If you have a blog or website, we assume that you are running Google AdSense to monetize it. What about the option where you can ensure some extra income? Sounds great! There are a lot affiliate marketing programs available over the net but out of thousands of affiliates which one you should choose for your blog. You may get confused seeing all the affiliates available over net and hence it is required to study a lot before choosing any program.
We have summarized some important points which we should keep in mind before choosing affiliate :
1. Choose Your Niche & Relevancy :
Choose your affiliate according to your blog niche. If your blog niche is based on technology with hosting information then go for some affiliate programs who serve web hosting only. Do not promote any other niche affiliate program. So before joining any program check whether it is relevant to your website content or not.
2. Good Reputation, Trustworthy & Quality :
Before joining the affiliate program, check the product's reputation over net and make sure that the affiliate merchants can be trusted. Suppose you have written a review on mobile phone and you found a program who deals with mobile, here you need to check the popularity and sales of that brand so that you can make sure that while visiting your site people may buy that.
3. Build Your Platform :
Build your platform with enough number of visitor first. Then only while visiting your site people will find the program and will go for it. You should go for a blogging platform with good hosting ensuring your website has maximum available uptime and can opened fast.
4. Real & Viable Product :
Read several times about the product which the affiliate programs holds. Get more information from customer or members on the credibility of the program.
5. Minimum Payment Threshold & Payment Method:
Check the minimum payout threshold so that once you reach to that level you can get paid. Most of the programs set to $50$ or $100. Make sure the payment mode is permitted in your country or make use of PayPal account to receive if applicable.
6. Cookies :
Most of the tracking happens through cookies in affiliate marketing. Actually money is used to secure the visitors (eg, cookies and IP-address) who came to your link, and the longer the time of their lives, the better. Unfortunately, most of the visitors rarely gets the goods or services at the first transition to the partner site. You should look for a program that gives a high cookie life which is ideally 2-3 months.
7. Fraud Protection :
You should always ask your merchant to provide you with a fraud protection service so that your clients can know multiple signups. We have observed some fraudulent practices of some affiliates. You should be protected from them. They deal with below practices :
Duplicating: creating deceptive clones of legitimate site
Diverting: creating deceptive links that do not pay the intended affiliate
8. Tracking Method :
Make sure that the affiliate programs provide good tracking method so that your sales statistics will be readily available to you. Real time tracking would be the best one if any affiliate program offers the same.
9. Compensation Plan :
It is a must have option. It pays out a residual income and a payout of 40% or more would be a great choice. There are some programs offering this kind of compensation and try to avoid the programs which do not offer reward for your hard work.
10 : Tools & Resources :
Make sure that the affiliate program has sufficient helpful tools and resources so that your business can grow quickly.
11. Customer Support :
Check the options where you can get easy support from the affiliate program. Make sure they have a proper emailing facility or customer service over phone facility.
12. TOS : Read and accept the TOS before joining any program. Some program has very odd policies and payout threshold. We normally accept the TOS without reading it. Take time and read whole.
Last but not the least, do you like the program? If yes, then only promote that. If you like the program and its offer then only your visitors will be attracted to them. Make sure to think as a customer and if you are given the opportunity so you will buy the product. Do inquiries because there are forums and discussions sites where you can participate in to get good and reliable feedbacks.
Hope the above tips will help you choosing the right affiliate program. If you have any other suggestions, we would welcome you.