Affiliate Program

Being an affiliate is an easy way to make money. You guide customers to the products or services they want, the merchant provides the products or services, and you simply collect the commissions.

It is extremely easy to become an affiliate. There are several large Affiliate Program Providers (APPs). Affiliate Program Providers serve as go-betweens for companies and affiliates. For you as an affiliate, these Affiliate Program Providers Provide a valuable service. They collect payment from the merchant and consolidate affiliate reporting and payments.

An Affiliate Program Provider brings companies and affiliates together to form partnerships. A partnership works like this: the affiliate places links to the merchant on their website, newsletter, emails, or Pay Per Click ads such as Google AdWords. When a potential customer clicks through the link they are sent to a specified page of the merchant's site. When they complete the action desired desired by the merchant (fill out a form, buy something, etc.) the affiliate is compensated. The Affiliate Program Provider facilitates all aspects of partner ship and tracks all elements of the transaction.

Joining an Affiliate Program Provider is totally free and there are no personal purchase requirements. You just fill out a form. In some cases, applying affiliates must wait a few days for approval, but usually acceptance is automatic.

Step by Step Examples of How to start a Profitable Affiliate Program

Step #1: Getting Started

First, get organized. Create a folder on your computer to save files for your Campaigns. In your Campaign's folder you should create subfolders for each new campaign, as you start it. Place and organize your files, text documents, etc. in each of the folders.
Select an email address for your Affiliate Program correspondence. You can use the email address you received from your ISP, or you can setup an email address with one of the free services, specially for your affiliate correspondence. However, if you chose a Hotmail or Yahoo email account, please be aware that they limit the number of files you can save online and will begin deleting messages once that limit has been reached.
Decide how you want to handle commissions. Do you want to receive them via check, direct deposit or both? Decide which bank account you are going to use. You should setup a new account with your bank, just for this purpose.
The most popular Affiliate Program Providers are : Clickbank, Comission Junction (CJ), Link Share, Be Free and Performics. I use Clickbank and Commission Junction the most. The process for joining an Affiliate Program Providers is similar for all. For my examples I will describe the steps for joining Click bank and CJ.
Clickbank is unique among the Affiliate Program Providers as they only deal with digital, downloadable products and services, such as information products. There are some 10,000 Clickbank merchants and 100,000 Clickbank affiliates worldwide. Many affiliates earn hefty commission checks each month. Clickbank Affiliates can freely link to any seller and be assured they will be paid for every sale that they generate. Sellers can freely accept new affiliates without fear of fraud or misrepresentation. Clickbank pays Affiliates twice a month. An Clickbank account is free and very simple to open.

Click here to sign up now
    Fill in the fields with your contact information. Provide an address where you would like to receive your checks. For the "address of your website", leave it blank if you do not yet have a website. Select a username. Click on the "submit" button which will bring up a confirmation page showing your username and password.

    Now you are a member of Clickbank and can promote any of their clients' products. More on this to come...
Now let's sign up for Commission Junction (CJ)
    CJ is the largest Affiliate Program Provider and manages the network, tracking and reporting on their activity in real time. CJ also process monthly commission payments. The CJ network is, in effect, a third party that connects you with thousands of advertisers and then pays your commission checks. This means that you can become affiliated with eBay and other merchants within their network and receive a link to their site with your Affiliate ID in it, When someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase you receive a commission. CJ has a terrific history of on-time payments and receives great feedback from affiliates.
Sign up at: https://signup.cj.com/member/publisherSignUp.do
Signing up is free and quick, just fill out the form.
    For the web site or newsletter name field, if you have a website, enter the name here and URL in the next field. Otherwise, just enter a newsletter name. It can be anything. For example, you could enter something like: The Web's Top 10 Stores on the Internet. You get the idea.
    Note: If you don't have a website URL, you can register one for only $6.95 a year at www.godaddy.com. I use Godaddy for all of my URLs. Once you have registered a URL, you can log in and forward it to your affiliate link for example.
    Then, in the field asking if your web site offers incentives to visitors or donates a portion of proceeds to charity, etc. click on the "NO" radio button. Leave the description field blank.
    Next fill in your contact information.
    Now decide whether you are going to receive your commission via check or via direct deposit. If you chose direct deposit enter your banking information.
    When you finish filling out the form click on "Accept Terms".
    That's it! You'll receive an email from CJ with your password. Once you have received it go to www.cj.com and log in. Your login is your email address. Use the password they emailed you. Cruise around the site, visit CJ Online (CJ's help section) and get to know CJ's interface.
    I primarily use Clickbank and CJ. They are the largest and in my opinion the best Affiliate Program Provides. Start with Clickbank and CJ and later you can also enroll with Linkshare, Performics, and BeFree. The signup process is similar for all.

Step #2 How to find and choose lucrative Affiliate Programs

There are thousands of affiliate programs to choose from. Below I will give you five methods to find lucrative affiliate programs to join. But first, I want to list some things to consider when trying to distinguish an excellent program from an average one.

Look for affiliate programs that have a high pay rate for each sale. It takes the same amount of effort to market a program with small commissions as it does to market one with large commissions. The higher the commission, the less traffic you will need to meet your revenue goals. Suppose, for example, you are promoting satellite dish sales and would like to earn $1,000 a month. One company may pay you $25 per sale and another $50 per sale. For the first company you will have to make 40 sales to reach your goal. With the second you will only need to make 20 sales.
Look for affiliate programs that offer unique products in a hot market.
Lifetime Commissions. Some affiliate programs give you commissions on every product that is sold to the customer, forever.
See how often they send checks. Some affiliate programs send checks every two weeks (like Clickbank) while others, like Amazon, send checks quarterly.
You can increase your revenue potential with two-tier programs. This means that you can create an extra stream of income without doing anything for the life of the program. Two-tier programs reward you for referring other affiliates to the merchant as well as for customers. Every time you refer another affiliate, and they join, they become a sub affiliate under you. You receive a percentage of their commissions. The sub affiliate still receives full commission. It is the Merchant that pays the extra.

Step #3 Join Affiliate Programs and get the link

You registered with the top Affiliate program Providers in Step #1.

In Step #2 you identified lucrative affiliate programs and chose the one you consider the best.

Now sign up with that program. Follow the link to their "Affiliate Program page and follow the instructions. If the company has its own Affiliate Program, just follow the instructions and join. Once you have registered and have a username and password log in. Look for something like: "Get Links". This will take you to a page where you can copy the link to their website with your Affiliate ID embedded in it. Simply highlight the link, copy and paste your link into a text file. Save your text file.

If the Merchant does not have their own Affiliate Program and instead uses one of top Affiliate Program Providers like Clickbank or CJ they will have links on their site for you to Login or Join. If you've already join, simply login. Otherwise, join now and then login. Once you have logged in, the steps are the same as above. For example, in CJ, go to the "Get Links" area for that particular merchant. Copy and paste the URL link to a text document. That is the link that has your affiliate ID in it.

Step #4 Find a easy and clever way to promote the products or services

More than 200 million times a day people use Google and its partner sites to find what they are looking for.

With Google AdWords you create your own ads. You choose keywords which tell Google where to show your ads. You only pay when someone clicks on them. You have total control over every aspect of your campaign. Real-time online reporting tells you what's working. You can put limits on daily spending. Changes are free and instant.