WORKING WITH AFFILIATE PROGRAMMES

Copyright 2005 Robert Evans

Affiliate programmes are springing up everywhere and cover every type of product or service imaginable. Some incorporate fully automated systems that sell high volumes of hard products all over the world. Many have several thousand affiliates and one or two of the bigger companies have over one million affiliates.

So what are the advantages of joining an affiliate programme?

* they provide a ready-made business. This is a very big plus for those people who want to earn some kind of living off the internet but lack the knowledge or inclination to set up a business by themselves

* commissions and rewards are generally good and the more established programmes offer a real chance of advancement to higher and better-paid levels.

* other affiliates are usually on hand to offer practical support

How about the limitations?

* you are restricted in your promotional activities due to the fact that you do not actually own the affiliate site they give you. I'm thinking here about not being able to put such things as banners, images, links, meta tags etc onto your page

* the URL of your affiliate page is often either too long or contains such awkward things as question marks, which many Search Engines will not index

* any promotional literature provided has probably already been used by thousands of other people and consequently may have lost its impact, making it more difficult to achieve sales or referrals

* if the programme you have joined has not yet established itself (or in some cases even if it has) then you may encounter problems with payments owed to you not being honoured, or low quality products, or sub-standard statistics that do not accurately record how many referrals or sales you have made etc

* you may also be required to purchase a minimum quantity of the product on a regular basis before you start to qualify for commissions or even before you can become an affiliate

* you may not get the technical or affiliate support you might expect from the company. This may be due to inadequate staffing, or perhaps the company just doesn't care about you!

* other people in your downline do nothing to promote the programme

* the programme itself ceases to exist overnight

At least four of the above limitations can be overcome with a little time and effort. You could, for example, come up with fresher ads to promote the programme (provided this is allowed).

You could shorten that over-long affiliate URL by using a free service like tinyurl.com

It might be a good idea to purchase any product you are promoting anyway. This would then enable you to review its strengths and weaknesses and would put you well ahead of the majority of affiliates who know nothing about the product they are promoting.

With your new found knowledge, you could build a site or page dedicated solely to the affiliate product. You could write a review and also produce articles related to the subject.

If the company supplies the email addresses of people in your downline then you could offer to help the less active members. Very often these people are passive not because they are lazy or apathetic but merely because they don't know HOW to promote effectively! Your guidance could mean the difference between no sales or referrals and healthy downlines and residual incomes.
About the Author

Robert Evans has been doing business online since October 2000. He currently writes a blog in the form of a free tutorial on the subject of how to build a profitable web site from scratch. http://www.market4profit.net/blog

Written by: Robert Evans

  LATEST NEWS

  Our TOP PICK for work at home ideas and opportunities:

Plug-in-Profits

Read more

   Subscribe to our FREE Internet home business tips and website marketing secrets newsletter with hundreds of money making tips and tricks.

Enter your contact info below and click: "Free Signup!".

Your privacy is guaranteed.

Email Address:

First Name:


   Free Secrets of the Internet Millionaires

SFI was launched in 1998. Today, with affiliates in over 200 countries, it is believed to be the largest affiliate network in the world.

Read more


   Looking for something really simple?

With this autopilot network marketing program I automatically got 66 paid members in my downline my first 5 days!

Read more


   Host your web site with the web host that top Internet marketers trust and rely on - Host4Profit.

Read more


   Psst!...Have you Heard the Buzz?

There's a new, fully automated traffic-generation system that can send thousands of targeted prospects to your website, every single day, for FREE! It takes just 5 minutes to set it up, and it's totally "viral"...

OPEN A FREE ACCOUNT HERE!

Read More


Technorati Tags

Affiliate Program
Affiliate Programs
Affiliate Articles
Affiliate Program Articles


   Related Articles

Best Autoresponder Service Save time and Money by Researching Before Buying
If you’re planning to purchase an automatic email responder service or software program – that’s good news! That means you have customers or plan to have customers and you want to organize your client base and provide an easy means to answering...read more...

How To Increase Affiliate Click Through Rate
When you join an affiliate programs, what is it that you want to achieve? Of course, we want to gain commission from the merchant. How can we do that? Commissions are gain when visitors that we refer purchase products or services on the merchant's...read more...

If You Don t Know This You Might Loose Your Commissions
Are you aware that using certain tools to protect your affiliate commissions might in fact cause you to loose them? Let me explain you how than can be and what you can do to protect yourself from commission loss... The other day a good...read more...

Working With Affiliate Programs
Working With Affiliate Programs by Jude Wright (c) 2004 Everywhere you look you see affiliate program offers for every product or service that you can think of. Some have fully automated systems that sell high volumes of hard products all over the...read more...

Making Money with Affiliate Programs Part II
In this holiday season online shopping is hotter than ever! According to US Commerce Department online sales continue to grow with a robust 25-27 percent this year over 1992. Online holiday shopping at a rate of 10 percent is also considerably ...read more...

How to Build an Affiliate Marketing Business Online part 1
by Fred Farah There's a myth that it's easy to succeed at affiliate marketing, that it takes little effort, and that fortunes can be made in a very short time. WRONG! All those who became successful will admit that they worked...read more...

How To Make More Money With Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are one of the web's most effective marketing techniques. They create a win-win situation by which site A refers a visitor to site B, and site B pays site A a commission if that visitor purchases something. If you are the referrer...read more...

Making Your Website Affiliate Friendly
Ever go to a website and couldn't make heads or tales of it? Possibly it was littered with advertisements in the form of flashing banner ads or pop-ups? What did you end up doing? If you are like me...you left. And without even bothering to look...read more...

Why are you not making money on the internet
Are you one of those people that is succeeding with their business? Or the type that’s losing money every month buying e-books, joining new affiliate programs and purchasing new software. If you are the latter type, have you ever thought about why...read more...

8 Simple Steps To Become A Super Affiliate
8 Simple Steps To Become A Super Affiliate Do you join any affiliate programs or you own an affiliate program? There are so many affiliates that promote the same products and have same websites as you. furthermore the same place to advertise...read more...

More Articles


WORKING WITH AFFILIATE PROGRAMMES