sites are specialists in affiliate programs you can be pretty sure of choosing a
successful affiliate program from them.

4. Look for affiliate programs that are offered through any ezines you receive. Chances are the ezine owner has an
affiliate program and if they have a good ezine they probably will have a good affiliate program.

5. Think of things that ALWAYS sell. Like web site design, ebooks, music and travel. Stick to proven online sellers and the affiliate program will have a much greater chance of being successful.

6. Seek out articles on affiliate programs. There are many good writers out there who have been successful with affiliate programs. Try to find articles they have written to see what
has worked for them.

7. Take courses. Many sites offer free online email courses for affiliates. Take some of these courses to learn more about what it takes to be a successful affiliate.

Affiliate programs are a great way to make money but one of the secrets to affiliate success is to choose the right program in the first place. Use these 7 tips to help you succeed.
the Author David McKenzie


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Affiliate Program Intro

What is an affiliate program? Everyone who surfs the web has come across affiliate programs. You may have seen a banner on a website that says, "click here", and once you do, you get access to whatever's being promoted. Or you could click on a link in an email you've received. You're using someone's affiliate program.
Basically, the company that sells the product sets up an automated way for people to be paid a set amount to help them promote their products or services. The links send you to the company's website where you can buy the product. The owner of the originating website or email gets a fee for taking you there.
The bookstore Amazon was the first company to heavily promote affiliate marketing on the internet. Although this type of marketing is ideal for businesses that only operate online, it's also become popular with businesses that have both an online and bricks and mortar presence.
Affiliate programs are an ideal way to make your web site profitable. With the huge range of affiliate programs now available, there's almost bound to be something to suit you and your website.
How it works
Perhaps you've created a website about the city where you live. People find your website while searching for information about your city. Once they've read your pages they check out your recommendations. They might click a link to book a flight there. You get paid a commission. Then they clink your link that points them to somewhere they can book a hotel room. Another commission for you. Then they might want to buy a guide-book or street map. Yet another commission.
Or perhaps you have a website connected with your hobby. Maybe you want to share your enthusiasm about the crafts you do. Your website could point people towards suppliers, books on the subject, magazine subscriptions.the list is endless. And all the time you're earning your commission.
The commission is paid in different ways according to the company you're affiliated to. You can be paid per impression, per click, per lead or per sale. The stronger the likelihood of a sale, the higher your commission will be.

The advantages for you
There's no need for you to develop the products - it's already been done. All you need to do is to pick the best out of those available. You don't need to spend money on making or storing the product. Sending people to your affiliate merchants means you don't need to take or process a single order, or worry about processing payments. You don't have to handle or mail the product - your merchants do that. You don't have to offer customer support. Affiliate programs are usually free to join. You can run your affiliate business part time for a little extra cash while making minimal effort.
Choosing your affiliates
It's worth spending some time making sure that you choose the right companies to affiliate with. Different companies have different requirements. Some require you to have a minimum number of visitors to your website, while others require you to have your own domain name.
The best way to choose an affliate program that will suit you is according to the type of people who visit your website. If your website is about guitars, you're unlikely to have much success with affiliating with a company that sells gardening products. The first thing you need to do is know your target audience.
You also might consider whether you want to join every single affliate program that comes your way. A lot of people find that they make the most money from using only a small number of programs. Also, concentrating your advertisements may allow you to be paid faster.
Sometimes, it can be hard to choose between two similar companies. What works well for someone else may not be the best choice for you. It's not just about how much money you can make - you'll want to feel confident in your recommendations.
You can maximize your income by thinking beyond the obvious. If your website is aimed at parents, obviously you might think of affiliating to a toy company. But what about books, clothes, videos, DVDs, child oriented software.
If you're thinking about affiliating with two similar websites, you might want to choose the one that easiest to use or offers the greater benefit to a visitor, even if it pays less in commissions. You'll do best with programs that represent a subject you're personally interested in. Your own interest in the subject will entice others.
To join an affiliate program, you simply go to the site and complete their online application form. Some programs approve you instantly, while others check out your application before it is approved. Once it's approved, you're given some HTML code that you can cut and paste onto your web page.
How do I make my money?
Before joining any program, you should probably be aware of the different payment programs available.
Pay Per Impression
Here you are paid according to the number of times the advertiser's banner is displayed on your site. The amount paid is usually small, but it is easy to earn as everytime a visitor loads the page, you earn. The more vistors your site attracts, the more you earn.
Pay Per Click
With this method you're only paid when visitors click the advertiser's banner on your site. It generally pays higher than the pay per impression program. You'll get better results if your banners are carefully selected to suit your target audience.
Pay Per Sale or Lead
You only earn if your visitors click through the banner and buy the product or service.
Often, to avoid wasting resources in issuing checks for very small amounts, advertisers will accrue the amount owed to you until it reaches a certain amount before they pay you.
How do they keep track of referrals?
Every affiliate banner or link that a visitor clicks on has some type of coding added to the URL - this differentiates it from other affiliates' links. The most common means of tracking affiliate links is by "cookies" Cookies are tiny files stored on your computer by a web browser when you click on an advertising link.
Cookies are generated to track visitors to websites. This is how they can "remember" what you bought when you visit there again. For an affiliate company, the cookie records information on which affiliate referred the visitor to the company, and when.
As some computer users block or delete cookies, there are other methods used to track referrals. For example, CGI-based scripts related to the individuals affiliate code attached to the URL links and database matching algorithms are used.
Second tier programs
A two tier program allows you as an affiliate to sign up other affiliates under you. You earn a smaller commission on the referrals or sales that arise from their advertising efforts as well as your own.
This costs you far less time and money for each sale if some of them aren't yours. In effect, you have your own sales force and pay a commission to your sub-affiliates. Except that the commission comes out of the affiliate company's profits rather than yours.

