What You Should Know Before Starting An Affiliate Marketing Program
There is no shortage in the pool of merchants for affiliate marketing. Unless you've got an incredibly niche product or service, you will need to stand out to potential affiliate marketers in some other way.
One of the best ways to reach out to marketers is to simply be personable. Email new affiliates and give them your contact information (or that of the person running your program).
Also, ask your affiliate marketers for feedback. Some of the best ideas will come from those who work with your program day in and day out.
Affiliate Merchant Considerations
Becoming an affiliate merchant is a long-term commitment. You need to be in this for the long haul and be flexible enough to make changes to your website where needed.
In the arena of affiliate marketing, the affiliate marketer's job is to send you pre-qualified sales leads, or customers who have their credit card on the keyboard ready to buy. Your job as a merchant is to close that sale.
You may have to create special landing pages for your affiliates. You may have to negotiate better commissions for active affiliates. You might need to get special creative for your affiliates.
You will need to be willing to listen to what your affiliates ask of you, as they are essentially your outside sales reps. Believe me, once you see the sales start rolling in, you'll be more than willing to help your sales force.
While you will likely see results very soon, like any new marketing or advertising campaign, you'll need to be patient and perform testing to see what converts best. What works well in usual marketing channels may not work at all with affiliate marketing. Ask your affiliates what they need, and you'll know exactly what to do with your web site to increase revenue.
Test and test again. Make sure your ecommerce cart and check-out system are compatible with affiliate marketing - and make sure they work. Nothing will ruin your reputation faster than a faulty affiliate tracking system.
Generally, you will join a specific affiliate network such as Commission Junction, Linkshare, Google Network, ShareASale.com or others. The network you choose will provide you with specific instructions on how your web site needs to operate and what other site requirements are needed.
Affiliate Program Management If you are new to affiliate marketing, or if you don't have a lot of time to commit to starting your affiliate program, consider an Outside Program Manager (OPM) to recruit affiliates for you. Focus your time on improving your web site, increasing your conversions, and the things that you are good at. If you do decide to go with an OPM - find a good one and listen to them.
Where To Learn More Before you dive in, you'll definitely want to hang out in some of the affiliate marketing forums and get a feel for what is involved in being an affiliate merchant. Don't miss Abestweb.com and 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums. You might also want to check out RevBoard.com and AffSpot.com. The best thing to do is start reading these forums and look for posts on starting an affiliate program. Pay attention to what other merchants and affiliate marketers have to say.