Internet Marketing for Small Business

Think of Affiliate Programs as providing your business with a web-based sales team. Businesses with successful affiliate programs have hundreds, or even thousands, of other businesses promoting their products and services on the Internet. Affiliate programs are easy to set-up, proven to work, and best of all…cost-effective. With the exception of some set-up fees, you only spend money if you make money. Are you interested? I thought so, let me explain how they work.

There are two parties involved in any Affiliate program, the Publisher, and the Advertiser. Advertisers are usually businesses that sell a product or service and want to increase traffic and sales on their website. Publishers are businesses that are willing to promote Advertisers products and services in exchange for commissions earned on website traffic and revenue they generate for the Advertiser. Think of Publishers as a commission-based sales team that only gets paid if they sell your products and/or services.

For the remainder of this article I am going to discuss ways to make an Affiliate Program work for your business from the Advertiser’s perspective. (How to successfully have other websites promoting your business to generate you more traffic and revenue)

To start, you need to set up a commission structure that works for both you and your publishers to have a successful Affiliate Program. Once you have established a commission that makes sense, you need to create banner and text links that other websites can use to promote you business. The most complicated part of Affiliate Programs is tracking where traffic and sales are coming from. If you have numerous affiliates, you need to be able to pinpoint who is sending you traffic and who needs to get paid. Luckily, there are several companies dedicated to providing these services so you can concentrate on your core business and let them worry about the technology.

Commission Junction (cj.com) provides the largest affiliate network on the web. They have thousands of Publishers supporting more than 550 Advertisers. They provide the tracking, reporting, and payment services for Advertisers. They will also promote your program to potential Publishers in their network. As they are the largest, they charge a premium for their services ($3,000 set-up fee to begin). Don't get too put off by the price because there are several other companies that provide similar services and they charge significantly less. I chose to highlight Commission Junction because the are the largest and most established. In fact several companies do not charge a set-up fee and you only pay once you have sold something from an affiliate website. I have provided a list of companies at the end of this article that provide Affiliate Program services.

The best tip I can give if you decide to pursue an Affiliate Program for your website is to spend time promoting the program on your own. You should create a page on your website dedicated to the program and submit that page to each major Search Engine and Directory. There are also several sites dedicated to just listing Affiliate Programs. You should submit your program to as many of these as you can. Finally, determine what types of websites cater to your target market and contact them directly to sign-up for your program.

Affiliate Program Service Providers:
Commission Junction (cj.com)
ClixGalore (http://www.clixgalore.com
LinkShare (http://www.linkshare.com
Affiliate Network (http://www.affiliatenetwork.com)