The affiliate company benefits by a possible exponential growth of its sales force for no more effort on its part - you're providing that. It's not hard to recruit people under you in two tier programs.
A second level can be a great advantage to you as an affiliate. Even if you only spread the word amongst friends and family, you never know when someone who signs up under you will really take off. They could earn you a lot by their own efforts in spreading the word about a program. You might not get rich, but you'll get some welcome extra income.
A multi tier affiliate program builds on the concept of a two-tier program.
Not only can you earn from sub-affiliates, but you can also earn from their sub-affiliates, and perhaps their sub-affiliates. With a two tier program, you have an incentive to sign up sub-affiliates. A multi-tier program gives you the incentive to help your sub affiliates sign up others.

Is it for me?

If you have a website then there's guaranteed to be an affiliate program to suit your needs and audience. For minimal effort you can make your website earn money, even while you're happily sleeping. Perhaps it won't make you a fortune overnight. And it's true that no-one hands you money for doing nothing. But with some careful thought and planning, choosing an affiliate program that fits in with YOUR website and sells products that YOU are confident in is a straightforward way of increasing YOUR income. And it costs you nothing.
Author Shanon Lewis
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11 Tips for Joining Affiliate Programs

Here are some things that I look for before joining an affiliate
program. They are items I feel are imperative to being in a
successful affiliate program.

1. The affiliate program has a great payment structure. For me, a
high commission that is also a high percentage of the purchase price
is essential. Nothing under 25% commission.

2. Make sure the affiliate program you are joining has a good looking
site. You do not want to be sending visitors to a site that you do
not like yourself.

3. Make sure they offer a comprehensive affiliate statistics page
that lists the number of click throughs, number of sales and amount
earned. This should be broken down per month.

4. Also make sure that the affiliate statistics are updated
automatically and immediately. You do not want to find out today
about a sale you made a week ago.

5. Ensure they give a wide variety of text links, banners and
graphics to put on your web page. Although I prefer text links,
certain types of banners and graphics still work well.

6. Know how often you are going to be paid. If you are tossing up
between 2 programs and one pays monthly and the other pays quarterly,
the one that pays monthly is better. You do not want to wait months
before getting paid for your hard work!

7. See if the affiliate program gives examples of how the top
affiliates are doing. This can be a great pointer to whether it is
good or not. If some affiliates are earning many thousands per month,
it is a good affiliate program.

8. Along these lines, also see if they give examples of what
marketing methods these successful affiliates are using to get the
best results.

9. An affiliate program that offers a special monthly newsletter just
for the affiliates is great. Here you can get extra tips and
techniques that are working well.

10. See if they offer email notification when you make a sale or get
an affiliate signed up under you (if it is a 2-tier program). It is
good to see `You have made another sale' in your inbox.

11. Ensure top level support is given. If they cannot answer your
query straight away make sure they can respond within 48 hours.

There is tremendous demand for affiliate programs and choosing the
right one is no easy task. Make sure you do plenty of research before
joining one.
Author David McKenzie
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7 Rules To Success Through Affiliate Programs

Thousands of people have quit their JOBS and started earning money exclusively online. There are a lot of ways you can do it on the Internet... such as creating your own products, offering a service, licensing products, etc.

Many people have done it without having ANY products of their own. This is done through affiliate income or selling other people's products for a commission.

Here's how it can be done.

1. Don't sell anything you don't own.

This rule is listed first for a good reason. You should never sell anything that you don't own yourself. If you don't have enough faith in it's results to buy it yourself, then you have no reason to sell it to others.

