There are more affiliate programs these days than you can shake a stick at. So how do you choose what’s best for your site or blog post if you’re the owner of a blog? Equally important, how do you do it easily and know that it will provide you a good reliable service? There are of course a couple of things you need to decide on before you go hunting but fortunately, not too many. I’m also going to provide you access to a little known service that makes this pretty easy. I like easy, I’ll bet you do too!
– Is your preference to digital downloadable items or tangible?
– Is your site product specific? ie. A dog site or a gardening site etc.
Once you’ve got those two elements figures out, here is what you need to know when choosing some of the major sites –
Customer service is paramount. Easily said and then forgotten most often unfortunately. If people have a good experience with affiliate programs on your site they will be more likely to trust your recommendations in the future. Some affiliate programs have better customer service than others. Some produce higher margins and others, better quality merchandise. Few have all three but they exist. You have to look for them.
How do you do that when there are literally tens of thousands of affiliate programs to look into and choose from? *I’ll show you a good tool that helps in a sec.
Let’s go back to customer service. Another benefit of exceptional customer service is going to benefit you as well as the buyer. When there are issues, you know they will be dealt with quickly. On the other hand, I’ve experienced those who don’t even reply to your queries. Because of this threat, I suggest you make contact with the affiliate before you do anything else to ensure they really do have a customer service facility and they reply within 24 hours. Even that’s too long these days. Remember, the ball’s in your court. Why? Because there are lot’s of programs to choose from so there’s no reason to get stuck with a lemon. If they treat you like a number, drop them and leave a comment on a relevant forum so others won’t make the same mistake.
I’ve included an affiliate link to those I’ve had good experiences with –
Click Bank – Great if you’re just starting out. They specialize in digital products or in other words downloadable products. Over the many years I’ve used them, they have never made a mistake with my earnings. That’s pretty cool I think. I did have an issue once with customer service relating to a serial refunder. I tried to contact them four or five times and no-one replied. They also didn’t seem to have a ticket category to deal with this kind of issue. That said the serial refunder did disappear. In the earlier days their customer service was outstanding. They have more than ten thousand products to choose from and promote.
Commission Junction (CJ) – An extraordinary amount of products and services to choose from. It’s also a very sophisticated system. The only headaches are clients who still haven’t come to grips with the fact we are all working on the world wide web and some reject your application if you don’t reside in the same country. However, that’s only a few.
Another issue can be closed accounts which will result in invalid links. If they are resurrected, you then have to put the link in again. This can be a right pain in the rear end so select your program partners here carefully. They supply an array of banners and text links and the reporting is pretty good too.
Chitika – This is very different and operates a little like adsense except it’s usually text with images. It produces advertisements related to the content on the page and is usually very accurate.
You can also use it on pages that have Adsense on them if that’s your go. They have a premium product which is definitely worth using, even just to try out. It’s so sophisticated that it will remain suppressed when regular visitors arrive and only appear as a result of searched keywords. I like it better than Adsense because of its flexibility.
In a nutshell these are a few safe affiliate vehicles where you will find good, diverse products to promote. Don’t rush it. Take the time to get to know the programs and you won’t be sorry.
Good luck and good fortunes.
Ray Baker