Which Affiliate Programs Should You Choose?

Before you join an affiliate program, you should ask a few questions and do some research about the programs you plan to join. The answers to your questions will determine whether you join the program and how successful you’ll with the program.

You want to know if it costs anything to join, although this is unlikely since most affiliate programs offered today are absolutely free. So why join a program that charges you?

How regularly do they issue commission checks? Every program is different with some paying once a month, every quarter, and so on, so you should select the one that is best suited to your needs. Many affiliate programs set a minimum earning level an affiliate must reach or exceed before their payment is issued.

You should ask for the hit per sale ratio. This is the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This statistic is very important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you’ll likely earn a commission from a sale.

How are referrals from an affiliate’s site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system? You must be confident in the program to track the people you refer from your site. This is the only way you can get credit for your sales. The length of time these people stay in the system is also important because some visitors won’t buy immediately, but may return later to make the purchase. It’s important that you know if you’ll still get credit for the sale if it happens within a certain period of time.

What type of affiliate stats available to you? Any affiliate program you join should offer detailed stats that are available online anytime you want to check them out. Checking your statistics regularly is important so you’ll know how many impressions, hits and sales are being generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor to your site and a hit is someone clicking on the banner or text links.

Does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions in addition to sales commissions? If impressions and hits are also paid, this could substantially add to your earnings. This is especially important if the program you’re promoting has a low sales to hit ratio.

Who is the online retailer? Find out who you’re doing business so you can determine if it’s a solid company. Get to know the products because the more you know about the retailers offerings, the easier it will be for you to gauge whether their program is a good fit for you and your site.

Is the affiliate program one or two? A single tier program pays you only for the business you generated yourself. A two tier program pays you for sales, plus it also pays you a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor into the program. Some two-tier programs are also pay a small fee for every new affiliate you sponsor as a recruitment fee.

Finally, what’s the amount of commission paid? 5% - 20% is the commission paid by many programs and $0.01 - $0.05 is paid for each hit. If you find a program that also pays for impressions, the amount is usually very low.

These are some of the questions you need to have answered before you enter into an affiliate program. You should familiarize yourself with the important aspects of your the program you choose before you incorporate them into your website.

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