Think about this for a moment - if you don't own it and are unwilling to purchase it how can you endorse the product? How can you honestly answer questions about the product? The answer is you can't.

Too often people are willing to jump on the bandwagon and promote whatever the hyped product of the week is... without stopping to think of the value of the product itself. No matter how many other people are recommending it, you shouldn't if you haven't bought it yourself.

2. Only offer complementary products and services.

If your web site is about sports products, then you definitely shouldn't be offering cigarettes in another program. It doesn't make any sense at all, and these products defiantly do not compliment each other. You are unlikely to sell both products to the same customer.

A good example of selling complementary products would be, if you sell golf products, then you could sell golf vacations, golf clubs, golf subscriptions, golf training products, etc. All these products would entice the same consumer. Meaning once you get the person interested in golf to your site you increase your chances of selling them more than one item. This would not be the case if you sold golf clubs and gardening books.

Make sure everything you offer goes together. You should earn multiple streams of income, but they must all be related on the same subject.

3. Build an opt-in email list.

I can not stress enough how vital this is to your online success.

Ask any top business person what their most valuable asset. It isn't their products. It isn't their location. It isn't even their employees.

The most valuable asset to any business is their customer list. The most valuable asset to any Internet business is the opt-in email list. Your email list IS your Internet business.

If you don't have an email list, you don't have an Internet business.

Offer an affiliate product...and you earn money once. Offer a subscription to your opt-in email list and you earn money forever (from hundreds of offers you can make to that list).

4. Concentrate on your brand.

Use your opt-in email list to build a relationship with your subscribers. When they first subscribe, they may not know you from Peter. So tell them about yourself. Express your opinions.

On your first 2-3 contacts do not sell them anything. Tell them about yourself, your experiences, stick your neck out and tell them what you think. Let your customers get to know you. You have to give people a reason to know, like, and trust you.

You don't have to be the best writer on the planet. You don't have to be just like your favorite guru. Just write some things that are exclusively you in your emails.

Sure, some of them will get mad. Some will ask to be removed. Some will cuss you out. Deal with it. The way I see these people are by removing themselves from my list I do not have to waist time on trying to sell to them. I just move on to the people who are interested and I have a greater chance of making money off.

If you're just like everyone else, then why should anyone choose to buy from you?

5. Write your own endorsements and reviews.

Every affiliate program has solo ads, endorsement ads, and classified ads available. You can use them sometimes, but they should never become your only marketing pieces.

But on top of every ad you should have your OWN opinion of the product. You should tell your customers in your own words why they should buy this or that. Then use the ad copy you were given UNDER your own statements.

The same thing goes for online newsletters. You can use content and articles from other people, but every single email you ever send out should have something written from you...in your own words...at the top of it if nowhere else. It could be just a short 'what's going on' section or an editorial.

You don't have to be professional writer. You just have to have opinions and be willing to stick your neck out giving them.

6. Offer extra specials.

You don't have to do this every single time, but you should be making special offers for your list. Why should they buy a product from you instead of one of 1,000 other affiliates offering it?

Give them something extra they can't get from other affiliates!

You can tell them that if they buy affiliate product A from you...you'll give them this special report.

All they have to do is buy the product and then email you the receipt. You'll send them their extra bonus report right over.

It could also be an eBook, an email consultation, a phone consultation, an ad in your newsletter, a link on your special links page, etc. Give them something extra special with some of your offers and watch your checks soar. Make sure the items you give for free are related to your product.

7. Ask for the sale.

You have to ask for the sale. If you don't ask you will never get. The worst they can say is "no" and all that means is you are no worse off than you are right now. But if you ask and they say yes you are in a much better place.

You can't be wimpy or shy. You can't just give away a lot of content hoping someone will click on your little link somewhere and magically decide to buy your product. You have to tell your prospects and customers why they want and need your product. You have to tell them what they get when they buy.

If some subscribers get mad when you send them an offer, help them remove themselves from your list. It's funny, but most profitable promotions have also get the most complaints and removes.

I've had people email me saying, "If you're just trying to sell something online, then I don't even want your newsletter." Guess what? Remove them. That is the end purpose of your newsletter, any content you provide, or anything you do online.

Remember why you started on online business - to make money not to give out free gifts and content.
author:Chris Stirling
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Reasons Why You Should Start with Affiliate Program

There are thousands of business opportunities online. Most of
them require some capital to start with. Not affiliate programs!

Here are 7 reasons why you should consider joining an affiliate
program as your home based business.

1. Joining an affiliate program requires no outlay of capital.
That's right, none! You can join an affiliate program for free
and start promoting the product immediately.

2. The internet marketing tools are already provided for you.
A 'top' affiliate program will supply you with lots of
affiliate marketing tools that are 'ready to go'. You just
copy and paste and put your affiliate code in. Then you start
selling.

