|
|
THE AFFILIATE
MARKETING PRIMER
|
3 - HOW TO FIND AFFILIATE
PROGRAMS:
Before we get into the range of affiliate directories, there are...
AFFILIATE COMPANY WEBSITES:
Affiliate programs are usually
publicized on affiliate companies' websites... Look for a link to one of
the synonyms listed in "What's
Affiliate Marketing All About?".
(Be aware that a link to "Partnerships" is more often related to
a site's advertisers rather than its affiliate program.)
You might have
in mind some specific companies or types of companies whose offerings
could fit in with your website or the other advertising you envision. It's definitely worth going to individual sites to see what the affiliate
programs you come up with are like.
Some companies, however, choose for
whatever reason not to announce their affiliate programs in this way.
Unless you contact the company in question (which might not be a bad idea
- at
least it would give someone at the company the feedback that you might be
interested in such), to know whether they had one or not, you would need
to turn to one of two kinds of affiliate program directories to find
out...
|
| AFFILIATE COMPANY CLEARINGHOUSES:
The first type of affiliate directory is that of an affiliate
program clearinghouse (the 3rd-party vendor sometimes called an "affiliate network")
that actually administers the programs for affiliate companies. An
affiliate
company can pay this middleman a fee to handle the tracking, sign-up, and
payments for each referral/sale and affiliate.
Most of these
clearinghouses offer visitors to their site a view of their
"stable" of affiliate companies. Some, frustratingly, force you
to sign up with them (at no obligation) before you can see their list of
companies.
You can find these clearinghouses by doing a web search on
terms like "affiliates", "associate programs", and the
like [and see the list below]. It's very instructive to search through one or
more of these databases of company listings... You may be amazed to
discover how many types of companies might fit in with your website (or
whatever). And if you are intrigued by a company, it will open up
possibilities in your imagination for how to intrigue others...
AFFILIATE PROGRAM
CLEARINGHOUSES (3rd-PARTY VENDORS):
(*
= of particular interest)
("affiliate commissions" =
they pay to refer merchants and/or affiliates to the clearinghouse)
[updated 3/2006]
|
AFFILIATE PROGRAM DIRECTORIES:
The other type of register is an affiliate directory set up by someone who has done research on various companies and
offers the results on a website (or in a book) for the benefit of anyone
who wishes to peruse it. To be honest, a benefit may also accrue to the
author of this information, because s/he may have signed up as an
affiliate for many of the companies on the list - and is more than
willing to have you sign up as a sub-affiliate under her or him, where
that applies.
Most of
these affiliate directories list indiscriminately a whole raft of programs to choose
from, often with many in the same category. Some give
annotations to each program (which in some cases are simply advertisements from
the companies themselves) and sometimes rank them according to a (not
necessarily obvious) set of criteria.
In a huge, indiscriminate directory, you can hope for
guidance amongst the programs from a rating system... Unfortunately, the
visitor-rated ones aren't very actively used by program participants, and
editor-rated ones tend to focus only on webmarketing. Directories that
contain many, or only, editor-recommended programs, though, can offer more
value... especially if they contain programs that may be of interest
across the board.
Aside from the occasional warning
about a company's lackadaisical treatment of their affiliates or poor
customer service, the main virtue of any directory, in my mind, is to find
out about companies that might fit in with your plans... You'll then
evaluate the website and affiliate program yourself, according to your own
criteria.
AFFILIATE PROGRAM
DIRECTORIES:
(*
= of particular interest)
|
Also, the primer section "Top Affiliate
Marketing Tools" is for the most part a directory of
affiliate programs, some of which may interest you in terms of your own
promotions. However, that aspect of the list is incidental to the usefulness of
the tools themselves, to either, or both, merchants and their affiliate
partners. No doubt there are many more good programs that you might bump into in other ways
- but I've included here what I consider to be the best, to my knowledge, of their genres,
and only those I've researched (most of which I've used) and feel good about.
(And
I won't recommend a program here that I wouldn't advocate to my closest
friends - assuming they had an appropriate interest!)
SOME CAUTIONS ABOUT THE
SEARCH:
Many affiliate program directory editors
and affiliate gurus will particularly recommend their favorite programs...
which will usually mean, they'd like you to sign up for the programs that
will bring them the most money thereby! (i.e., they'll highlight
multiple-tier programs with high-ticket sales potential). But remember
two things... Your job is to find the programs that are best suited
to your business niche; and sometimes "little"
programs - even those of only passing interest - might also complement your efforts to make "real money"
with those that are proven top-producers for others. Work creatively
with little programs, and you might make them big.
Especially considering that many programs
still promoted widely are rather "over-worked" in this now more
mature web environment of jillions of sites, it's important to do your
homework... You don't want to unwittingly come off as a mere
copycat. Choose those programs that
will be the best affiliate programs for you! - and your
clientele.
If you concentrate on filling the needs of
your unique website users, you'll be far more likely to succeed at
webmarketing in the long-term than any site developer who relies on a guru
to tell him how to do what he did! (What he did was
unique, if he's successful - and if he's very successful, he's
probably sewn up the market for that subject offered in that way, so what
would you be doing creating a copy? Think about it... Always
look for ways to provide a new angle, or provide for a new
niche.)
As far as your income expectations go, only
you can say what success will be for you - making enough to live a little
more comfortably or to retire wealthy on are vastly different goals!
The route you select might also depend on how much of yourself you're
willing to invest in this webmarketing effort. But whatever your
path, real success probably comes down to this:
Find your niche, and fill it wisely.
I'm sure there are some good affiliate programs that you can incorporate
into that recipe.
SEARCH
THIS SITE OR THE WEB:
|
|
|
