Affiliate Tips

Selling other people's products or services as an affiliate can be very lucrative if you go about it right. It does take some time to get started, just as any other online business.

Three great advantages to affiliate marketing, are that you don't have to purchase or stock the products, you are not in charge of processing payment and you do not have to handle customer service.

To be in affiliate sales for the long term, you need your own website, and possibly several websites. Depending on how you plan to operate as an affiliate, your websites can be very small- even one page, or they can be large. Most affiliate marketers have both.

Some affiliate marketers rely on PPC advertising and drive customers to their small site where they are redirected to the vendor's site. It is important not to send customers directly from an ad to the vendor's site. When you do this, you have no control, no opportunity to develop repeat customers, and no opportunity to build trust and your own customer base. Without a website of your own, of some kind, you are running a business with one time customers and you are paying all the advertising costs and building a larger customer base for the vendor.

Building one to three page websites where you have an opportunity to offer the customer a bonus if they sign up for a newsletter, or offer them an upsell, or use some means to retain that customer for future business is one option.

Building theme sites that offer and recommend a number of products in keeping with the topic of the website is another option. These are usually larger sites, and built to last, where the smaller sites may come and go. Most successful affiliate marketers use both.

Some things to consider:

1. Choose quality products. To gain trust, and retain customers, you need to represent quality products.

2. check out the vendor yourself. If part of the purchase or service is customer service, see just how reliable and courteous they are. This is your business. How your customers are handled will rub off on you. Make sure the experience is good.

3. How will the vendor pay you? There are percentages, flat fees, and recurring commissions. A combination of these can be good. How long are the cookies once you have sent a customer to the vendor?  If they don't buy today, but come back in two weeks will you still get a commission? Look at the whole payment structure. At what dollar level will you get paid? These are important things to know.

There are a number of good books on affiliate marketing. You can read a review of a very good book on affiliate marketing written by someone who actually makes a sizable income online as an affiliate. It is a large book and filled with information. Although the Super Affiliate Handbook is a classic, it was recently updated to keep pace with the ever changing environment created by the internet. Learn from the best.

Reviews of Ebooks and Software | The Super Affiliate Handbook Review | Affiliate Programs