What are Affiliate Programs? Tips & Tricks

Introduction

Everyone these days talks about making money on the internet, about secret online techniques, adsense buzz and other realted stuff. Not only having a website or business makes someone a pro and remember that if you just received your first $100 through Google's AdSense, doesn't mean you should already have started a website, or more of them, explaining about how success is made over the internet those days and give advice like "pros" do etc. Nowadays, having a website on and running is not a matter or "how?" anymore..It's a matter of "who?" and "when?". The first question("who?") might never unfold its real answer, as we might never know who really sits behind that particular website/business. It might be someone just like the average, who had just received his/her first $100 or whatever and already started his "meaningful miraculous advices", OR, it just might be THE one you had always wanted to hear of. But the truth is, we don't actually care who is behind all of that as long as he/she just does or says what we wanted to see or hear about.
For the second question("when?"), the answer is so generic and dim yet so full of sense, you might just not be able to see it : "NOW !!" It all happens now, as you keep reading this article about affiliation and how this works, almost 12000 new websites, regardless of their nature(content, search results, ecommerce or sub-domains) have already been created and hosted somewhere in the world. The truth is, you don't even need to know HTML, XHTML, Java or whatever to create a website, as long as programmers and software companies figured it out already for you. You just simply go to a free hosting service such as GeoCities, Aol, FreeWebs or whatever, which support template designs and boom..in just minutes your fully functional website works, depending on what you do with it(fill it up with some content, images, music a.o). They give you your free sub-domain, something derived from their original of course, slap your page with some ads from Google or whatever and that just works. Talking about the ads, the money goes to their pocket, regardless of the type of website you're promoting, content, appearance or traffic. All the clicks, impressions, CPM and other goes to them and thus, you actually help their services, "paying" not only for what you use, but you may also pay some more without even knowing it..so, nothing to lose for them, just some space on their servers.

Main target

What if you created a content-driven website, or you own(or just got) some online commerce site? Content creator or online merchant, you'd want to generate some revenue off of your pages or, for the second case, bring even more traffic that could be converted in to real customers for buying what you sell. That's the ultimate goal, right? But just how to do that?
Here's how : AFFILIATED PROGRAMS. One of the oldest, yet the most efficient strategy almost everyone could implement in their business or whatever, to generate the traffc/sales they seeked for, without moving a finger(literally). So, here's how affiliates work, how you should or shouldn't use this technique, for your own profit, for enhancing your website or e-business to the almost maximum.

What Are Affiliate Programs

For everyone's understanding, "affiliate programs" represent that way of bringing in associates(usually other websites) for promoting your product/material to their visitors, linking back to you(or not, if using special automated refferal software), thus, finally resulting in generating you sales or traffic. In return, you pay those associates some percent of their sales, motivating them to bring sales or traffic to you, or, in some cases, link exchange(also called "linking back"/"backlinks") is preffered. By using link/banner exchange you actually provide your associate with traffic/sales brought directly from your site to his(when your visitors click on his links) and, likewise, he/she displays your links/banners on their page(s), thus generating you back-links(extremely useful for search engine ranking) and, of course, traffic or sales.
The payment system is made upon an agreement, proitable for both sides of course. You could pay them like presented earlier, by a percentage of the sales they brought in, or, in case you just wanted traffic, you might get some money out of your pocket to pay them on a regular basis, whenever they bring visitors to your site. But this lately statement is to be used only by professionals, because you should posess some advanced piece of software/script that first analyses the nature of each particular visitor(to exclude automated bots or even the associate himself clicking abussively) and only then, logging the amount of money that should be paid back to that particular affiliate.
When initiating an affiliate strategy for your website(s) you should take into account that in such a "transaction", there are usually at least 3 parties involved : The Merchant Site(you in this case), The Affiliate Site(s) and The Final Customer. But not all the time this applies, as you might agree with your affiliates to also display back-links to your affiliate program, thus resulting in level-affiliation and also having to pay them back a small percent for bringing level 2 affiliates and the ideea could go on for an infinite number of levels(somehow like MLM, the same ideea). But, at the end of the day, affiliation might just be a good way of getting the word out about someone's website and/or service, product or material, so, just a good way of selling/getting service without having to do it yourself.

