• 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 on a term you were planning to bid.
• Is the payout big enough to cover advertising costs? 
• What’s the company’s reputation, if the product can be purchased multiple places.  For example: would you rather recommend Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Nobles.  My money is on Amazon, but that’s just my choice. 
• Does the affiliate program support deep linking – sometimes you can ask for this. I almost always create my own “landing pages” or other pages, and I want to control where people land. 
• What’s the competition. Sometimes a “lower producing” affiliate means less people to fight for to sell, sometimes it means you’re not going to make a single $ either. 

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 the affiliates are “mom and pop shop” products.  You’ll also find clickbank type networks that sell software.  I personally am always skeptical of putting a large amount of my budget or energy in any of these programs, although I’ve occasionally found a gem or two. I’ve also gotten burned.  Remember that there tend to be less affiliates in these programs, so you could find a diamond hidden in the rough. But, there’s no guarantee that any product is going to sell, so if the quality of the product isn’t there,  you could also lose your shirt. 

• kolimbo.com
• shareasale.com

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 those of you who haven’t learned to recognize a mega-affiliate site when you see it yet – upromise.com is a huge affiliate site. Good for this company. So is fatwallet.com, and cybermonday.com. In fact, Wachovia recently invited me to join their special “shopping site” to earn extra rewards points. Guess what – it was an affiliate site. These sites are all making big – and I mean have more than 2-3 employees – type money. This shouldn’t be a surprise to you considering that even the New York Times has some kind of adsense type advertising on its front page.

My point is that these sites aren’t squeeze pages running ppc. These are mega sites getting mega traffic to one location, much of which is through advertisement and natural search. Ok, ok, so, maybe the people who run these sites have big huge degrees from big huge schools. I recently remember reading that one of the Harry Potter fan sites was making a boat load of cash for the high school kids that started it when the first book came out. There’s definitely an argument for a mega site that ranks well naturally to make good money.

So, why even go the ppc route. Well, lets examine the natural search route. 1st you need a big site on something popular. Then, you need to maintain it. I once created this movie website, and it was great, and got a nice little niche stream of traffic, except that no one clicked on anything or bought anything. So much for natural search….

Ok, on to the pros and cons of PPC. On the one hand, you can control your traffic stream and quality. Say you want to offer a ps3 rental program. You can rank for “rent ps3 games” – you don’t need to worry about the people showing up at your site looking for “ps2 games” or “ps3 cheats” or any of that stuff that sometimes happens when you leave your fate up to natural search. Second, you can only pay for traffic during peak shopping hours, and you can set your price. These two things allow you to bring in as little or as much traffic as you can farm via keywords that match your specified parameters. No need to worry about your site being a member of the “video game of the month” web ring to get extra links. The down side, though is that you need to do some testing and some fine tuning to get the payment right. Here the traffic doesn’t wander in for free, so you’ll need to make sure that for every 10 cent click that you buy, you can convert 1 in 10 if you earn $1.00 per lead.

Personally, I like to mix PPC with natural search. I find that natural search gets better with age (ie – as a site gets older, it attracts more traffic, while I only have to periodically check on it), while PPC programs need constant monitoring to make sure that i’m still making a profit. However, since I make a bigger profit through my PPC campaigns, I think it’s important not to turn a blind eye.

Let me know what you think? PPC or Natural Search??

Remember that if you add an email list to your website, you’ll need to comply with CAN-SPAM. That means no selling of people’s emails, and no sending to people who don’t “opt-in” or agree to participate, and allow them to opt out. But, for pennies an email, you can get your own email management program that will help you take care of many of the CAN-SPAM compliance issues.

However, I found a second school of thought that amuses me that’s the soft sell.  Basically speaking it says that you should build an informative website about something, and feature product reviews and information and drive traffic there, without selling anything.  If you like video games, talk about your favorite games that you rent weekly at blockbuster (and religiously rent a game every week and review it), etc.

 Now the interesting thing about the soft sell is that requires a lot of time to build, and it’s return on investment certainly does not come overnight, nor does it immediately start raining $100 bills, but it can create a little niche income.  The real catch here is that you have to have fun building your site, and enjoy the time you spend putting it together, otherwise, it’s not believable and doesn’t draw traffic.