3. You do not need a product. It takes a LOT of time to develop
your own product to sell online. With affiliate programs, the
product is already there. Someone else spent all the time
developing it so you do not have to.

4. Affiliate statistics are already provided as part of joining
an affiliate program. You do not have to go out and buy
expensive software to track your sales because the product
owner is doing that for you. You don't even have to pay for it,
it's free!

5. You do not have any 'time lag'. With most businesses it
takes a certain amount of time in the 'start up' phase. With
affiliate programs there is no such thing. Once you join you
can start selling.

6. You do not have to worry about sales administration and
technical support. The product owner takes care of the sales
process and all the after sales service. All you have to worry
about is receiving your affiliate check!

7. You do not have to worry about direct contact with the
customer. In an affiliate program you are a re-seller so if the
customer has a complaint they contact the product owner,
not you.

Affiliate programs are simple to join, easy to start promoting
and best of all they have no downside. If one affiliate program
does not work out, you can leave and join a different one.

Author David McKenzie
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Reasons to Join Online Affiliate Programs

Are you looking for a very cost effective way to make an extra income? Let me show you why online affiliate programs are a great answer to your needs...

You must have been exposed to the online hype, and the fact is starting an online business is a great way to make an extra income. There are many ways to make money online, one of them, is joining online affiliate programs...

Here are six great reasons (only) why this could be exactly what you are looking for. I respect your time, so I'll keep each point brief. Here we go...

1. Your Products

Many people don't have their own products to market online, and even if they do, they would have to handle the shipment of the products to every corner of the world, or they would narrow their market to specific areas only.

Online affiliate programs provide a wide variety of quality products, which meet every customer's needs, and you can market those products world wide without worrying about their shipment. All you need is to refer people to your affiliate websites. Any orders taken from that website are automatically handled by the company on your behalf.

2. Your Income Potential

Besides the commission you can earn from direct products selling, there's another powerful way to make a great income online - residual income, and this is by referring other people to join the opportunity. This way you can build a network of people where you make a commission for each sale they make...

Some companies limit you to one level of sponsored affiliates, which mean, you only get commission for the sales of the first level of people you refer, however, MANY other great companies do NOT limit your income potential, actually, it's infinite deep network where you can enjoy passive income.

3. Your Investment

The great news is - you are NOT required to put any money down in order to join an online affiliate opportunity, you can join for FREE! Some of them might claim that you must buy their products (you should avoid those...), even though I believe in the concept of buying from your own store, real opportunities should not force you to perform nor limit your potential, so it is all up to you.

Of course, any kind of business requires some kind of investment, generally speaking it's a trade off between time and money, the more you are willing to invest, the less time you need to build a solid business, and vise-versa. So it is all up to you.

4. Your Business Training

Some of the great online business will train you for FREE. Do NOT take this lightly, if you are serious about making real income, you will need proper training to build your business effectively, this will save you time AND money!

The information I have learned is priceless! I learned how to master the science of marketing, and it was easy for people like me (I'm a computer software engineer who knew NOTHING about marketing!) to build a successful business. As I already mentioned, this training is available to you for FREE even before they see a penny from you!

5. Your Business Needs

This is extremely important. To have a successful online business, you must have the proper tools like tracking software, websites, follow-up manager and more. Without those tools, you are shooting in the dark and you'll waste your time and money.

The serious online affiliate opportunities will provide you with those must have tools, and will guide you exactly how to use them in your favor. Again, FREE of charge!

6. Your Bottom Line

I'm well aware to the fact that the bottom line of any business, including online business, is making money. However, there are issues beyond that, those are the issues behind your desire to make money, either to spend more time with your family, get out of debt, own your own home or you name it...

Affiliate programs can be a great way to achieve whatever reasons you might have that triggered you to search for ways to make an extra income. Just make sure you join a great opportunity that is willing to invest in your success, because your success means also theirs!

Allow me to close with a quote by Robert Kiosaki, the author of the book titled "Rich Dad Poor Dad". Mr. Kiosaki, a self made millionaire who also works in network marketing and who opened my eyes through his astonishing books, said the following:

"Is your business or the company you work for going to do well in a depression? If not, start a part time business. Our businesses are designed to do well in a good economy and do even better in a depression. A part-time business that will do well in a down economy is a network marketing business. During a depression, many more people will be very receptive to joining a network marketing company".

Online affiliate companies are the new cutting edge network marketing companies, which makes the whole process much easier.
Author Hamad Kadmany
________________________________________________________

Find more Affiliate programs Here

Tips To Choosing The Right Affiliate Program

Affiliate programs can be a great way to make money online. You don't have to spend time developing your own product, worry about taking orders, or take care of customer service.