Maintaining an Affiliate Program

Not much is to be done(in concept), affiliate programs being quite simple at the first glance, but there is much to be done in behind-the-scenes processes, for making an affiliate program to work properly. So, like stated earlier, somehow you/they must keep track of the exact data being sent/received. That means : how many people clicked their/your link, how many of those ended up actually buying your product/service or simply doing what it was intended to do by clicking that link, who-is-who meaning that the visitors must be real visitors and not bots or the actual associate and finally how many visitors actually see the merchant's link or banner on an associate site.
Also, someone has to assure that the affiliates get paid or whatever promised to them and that the payment is received as promised, instantly or at least, in time. This means, a true affiliate program must be risk-free for both sides. The merchant assures their earlier statement and promisses made to their associate, thus, an affiliate can not possibly lose something(e.g. money), but also, the merchant must think his/her affiliate program wisely, not to turn in debt himself by scams or simply errors.
This kind of job is a terrific way for companies, even web-service providers to ensure their influx of customers or, simply, visitors, but on the other hand, most "solo" webmasters these days consider this method time consuming, resource consuming and exhaustive. You make the pick..either make money, or just wish to make that money.

How Payment Works

There are usually three basic types of affiliate payment :

Pay-Per-Click or Cost-Per-Click(PPC or CPC) : When the merchant/webmaster pays his/her associates only when a visitor clicks on the merchant's link/banner being displayed on the associates webpage(s). This type of action usually requires only that a user clicks(if interested) on the merchant's link and not concerning on whether that particular visitor actually buys or not that merchant's product/service(s). This is the simplest of'em all, actually the most wide-spread advertising model on ad-networks, such as Google AdWords/AdSense themselves(works on the same principles of PPC/CPC).

Pay-Per-Sale(or Cost-Per-Sale) : The name tell it all about it. The merchant only pays its associates whenever a customer(that originated from that associate's page(s)) actually buys that particular product being promoted or, anything included in the affiliate program.

Pay-Per-Lead(or Cost-Per-Lead) : Viewed as behind-the-scenes stuff, this method only pays its associates when one made a visitor actually sign-up on or for that merchant's services or products or simply for that merchant's newsletters. After that, the merchant can use that "lead"(its information, usually name,e-mail,addresse) to send back newsletters, salesletters or whatever, or, even make up a list of leads and then, sell that list to some other merchant seeking for that. And the list of actions can continue here, but, the ideea is, you may already be on some merchant's list of leads, thus resulting in your bulk email folder being "spammed". So, if using this technique, avoid spamming your visitors.

Additionally, there are many other payment and affiliate administration plans, many derived from those above, like Pay-Per-Impressions, also called Pay-Per-View etc. Also, as stated above, many merchants "amplified" these methods, resulting in Two-Tier programs(the level structured kind, with affiliates of affiliates etc), similar to MLM kind of structures and, Residual-Programs, when an associate keeps receiving money whenever a visitor they earlier sent to a merchant's site keeps buying products/services from that merchant, thus, an associate getting back a percent of each of what that visitor bought.

