Affiliate
Marketing 101
Affiliate programs are a tool for enhancing the quality
of your marketing without paying anything up front. A good
affiliate program can increase your business 10-25%, and you
only have to pay based on sales, if an affiliate doesn't bring
in the bacon, they don't get paid. An affiliate program works
by tracking links from your affiliates' site and recording
what sales came from their traffic. You then give a portion
of these sales back to the affiliate, and everybody benefits.
The system works solely on pay for performance.
The great thing about affiliate marketing is that the link
itself is what tracks customers, so your affiliates can put
their link wherever they want, in an email newsletter, on
their homepage, even on google ads. And because you aren't
spending any of your money or time on this advertising, its
all free until it starts working. Commission is important
for this, because it determines what sort of affiliates you
are going to get. A commission of 10-20% is normal, but your
commission greatly depends on what you are selling, and how
much it costs. If you have a physical product, obviously you
have a certain level of overhead you have to make back, and
if you have a digital product, you need to make a certain
amount off of every sale to stay in business. If your products
are cheap, a higher percentage is a good choice, and if your
products are expensive, a lower percentage will still reap
these advertisers a decent payment. So go with what works,
and if you're having trouble gaining or retaining advertisers,
up your rate.
Recruiting new affiliates and keeping your best ones is
essential to keeping your affiliate program going. You can
use affiliate networks for your marketing, and you can contact
sites that are in your same field, to see if they are interested
in hosting your ads. Don't forget to stay in touch with your
affiliates and advise them on the best advertising methods
you can come up with. Keeping in touch with your affiliates
and making sure they are happy is essential to retention.
Using a recruitment based two tier affiliate program is
another way to grow your affiliate network, and it provides
your current affiliates incentive to recruit well qualified
advertisers. By giving them a portion of each successful sale,
you can easily grow your affiliates without doing anything
yourself. You should be careful what affiliate program you
eventually choose to handle your traffic, because you need
an all in one solution that will require as little of your
time as possible. You should also be sure it has fraud protection,
because fraudulent orders are a major problem with affiliate
programs. You should also ensure that your advertisers aren't
including ads for your products in emails that qualify as
spam, as you could be liable for any violations of the law.
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affiliate tracking software
What
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