Your First Steps Trying to Make Money with Affiliate Programs
If you’re trying to make money with affiliate programs, you need to find the highest paying ones, to be sure. That isn’t as straightforward a deal though as you might imagine. When you look at a directory of top paying affiliate programs, it does seem pretty obvious which ones might be the best.
You just have to go with the ones that sell the most expensive stuff or the ones that give you the highest percentage, right? Well, that would be a good start. But there is plenty more that you need to look at.
What are the best commissions for you
For instance, should you go with something that pays you a 75% commission once, or should you go with something that pays you 15% but then gets you renewal rights? What’s that, you ask?
Well, consider how popular web hosting affiliate marketing niches are , or how popular dating website affiliate programs are. These aren’t high-priced products. The best part is, that they will often pay you a commission every time a customer renews his web hosting plan or dating subscription plan.
It’s a gift that keeps on giving and it can certainly end up paying far more than even the highest commission rate on the highest priced goods that pay only once.
Signing up for affiliate programs
But even if you’re not signing up for an affiliate online marketing course for something that involves repeated renewals, you could still get something of the same effect Let’s say that you’ve signed your website up for an affiliate program selling antivirus software.
A customer buys a copy, you get paid your commission; about three months later, he decides that he likes the software and that he’ll buy another copy for his laptop as well. Now the only reason he’s buying the product a second time from the same place is that you referred him there in the first place.
Shouldn’t you get paid for this second sale too? With amazon affiliate marketing program, you will. They place a tracking cookie on the customer’s computer that kicks in when the same customer makes a second purchase.
But not every affiliate program has a proper tracking cookie scheme. Sometimes, those cookies only live for one month. You probably need to look for a program that has a lifetime cookie.
If you want to make money with affiliate programs
You need to pick a product that doesn’t really cost the company anything to make. Software, services like background checks, magazine subscriptions – they don’t cost anything for the company to crank out a few more of. Once they have a magazine all prepared on their computer, printing an extra thousand copies is practically free to them.
These are the products that they can afford to pay you a great 50% or 75% on. Sign up for an affiliate program that sells some kind of valuable thing. Selling computers or cell phones for instance. And you’ll find that your affiliate commissions are typically on the low side. It actually costs a lot of money to manufacture those things and they work on thin profit margins.
And finally, if you’re only starting out trying to make money with affiliate marketing. You should probably check out a cost-per-action program. This is where you don’t have to wait until you make an actual sale to get paid. Merely referring a customer to the product website and having him do something. For example like putting his e-mail address in gets you paid.