Affiliate Networks

Affiliate networks, also known as "affiliate brokers" do the hard job(although automated) both for "associates" or for those who wish to become an associate and for the merchant site, on the other side. To sum up, affiliate networks actually act as mediators between the two parties : Merchant sites which seek exposure or sales and thus, offering an affiliation program and Affiliates(associates), usually people seeking just the right percent of the transation. Webmasters don't actually need to already have their own affiliate program, because that's what most Affiliate Networks do : Offer a "back-office" for merchant sites, from where, with easy steps, a webmaster can start an affiliation program, that will be hosted and promoted, under some Terms and Policies, on that Affiliate Network's directory.
Affiliate Networks are basically advertising networks, only that they don't advertise just for traffic or exposure of some members, but they assure exposure for their members' needs, in order to assure business success. This being provided, we don't actually know which derived from which..Affiliate Networks from Ad-Networks or vice-versa?!
But one thing we know for sure : One of the pioneers of affiliation(or even maybe the "firestarter") is Amazon.com, back in 1996, when founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, started developing this ideea as an internet marketing strategy. Their affiliate program still works today, while they would pay anyone displaying a little ad on his/her webpage(s), a percent of each sale of that particular book or whatever, being promoted on one's site. That's quite a good starting point for beginners, although the system hasn't got that flair anymore, as many affiliate networks made it up, the most visited and used being ClickBank, which most of you heard of. If not, go and see what's all about inside. Again, a great starting point, as some "premium" users make their living(or part of it) from promoting ClickBank members' products. Oh..forgot to mention : join for FREE.
As stated above, considerable features of affiliate networks are that : users wishing to be affiliates just have to do a search for material(products/service) they think they could best promote, there's no limit in how many products could one promote, merchants don't have to bother about sourcing and hard tracking their stats, affiliate networks offer aditional features such as tracking your orders,your affiliates,affiliate codes,landing pages,thankyou pages,affiliate-recruiting pages,number of hits and many other features. Merchants usually have to pay though, one-time fees to join and start selling. After that, the affiliate network also cuts a percent(usually up to 20%) of each sale a merchant makes. So if you try selling a $40 ebook for example, recruit a few affiliates..after an affiliate sells let's say one copy of the book(using his special code, that's linked to your merchant account), the network system first cuts the network's percent(20%), then the associate's percent(that's up to you, although nobody would promote for under 30%) and only after that, you get the remaining part of the sum. So, if we do the maths, with a network's 20% and an affiliate's 30%, that's 50%..What remains is your 50%(and that's the best you could get) of the deal.
You could try implementing different strategies, although the most respected is to give the affiliate a good slice, big marketers these days offering up to 70% or even go to extreme, just for the selling..but that's another behind-the-scenes sales technique that we'll later reveal, as those last marketers have greater wisely implemented material or services/links inside their ebooks or whatever they sell, offering them a greater return in the end.
To sum up, affiliate networks don't reffer just to those passionate about promoting or those professional merchants with great marketing techniques, but to WWW(WorldWideWeb). You should read their Terms first though, as many affiliate networks claim they don't promote illegal, adult or such other kind of material.

How to Promote

For obtaining best results both as a merchant, but mostly as a promoter(affiliate), you should well plan a number of ways of how to best promote your(their) products everywhere you go. First of all, stop thinking about this as a hobby or just a get rich scheme. It is none of them. Like most do with AdSense or other advertising networks, they see this more as an apportunity or hobby rather than a business..and believe it or not, IT IS A REAL BUSINESS in action, maybe even better that the average internet business.
After deciding if you really want to create yourself a stream of income and earn some good money or just lose your time, play around and make mom and dad pay the electricity bills, you should either consider the following advertising techniques or leave this blog(at least tell others about it if you do so).
This is the part when advertising and affiliation "colide"..or at least interract. You should consider following some of the well-known promotion techniques presented here, that we see and interact with everyday, but we never knew how effective those little tricks were until now.
To name it all-in-one, it is called linking(to the merchant's sales page of course), but several means of linking are available. Which one you'd best promote with, is a choice of yours, but we sugest you try them all, or at least those which you saw giving best results(this is why you need rigurously planing your affiliate BUSINESS step-by-step, day by day in your special, personal BUSINESS Schedule).

Text-Linking(or backlinks) : The most wide spread "technique"(if we may call it so), that survived until today, from the begining of the HyperTextMarkupLanguage(HTML). You can use text links by using a HTML hyperlink, simply stated as those "a href" structures(use a HTML tutorial by doing a web-search), by implementing such simple text structures(usually coloured in blue, that redirects you to another webpage) on your site(content is best), or on other sites, such as forums or even blogs. A neat technique of implementing such stuff on others' forums or blogs is that you might try finding business forums or business blogs(must be in your niche right?) and give them comments to their posts, including your link. But try not to look as advertising your stuff..nobody likes it and you'll risk being banned from there. Nowadays, when commenting on blogs, they offer you to input Your Name, WEBSITE, mail and then to comment, but thet'll automatically block any HTML structures in the body of your comment. But cry no more..look back and READ THE LAST SENTENCE again, please.
By requesting your website address, your name being displayed above the body of the post at the "posted by" statement will be highlited in blue, linking back to your site if clicked by anyone. Boom!! This way you're not just offered the chance that someone might just click on your name(although there are small chances), but you're offered another great thing, that helps tremendously in search engine ranking(Google, Yahoo etc.) : BACKLINKS from other sites, covering same niche, to your, or your merchant's site, but through your affiliate code. So you could just shoot 2 birds at the same time. Cool huh?!