If you already have a high traffic website or run an e-zine you can stand to earn a steady flow of commissions every month without a lot of extra work on your part.

To help you get started promoting affiliate programs, I've provided the following 5 tips to help you choose the affiliate programs that are right for you.

1. Choose affiliate programs that match the content of your site. If your site targets a niche market than choose affiliate programs that offer products to that niche market.

2. Choose affiliate programs that pay a high commission. For example 30%-50% on your direct sales.

3. Join affiliate programs that pay two-tier commissions. This enables you to not only earn commissions on your own sales but also on the sales of people who you introduce to your affiliate
program.

4. Join affiliate programs that offer a line of products so that you can earn commissions when your referrals come back and purchase other services or products.

5. Join affiliate programs that offer their affiliates great marketing support. Many affiliate programs offer their affiliates pre-written ads to use or get ideas from, sales letters, marketing courses, and articles to use in promoting their services.

Remember, the best affiliate programs will see their affiliate program as a partnership with you and combine high commissions with excellent support so that you can start earning money
promoting their products as quickly as possible.
Author Ken Hill
________________________________________________________

Find more Affiliate programs Here

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing An Affiliate Program

When people decide to join an affiliate program to make extra money, or to have a full time job, they often do so with illusions and no idea of how the affiliate program actually works. Read the following top 5 mistakes people make when it comes to choosing an affiliate program and avoid these mistakes at all costs. Then, you will be able to be more effective and make more money for your time, so it is definitely worthwhile to read these warnings and avoid them.

#1 Don't Compete, Support
Too many affiliate programs compete against their competitors which wastes money and puts affiliates out of business. However, if you are part of an affiliate program the more affiliates the better for getting more information and more money. One of the worst things to do is choose an affiliate program that believes in competing against other affiliates. Instead, choose an affiliate program that agrees with supporting and growing other affiliates to have a larger network and access to more affiliates.

#2 Little Reward
Another mistake people frequently make when choosing affiliate programs is choosing a program that offers little reward for the individual's hard work. Too many affiliate programs pay too little and as a result affiliates find it difficult to make the money they should be making. Look for an affiliate program that has a good pay rate for your work.

#3 Old Statistics, if Any
You want an affiliate program that offers good, solid, real time statistics, not old statistics or ones that are no longer valid. There are not many affiliate programs out there that provide the kind of statistics an affiliate manager needs, but do your best to find an affiliate program that offers the most.

#4 No Support
Too often affiliates find themselves waiting days for an answer to an e-mail and an important question for their business. You want an affiliate program that guarantees you support round the clock if possible or at least within 24 hours. If not, keep looking for an affiliate program that wants to help you help yourself.

#5 Fresh Ideas, Creatives
Many affiliate programs provide few ideas or creatives to their affiliates and so thousands of web pages end up with the same advertising. However, affiliate programs would have a better success rate if many different ads were made available so affiliates could alternate ads and place different ads on different sites, depending on the products sold.

Commit these five mistakes to memory so you know exactly what you are looking for in an affiliate program, as well as what to avoid. You will be much more successful and happier as well if you do not get caught in these traps!
Author: Michael Turner
________________________________________________________

Find more Affiliate programs Here

3 Tips To Succeed With Affiliate Programs.

Dear friends, when it comes to promoting affiliate programs
we all follow a certain defined process. We first go to
google.com ,type affiliate programs in the search field. When
the results get displayed we look for "high paying" affiliate
programs. By "high paying" I mean those who pay 25% commissions.

Then we visit each and every website listed and join the
programs becuse they are free! to join. We put all sorts of
banners and text ads on our links page and expect to see a
check in our mail box the next morning.

Well, I am here going to reveal a very different way of
promoting affiliate programs. Let us revise the process
one-by-one.

Step 1> Search for affiliate programs with your favorite
search engine. Look for only those affiliate programs whcich
have products which interests you. For example if you are
interested in "radio controlled airplanes" then look for such
products first. Don't start with promoting "herbal shampoos"
or "yoga cd's" just because they pay 40% commissions.

Since you already know a little about rc planes it wiil be
much easier for you to promote various aspects of the
product.

So when selecting the affiliate prgram keep in mind the
following sequence

a)Product which you know about or are interested in.
b)Qulaity of the product. To know the quality of the
product it is advisavle to buy the product yourself
first.
c)The organisation associated with the product. Look for
the promotional material they are giving to affiliates.
This shows the confidence of the manufacturer in their own
product.
d)Commission structure. Some webmasters provide 2 tier
commission structure. Some have a threshhold amout before
the affiliates get paid. Here is a nice place to sart with.
This is a list which contains 50 affiliate Programs That Pay
AT LEAST 50% commissions.


