Selecting Supporting Products

Supporting Products

There are a vast range of companies out there who will pay you a commission for sending them customers - sometimes even for sending them a prospect or a visitor.

Although you can sign up with individual companies as an affiliate, it can be a time consuming business, you don't always know which are reliable or not - and you need to wait until each reaches its minimum cheque writing level before you see any money.

A better starting place is with one of the affiliate brokers or managers who manage programs for many vendors. The advantages to you (with the best systems) are:

• Detailed sign up only once - with the broker.
• Wide range of programs to choose from.
• Consolidated payments from all programs.
• Broker manages merchant credit-worthiness.
• Robust tracking methods.

So it's easier, less risky, and pays better - no brainer right?

The next problem is that the increase in affiliate programs has created a surge of affiliate managers - of which only a few are sufficiently large to be of interest.

Of those, the best place to start your investigation of supporting products is Commission Junction.

Currently the leading affiliate manager, Commission Junction boasts:

• Widest range of merchants.
• Pay per click, lead, & sale models.
• Sophisticated account management centre.
• Ability to promote single products in many programs.
• Wide range of linking methods for most programs.

When selecting the programs and products to promote on your site, you should consider (roughly in order of importance):

• Appropriateness - don't ever be tempted to include a program unless it fits very closely with your subject matter and/or your visitor profile.
• Lifetime Value - are you only getting paid for the first purchase made from your site, or does that customer "belong" to you forever? Some programs are 2-tier - where you can also earn commissions on the sales of people you introduce to the merchant.
• Price Points - consider including a balance of programs that are lower value (but may be low resistance and higher volume) and higher value (larger commissions but fewer sales).

Once you have selected your support products, build them into your site. You have many integration options - detailed in the next section ...