THE AFFILIATE MARKETING PRIMER

4 - HOW TO SELECT THE BEST AFFILIATE/ASSOCIATE PROGRAMS (Part 1 of 2):

---What will suit your purposes?  The best associate program is the one that's best for you.  This may seem obvious, but what it means is that some factors in the list won't matter so much to you in general or will be outweighed by factors more important to you in specific instances.

There are many people who set themselves up as gurus of affiliate marketing and aver that there are definite Best Ways and Best Programs...  But the best way is the way that works best for you, and the best programs are those that best meet your own objectives.  (Do especially beware of the marketer who tells you that a marketing program is the absolute best.  It may be a good program indeed... but not necessarily for your purposes.)

Compare each program to the following list of factors, yes, but realize that almost all will fall short in more than one category.  Don't get hung up on any one as a "requirement" unless you truly feel that it is necessary for your purposes (if only for your peace of mind).  This list may be most useful for winnowing out marginal opportunities (marginal according to your aims, anyway).
 

It might be of use to belabor this point a bit, as associate programs can be seen as a way to bribe someone into recommending inferior products or services...  Over better ones from companies who haven't set up associate programs, or because the prices are inflated in order to pay affiliates large commissions.

Some may say to that, simply, "caveat emptor" - let the buyer beware.  For my purposes, the quality of a company's offering is a major consideration - my own integrity is at risk if I recommend something shoddy.  My goal is to attract people to my sites because they can be assured that I've researched their contents and won't offer anything that I don't think is worthwhile.

If, for instance, I'm considering two similar websites to recommend and both offer associate programs, I'll choose the one that's easiest to use, and/or far less expensive, and/or offers the greater benefit to a visitor, despite the fact that it might pay me less in affiliate commissions.  (Or I'll choose a non-affiliate site over a paying one for the same reasons.)  Your credibility can be an important business asset, whether you see it as a moral one or not...  Most people will probably want to factor this in.

For this reason, too, you may want to evaluate especially carefully any offerings that are in a high price bracket - do they really give value for money?  The offerings of the most successful programs, like SiteSell's SiteBuildIt! webhosting package (and the ebooks they used to charge - a little - for but now offer for free), over-produce on value to the customer, without costing an arm and a leg.

---Does the program reflect your own interests?  It's likely that, given programs of approximately equal value, you'll do best with the ones that represent a subject you're personally interested in...  Because you'll enjoy adding related content to your site that will enhance the success of your program referrals... your passionate interest in the subject will enthuse others as well!  It will also give you energy for the long haul.
 

The only circumstances under which I can see this making sense are where you are gaining significantly from the offering yourself, the potential affiliate income being secondary to that...  For example, paying a monthly fee to host a traffic-generating contest on your website, or switching your webhosting to a company whose associate program and webhosting services (of course!) are outstanding.

I certainly haven't bumped into every last program permutation, but at present I don't see a good reason that a company would charge affiliates just for signing up with them.  Savvy companies bend over backwards to give to their affiliates, rather than take from them!  In any case, the word "on the street" is that programs that smack of "pyramid scheme" don't do well.  (And if it's "iffy" to you, won't it be iffy to the folks you might wish to sign up as sub-affiliates?) ...If it doesn't make good sense, stay away from it.

---What options for linking does the affiliate company offer you?  As we saw in "WHAT TYPES OF LINKS GO WHERE?" in the primer section "The Anatomy of an Affiliate Marketing Program", greater flexibility is given you the greater number of such options you have.

The one you choose might also affect your commission rate...  As with Amazon.com's payment of a larger commission for books linked to directly than for items purchased as a result of the visitor doing a search.  (This is because they have found that people are more likely to buy as a result of a recommendation than as a result of a possibly blundering search - and they want to herd their affiliates into the most lucrative pathway, understandably.)

And what if you don't have/want a website? (e.g., want to market via pay-per-click ads, or offline).  Some merchants don't provide a means of going these non-website routes - so you'll have to look for the ones that do.  (An example:  SiteBuildIt!, from SiteSell, allows you to use your simple affiliate code anywhere - and for 5 Pillar affiliates, there's a cool mechanism that allows you to manually sign up offline sales.)
 