Step 2> Design a simple landing page to "presell" the product
before sending the visitors to actual sales page. Now this step
is extremely imporant. Why do you to presell the product ?. This
is because this is internet. No one knows you here or has seen
you personally.

Normally when someone buys from the internet he is going to look
for similar 4-5 products before he gets to the final decision.
Here if he comes to your affiliate landing page it becomes
much easier for him to compare the product you want to promote
with similar 4-5 products in the category.

The landing page you have designed can have testimonials, which
you can borrow from the sales page. It can also contain your
own experience about the product. You can use before/after
situations for describing the benefits of the product. You can use
photographs of yourself using the product successfully. This
adds instant credibility to the product you want to promote.

Step 3>When the visitors reach your landing page you must have
a system to capture their names and email addresses. Because
as I said earlier there are many people who look for similar
4-5 products before buying. By capturing email addresse you can
"follow up" your subscribers later on using newsletters or
product features using email autoresponders.

The best way to capture email addresses is to provide a
free gift related to the product. This free gift can be
an eBook written by you or many webmasters already have an
ebook written for the affiliates. SO again this is a very
importan tpoint, join only those programs where you will find
a decent promitional material already prepared for the
affiliates.

That's it friends. I hope these words were helpful. I wish
you good lick in your affiliate promotional journey
Shrinivas Vaidya
________________________________________________________

Find more Affiliate programs Here

3 Keys To Success With Your Affiliate Program

Affiliate programs (also called Referral Programs or Partnership Programs) are essentially commission-based sales schemes.

Joining an affiliate program is a neat way to make money from your users. But just as you can join someone else's affiliate program, so you can set up your own program and invite webmasters to sign up. Here are my top 3 tips to succeed with your own affiliate program.


1. How to attract affiliates

One of the biggest fears new Affiliate managers have is in finding new affiliates. This fear is a stumbling block that stops many site owners from getting started with affiliate marketing. Interestingly, with a proper marketing strategy, getting affiliates may not be very difficult. Given below are some tips that may help in attracting new affiliates.

Find complimentary sites - "Complementary" sites are sites that sell products or services that compliment your offers. If you sell "gardening tools", a site that sells books on "gardening tips" would be a perfect affiliate.

Find content sites - There are many sites that do not sell any kind of product or service but are mainly content oriented sites. Such sites promote an idea, concept, study or belief. Content sites that are used as a resource for your target market are ideal affiliates.

Finally, there are several sites on the Internet dedicated to listing affiliate Programs. Get your program listed in these directories.


2. Classifying Affiliates for Better Management

The hardest part of administrating an Affiliate Program is deciding what your affiliates need to help make the sale. But, by carefully categorizing your affiliates, you can easily determine what their needs are and how to accurately meet them.

The first step is to pick at least three types of affiliate. Take a look at your affiliates and try to determine one outstanding characteristic that can easily be compared across the board and choose at least three types of the characteristic.

The Second Step is to determine the needs of each type. Each of your affiliate types will have different needs; some of their needs will overlap, but you should find a distinct difference in many of their needs. If you find that all of them have the same needs, go back to step one and re-think your types.

The Third Step involves the process of creating and compiling linking methods for each group of affiliates. Based on the needs you identified in Step two, create and compile linking methods for each type.


3. Safe Guarding Against Spam

Any time you run a program where your affiliates rely on other signups to generate profits, you will eventually have a problem with spam. One of your affiliates will inevitably get it into their head to blitz the Web with unwanted garbage.

When this happens you need to be ready to take action otherwise it will cost you! Your Internet company can boot you off your server and you can find yourself blacklisted. Not good for business. If you get an email from someone claiming they received spam with your URL, then take it as an early warning.

I am not advising you to immediately terminate the affiliate's account, but be sure to contact them to follow up on the complaint. Let your affiliate know you received a complaint and advise them to remove this person from their list.

If you only get one or two complaints, it's probably not spam, the complainants might simply have signed up for an email list and forgotten all about it. You will know when one of your affiliates is spamming, because you will get anywhere from 10 to 100 complaints in the same day all regarding the same URL.

The best thing to do in this case is to immediately terminate or disable the account of the affiliate URL that was spammed.

Running your own affiliate program can become an extrememly profitable venture for your business. You can recruit a HUGE sales force promoting your products for you, and ONLY pay them when you make a sale!
Andy Murray
________________________________________________________

Find more Affiliate programs Here

Affiliate Programs Worthless for 80% of Affiliate Market

No doubt you've heard of the 80/20 rule - which states that
20 percent of affiliates generate 80% of affiliate income, and
conversely, remaining 80 percent of affiliates generate only
20 percent of all income for most affiliate programs.

