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Easy Money with Online Affiliate Programs -Dyanna Culp A virtual wealth of affiliate opportunities exist for enterprising webmasters looking to make some easy money. Forget eBay where you have to hold auctions, ship goods and collect from customers. With affiliate programs you don’t need a site shopping cart, sales phone lines, product inventory, postage stamps or startup financing. All you need is a website. Let others provide the shopping cart, phone lines, products and services. Place the links on your site and as consumers travel, from your website to the affiliate merchants, you start collecting payments for the purchased products and services. What Type of Products and Services Do Affiliate Programs Offer? If you want to sell it on your site, then it’s available. The following is only a hint of the options you can choose from: art, auto accessories, books, clothing and jewelry, computers, flowers, healthcare, home decorating and improvement, magazine subscriptions, office supplies, software, sports equipment from beach boards to snowboards, stereos, videos, web hosting… How Many Affiliate Programs Can You Sign Up With? As many as you’d like, but some programs do have restrictions. For instance some office supply stores do not allow affiliates to participate in more than one office supply affiliate program. With the almost unlimited choices it is easy to get carried away. Try to stick with merchants that offer products and services that fit well with your web site audience. You don’t want to become a site that offers nothing but a list of shopping links, because people will quickly surf away and the search engines will hate you. Develop your site content first, and then select appropriate merchant affiliate programs. How Reputable Are Affiliate Programs? Some very well knew names participate in affiliate programs including Art.com, Dell computers, Drugstore.com, The NY Times, Office Depot, and Nordstrom department stores. These programs have existed online for many years and the list of participating merchants keeps growing. How Much Does It Cost and How Does It Work? Sign up usually cost nothing, not a penny, except for the cost of your time in determining which programs you want to participate in. Before applying make your site website is ready for scrutiny. Don’t apply if you’re still under construction. Once accepted as an affiliate you insert merchant html link codes on your site. Each affiliate is provided with a unique html tracking code from each merchant. Let’s say someone clicks on your Dell affiliate link. Their address bar will say dell.com/…. With your code id in the address bar. Dell knows that this specific web surfer came from your site. If a computer is purchased online a payment then gets posted to your account. When Do You Get Paid? Affiliate payment options vary depending upon the merchant. Typically you receive either a percentage of the actual sale or a flat fee per sale. Most programs pay out when your account reaches a minimum payment threshold, not on a regular monthly basis. Payment threshold minimums vary with some paying when they owe you $25, some at $100. Beware of those programs that sound too good to be true. Occasionally some websites go out of business, which means you don’t get paid. Stick with reputable well established merchants. Where Do You Sign Up? There are a multitude of online affiliate programs, literally thousands. Almost all of the serious players require you to go through an approval process. They may evaluate your website’s appearance, audience target and web traffic. After being accepted by a multi-merchant program, you’ll be able to sign up immediately with some merchants while others may require a second more stringent approval process. Unless you have nothing better to do with your time, use a large program that offers multiple merchant options all in one place. A few of the best are described below.
AFFILIATE PROGRAM OPTIONS Amazon is no longer just books. http://associates.amazon.com/exec/panama/associates/join/faq.html Earn up to 15% commission on books, electronics, toys, games and much more. Barnes and Noble www.barnesandnoble.com Pays up to 7% commission on every product including books, videos and DVDs.
