9 Factors to Consider When Choosing an Affiliate Program

Online Marketing Experts advise that no one should just jump into the business without deep reflections and planning. These days, starting an affiliate marketing program can be a bit tricky because of the proliferation of scam businesses everywhere. There a literally thousands of affiliate programs from merchants and online stores out there promising to pay commissions for all sales you can generate. Many of these schemes could be scams, while many others are genuine. The real reason you must do all due diligence before you get involved in any. Here are some 9 factors you must consider before deciding.


 
01. Reputation of the Affiliate Program
 
When picking an affiliate program to join, you must start with merchants who have a good reputation. This makes your job easier as all you have to do is to simply point your ads leads to them. Company good reputation is all embracing. It includes past sales records, tracking methods, reliability, good payments/commissions methods as well as good news and reviews about the company. A thorough internet search for news and information about the merchants can always help out here.

02. Can I Sell the Product/Service?

This is rather obvious. You can only make money on a product you are capable of selling. You will only be paid if you can successfully sell a product/service. If not, you will merely be laboring in vain. To sell a product/service, you have to be sufficiently convincing. If you are not well vast and knowledgeable about a product/service, you will find it difficult convincing others to buy. When choosing an affiliate marketing program therefore, you must consider choosing those that sell the kind of products and services that you can promote successfully on and offline.

03. Does the Program support my Country?
 
When choosing an affiliate program, you must choose the ones that support your country because that is where your earnings will be sent. Without country support, you may end up promoting and selling products/services for merchants without receiving payments as due for all your troubles. You can’t claim to be in business if you are unable to earn from it.

04. What are the payment options?

This is always a major concern because everyone wants to earn commissions as due. For that reason, if the payment options supported by your affiliate marketing program are not supported in your country, you will not be able to receive your payments. A real dilemma no doubt! So, before selling for an affiliate, make sure you will be able to receive your commissions seamlessly. Luckily for most marketers, web technologies support many payment options these days. You have credible payment options like Bank Cheques, Wire Transfers, PayPal, Payoneer Master Card, and Direct Deposits. Find out what works in your country before getting involved.

05. What is the Cookie Timeout?

This is one important but very interesting technicality in affiliate marketing. Cookies! Cookie timeouts!! Cookies help to identify correctly where a sale was initiated online. Cookie timeout determines how long from the time you first pointed a lead to an affiliate merchant’s website that a purchase from them will earn you a commission. Cookie timeouts vary from 24 hours, one week, two weeks, 30 days, or up to 90 days or even more depending on the product/service and the merchants.


 
06. Commission Structure in place

Since every marketer wants to earn commissions, some attention must be paid to the commission structure involved in the business. You must find out what percentage of commission you are entitled to when you help point buyers to the merchants and when a sale is made. Google adsense web technologies are very popular in determining commission volumes and payouts online. This you can research easily through Google. From the merchants, you can find out if the commissions they pay are one-time commissions, recurring commissions, or residual commissions.

07. Promotion Methods Allowed

You’ve got to find out the different methods the affiliate program allows you to promote their products/services. It is very smart to make sure that your preferred methods of promotion are permitted by the affiliate program. Some may prohibit advertising on Search Engines like Google while others may kick against using social media. Conversely, some social media platforms prohibit the promotion of certain products/services on their platforms. You must take all these into account before settling for an affiliate program because without being able to promote a product/service successfully, you can’t expect to help sell it.

08. Are there Sales Support Services?

Selling could be very problematic for marketers if sales support services are not available. Brochures, banners, text links, manuals and even sales training help provide the much needed marketing promotions support to the buyers through the sales force. Merchants providing these things and even having in place prompt response and feedback time somehow help to oil the entire selling process. Sales support services are credible ways an affiliate program can help you succeed faster and better since your success directly impacts on their own success.

09. Timely Payments

It helps to always confirm the payment procedure of an affiliate program before joining. This you can do by asking the right questions such as:
How often can you receive Payment (Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly)?
What is the minimum balance payment threshold you must accumulate before you are paid?
What is the Payment Cycle? 
With what currency will you be paid?
Any withholding deductions for tax purposes or charities?