There are ten basics that will put your affiliate marketing
in the top 20 percent of affiliate earnings. Ten suggestions
that will transform your affiliate income from a trickling
creek that barely covers your hosting fees, to a roaring river
of extra disposable income.

TOP AFFILIATE MARKETERS DO MOST OF THESE TEN ITEMS

1.Top affiliate marketers cloak web site links

Cloaking affiliate links should not be necessary, but is. Oddly
many site visitors refuse to visit your links if they see an
affiliate code appended to the URL when they hover their mouse
over a link on your web page. Sometimes they will type the
affiliate domain directly to the browser address bar while
removing your affiliate ID from the URL. To short circuit this
odd behavior, simply cloak the URL. How? Visit this Link Tool:
http://WebpositionAdvisor.com/tools/link_cloaker.php

2.Top affiliate marketers write & distribute articles

Writing articles about your market niche is essential to gain
reputation as an expert in your field. But the biggest benefit
comes not just from writing those articles, but from having
those articles published by other web site owners and ezine
publishers. Your article gains you both reputation and links
from other web sites from the resource box appended to the
end of each article. Here are major article distribution sites.
http://yahoogroups.com/group/free-content/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabusiness/
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com

3.Top affiliate marketers focus on a market niche

Filling a web site with content reflecting a narrowly focused
product or service niche is a well known method of gaining web
traffic in your area of specialty. An excellent resource that
can help you determine relevant and focused areas to fill your
site with is called NicheBot. They offer innovative tools to
research and pinpoint market niches for your web site based on
the WordTracker Database and Google.
http://www.nichebot.com

4.Top affiliate marketers use autoresponder series

Autoresponders are incredibly valuable tools that allow you to
send a timed series of email messages to those that sign up for
them. Most often those autoresponders are sent through a third
party provider. Some of the top providers are Sendfree.com and
aweber.com, for a tutorial covering autoresponder basics, visit:
http://website101.com/email_e-mail/email_autoresponder_basics.html

5.Top affiliate marketers create web pages to pre-sell

Creating either testimonial pages or review pages that discuss
and pre-sell the product or service you are affiliated with is
the best method of getting increased orders for your chosen
affiliate programs. Many programs actually provide either an
article or recommended text to sell their products for you and
allow reproduction of those articles with your links embedded.

6.Top affiliate marketers gather email addresses

The best affiliates collect email addresses on their web site
by offering free reports via the above mentioned autoresponders
or by giving away ebooks or through newsletter signup forms.
The best use all of these methods or more to build their list
of email addresses. This also allows you to contact potential
customers that would otherwise never see your site again after
clicking away to the affiliate program web site.

7.Top affiliate marketers advertise SOMEWHERE

Depending on your market niche you should advertise using PPC
and/or ezine advertising. Some categories of Pay-per-click can
be prohibitively expensive, but advertising somewhere is all
but mandatory to gain substantial additional traffic to your
site. There are some great bargains in ezine advertising and
some less popular PPC engines other than Yahoo's Overture and
Google's Adwords. Try 7search, Kanoodle and FindWhat for lower
Bids than the big boys of PPC.

8.Top affiliate marketers optimize for search engines

Search engine optimization is becoming more complex as more
and more webmasters participate, but the basics applied to
your site can increase visibility dramatically over time. The
most critical of the many SEO techniques is to use title tags
that reflect individual PAGE content. Many webmasters write a
master title tag and apply that site-wide. This is the worst
thing you could do for search engine ranking. Learn more SEO:
http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/

9.Top affiliate marketers give away ebooks or freebies

Everyone knows by now that giving something away is a great
traffic generator and allows you to gather email addresses
to allow contact of potential customers at a later date. This
strategy is employed by EVERY successful web-based company at
one time or another. Think of all the free things YOU have
collected online over time. Screensavers, software, ebooks,
discount codes, toolbars, white papers. They work!

10. Top Affiliate marketers have their own mailing lists

The best of affiliate marketers have their own newsletter or
ezine and gather email addresses on their site to build their
list of subscribers. Having this list allows regular contact
with potential customers interested in your site, your product
and your market niche. If you don't write your own material or
think you can't produce weekly content, there are hundreds of
authors out there that will gladly product articles for you.
The article distribution lists provide free content and ghost
Writers provide high quality content for a fee.

If you implement ALL the above techniques, you are guaranteed
to become one of the top affiliate marketers on the web. Then
you can create your own product telling everyone how YOU did
it, create your own affiliate program and have hundreds of us
selling for you.


About the AuthorAffiliate Programs Worthless for 80% of Affiliate Market
by: Mike Banks Valentine
No doubt you've heard of the 80/20 rule - which states that
20 percent of affiliates generate 80% of affiliate income, and
conversely, remaining 80 percent of affiliates generate only
20 percent of all income for most affiliate programs.

