Affiliate Company Checklist

Choosing an affiliate company?

15 questions that I like to get answers to before I join a program:

Is the company reputable?

Is there an affiliate agreement? What are the conditions of the agreement?

Under what conditions can the agreement be terminated?

Is there a fee for joining or set-up?

Does the program require exclusivity?

Does the site 'leak'?

Do you get paid-per-sale, per-click or per-lead?

Do you get credit for recurring sales?

Lifetime commissions?

Is the tracking real-time?

Does the company use cookies? How long are they set for?

Do they use third party auditing & billing, i.e. iBill or CCBill?

How will you get paid? Cash? Credit? Food Stamps?

How often will you get paid?

Is there a minimum payout amount? How much is it?

Formula for building successful affiliate sites:

It's comprised of 8 steps.

1. Choose a niche in which you are very interested.

2. Confirm the existence of a target market for that niche.

3. Find relevant products with affiliate programs (don't sign up for them just yet!).

4. Register a relevant domain name.

5. Build the site and write endorsements for those products you plan to promote.

6. Sign up for the affiliate programs.

7. Promote, promote, promote.

8. Follow Steps #1 through #7 again.

These are extracts from an interview by AchieveNetProfits.com's Jason Anderson with Rosalind Gardner. Click here to read the full interview.

2 tier affiliate programs

Many marketers recommend the 2-tier approach because you also earn on the sales of the people on your 2nd tier. Here's my list of recommended 2-tier affiliate programs.

Watch out for these when you're selecting an affiliate program

"The things that turn me off (says Chuck McCullough in this interview) are:

* No contact information on the site (other than a generic email address)
* Long payment periods (such as quarterly payments)
* High minimum payment thresholds (another way to make you wait for your check)
* Low commissions (come on, you can't tell me that a digital product is costing you so much to produce that you can only afford to pay 10%!)
* Poorly designed site with weak sales information and poor navigation (if I can't find my way through the site, or am not convinced to pull out my wallet, my customers won't either)."