Affiliate Marketing-Things To Know

Affiliate Marketing-Things To Know
By Vickie J. Scanlon

I stumbled into affiliate marketing by way of a scam. I was trying to do the old proverbial, newbie-typing job way of getting on the Internet. Yeah, I got scammed. I was about ready to give up my dream of working online when someone suggested affiliate marketing. That was my beginning-it opened up a whole new world to explore, but along with it a learning curve.
So how do you choose an affiliate program, and how do you safeguard your affiliate business?


Choosing An Affiliate Program

Choosing an affiliate program should be an easy task. Right? No not really, not if you want to keep your creditability intact. So what should you check for in an affiliate program.

1. Check for the percentage payout. Most programs do not offer high payouts, unless it is a software program or ebook. If the percentage payout and the price of the product you are selling are both low-you might want to look for something different. Unless, of course, it’s a good product and it fits your theme.
2. Do your research. Check out their customer service record by Googling on the business. Trust me, on the Internet people are not shy about their discontent.

Why is customer service important? Customer service should be important to an affiliate marketer because it can affect your creditability and sales. When you are thinking about joining an affiliate program of a business that matches your theme, you should look to see how customers are liking the company’s service. That is an easy task to accomplish because there are sites that give ratings with customer comments. And if the company is on top of their game, they will also be monitoring these sites, to respond when necessary to the customer’s comments.

If you do see a company responding to the customer to resolve an issue, you know the company is making an effort to work with the customer’s complaint.

3. Even when you use Affiliate Brokerage Firms – you need to do your research on the companies that you want to promote on your site.


Indicators When Companies Decide to Close Their Affiliate Program

Yes, companies may decide to close their affiliate program because of loss profitability. When a company decides not to continue an affiliate program, it is usually a business courtesy if they let the affiliate know that they are discontinuing their affiliate program at such and such date. I’ve had this happen once, which I greatly appreciated. However, there were others that did not do so.

So how do you identify the company that is going to close their doors to their affiliate program? Here are some indicators:
1) There links are not maintained; 2) They no longer send you updates if they were regularly doing so in the past; 3) You get no answers to your emails. 4) Your links suddenly begin erroring out. 5) Payment stops.


Using Affiliate Brokerage Company To Save Guard Your Business

I have found that using an affiliate brokerage firm can help me to protect my revenue in many cases. When a company decides an affiliate program is not profitable they first try to keep the program alive by reducing the percentage payout, then payments begin to dwindle before stopping completely.

With a reputable affiliate brokerage firm, they will notify you if:

1. The company is not paying. The brokerage firm will state that they will no longer be honoring the click through sales on such and such date, and to begin removing your links. Yes, the affiliate brokerage firm will pay you for your sales created before that date.

2. The affiliate brokerage firm will also notify you if the company has not renewed their contract with the affiliate brokerage firm -and to again, begin removing your links because any sales will not be honored. Sometimes you’re surprised with a link that says, “Sorry this affiliate program is not currently active”. When I see this, I take the link off. It’s usually a good indicator that not all is well with the company’s affiliate program.

As you can see, you can make money with affiliate programs, if you take the time to do your research. Try to choose reputable companies that will honor their obligations to you and to your visitors. If you find or sense something is not right with an affiliate program, remove it. Protect yourself and your visitors.

About the Author:
Vickie J Scanlon -- Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz
for tools, ebook reviews, computers, security software and products for business, and how to info for the Affiliate Marketer/Internet Marketer.