Things to look for when becoming an affiliate

So now we’re going to talk about how to select a good affiliate program. There are thousands (maybe millions) of them out there, so selecting the right ones is one of the hardest tasks.

1. Make sure that the affiliate program that you’re joining is somehow related to your target audience. Let’s say that you’ll be sending your affiliate link (the one the program creates for you so that it can track your referrals) to your email contacts, but most of them are men, so it wouldn’t make sense to join an affiliate program that promotes high coture dressing… right?

2. Look for low and at least monthly payouts. Some affiliate programs have high payouts, which means that you have to generate a lot of sales before you’ll be paid, or some programs issue payments on a bi-monthly or even semi-anually basis, which means that it will take you a while before you can collect. Most decent affiliate programs have low payouts ($100.00 USD seems to be a rule of thumb) and offer montly payouts. This is very important because there are affiliate programs out there that use the high payout or too long term as a way to make sure that a lot of affiliates will join the program but that none of them (or only a few) will actually be paid.

3. Payment methods that work for you. It’s also very important to make sure that the affiliate program  you’re joining sends payments using methods that actually work for you. I once joined an affiliate program that would only send payments via wire transfer and they would deduct the bank fees from my payments. As the provider was based in South America, that meant that a $100.00 payment, after deducting such fees, would be a $30-$40 payment when settled in my account.  It seems like PayPal and ePassporte work for most webmasters, but some prefer wire transfer as long as it’s started and received locally (within the same country).

4. Support forums, tickets or chat. Sooner or later you’ll need to contact the provider to ask something related to the affiliate program, maybe it will be how to customize a link, set a landing page or ask about a missing or delayed payment. If it takes them too long to reply, then you’ll be questioning yourself if you’ve been working for free.

5. Reputation and good standing of the provider. There are companies going out of business every single day! Most new companies will start affiliate programs with huge comissions, as they see it as an easy way to start building a customer base. However some new start up companies won’t realize that they will need extra cash to pay their affiliates and when they decide to go out of business or to simply cancel their affiliate program, a lot of webmasters are left hanging in the air.

6. Understand the product or service being promoted. Don’t fool yourself with huge comissions. If you can’t fully understand the products or services you’re promoting, there’s a good chance that your referrals won’t either and if they can’t understand it, they won’t sign up or buy them.

7. Forget the testimonials unless they come from a verifiable source. Most scam affiliate programs publish a lot of testimonials of guys  with fake names claiming they are making a living out of promoting the product or service that the affiliate program offers,  it makes us dream of being a little bit like them, having lots of spare time and working just a couple hours from home and making thousands of dollars a month. That’s crap, you can make a living out of the Internet, but it takes lots of hours of hard work and joining a mix of affiliate programs that allow you to reach a bigger audience. However there are provider-neutral forums where you can read real testimonials of how others are doing with each affiliate program, google is your friend to find them.

That’s all folks.