There are ten basics that will put your affiliate marketing
in the top 20 percent of affiliate earnings. Ten suggestions
that will transform your affiliate income from a trickling
creek that barely covers your hosting fees, to a roaring river
of extra disposable income.

TOP AFFILIATE MARKETERS DO MOST OF THESE TEN ITEMS

1.Top affiliate marketers cloak web site links

Cloaking affiliate links should not be necessary, but is. Oddly
many site visitors refuse to visit your links if they see an
affiliate code appended to the URL when they hover their mouse
over a link on your web page. Sometimes they will type the
affiliate domain directly to the browser address bar while
removing your affiliate ID from the URL. To short circuit this
odd behavior, simply cloak the URL. How? Visit this Link Tool:
http://WebpositionAdvisor.com/tools/link_cloaker.php

2.Top affiliate marketers write & distribute articles

Writing articles about your market niche is essential to gain
reputation as an expert in your field. But the biggest benefit
comes not just from writing those articles, but from having
those articles published by other web site owners and ezine
publishers. Your article gains you both reputation and links
from other web sites from the resource box appended to the
end of each article. Here are major article distribution sites.
http://yahoogroups.com/group/free-content/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabusiness/
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com

3.Top affiliate marketers focus on a market niche

Filling a web site with content reflecting a narrowly focused
product or service niche is a well known method of gaining web
traffic in your area of specialty. An excellent resource that
can help you determine relevant and focused areas to fill your
site with is called NicheBot. They offer innovative tools to
research and pinpoint market niches for your web site based on
the WordTracker Database and Google.
http://www.nichebot.com

4.Top affiliate marketers use autoresponder series

Autoresponders are incredibly valuable tools that allow you to
send a timed series of email messages to those that sign up for
them. Most often those autoresponders are sent through a third
party provider. Some of the top providers are Sendfree.com and
aweber.com, for a tutorial covering autoresponder basics, visit:
http://website101.com/email_e-mail/email_autoresponder_basics.html

5.Top affiliate marketers create web pages to pre-sell

Creating either testimonial pages or review pages that discuss
and pre-sell the product or service you are affiliated with is
the best method of getting increased orders for your chosen
affiliate programs. Many programs actually provide either an
article or recommended text to sell their products for you and
allow reproduction of those articles with your links embedded.

6.Top affiliate marketers gather email addresses

The best affiliates collect email addresses on their web site
by offering free reports via the above mentioned autoresponders
or by giving away ebooks or through newsletter signup forms.
The best use all of these methods or more to build their list
of email addresses. This also allows you to contact potential
customers that would otherwise never see your site again after
clicking away to the affiliate program web site.

7.Top affiliate marketers advertise SOMEWHERE

Depending on your market niche you should advertise using PPC
and/or ezine advertising. Some categories of Pay-per-click can
be prohibitively expensive, but advertising somewhere is all
but mandatory to gain substantial additional traffic to your
site. There are some great bargains in ezine advertising and
some less popular PPC engines other than Yahoo's Overture and
Google's Adwords. Try 7search, Kanoodle and FindWhat for lower
Bids than the big boys of PPC.

8.Top affiliate marketers optimize for search engines

Search engine optimization is becoming more complex as more
and more webmasters participate, but the basics applied to
your site can increase visibility dramatically over time. The
most critical of the many SEO techniques is to use title tags
that reflect individual PAGE content. Many webmasters write a
master title tag and apply that site-wide. This is the worst
thing you could do for search engine ranking. Learn more SEO:
http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/

9.Top affiliate marketers give away ebooks or freebies

Everyone knows by now that giving something away is a great
traffic generator and allows you to gather email addresses
to allow contact of potential customers at a later date. This
strategy is employed by EVERY successful web-based company at
one time or another. Think of all the free things YOU have
collected online over time. Screensavers, software, ebooks,
discount codes, toolbars, white papers. They work!

10. Top Affiliate marketers have their own mailing lists

The best of affiliate marketers have their own newsletter or
ezine and gather email addresses on their site to build their
list of subscribers. Having this list allows regular contact
with potential customers interested in your site, your product
and your market niche. If you don't write your own material or
think you can't produce weekly content, there are hundreds of
authors out there that will gladly product articles for you.
The article distribution lists provide free content and ghost
Writers provide high quality content for a fee.

If you implement ALL the above techniques, you are guaranteed
to become one of the top affiliate marketers on the web. Then
you can create your own product telling everyone how YOU did
it, create your own affiliate program and have hundreds of us
selling for you.
Author Mike Banks
_______________________________________________________

Find more Affiliate programs Here