Small businesses have a love - hate relationship with the Internet. If you are a small business owner you know that done correctly, small local companies can create a nationwide presence you could not otherwise afford. Done incorrectly your small business Internet marketing strategy is just more overhead. While some small business owners are in technical fields, most are not. Regardless of whether you can create and maintain your own site or you must hire professionals, there are costs involved. So where does a small company get money to fund their Internet marketing strategy? Affiliates can be the answer.
Affiliates are companies who sell their products on the Internet who pay other web site owners who are willing to entice their audience to travel to the affiliate’s site. Not to be confused with pay-for-click advertising, affiliates only pay when a transaction is complete whether it is a purchase or a download. You must put your link on your website using the icons or code you are given in order for your account number to be properly credited. Payment differs from one affiliate to the next. Some affiliates will pay if a purchase is made only after navigating from your site and others will pay for one to three days after the navigation. Some pay for product purchases other pay when someone downloads their application.
For your affiliate program to be successful there are some keys to consider.
Ø Choose affiliates who have products that your customers or audience might be interested in that do not compete with you. After all, you do not want YOUR customers buying from someone else.
Ø Know how you will be paid. Some companies pay only through an online payment servicer like Pay Pal while others send automatic drafts to your account. Almost all programs require that you earn a minimum dollar amount before payment will be made.
Ø Pay attention to item price, percentages, and volume when choosing between affiliates. If you get three percent of the total purchase from a high volume low price online store you may make more than if you get forty percent of a high price low volume site with similar products.
Ø Choose affiliates with supporting not competing products. For example, it doesn’t make sense to affiliate with three office supply stores. Your users are likely to buy from only one. Choose one and then choose another affiliate with supporting products.
Ø Consider costs, some download programs require that you purchase a license to offer the downloads to your customers for free. In return, they pay you for each download. You have to have enough traffic to make the cost of the license a good investment.
Ø Choose three to four affiliates to start then try out the programs. Replace those that do not meet your expectations. Remember you can always switch to new affiliates if any of the programs are not living up to your hopes. Here are a few affiliates that work for almost any site.
