Affiliate Marketing 3: Choosing Affiliate Programs

Now that you’ve tentatively chosen a topic for your website, you’ll need to find out what products are available for you to promote.

There are basically two places you can find affiliate products.

1. Many merchants have their own, in-house affiliate programs. Examples are Amazon and Hostgator.
2. Affiliate networks provide affiliate management services for thousands of merchants. Examples are Clickbank and Commission Junction (CJ).

You can find in-house merchant affiliate programs with a search engine. You might try entering keyword+affiliate+program into Google. Another way is to use a directory of affiliate programs such as AssociatePrograms.com or JamAffiliates.com.

Some affiliate programs and most of the affiliate networks are a bit fussy about who they allow into their programs. They are generally looking for people who have some experience in the affiliate marketing business. Furthermore, with most of the affiliate networks like CJ you have to apply to each merchant individually as well.

Probably the easiest network to get into, and one of the most popular, is Clickbank. This is the starting point for many affiliate marketers. Clickbank sells digital products only. If you don’t already have an account, you can get one here.

Choosing a product to promote

There are a number of factors to consider when choosing affiliate programs to promote. It’s not simply about choosing the program with the highest commission.

Promoting any product requires a certain investment of time, energy and perhaps money. It makes sense, therefore, to make sure that the products you choose to promote are ones which are worth your involvement.

Some of the factors to consider are these:

1. Are you comfortable promoting the product?
You may have moral or ethical objections to certain products. For instance, some people might feel uncomfortable promoting gambling products. Personally I won’t promote any of the “satellite tv on your PC” products, because everything I’ve read about them suggests that they are a rip-off.

2. Do you have personal experience with the product?
You are always safest promoting products which you have actually used yourself. There are thousands of affiliates who promote products, especially information products, which they have almost certainly not evaluated fully. On the other hand, if you ask a salesperson at a chain store to help you decide on a make or model of washing machine, you know that their opinion is probably biased by the size of the commission they receive. You should let your own ethical standards be your guide here. If you can build a reputation for providing unbiased advice, it will help you immeasurably.

3. Does the merchant’s website give a professional impression?
It is not a good idea to commit resources to a campaign without taking a good look at the merchant’s sales page. A tacky website is unlikely to generate many sales, no matter how much traffic you send to it.
Additionally, many merchants seem to have no idea of how to convert traffic into sales.

The link that you persuade your visitor to click must take them to a page which relates directly to the reason they clicked. Furthermore, the page should feature a strong call to action.

The key is to enter the conversation that’s going on in the prospect’s mind. If you’re selling holidays in Capetown, and the sales page is about Local Destinations of South Africa, you’ve just wasted your prospect’s time. Click on the banner ad below to see what I mean (not an affiliate link!) :

4. The type of program
There are three basic types of affiliate program:

1. Cost Per Sale, where you get paid a percentage of the selling price of a product;
2. Cost Per Action (or ‘Cost Per Acquisition’), which pays out when the prospect completes a specific action, like entering their personal details into a form; and
3. Cost Per Click, where the affiliate is paid when the visitor clicks on a link.

They each have their quirks. Clickbank works on a CPS model, and because the cost of delivery is so low, merchants (“vendors”) tend to reward affiliates with fairly high commissions – up to 75% of the selling price.

CPA payments tend to depend on the difficulty of the action required. Some merchants require only a name and email address, or even just a ZIP code. These actions tend to pay quite poorly, but it’s much easier to get visitors to fill in a short form than a lengthy application. Some offers require more than just the filling-in of a form, and might demand a conclusion such as  the granting of a loan or a successful credit card application. These offers tend to pay quite well, but the chance of generating a steady income is much lower.

Cost Per Click campaigns through affiliate networks generally need the affiliate to apply to be accepted by the merchant, because of the danger of click fraud.