Most affiliate companies offer from a few to a zillion different banners.  Some are different sizes, some are different colors, some have no text, some offer different statements, some feature different products, some are animated, and so on . Your choice should depend on what you want to accomplish, not just on your own tastes.  You don't want to overwhelm.  You do want to attract.  Size and animation add to the loading time of your website, so that may influence your decision.  Information is what most people are looking for on the web, so look for banners that provide some!  (Information doesn't have to be verbal, of course.)

Webmarketer Neil Shearing, of www.ScamFreeZone.com, did some systematic testing of different banners several years back, discovering that:  Animation does help.  Choosing a banner that creates a sense of urgency will work against you.  One that asks a question helps.  One that overtly states "click here" (asks for direct action) helps.  Free offers, not surprisingly, are beneficial.  Sharply contrasting colors help (but jarring colors, I have to add, are a big turn-off to many).

Speaking of banners, if you use them (rather than text links - some companies allow for both), it is also important to be aware of "ALT tags" (the little text flags that often load on a website before the images appear). They are of great benefit to add to your site's HTML - indeed, they're truly necessary programming.

Some people get impatient when an image is taking a long time to load and rely on the ALT tag statements to tell them whether or not they want to click on the image (or perhaps even keep viewing the page)...  You can lose their interest entirely if they have no means of knowing what's there.  So, while you don't want the ALT tag statement to be too voluminous, you do want it to be a good "hook"... as interesting as possible while still being clear.  More importantly, some people opt for the greater speed of surfing the web with image loading entirely turned off.  If you don't use ALT tags when you can, you will frustrate these folks and no doubt lose plenty of clicks.

I say "when you can", though, because you won't be able to create or change ALT tags for banners that come from most affiliate clearinghouses.  That's because changing the HTML coding in any way will screw up the company's tracking of your link (and it would be very sad if you didn't get paid for your referrals!).
 

You know this from your own searching:  People are looking for good content, not just a bunch of disparate banners thrown at them.  Banners are often equated with commercials (or billboards!), while text links are usually seen as recommendations...  You know which you'd be more apt to pay attention to!  Banners, especially those that are particularly "catchy" but uninformative, tend to make people suspicious, when the real point of drawing people onward is to provide them with information at the end.  "Banner farms" (or sites that are nothing but banners) are pretty offensive to most people's sensibilities, and as such are, thankfully, passé (and most affiliate companies refuse to be associated with them anyway, understandably).

Then there is the fact that some people use software that entirely blocks advertising banners and ALT tags from appearing...  If you have no alternate, textual explanation of what the banner is for, you will completely lose those visitors.

If you want to really capitalize on the space on your site that you're devoting to advertising on behalf of someone else, you'll choose affiliate companies whose products/services fit in with what your site is about.  Likewise, look for the banners that are the most relevant...  If your site is about Harley motorcycles, choose the motorcycle parts company banner that says "need Harley parts?" rather than one that just flashes "motorcycle parts!"; or, if your site isn't specific to Harleys, don't choose the "Harley" banner, look for one that's more generic.

And again, if you're planning to market offline, make sure that the marketing materials (if you're required to use theirs) make sense within that framework.

How do you tell which is the best associate program when there are a number of them that have much in common?  Here is some direction in deciding between two similar companies, or amongst several...

     --If your website (or, to be more exact, the page a given link is on) gets a vast number of visitors, a per-impression commission, though only a penny or two, may be nothing to sneeze at (and every little bit does add up).  Plus, per-impression takes the least amount of effort on your part...  The only effort required is what it takes to get people to come to your website in the first place.  (If you aren't aware of what is entailed, I refer to search engine placement and any other advertising methods that bring people to you - not subjects I'll be going into much in this report.)

     --A combination of bases for payment is a big benefit - the more possibilities you can cover, the better.  If a company offers both per-click and per-sale, at least you know that some of your effort will likely accrue a benefit to you, even if it doesn't end up making you a sale.  You can think of the sale as icing on the cake!

     --A per-click basis is good if the banner and/or testimonial is good.  It may also be a good option where the ultimate sale price seems prohibitively high.

