How to Choose Affiliate Programs and Products

How to Choose Affiliate Programs and Products
A key to success with affiliate programs is to choose products that visitors to your website or readers of your ezine will want to buy. That however is not enough by itself - you also want to make sure the merchant's adverts and websites converts visitors into buyers, that you are credited for every affiliate sale, and that you earn a decent commission for those sales that you do generate. Don't just look at any one factor to the detriment of the others, but consider all the factors.

- Spend some time looking at the page of the merchant's site that you will be sending traffic to. Does it promote the product that you are trying to sell, or does it send most visitors somewhere else ("leak")?

- Do you get credited for all the sales that you refer? Many merchants accept, even encourage (by posting a prominent 1-800 number) telephone sales, but don't give credit for those. Likewise, if a merchant has a ClickBank affiliate program, remember that you will only get credit for sales that the merchant makes through ClickBank, and not for any sales that they make through 2CheckOut, PayPal or their own merchant account.

- High commissions per-sale are great, but they don't do you any good if the product is not something that people want to buy, or if the merchant's website doesn't sell. For example, you'd make more money earning $10 per sale with a product that many people want, than earning $1,000 per sale with a product that only one or two people in the whole country would like.

- Some affiliate networks such as ClickBank and Commission Junction provide statistics about how products are performing across all the affiliates participating in the program. Such information is useful, but shouldn't be the sole determinant of your actions - your site may differ from the average affiliate site - not to mention that sometimes merchants find ways to "game" these statistics. Additionally, you should be aware that those merchants with the best statistics tend to attract intense competition between hordes of affiliates - so finding a slightly less successful merchant and finding a new way to promote them may actually be more profitable for you. In short, at the end of the day, what counts is how you do with the affiliate program, not what the average affiliate or the entire network does - so focus on testing out programs yourself, monitor your own personal statistics, and use that information to maximize your profits.