Power of Affiliate Programs
BySuccessful business can’t be done without partnerships and cooperation. On the Internet you can have a perfect partnership model – using affiliate programs.
What are affiliate programs?
Affiliate programs, which are also known as associate, partnership or referral programs are type of business that includes two parties: a seller and partners or affiliates. In order to have better sales and reach more customers many sellers start an affiliate program to sell their products and services.
Here is how it works. For example, if company A sells software and company B joins in their affiliate program to promote company A software they will earn commission for every new customer or prospect they bring to company A web site. Every affiliate has an unique ID so this way seller can track sales made by each affiliate and to pay them for that.
Affiliate program types
There are two main types of affiliate programs: affiliate programs which are based on cost-per-acquisition model (CPA) and affiliate programs which are based on cost-per-click model (CPC). Of course, much better solution for sellers (and in most cases for affiliates, too) is CPA model. In this case, seller is interested to have as much affiliates as possible, because this way they can’t loose – they pay only for new clients. Commission depends on products and services in affiliate program and can be from 5% to even 40%.
CPC affiliate program type means that the seller will pay a fixed price for every click that is made on their affiliates’ web sites. Usually click price is in the range from $0.10 - $1.0. This is more risky for companies because they will have to pay even if their affiliates don’t generate new sales and with this model it is always a risk of possible fraud clicks.
Affiliate programs are most widely used in selling books, software and web services. Some of the most successful businesses on the Internet are built on partnerships like Amazon.com and Google with their AdSense program.
Affiliate programs are great for webmasters, too. Very few web site owners can completely sell their ad inventories and with affiliate programs they can fill their unused ad inventory.
Start your own affiliate program
You can start selling your products thru affiliate programs with using specialized services like ClickBank, LinkShare and ShareASale or having a custom affiliate program script built for your needs.
Having an affiliate program you won’t be limited to selling only on your web site. You will have 24×7 salespersons with the help of other web site owners who will join your affiliate program. Best of all, it is completely automated process so you won’t have to do nothing. You will only have to maintain your balance on your affiliate program service and they will pay your affiliates for sales they generate. Usually, you will also have some upfront investment when you start using some affiliate program service. You will pay a one-time-fee and a commission for every sale made thru that affiliate program service.
If you are a web site owner, you have to find several affiliate programs that are best match for your web site. Targeting is very important in order to have success with using affiliate programs. You won’t have much success if you have a webmaster resource web site and promote affiliate program for cosmetics. In this case you will have success if you promote services that are aimed to webmasters. So you will have to start promoting affiliate programs for web hosting, domain registration, Internet and email marketing software.
Some affiliate programs are two-tier based so you will earn money even if some other webmasters join to the affiliate program thru you. You will get a commission each time that new webmaster makee a sale.
You can find affiliate programs that fit to your site’s content on sites that offer affiliate program services. Usually, they offer Sellers and Affiliates section. Also, there are specialized directories for finding affiliate programs like Associate Programs and Affiliate Programs.
As you can see, power of affiliate programs represents a fact that it is a win-win situation – both for sellers and for affiliates.