The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Programs

The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are a great idea for the owner of the product and for the affiliate who wants to earn some extra cash. The owner has a sales team that promotes and sells his or her product and doesn't have to pay anything out until a sale is generated. The affiliate has an existing product that can be sold and doesn't have to go out and create his or her own product.

The problem usually is that most affiliate don't have an existing website that they can drive potential customers to. Many affiliates think that it's just as simple as driving traffic to the product owner's website. That can be done using a URL that's unique to the affiliate. That's all well and good, however, that may not be the best way do develop business.

You see, when you drive traffic to the product owners web site, the owner is the one that gets the information about that prospective buyer. He can keep that info and market to them in the future. That means that for all the work the affiliate did to drive that traffic to the product owners site, all the affiliate gets for that is whatever commission was agreed upon for the sale. There's nothing wrong with that, but we all know that in order to build a business on-line and have it continue, you need a list of targeted prospects. If you're going to join an affiliate program, you might as well benefit as much as you can from it.

The owner didn't do a thing to get that information; the affiliate did the advertising, whatever form it was. It could have been pay-per-click, it could have been advertising in an ezine or classified ad, etc. What ever the affiliate did, it either cost him time or money, most likely both.

What's the answer? The best answer is to get your own lead capture page. A lead capture page is designed solely to get the prospect's information. After you get the information you can direct your prospect to the owner's site to buy whatever they're selling. Once you get the information of the prospect, you start building a list of targeted prospects that you can focus your marketing on in the future.

It may take a little time to develop a large list, but once you get a good list of prospects, you have a group who has demonstrated that they are interested in buying online or developing a business, or whatever it may be. A good list is gold. You have your target audience you can market to and it's free.

Affiliate programs can be great, but don't give away all of your leads to someone else. You did the work to get that prospect; you should be able to benefit from your effort. Is it worth the time building a list like that? It most certainly is. It may cost a little bit to have a lead capture page, but it's well worth the investment. It's definitely an investment in your future. If you want to be in the online marketing business for any length of time and you want to make a substantial income. You should consider this very carefully. Think about it, if you're are doing the work anyway, it makes sense that you should benefit from it.

There is a lot of money to be made in affiliate programs. Just be smart in your efforts. Don't give away all of your best resources.