With affiliate marking becoming more and more popular home based businesses, one can find himself lost among so many affiliate programs on the Internet. One of the first thing that any affiliate is looking for is how much can you make with a particular program. The range in this area is big to say the least. It ranges any where from 2% up to 50% and even in some cases to 75% of possible commission rate that you can earn as an affiliate. But is bigger always better?
I am always very suspicious of merchants and affiliate programs that offering more that 50% of commission fees. While some of theses affiliate programs can deliver good products (mostly when it comes to “digital goods”), majority of the affiliate programs with such high commission rate is nothing but “information sources” about “information sources” to put it kindly.
Factors to consider when choosing an affiliate program.
Commission vs Conversion.
While commission rate is very important factor it needs to be considered together with your advertisers site conversion rate. You can find out how well advertisers website converting (visitors into customers) by contacting affiliate manager. If you can contact affiliate manager or they do not give you an answer to this question, it should be a “red flag” sign. I doubt you will be successful in promoting such merchant.
Cookie expiration date.
In order to attribute a particular sale to your efforts many merchants use technology called “cookies”, a little script that is plated in the computer of Internet users which allows merchants to trace referrer and assign commission. Generally a “cookie” has an expiration date. So when a visitors comes to your merchant site but does not purchase a product right away, depending on the “cookies” expiration date, you still have a chance to earn your commission. Although recent studies show that most on line shoppers tend to either buy a product right away, the are are still many on line shoppers that may purchase products or services on their return visits to your merchant. Ideally the longer cookie’s expiration date is the more chance you have to earn commission when the customer returns to your advertisers website. I would not settle for an advertisers that offer less than 7 days of cookie’s life time span.
Return rate.
Although some affiliate programs may convert well, they still may have a high return rate; whnever customer buys a product and then returns it back to merchant. The return rate is generally higher with clothing and shoe retailers. Whenever there is a return, your advertisers may back charge the commission previously attributed to your efforts.