     --If the sale price is extremely low, a per-sale price isn't necessarily such a big benefit to you...  Unless you can generate a lot of sale referrals, or if the sale will be a lead-in to future sales that will be credited to you as well.

     --If the sale price is very high, it isn't necessarily prohibitively high...  It could still be a bargain, for what the product or service is.  The greater effort would come in targeting your promotion of it to the right people.
 

Great, but...  I've run across statements to the effect that a program ideally should pay you a minimum of 25% on the first level.  Well, I can't really get behind such an analysis.  After all, the price (possibly determined by the company's profit margin), how popular the offering is, whether there are bonuses, whether a great entry price sets you up for future affiliate earnings, etc. etc., all have as much or more to do with what you'll make than the commission rate.

Besides, the fact that a company doesn't pay a great deal doesn't necessarily indicate that you shouldn't consider joining its associate program.  If it fits, if you have room, if it provides your customers a benefit, if it's easy to sell... why not??

In comparing very similar companies, your own plan of action might come into play just as much as the details of the companies' programs.  As an example, with my first website, I knew that I wanted to go with a webhost that offered an associate program (more icing on the cake).  I did some research on several such companies, narrowing down at last to two seemingly outstanding companies that offered very similar features. One charged $3 more a month than the other - which represented so small a difference for both customers and affiliate commissions that I discounted it entirely (after all, their charges were in the "fairly low" range, especially for the features they offered).

The main difference was in their associate programs...  Both were two-tier and paying 25% residual commissions on the first level, but one paid 10% on the second level, whereas the other paid only 5% - that could mean a lot of money!  BUT - the lesser-paying one also paid a bonus of a minimum of 20% on one's entire monthly account income (i.e., on the money customers I sign up are paying for webhosting services, plus the commissions I earn from my sub-affiliates' efforts).  SO - if I weren't planning on making much effort at all to recruit sub-affiliates, it would make more sense for me to go with the 10%er; but I chose the 5%er, because, if I made an effort, the bonuses had the potential to make me a lot more than the extra 5% the other one paid. 
  

The existence of a second level, anyway, can be a great advantage to you as an affiliate...  Even if you only think in terms of spreading the word amongst your friends and family, you never know when someone who signs up under you will really take off and earn you a tidy bit of cash by his or her own efforts in spreading the word about a program.  You might not get rich, but you'll get welcome extra income.  However, this is not to say that you can't make welcome money from a single-tier program - if such a one best suits your purposes, go for it!

It's popular to state that you shouldn't expect to make a fortune by signing up lots of sub-affiliates...  Because if they are thinking the same thing, not much attention will be paid to making those all-important sales.  To some extent, this is no doubt astute.  On the other hand, that "lots" may hold some gems.  If you can in any way seek to bring especially motivated people - gems, your key people - into your downline (and to help them bring motivated people into their downlines, if you are in a multi-tier program), you will hugely improve your chances of financial success.

However, going back to the original statement...  I also wouldn't want to discount the benefit of expecting to make a fortune.  The visualization of success has without doubt led many to it, despite predictions of failure.  As long as you have the determination to go with it, surely expectation can be a great business asset!
 

---Does the company offer a multiplicity of, and/or repeatable, products, so that your chances of achieving sales (if they pay you per sale; also, if they track your referrals far into the future) are increased? 

This is akin to residual fees - it might mean the difference between a so-so affiliate company choice and an excellent one.  A company might have a large catalog, or it might simply rely on high-quality back-up offers to generate further sales.  Its owners might plan to introduce new products to the market, or it might offer products or services that people purchase over and over, even if not on a regular basis (think about vitamins, or office supplies, for instance).  It isn't just the associate program itself that's important - pay close attention to the company too.

---Are the company's products/services priced to sell?  Something doesn't have to be cheap to be a good deal...  But if an item's price is inflated too much, people will look elsewhere for it.  It might pay you to shop around yourself, as though you were a customer looking for such an item - and perhaps run it by some friends who might be interested in such a product or service - to get an idea whether or not a particular offering is decently priced.  The best associate programs offer high value for the cost.
 

There's lots more! - See PART TWO of 4 - HOW TO SELECT THE BEST AFFILIATE/ASSOCIATE PROGRAMS...