But before you jump to any conclusions, don’t forget that only the most expensive clicks earn more than 50 cents or a dollar or two a click.  Your clickbank or CJ product might sell with a $25 commission.  Lets do the math.  

If your adsense conversion rate is 1 in 10, and you make an optimistic $1 a click, that means that out of every 100 visitors, you’ll $10.   If your product converts at a rate of 1:100, and your commission is $25, you’ll make $25.  Would you rather have $10 or $25? 

Ok, raise your hand if you want $35. You want to earn $10 for the clicks, and the $25 for the product.  That would work great, if everyone got paid for suggesting a product.  BUT, remember that affiliate marketing requires a click, and a cookie (and you have to be the LAST cookie).  

if your website has adsense, and your shopper has noticed that you are showing an adsense ad for the same exact product somewhere else, they may be temped to comparison shop, or at least click away from your site.  No click / no cookie for you. 

So, then, the question becomes, do you use adsense at all on an affiliate site?  Well, sure. You can use it on informational pages, if you aren’t pushing for a hard sale.  You can use adsense on content pages where you’re pretty sure no one is in a buying mood.  And you can use adsense on website ideas where you don’t have a great selection of product to sell.  (the downside with this is that usually if you don’t have a great selection of affiliate products, you also won’t get great adsense ads.). You can also use adsense on informational websites where you aren’t making a hard sell at all. See my post on soft selling.

1.  Pay-per-click marketing – you buy or bid keywords and drive traffic to a vendors site. Think of this as gambling or buying stocks. You’re hedging your bets that you can buy clicks cheap and earn big commission on sales. 
2. Natural websites / blogs – you build a website and sell or recommend products.  In this case, you’re basically a magazine full of advertisements, product reviews and recommendations. Get a big reader base, and you’ll have your own little cash cow.
3. Coupon Sites, Incentive Sites, Comparison Shopping – Cut to the chase and build a site that pre-sells product.  Here, you might list all the coupons available for internet web hosting, or compare prices for people shopping for a product. Catch consumers in “buy” mode and hook them in to your favorite affiliate’s website. 

In all cases, you can choose to fill your new blog or website with pay-per-action or pay-per-click links.  This simply means, do you want to make money every time someone clicks, or everytime someone buys something. Very few Pay Per click (PPC) networks still exist, but the biggest is Google Adsense, followed by Yahoo’s network. In a nutshell, you put adsense code on your website, and when someone clicks, you get paid anywhere from a few cents to a dollar.   The other option is to join an Affiliate network that pays per action, per lead, or per sale. In this instance, you get paid every time someone fills out a form or buys a product. Pay per action, which is known as affiliate marketing, has taken popularity, over PPC networks like Adsense, because of things like click fraud and simple return on investment.  In general, pay per action is better fit for both advertisers and publishers, because while PPC may only pay 10 cents a click on some clicks, pay per action sales may pay anywhere between 1%-50% or more commission on a sale.   To be continued…. 

• Your full name and business name. If this is going to be a serious business venture, treat it seriously. At first glance, a company name looks a bit more like something that’s going to earn some revenue than “wallysmith” 
• A valid email address, preferably one that would look good at the top of a resume.
• The urls you use or own. If you don’t own a website yet, buy one for your new company, and think of it as real estate. Even if you’re just interested in running PPC campaigns, create a small website that says that you’re a PPC business. (see other articles for more info on creating websites)
• Any offer or incentive that you are passing on to the consumer. This only applies to loyalty or coupon sites. Are you donating a portion of the purchase commissions to charity? Are you giving the consumer cash back? Does your frequent buyer get a free ipod with $10,000 worth of purchases. You get the idea. Otherwise, don’t put silly things in the box. Incentive offers get double flags for advertisers, so when reviewing, I have to click ok twice. An affiliate manager on his 25th new publisher might get annoyed and click cancel or decline by accident. 
• Use correct grammar and punctuation. Remember that people reviewing these are from the 9-5 business world. They’re looking for some level of professionalism. 
• How you are going to promote the product. Depending on the affiliate network or program, this is either in a drop down form, or in a paragraph style form.  If you don’t have any ideas of how to promote your new advertiser, don’t apply yet – you’ll risk getting kicked out for being inactive. For those of you who are a bit confused, here’s the breakdown of promotion methods
  • Content / Website – You own a website, you’re going to put banner ads or articles about products on it. 
  • Email Marketing – You’re going to create a list of people and send them emails about products
  • Paid Search (Search Marketing) – You’re going to advertise on Google / Yahoo / MSN and then link back to their site or a landing page that then links to their site. 
  • Incentive – You’re going to give them something to buy products.

