Online Business Adviser

The Forum For Online Business Success

As I covered in my last post, affiliate marketing can be a difficult area of online marketing to navigate for someone just getting started in online business. So I thought I would talk more about two programs that I think could work well with pretty much any model, and how you go about finding more to suit your business.

eBay Partner Network

I’ve mentioned eBay’s partner network before, as I believe it is one of the most widely applicable available. Considering that eBay offers such a breadth of products and categories, it is difficult to think of a site that it would seem out of place on.

Virtually every version of eBay will have a partner program (with the exception of Hong Kong and Singapore whose programs were recently closed), and you have the option of applying to join one or all of them. US and UK approval can take a while to come through, but when they do you have access to Geo-targeted ads and links that will link through to the appropriate site depending on where your visitor comes from.

Each program’s terms and conditions of payment are different – some will pay you a flat rate for each new user you attract and some will pay you a percentage depending on how many you bring in. One constant though is that once the user signs up they must purchase something within a certain time frame. To learn more about eBay’s Partner Network, click here.

Amazon Associates

Similarly to eBay, Amazon’s breath of product offering makes it a perfect companion to many sites. You have the option of linking to one specific product (which Amazon now offers as a pop up on your screen when hovering over the link), or a range of products through advertising units and widgets or Amazon’s aStore, which effectively gives you a bookstore on your site powered by Amazon.

Depending on the total amount of sales you generate for Amazon, you will receive a percentage which increases once your sales reach certain thresholds. Click here to find out more.

Commission Junction

Naturally, not all affiliate programs will fit with every business. If you were to Google “affiliate program” followed by your online business niche, chances are you will find a mountain of programs that will fit it.

My recommendation in this case is to spend some time at Commission Junction, which is the global leader in affiliate marketing programs. Here you will find a raft of advertisers, some of the world’s biggest brands in fact, who have affiliate programs – travel, consumer electronics, entertainment, retail and many more. The reason I recommend using a service like Commission Junction is simple – reputation.

Commission Junction’s clients are big name brands with reputation to uphold, so you know that you won’t get stuck with a dodgy program, which will also reflect positively on your business when your customers visit your site.

Clickbank

If you are looking for digital products (non-physical) to affiliate market, I’d recommend taking a look at Clickbank. They look after affiliate programs for over 10,000 vendors across a range of categories. A word of caution though on this one – read all terms and conditions carefully. While most are reputable, we are certainly not talking about brands as well known as those on Commission Junction.

I hope these tips will help you in identifying the best affiliate marketing programs to suit your site. It may be a case of none of them being right, in which case don’t try to force the fit, but it can be a good supplemental income stream if done right.

I will cover more on affiliate marketing as it comes up, but next time I will be covering capturing users information and direct marketing to them.

Related posts:

1. Using Affiliate Marketing with Your Business
2. Avoiding the Get Rich Quick Schemes of the Internet
3. Highlights from the Affili@SYD Conference
4. Managing Your Online Business Reputation
5. My Issue With “Internet Marketers” and 6 People You Should Pay Attention To

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Programs, Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction, eBay

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 6:26 am and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Amazon, Content, eBay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.