How do you evaluate an affiliate program?  Are there criteria that they need to match? Here are a few things that I look for when I choose an affiliate program.  What are the terms (and how does that effect your promotion) – for example, are there PPC rules in place or other rules that prohibit bidding [...]

Everyone knows about CJ, Linkshare, Clickbank, and Google (previously Performics), but there are more and more smaller affiliate programs popping up.   Here’s the least you should know.  As an advertiser, the fees are typically less than the big 3.  There are usually less publishers, you won’t find any fortune 500 companies, and many of [...]

This post could also be titled “which is better, chocolate, vanilla, or Neapolitan?” I’ve found a lot of people looking for a true answer to the question of which is better natural search or ppc for affiliate marketing. I think the answer lies in the model that you take. Here’s some food for thought. For [...]

Do you have a list where you can collect emails? Do you send out monthly newsletters? If not, you’re missing a big opportunity.  Email lists can remind people to return to your site, as well as help you to upsell new products to an already satisfied customer.  Just think about it this way – if [...]

There seems to be two prevailing theories among affiliate marketers about how to promote affiliate products.  It’s interesting that the SUPER AFFILIATES who sell books online promote the hard sell.  That is, get the customer as close to buying mode as possible and throw the product in front of them, when they already know what they [...]

Many website think that they need or want to use adsense and affiliate links / products hand in hand. It does sound logical – why not get paid for both clicks and sales at the same time?  But before you jump to any conclusions, don’t forget that only the most expensive clicks earn more than [...]

The ads always sound great on paper.  ”Follow these five steps and earn $$$$’s a day!” “Make $1,000 in just ten minutes a day!” “Earn $$$$’s on your Blog”But how do you really make money with your online website, blog, or just dive into affiliate marketing?   There are many variations on these basic models for [...]

Today I was wading through a list of new publishers for an advertiser’s program that I oversee, and I was amused to find that someone wrote that their site incentive was – and I quote –  ”I give you kiss if I make sale.” Someone else preceded to enlighten me that Travelocity and Office Max [...]

Wading through the various affiliate programs can be complicated enough, but choosing an affiliate company to work with is sometimes even more complicated.  The determining factor can be as simple as which company has the affiliate program that you want to use for your website, or could be determined by payment terms and schedule (Amazon, [...]

I open up my inbox occasionally and read the emails from CJ.com that say something like so-and-so advertiser is no longer in the program or has deleted you from their program and I immediately hit the delete button. After all, I didn’t really want to promote that guy anyway, never really managed to make that [...]