Affiliate Marketing Tips

MoreVisibility - January 28, 2008

Affiliate Marketing has been a hot topic recently and with much good reason. Although it has been around for years, many companies have just started to learn how effective affiliate marketing can be. But what does it take to create an effective Affiliate Marketing Program?

Here are a few tips that will help you make the most of your program:

1) Recruit the Right Affiliates
Recruiting affiliates is the most important part of affiliate marketing. The affiliates are the ones who actually sell your products or promote your services. Choosing the right affiliate is like hiring the right employees. You want to choose sites that will represent your product with a positive image and generate quality leads. The easiest way to find affiliates is to join an affiliate network, but there are many other ways to find them. Posting in online forums, listing in affiliate directories, and directly contacting websites that relate to your product or service can also be very effective.

2) Choose the Right Banner
Choosing the right banner to use will greatly affect your click through rate and the success of your campaign. Graphically rich banners might seem like a good choice, but these tend not perform as well as the simpler ones. The main reason is download time. If a banner is the last thing to load on your page, by the time it has loaded your visitor may already have scrolled down the page and missed the ad completely. If you use a banner, the recommended size would no more than 15kb if possible. A great alternative to the banner is a plain text ad. A short descriptive with a call to action can go a very long way.

3) Determine the Proper Pay Scheme
Setting up the pay scheme for your affiliate campaign can be done a few different ways. PPC (pay-per-click) is the traditional method where a specific amount is paid for each visit. PPL (pay-per-lead) is where registration or sign-ups are rewarded. PPS (pay-per-sale) is when a specific commission per sale is paid. Pay per sale is often the preferred method, because it ensures that you generate revenue before paying a commission. However, any of these systems can be effective depending on your business needs.

Successful affiliate marketing programs take a lot of patience and dedication. An effective program is one that is managed on a daily basis. With time and persistence, or the right team working for you, you can achieve new levels of success with your online business.