Banner-Linking : What is there to say? We see banners everyday, all over the place, on every site, for promoting other's products or websites. Animated or just static, banner are a great visual way of advertising, although most visitors(including you) these days, get distracted by banners(not in the good way) and leave those sites or report them as spam-sites, if their banners are too big, too many or if you SPAM through pop-ups, pop-unders and other kind of framing for implementing banners. The best way is displaying a static banner with good design, not too large, somewhere at the top of your site,or, on one side on it. But if you do not own a site, no problem. You could display your banner or Text-Link, pointing to your affiliate "http" address, by joining an advertising network, such as Google AdWords(paid) or Autohits(earn credits by opening a separate page in your browser and start viewing other's pages or again, buy credits) a.o. .

ScreenSaver-Linking ; Although not as complicated as it may seem and not actual direct linking, scrensaver linking is not new to the market. Some marketers created automated screensavers that you can download(after creating your own account with them, to start advertisng too) and after installing it as a normal screensaver, each time your computer enters "pause state", instead of an image-driven or animated screensaver, on your screen will appear other members' websites. By automatically viewing their sites, you earn credits, thus providing you throotle to start displaying your site(affiliate or personal) on others' screensavers, that signed-up just like you.

Advertising Campaigns : The best resource to use if you want to drive quality traffic to your site or to your affiliate site. By signing-up with a good network, such as Google AdWords, you can not fail. You can expect low interest in your product if you just had bad lucks, but this rarely happens. You see Google ads being displayed on more than 85% of the entire WorldWideWeb, stated inside those borders named "Ads by Google". But that is an entire industry, with advertisers paying to display their ads(such as you in this position) and, publishers receiving money every time a visitor clicks on an ad placed in such a "Ads by Google" table placed on publishers' websites. As a publisher, how you choose to advertise is a very risky business, as you have to place a bid and attentively choose your KEYWORDS. For this process, we sugest you first learn the basics of advertising campaigns(especially on Google), get a keyword-suggestion software(best use Good Keywords) and first get a list of the best targetting, yet highest paying keywords and, only after that start your advertising campaign, that again, is not a kids play, it's REAL BUSINESS.

How do Affiliate Networks Know?

You may be asking "How do they know when a visitor clicks on my link? How do they know the visitor accesses my affiliate site? How do they know all of that??". Well, the visitor doesn't directly see the merchant site, but a landing page that's stored on the affiliate network server instead. Speaking for ClickBank for example, users obtain a URL like xxxxx.merchant_site.hop.clickbank.net , where xxxxx is your obtained personalized code, merchant_site is the registered member name for the specified merchant you applied for and the rest is the ClickBank affiliate redirection server.
When someone clicks on the link, banner or whatever pointing to that URL, the server machine records a hit to your database, thus telling them what affiliate sent a visitor to the merchant's site. Then, the visitor is redirected to the merchant's site, storing cookies on that user's machine, to always know if that visitor the affiliate sent to the merchant converted into a customer or was just a simple visitor. All depends on the terms specified between the merchant and the affiliate again, if the contract enclosed pays for hits, then that's all you need. If the merchant sells something, then hope your visitors convert into customers.
But hoping, wishing or dreaming of customers has nothing to do with real success. Of course..if you stay just waiting visitors to somehow convert into customers, it may work but most of the times it just doesn't. Try to understand the customer's thinking first..how would you think if you ended up on a sales page trying to feed you some book or whatever??
The truth is, there's more than just signing up as an affiliate, and even more than just displaying text-links or banners on your site. Why that? Simple : What if you own a site about animals and you suddenly display a link or banner pointing to a book about "space-shuttle engine repair"??? The point is, at the end of the day, CONTENT IS KING !! If you have a low rating site or even a well visited one about something and suddenly try to sell something that has nothing to do with it, you just blew everything up. So, never make different niches interract..THEY WON'T !!
Instead, if you don't have a site related to what you sell, limit yourself to doing a search about what your merchant sells and try the little techniques we talked about earlier, with the forum and blog "masked" posting.
But still, the best results, with less worries and pain about finding niches yourself, remains the targetted advertising, through specialized Ad Networks. Those networks automatically detect what you sell by semantically and lexically analizing your text-ad and only then, display it along others, only on related sites. So the conversion rate would increase tremendously from the beginning to the very end, as your ad(s) would be shown only to users interested for the material you are selling.

Whether you choose to sell as a merchant or wish to earn some good income from the online boom, you now know how affiliate programs work.

Big Marketers' Search Engine. Big Marketers' Blog. Think BIG