Hello,

I started a new business and want to support sales with an affiliate program.
I purchased the software and they are setting it up.
Now, I have no idea about affiliate programs and how they work.
All I know is people will use my banners in their websites.
I am selling rugs online and ready to pay commision per sale but what to do next?

I searched but all I see is websites trying to fool people that they can earn hundreds if they buy their reports and books about affiliate programs

Where will I find people interested in my program?
Is it matter if they have poor web sites, I will pay per sale?
What is the common percentage for per sale commision?

Shortly, what to do next?

Thanks for your interest.

__________________
::Flash cartoon and illustration portfolio:: l ::Natural Wool Rugs::

Unfortunately it's true that there are many sites offering hundreds of pages of information on how to easily make hundreds from affiliate programs. I'm not sure if all the content in these ebooks really is a fraud, but let me share my view as an affiliate of many programs. I learnt my experience not really from all these ebooks, maybe only one or two, but they do have some good essence to use although the remaining few hundred pages are kind of useless.

Affiliate programs operate on different commission structures. The simplest structure would be simply to offer a percentage commission for every sale made. More complex structures would be two-level or multi-level, where there would be commission overides earned by the affiliate for the sales made by sub-affiliates referred by this affiliate.

Frankly, if your website is able to get sufficient sales traffic you probably don't even need to have an affiliate program. The purpose of having an affiliate program is to accelerate your sales effort by getting others to market your products for you. In the present times when spam is so rampant, I'm not even sure now whether banner ads would have their intended effectiveness.

That's why as an affiliate, I rather promote the product with real content rather than using a banner ad. That's how I got sales for my principals as well. I optimize my site for search engines, and let the search engines help me do my promotion for me.

I will share with you what I look out for as an affiliate, and it's up to you to work out your strategy on what to do next.

As an affiliate, I look for programs that offer commission no less than 20% per sale. I look for products that are perceived to have sales potential. If it matches my theme, I will then sign up for acceptance to be an affiliate. I will also check if the principal site is ranked well in the search engines although it would not have affected my selection much.

I'm also cautious about joining affiliation programs that don't pay their affiliates, so I tend to join those with a bigger backing like Commission Junction, Kowabunga, RegNow, ShareIT, and so on.

Where do you look for affiliates like us? Chances are we are looking for you but can't find you. In my search for good programs to join, I search the search engines, checked out forums and so forth. So if you offer appears in any of these channels, someone may get interested.

The safest bet is to pay per sale. If you want to ensure your affiliate site is of a certain quality, you can consider setting some internal considerations like "must have at least 10,000 visitors a month", or "site must be selling a relevant theme, and not just a directory listing".

Other ways you can use to optimize you sales is to optimize your site for every page, submit them to search engines and let them do the promoting for you. I do it as an affiliate, you can do it as the principal also.

__________________
David
Discover Value 4U

Thanks David,
Detailed and helpful answer. I may have few more questions after I read more.
Best,

__________________
::Flash cartoon and illustration portfolio:: l ::Natural Wool Rugs::

kalvinhobs,

2 Points I wanna make.

First the whole banner ads thing, though as dv4u stated has lost some of it's effectiveness, can still serve it's purpose. That's why you see major companies like eBay still advertising with banners in affiliate programs like commission junction. Why? It's simple. Name recognition.... These sites often pay top dollar for thousands of banner impresions on high traffic sites just to keep their name in the public eye. An affiliate program that has a banners option can be beneficial to you in that it allows you to have thousands of ad impressions on your affiliates sites without having to ever pay them unless they help you make a sale.

Secondly, as for where to find affiliates, there are tons of affiliate review sites and affiliate program information sites to submit your program too. Also most webmaster related forums have a section for discussing affiliate programs. Posting in those (without spamming) and gently letting people know about your program will help you gain affiliates as well.

I know it seems a bit funny... You start an affiliate program to help advertise your product and find yourself having to advertise your affiliate program to get affiliates .

__________________
[ What's YOUR PageRank? ] :google:
SkinGmail.com - New Gmail Skinning (For Sale $250 PM me)
[Sims 2 University] [GMC ENVOY FORUMS]
[George Boone] - Latest: Find That Niche [1]

Thanks Qwest,

I was just thinking about what you stated at the end of your message, it is really funny.I was hoping to get rid of marketing and advertising part of the site but it seems not so easy

I will check affiliate program submitting sites and of course webmaster related forums but I just don't want to lose my way.I see lots of affiliate review sites, most of them were useless.If anyone can name some serious websites, I will appreciate it.

Thanks again for your interest.

Best,

__________________
::Flash cartoon and illustration portfolio:: l ::Natural Wool Rugs::