 

7 Big Affiliate Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

 Yeah, you too can easily get involved if you want to make money from Affiliate Marketing. Many people get involved just to make money. The real reason they easily fall prey to online scammers. Everyone involved gets to make some mistakes along the line but if you manage to avoid these here mistakes, you stand a very good chance of long term success in the business.


 
01. Taking on Too Many Programs
 
Many Affiliate programs online habitually offer several variants. It is always a big mistake to get involved in all of them because of that reason. Experts advise, “Never join any and every affiliate program you came across.”  It pays to choose your affiliate programs wisely to avoid overloading yourself and overburdening your efforts.

 02. Not Enough Testing
 
 It is a mistake not to fully check out and test every affiliate program you want to get involved in. Always put yourself in the shoes of your customers. What you won’t like, it is pointless promoting it to others. Leading customers to promotions that can jam up their email boxes with thousands of mails is a real put off. Testing well enough before promoting is one great way around such a problem.

03. Not Enough Tracking

The ability to track your customers and sales is a very smart marketing technique. In Affiliate Marketing, making any commission is cool, but knowing where and how you made that commission is what makes you a better marketer. Doing so allows you to grow and scale your campaigns — as opposed to working blindly. It helps your ads budget too. Not tracking your sales enough is a no no.

04. Selling Instead of Helping

My mentor once told me never to present myself to prospects as trying to sell them something. It pays to offer help to solving a problem instead of attempting to sell. Yes, the word “marketing” is part of the phrase Affiliate Marketing, but for the most part, the real job of an affiliate is not to sell. His job is to lead people on to places where their problems can be solved. The selling job is better left to the sales page our affiliate links lead the reader to. Attempting to sell always instead of offering help first is one huge Affiliate Marketing mistake.


 
05. Making False Claims

Never make false claims about any Affiliate Marketing program. Excessive hyping too is not good. With the internet, people get to find the truth fairly easily and you can lose credibility real quick. Perhaps you’ve seen this before, ad lines such as “How I Made $1000 Dollars in one day” followed by a link to an affiliate site. Not everybody gets to make a grand so easily if ever. People always get out fast when they see through any falsehood and that easily taints your credibility as a marketer.

06. Not Comparing Enough

Experience shows that one of the best converting tactics to sell affiliate products online is to find a credible way to compare the “main” product with two or more similar products then leave the buying decision to the customer. When people are in buying mode for a physical product, they tend to have their options narrowed down to 2 or 3 and need help making the choice that is best for them. Giving options for comparison helps that decision. Not giving that option is a bad marketing decision. Here is why. Comparison web pages are not only very popular and helpful for readers; they are also very profitable for the marketer.

07. Allowing Distractions

Just like it sounds, distraction leads to wasted efforts and dissipation of energy in the wrong direction. It should be avoided. Sometimes, a marketer may already be working on something, all of a sudden, something looking great just pops up to attract attention. Deciding to just check it out could lead you off to go chasing some new idea to make money taking you off track completely. Such distractions should be avoided if you are already working on a project with good prospects. Truth be told, one completed and profitable campaign is worth so much more than 20 almost half-finished campaigns or projects. The real reason distractions should always be identified and pointedly ignored to allow full attention to the business already at hand.

Small Business Solution: Don’t Be Content with Success

 Every small business owner wants to succeed. That is because success is great and the feeling is always good. Even at that, it doesn’t mean you should be wholly satisfied once you achieve any minor goal you set for your business. Very sadly, many small businesses always fall into a holding pattern once they’ve achieved some semblance of success. When that happens, such small businesses usually fall behind the competition and slowly become irrelevant. Small Business Experts are of the view that, it is best to stay hungry and keep that fire in your belly that got you where you are. Complacency is fatal to any small business. As your business grows and expands, it helps to keep your eyes permanently on the ball. Don’t ever forget what got you started in the first place. You can’t sustain any level of success as an entrepreneur if you take your eyes off the goal because your business has got larger and larger to the level where you adopt less hands-on approach to the business.

Always bear in mind the motivation you had to grow your business when you were just getting started. As the business grows and you are likely to need some more managers and other team members to step in and help with the day-to-day business operations, you must continue to give direction to the business. Remain the undistracted pilot no matter the level of success the business has attained. You can’t afford to be complacent at any time. If you are in charge, remain in charge and be seen and felt by everyone as the person in charge.