Ristvin Marketing Blog

Finding an affiliate program to promote is much like finding a niche…  When you were finding a niche, you looked into the EPC on Commission Junction to see if various affiliate programs were profitable.

In my fly fishing example, I found that there were a few programs available through CJ, but they weren’t specific enough for me and didn’t pay out a commission more than 5%.  Since I rely on both SEO and PPC to get visitors to my affiliate niche sites, I decided that 5% commissions wouldn’t make it worth my time to market CJ programs.

I wanted an affiliate program or two that were specific to fly fishing so my starting point was to go to Google and find some.  I typed in “fly fishing affiliate” and did a search.

Here I found that there were a number of fly fishing affiliate programs.  122,000 to be exact.  Once you have found a number of affiliate programs, click on the pages and check out the various options you have and the quality of the products they offer.

I found that a number of programs offered 3-5% commissions.  Hardly enough to make the profits I wanted.  But there were also some that offered 7-12% commissions.  This is not a niche like internet marketing where you can often get 50-75% commissions on downloadable software.

You have to be fairly picky on choosing your affiliate programs.  On something like fly fishing, I want to see that the company offers a full range of products of high quality and a commission of 8% and up.  Once I find what looks like a good program, I sign-up.  This usually involves clicking on an “sign-up now” link and being lead to an application form.

You Just fill out the form and submit it.  Often you will receive an immediate acceptance email from the merchant, but I’ve found that the more reliable programs will check out your website URL and see if you’re a good fit.  So, make sure that you send them to the website their links will be seen on.

While doing my Google search, I came across a number of merchants that fit my website needs that all went through one affiliate program broker.  As you remember, my site is not just about fly fishing but a number of Colorado travel options including skiing, camping, etc.

The name of this company was Avantlink.  I applied to them and it took about three work days before they accepted me… a good sign of an honest company.   Searching through their merchant list, I found not only a number of fly fishing affiliates but also ski and boarding affiliates and a number of camping equipment suppliers.  I hit the jackpot.  (and I’d never heard of this company before)

The next step was to begin to apply to specific affiliate programs.  It’s not enough to be accepted by the broker, you have to pass the test with each affiliate company too.  They also want to make sure that your website is a good fit with the products that they are selling… some want to check out how much traffic you get to your site.

Needless to say, I passed the test on most that I applied for, but a few refused me.  I think that was because I’m a general Colorado travel site and not specific to skiing or fly fishing.  But it doesn’t matter because, believe me, I found plenty of affiliate programs that I was looking for.

Now it was time to get my links so that I could begin to send visitors to the merchandise they want to buy through me.  Affiliate merchants usually supply you with a few different types of links… text links, banner links, and custom links are the most common.

Text and banner links will send your visitors to the homepage of the affiliate merchant.  Sometimes, like when you’re using ClickBank, they send the visitor to the merchant’s sales page.  Sending visitors to the homepage can be good in some circumstances…

But I like to send them to a certain product page of a product category page depending on how the content of my pre-sell page is written.  If your pre-sell page is about a specific product, then you surely want to send your visitor strait to where they can buy that product.

This is where custom links come in… they send the visitor directly to the product page so that they don’t have to spend time on the merchant website searching for it.  If you send the visitor to the homepage, they will have to navigate to the right product page and in doing so, they most likely will loose interest and click away from the merchant site.

I want to send my visitors from my Ross Vexsis Fly Reel pre-sell page directly to the above page so that they can buy it.  I’ve pre-sold them on the benefits of the Ross reel and when they get to the merchant’s page, they can see all the specifications and other features.

To make the custom link to that page, I copy the URL of the product page:

Then I use it to make the custom link on the merchant affiliate program site.  I click on “Get HTML” which displays the custom link.  Copy that  HTML and paste into the pre-sell page at the appropriate place in the code.

Now, you’ve found how to find an appropriate affiliate program and how to make custom links to the specific affiliate product that you are promoting.  You don’t have to use custom links, but they do have a great advantage.  You can also use the generic text link to the merchant’s homepage or banners.

In the next post, I’ll look at the advantages and disadvantages of different affiliate programs and types of links, as well as how to cloak your links to protect your affiliate commissions…

See ya next post…

Related Blogs and Sites

• Here’s How To Pick The Best Affiliate Programs Online! | Free Article Directory
• Affiliate Programs Make Money
• Affiliate Programs are a Great Way to Make an Income Online | Business – Commercial – Trade
• Sell products online through Affiliate Marketing Plans and Commission Ritual – Sporty Fashion Blog
• Affiliate Marketing: How to Find Affiliate Programs in your Niche | Clickbank Fortune Blog
• Is The Acme People Search Affiliate Program’s Free Search Engine… | BFX Media
• Online Affiliate Programs – the Advertisers Find | Million Dollar Area
• What directory can I search for the best affiliate program?

Tags: affiliate, affiliate link, affiliate marketing, affiliate merchant, affiliate program

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