Commission Junction
www.cj.com/publishers/home.jsp Manages affiliate programs for hundreds
of merchants such as MSN, Expedia, and international clients like Euro
Rail. They consolidate your affiliate commission payments into one check. Life Long Learning Educational Programs www.edu-partner.com Offers 50% sales commission on all online educational programs and certificates. Linkshare www.linkshare.com the largest and one of the oldest, affiliate marketing networks on the Internet. After acceptance into Linkshare, some merchants may embrace you while others turn you away based on your site traffic or appearance. Payment plans vary widely depending on the merchant, but Linkshare simplifies matters by processing all of your payments (even if you are affiliates with a hundred or more merchants) and sending out the checks. They also have a tremendous set of management and tracking tools. You can see at a glance what you’re owed and by whom for any day, week or month. Linkshare offers so many merchant options that you could literally spend days making selections and each merchant offers a variety of banner and text links for affiliate use. Most of the merchant categories are well arranged, but some are mind boggling. Before you can actually view the multiple categories listed below, your site must be “approved” for membership. Linkshare Merchant Categories: Auto: Sell auto accessories, set up rentals or sell cars – used and new- online. Payments range from 1-10% for sites such as autoaccessory.com and speed gear racing clothes. BUT if you help sell a new or used car online you get a flat $3-$10 payment. Does this make sense? Business and Career: Some misleading categories exist such as B to B which is actually full of companies like AT&T, wines and gift baskets. The Employment category has no employment sites and real estate has sheets and blinds! Clothing and Accessories: Babies, children, men and women… from the likes of Forzieri.com Italian designer leathers, International Male, Baby Style and Bare Necessities. Computers and Electronics: Your Profit percentage may seem chintzy, but these are high price items, Dell 1%, Fujuitsu gives 2% on their laptops, Camera world 5%, and Office Max offers 4-10% depending on the product type. Department Stores: Merchants such as Brooks Brothers, Cold Water Creek, Target, Marshall Fields and Nordstrom all paying 5-7%. Entertainment: Snow and surf boards, books, videos, toys and games. Not all options are PG merchants, but the generally wholesome group includes Disney, Gospel Direct, and Sony. Family: Clothing, books, videos, toys and games AND PETS are stuck here—with no actual pet related companies. Financial Services: Get paid for sending people to sign up for American Express cards, AT&T, or H&R Block services. Most merchants in this category are flat fee payments for actual sign ups, not sales percentages. Food and Drink: Fines wines, Omaha steaks, imported chocolates and cigars, gift baskets and the famous catalog “Harry and David” gourmet food gifts. Games and Toys: I suppose computers qualify as educational toys- Dell dishes out 1%, Disney store 5%, The Snoopy Store 10%-- not many “true” games and toys to choose from. Gifts and Flowers: 10% commissions from the likes of 1-800-flowers.com and art.com, 8% at Dutch gardens and on wines / champagne sales. Health and Beauty: Everything from online pharmacies such as drugstore.com to LaParumerie.com for designer cosmetics and perfumes. Hobbies and Collectibles: Art, Auctions and Collectibles. Home and Living: Home Improvement, bed and bath, kitchens and gardens. Internet and Online: Web design, web hosting, eCommerce etc. Miscellaneous: Transdermal smoking patches, wheel chairs and many items which actually do belong in a real category such as the candies and software. Office Equipment and Supplies: Office Depot and Office Max are the big players in this category. Sports and Fitness: Up to 30 % sales percentage payments from some merchants. Everything from boating supplies to snowboards. Telecommunications: Equipment, Long distance and Wireless. That means local and long distance phone service, phone cards, cell phones, and hand held PCs. Travel: Some nice choices in this category include airline, car, hotel reservations and gift certificates for over 1000 national spas.
Pharmacy Affiliate Programs: They sell real prescription drugs, legally, and you do not need to have any medical affiliation to be accepted as a merchant affiliate.
Web
Sponsors
www.websponsors.com/affiliates.htm pays each time If your website receives substantial traffic, and you select relevant affiliate programs, you can make some easy money. These affiliate programs come with no monetary cost and the potential of great gain. But in the beginning they do require a substantial time outlay to carefully explore and select from the many options available. Choose selectively and wisely. Consider the value of the products and services to your site users, not just the sales percentages offered to you. Make certain your affiliate choices “fit” with your overall site message. To be successful you must generate traffic to your website, but of course that is always an ongoing task for every webmaster. The importance of good site design, interesting content, and Internet marketing campaigns are paramount to your success with both surfers and search engines. If you succeed in these areas, then you will succeed in an affiliate program.
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