subject: How To Choose The Best Affiliate Program [print this page] Before you decide which is the best affiliate program, ask questions first. It is important to understand how your affiliate program works and how it can benefit you.
1.Does it cost to join? Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. Therefore you may want to think twice about those that charge you money before joining.
2.How often do they issue the commission checks? Some programs issue their checks once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. Many affiliate programs set a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed to have their checks to be issued.
3.What is the hit per sale ratio? This measures the effectiveness of the sales page. This is the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This factor is critical because it tells you how much traffic you must generate before you can earn a commission from the sale.
4.How are referrals from an affiliates site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system? You need to be able credit for a sale when the customer returns to buy. Find out if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.
5.What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? Your choice of affiliate program should be capable of offering detailed stats. Your individual stats are important because it allows you to know how many impressions, hits and sales are generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor of your site. A hit is the one clicking on the banner or text links.
6.Does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions? It is important that impressions and hits are also paid, as this will add to the earnings you get from the sales commission. This is important if the program you are in offers low sales to be able to hit ratio.
7.Who is the online retailer? Find out whom you are doing business with to know if it is really a solid company. The more you know about the retailer offering you the affiliate program, the easier it will be for you to know if that program is really for you and your site.
8.Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program? A single tier program pays you for the business you have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, and also a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor.
9.Lastly, what is the amount of commission paid? 5% - 20% is the commission paid by most programs. .01% - .05% is the amount paid for each hit. As you can see from the figures, you will now understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is important.
Answering these questions will give you a good idea how effective the affiliate program can be. With these tips, you would be able to choose a best affiliate programs among so many out there.
