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Tips On How To Pick An Affiliate Program

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but can you pick your friend's affiliate program. HUH? It did catch your interest though didn't it? Anyway on to the topic. I wanted to give you some insight into how I go about picking an affiliate program to join and market and to get your comments and feedback on your process for the same, if any.

Have you used the product or service of the affiliate program?

I have found that many of my most successful affiliate campaigns are for products or services which I have used. I have had successful campaigns for ones I have not used but these are generally lead based programs and not per sale/commission based.

I find that my landing pages pretty much always get better results for things I have used. I can market from personal experience. The PPC ads usually get better CTR rates as I can highlight features better. My keywords are usually more targeted and get much higher CTR as well. You don't have to have always used the product or service but It certainly does help.

Is there already buzz?

Taking advantage of buzz surrounding a product is a great way to maximize your earnings with a particular campaign. I don't choose all of my affiliate campaigns with regards to this but I do pick some simply as a result of buzz. I wrote an article on this quite a while back: Boca Java, Rush Limbaugh And Affiliate Marketing, take a look at it to get some more insight into this aspect of choosing a program.

This is a great way to reduce the necessary ad expenditures and still get a very high return. With a buzz already being generated the number of searches is higher. You can then use highly targeted keywords and still get significant amount of views and a high CTR.

Does the affiliate program pay a high enough percentage?

I don't waste my time on programs that pay under 10% unless there is a very very significant buzz surrounding the product. I don't like spending thousands for a campaign if I'm not going to get a high return from the program. I really try and find ones that pay 15% or 20%. This increases your earnings-per-click and your overall ROI.

Does the affiliate program have a performance incentive?

Many times newer programs or ones that are having a promotion will add a performance incentive to the program. I am running a campaign now that has an incentive of $500 for only 7 sales in a month. This would be a commission total of close to $900 dollars on just seven sales. That is a good return. I wrote about this a bit more in depth last week. You can read the article Bank Of The Internet - Another Reason I Love Affiliate Marketing if you would like.

These 4 things are not the only criteria I use but they do play a big part in how I choose a program for a campaign. I hope that these have been a help. How do you pick an affiliate program for a campaign? What kind of returns do you look for?

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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