Affiliate Programs

How to Refer Other People's Products and Services!

Affiliate programs have become increasingly popular in the past year and a half. In fact an entire ancillary industry of software, newsletters, service providers, information product merchants, and accounting / management firms have sprung up to serve this exploding industry.

What is an affiliate program? Simply put, affiliate programs are arrangements between owners of a product or service and re-sellers (or distributors) who wish to market the products or services for a commission on sales. Be sure to check out the Gold Miner's page for an example of what could be the TOP affiliate program out there right now !

You can cooperate on either side of this arrangement – in fact, you will probably want to eventually be on both sides of it, as we will discuss in another section of this site, so be sure and read everything - we're always adding new ideas, strategies, and resources!

Let's look first at the side of the equation in which you are the product owner signing up affiliates to sell your product. Affiliate programs offer you the opportunity to enroll an army of marketers to drive traffic to your site for you. In exchange, you will offer them a percentage of the sales amount that you earn as a result of the traffic they send to you.

If your affiliate program is like most, you will enjoy 80% of your results from 20% of your affiliates. That’s OK, you can sign up as many as you can to begin with. Now, it may seem that it shouldn’t matter to you whether you have one person sending you 10,000 prospects a month, or 10,000 people sending you one each. But eventually, since there is overhead in dealing with the "wannabes", you’ll have to weed some of the non-performers out.

You need to concentrate on helping your peak performers achieve greatness selling your products! Essentially, you have four choices for the administration of your program should you decide to start an affiliate program for your products or services:

• Use a reputable affiliate management firm such as Commission Junction, Refer-it, or ClickTrade. There are a number of these firms on the Internet that will act as an intermediary for your affiliate program, in exchange for a percentage of the fees you offer to your affiliates.
  
  Their fee either comes out of your bottom line, or out of the commission you would otherwise be paying your affiliates, so it can have a dampening effect on the profits. However, there is no denying that these firms serve a useful role by managing the programs efficiently, and providing a much-needed watchdog function.
  
  
• Use a high-end software solution like BeFree.com . If you hit the big time, and your business becomes the next Amazon.com , you’ll need an industrial strength solution. BeFree is the acknowledged market leader when you get to the big leagues.
  
  
• Use a low-end but effective software solution like the affiliate program at affiliatezone.com . Plenty of companies are developing simple but effective CGI and PERL script solutions that you can purchase and configure for a few hundred bucks. These programs offer custom on-the-fly web page creation, real-time tracking of affiliate results, and many configurable options.
  
  
• Use the lowest-tech system. Build an HTML template and code in a unique affiliate ID for everyone who signs up, then load the custom page to your website and allow your affiliates to drive traffic to it directly. Links to your secure order form from the affiliate’s custom page should be configured to pass the affiliate ID to the order form. This requires a little bit of programming knowledge.
  
  Alternatively, you can set up a separate secure order form for each affiliate to go with their marketing page. This solution requires a lot of manual work on your part, but it can save you money in the beginning when money is in short supply.
  

Market forces are being brought to bear on this exploding field to make it more efficient. That means, among other things, that reporting and rating services are springing up to rate the various affiliate programs. If your product is good, you provide excellent selling material to support it, and you pay your affiliates well and on time, then your reputation will grow, and so will your program. On the other hand, if you do any of these things poorly, you will reap a lot of and publicity for it, and your affiliate program will die a slow death. Take the time to do this right before you launch it. 

Now let's look at the other side of the equation where you are signing up as an affiliate to resell other people's product. This is an EXCELLENT way to get started making money on the Internet.

You don't need a website or to incur any expenses. You can enroll in several excellent programs, and use free classified ad sites to submit your ads. It's a relatively slow way to start, but it has the virtue of being cash-free to get you rolling !

Just join 3-5 GOOD programs, but not too many more, or you'll fragment your efforts too much. Then start posting ads.

Find a place you can go to sign up for massive free for all and classified link postings. There are literally millions of affiliate programs out there for you to offer, but limit your targets a little for you when starting out just to get the hang of it.

This section will continue to provide lots of ideas for making money with affiliate programs. The absolute best thing you can do right now is sign up for Ken Envoy's Affiliate Master's e-mail course .  It's FREE, informative, and it's your ticket to print money online using OPPS (other people's products & services).
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Download the Affiliate Master's Course in e-book format for FREE !!!

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Don't forget the Honor System!