A popular method for making money on the web is through the promotion of products or services offered by a third company. This affiliate relationship works well, but there are some things to watch out for.
An affiliate program is often touted as a perfect relationship. You, the affiliate, have traffic and need to make money off of it. The provider, in turn, needs traffic and is willing to pay you for it in one form or another. While this sounds like a perfect match at first, anyone who has tried these programs knows there is much more to it.
The number one issue with affiliate programs is known as the shave. Simply put, are you being credited with every sale or revenue producing action that your traffic produces? If a site is only crediting you for every second sale, you are losing out on a lot of money. Shaving is a huge issue in the affiliate community, but let’s talk about another issue with affiliate programs.
Most affiliate programs “encourage” you to drive traffic to particular landing pages. Many an affiliate has set up their sites to do just that without really taking a look at the landing pages in question. Fail to do so and you can end up sending traffic to a page that is not going to produce for you.
The biggest issue with landing pages is the inclusion of an 800 phone number. Obviously, you are not going to receive a penny of revenue if someone picks up the phone and makes a call. Let’s look at an example.
Quicken Loans offers a mortgage loan affiliate program through Commission Junction. Both companies are reputable, so you really don’t have to worry too much about being shaved. The landing pages offered by Quicken to affiliates, however, are nightmares. A query to call the 800 number is listed at the top of the page. On many of the landing pages, a banner with an attractive young lady tells the visitor to do the same on the bottom of the page. Filling out mortgage applications is a pain, so how many people do you think will pick up the phone and call Quicken? Probably enough to put a pinch on your affiliate revenues!
All and all, affiliate programs tend to be a win-win for the parties involved. If you can avoid issues of revenue shaving and horrific landing pages, you should be able to do really well.
Halstatt Pires writes a free
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