Affiliate Programs

If you've got a small online business that could afford to make a few more sales, starting your own online affiliate program can be an easy and effective source of income.

An affiliate program is basically a referral service, and affiliates act as lead generators.

Affiliates promote other people's products on their websites and get a commission for every sale they're responsible for.

This is a very easy business to get started in because it requires nothing more than setting up a website. People keen to get started on their own Internet businesses often learn the ropes by joining other businesses' online affiliate programs.

So why not get them to join yours! You get free advertising, free publicity, and tons of motivated people driving traffic your way — and you only pay those people when you make a sale!

Tips on starting an affiliate program

Here are three helpful tips on starting an affiliate program:

1. Pay a generous commission
   

   The most successful online affilate programs pay a generous commission. At IMC, for example, we pay over 60% of our net profit as a commission. We do this because:

   • Those sales would NOT have happened without the affiliates' efforts
     
     
   • The higher commission you offer, the more affiliates you'll attract... and the more effort they'll put into making a sale!
     
     
2. Provide all the tools and help the people in your affiliate program need

   Hey, you never know which one of your beginner affiliates will turn out to be your sales leader. So give them ALL the opportunity to succeed.

   By this I mean that you need to provide them with good salescopy, graphics and images, banner ads, and anything else they could use to make more sales. Check out other sites with online affiliate programs, see what they do, and model your program after the successful ones.

3. Use a quality affiliate-tracking system

   Whether you use a subscription service or a stand-alone piece of software, you need something to track your referrals. The best ones will keep track of your affiliates and their earnings, and even import into software that allows you to print cheques.

   Remember, the great thing about online affiliate programs is that they save you time and energy, not add to your workload.

Our online archive of free newsletters has a section devoted exclusively to online affiliate programs, and one of our most popular issues was entirely devoted to our insider tips on starting an affiliate program. For more information, no matter whether you want to join an affiliate program or start an affiliate program, feel free to take a look!