Insider TIP: Ever wonder why you were declined from an advertiser? Don’t hesitate to ask. You might be a perfect fit, but were missed because the advertiser didn’t understand how you were going to promote their product. Maybe your DVD site didn’t make sense for a women’s clothing store on the application, or your country of origin is outside of their shipping range. A quick email may be all it takes to get back on board. 

•  Commission Junction -  www.cj.com  Perhaps best known for it’s CJU Santa Barbara seminar / networking bash, Commission Junction (aka CJ) is one of the larger affiliate networks. Their interface is easy to use, and their CJ performer status gives you an account manager and some other perks. Pays monthly but does have a minimum payout requirement. CJ’s advertiser side has a full assortment of managed and unmanaged programs that attract top and mid tier businesses and brands. 
• Linkshare -  www.linkshare.com Competing with CJ for the big fish spot is Link Share, who has it’s own yearly networking summit. They pay out every two weeks, and do not have a minimum requirement. Their interface is not as slick as CJ’s, and link tracking can get complicated. However, once again, this is a larger affiliate network with managed solutions for businesses, so it attracts larger and mid sized programs and brands. 
• Performics -  www.Performics.com In case you haven’t read the Google / DoubleClick merger notes closely enough, Performics is a property of DoubleClick. Their interface makes linkshare’s look like a walk in the park, and, while it also attracts larger businesses, just isn’t quite as polished as the two other guys. Payouts are monthly, though, so if it works for you, they’re still a reputable company. 
• Azoogle -  www.Azoogleads.com  Here’s the deal. Azoogle gives you your own affiliate manager to use as a sounding board, and you can choose from a list of programs. The interface is pretty easy, maybe as easy as CJ. A lot of the ads are promo based, and I noticed that some of the same advertisers  are running on either CJ or linkshare, so you may want to compare commissions and creatives.  
  
• ClickBank -  www.clickbank.com I’m not quite sure how to describe click bank, other than I love to hate them. In order to activate your account, you must have sales on 5 different credit cards with 5 different names and addresses, or they won’t pay your commissions. They’re mostly a small business software / online book network, but many affiliates swear by them. I’ll post more about the ins and outs of ClickBank.
• Share-a-Sale  www.Shareasale.com Until recently, I wouldn’t have listed this site at all, but I found one really cool product on there that changed my mind. You’ll find small to middle sized advertisers, so it’s great if you’re looking for unique products to promote. 

There are a lot of other Affiliate networks out there. Kowabunga! Technologies and NeverBlue ads are just two that I have bookmarked for future reference. TIP: Not all businesses go through affiliate networks, because these programs can charge flat fees or an additional percentage per action for management and recruitment fees.  Check your favorite websites to see if they run their own affiliate program.

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 program work, or don’t remember why I signed up in the first place.

But what happens when the advertiser on that “no longer with CJ” list is your bread and butter? Or, what if your favorite advertiser changes his terms.  Sorry Charlie, those terms that are converting well for you are suddenly off-limits. Now what?

So, my new years resolution is to consider my affiliate business to be more like my stock portfolio. I would never pour all of my money into one single stock.  But yet, I found it all too easy to grow my favorite advertiser until it was a nice chunk of income, forgetting that I needed to look for new leads.

This is my recommended strategy for growth. Start with at least 2 solid advertisers on one affiliate network.  Then, try a new network, and see if you can grow a third and forth. Then, try a new network, or move back to affiliate network #1.  TIP: Remember that affiliate managers often make decisions about accepting new affiliates based on things like earnings, so if you’re only earning a few dollars with one affiliate network, it may make sense for you to work on getting more earnings per network before branching out too far.