You’ve decided to start a home based business online and now you’re trying to decide which type of affiliate marketing program to join. There are three different types of affiliate marketing plans available on the web today: pay per click, pay per lead and pay per sale.
Pay per click programs pay off each time a potential customer clicks on an ad an affiliate has posted on their website. Pay per lead plans compensate members each time an affiliate website visitor performs a particular task such as filling out a registration form or by providing their name and email address.
The affiliate program we’ll be examining in this editorial is the most common of the three, the pay per sale plan. According to webopedia this is “a type of affiliate marketing program where the advertiser pays the affiliate based on conversion of sales. If a customer follows an affiliate link to the advertiser’s site and makes a purchase in accordance with the affiliate agreement, the affiliate is paid. Affiliates can earn a higher commission through pay-per-sale affiliate programs; however these types of programs usually have the lowest conversion rate.”
If after looking at each of these programs you decide to base your home business on a pay per sale affiliate plan here are some of the characteristics you should look for in each merchant’s pay per sale program before you decide to join.
1. Can you join the pay per sale program for free? Some of these affiliate plans require you to buy the product or service before becoming a member. Try to find a way you can join free of charge or find a plan that allows you to sign up at no cost.
2. What payment method does the program offer? Do they offer a variety of reimbursement plans such as paypal, clickbank and personal check or is there just one payment method? Also how often are you paid? Are you compensated on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis?
3. Make sure the program’s product or service is related to the overall theme of your website. For example if your premise is Internet marketing, you wouldn’t want to join a program whose product is jewelry. You need to find merchandise that reflects your Internet marketing topic such as a software package which drives targeted traffic to your website.
4. Be sure to contact other members of the affiliate program to see how things are going? Have they had any problems with the administrators of the plan? For example, are payments always for the correct amount and always on time? Have there been any disputes over who gets credit for a sale? These questions and any others that come to mind should be answered before signing on the dotted line.
5. A very important aspect of any affiliate program or online business for that matter is the possibility of repeat sales and up selling your current customers. Insure that the pay per sale plan offers backend products so the opportunity exists for these types of follow ups.
6. Many of the most successful and well established affiliate programs provide their members with the marketing materials necessary to attract new customers. Most merchants give their members access to banner ads, text advertisements, sales letters, links and so on. Find out before you join if these materials are provided.
7. Finally and perhaps most importantly what is their commission rate on sales and do they provide a full proof method for tracking your sales? Most of the higher rated programs offer payment rates of 50% and up on each sale. As far as tracking sales is concerned cookie tracking is the most popular method of tracking affiliate sales.
Cookies are small text files that are written to a user’s browser whenever an affiliate’s link is clicked. The referral gets stored in the cookie and is recognized on the order page and the affiliate is credited for the sale. Using this method affiliates are reimbursed for the immediate purchase as well as the purchase made later but within a specific time period. Direct url tracking may be the riskiest method for tracking affiliate sales because the member’s identification number is always visible in the website address thus leaving it open for fraud.
These are seven very important points to consider as an online home based business owner before registering for any pay per sale affiliate program, and as you can see research is essential before committing to any merchant’s plan.