Make Your Mark with Affiliate Marketing

Planning Your Site

It's difficult to place this step ahead of the next one -- choosing your affiliate businesses and products -- unless you already have a web site, as the two tasks may well occur in tandem.

If your underlying motivation is to make affiliate commissions from your site, you'll want to know that the site, structure, and content you create will provide many optimal opportunities to promote affiliate products that are extremely relevant to the needs of your users at given points in your site. And as such, you'll want to make sure the right kinds of products are available through affiliate programs and networks. That said, a site that's no more than a conglomeration of content-based ads for affiliate products runs the risk of being disparate, unfocused, and passionless, and makes it difficult for you to develop any sort of loyalty, or foster relationships, among the userbase.

Think first about your audience and what you feel they need. Next, conduct some research into available affiliations that you could take up. Sketch a rough plan of how the products meet the needs. Then go back to your users' needs, and flesh them out a little more, creating a structure that enables you to match content (and affiliate ads) to user needs. Think this process sounds a bit nebulous? Let's look at our example astronomy site again.

We know our users are passionate amateur astronomers, and that they're information-hungry. We also know that they're comfortable with using the Web. We're expecting to attract some users from our astronomy news site, but also through the search engines. It makes sense that they may need fairly basic information on the different aspects of astronomy -- the solar system, each of the planets, the night sky, astronomy phenomena, and so on. Our information should support not just their interest in research, but their interest in actively viewing the stars, and their pride in their hobby.

An online search indicates that numerous businesses in this field offer their own independent affiliate programs through their sites, or through affiliate ad networks. There's software for tracking the planets, photographic prints, calendars, jigsaws and T-shirts, quirky toys, books, DVDs, and the rest; not forgetting, of course, the plethora of technical equipment for stargazing. We feel that the target audience attracted by our keywords will primarily be interested in imagery related to our solar system and the planets within it, so we decide to focus heavily on this topic, though we consider throwing in some other affiliations for good measure.

We decide firstly to break up our site on the basis of the planets in the solar system, but rather than simply creating pages that offer information about each planet, we decide that our pages will explain how best to observe each planet in the solar system, as well as relay any news relating to that planet, which we can syndicate over from our astrology news site. We decide we'll include a link from each planet's page to the solar system imagery affiliate program we've seen. And we'll also include on each page a selection of ads for such items as a printed guide to observing our solar system, a sky map book, subscription offers for Astronomy magazine, sky-charting software, and so on.

We could also offer pages that detail phenomena such as meteor showers, solar flares, and so on, again including relevant imagery, news from our astronomy news site, and providing links to relevant affiliate products we've found (a set of DVDs about the stars, and perhaps another about the mysteries of the cosmos). Perhaps we'll include a section that provides a time line of space exploration with imagery of each mission and links to the books and DVDs (and potentially models!) that visitors can purchase to find out more.

As you can see, the process of researching your audience and potential merchants provides opportunities for very close matching of products to needs. And this is exactly what you require if your affiliations are to be successful.

Choosing Affiliate Networks, Businesses, and Products

Now that you have an audience, and a site (or site plan!), it's time to choose the merchants, products, and networks with which you'll be affiliated. Obviously, this isn't a set-and-forget proposition. You'll need to monitor the success of each program, ad creative, and product with your audience, and consider honing your offering as the statistics indicate the successful -- and less successful -- products.

But let's start at the beginning. Choosing an affiliate network involves some of the same considerations as choosing an advertising network, but there are variations between the two. Consider these points throughout your initial review of the networks on offer:

• What markets or industries are represented? Each network offers a different suite of merchants, and they often focus on building advertisers in particular industries or verticals, so that they have a range of offerings targeted to publishers in those market segments. As a consequence, some networks will have a reasonable number of potential merchants for your site, while others may offer very little indeed.
• Which merchants are on offer? Some networks will name some of the merchants who use their services. Again, this can help you ascertain the kinds of markets in which the network excels, and its ability to build relationships with good advertisers.
• What's the rate? Some networks may be able to give you an idea of the kinds of CPA rates you can expect from their merchants before you sign up. Check also to see whether the network itself will skim a percentage from each sale you make. Merchants that run their own affiliate programs independently of affiliate networks can offer some interesting rate variations -- I've seen one that awards affiliates a percentage of the total monthly sales they generate, tiered so that the more the affiliates sell, the more they earn -- so look closely at the fine print to gain a clear understanding of what you can expect to be paid.
• How flexible is the service? Does the network offer a variety of ad formats, at least some of which appeal to you, and are those formats appropriate to your site? Is there flexibility in terms of the way you can use the links (for example, can you take your affiliate link and use it as a text link from within your site's newsletter)? The greater the flexibility, the more scope you'll have to present promotions to your audience members in a creative way that appeals to them specifically, so it's important.
• How established is the service? As with ad networks, in the world of affiliate marketing, network age can equal credibility -- to some degree. And that can mean more reliability, greater customer responsiveness, and better merchants.
• What's the network interface like? Check out the interface for each network you're considering and ensure that it has the basic features you want -- plus any extras. Tracking and report functionality is just as important in the CPA game as it is in CPC and CPM advertising, since small refinements can make a huge difference to your bottom line.
• How easy is it to implement and maintain campaigns? Again, the technology behind the service should make campaigns extremely easy to implement on your site -- some link code, a graphic, and you should be ready to roll.
• What are the network's requirements or Terms of Service? Affiliate networks place requirements on the publishers in their network. Make sure you're happy with the terms of service before you sign up.

Take in Those Terms of Service
Make sure you read, understand, and are comfortable with the merchant's terms of service. Many merchants restrict how similar to their sites yours may appear, they way you refer to or promote their organization through email, and so on -- after all, they want to remain independent from their affiliates, and avoid sticky issues like having affiliates send spam email promoting their services. Understanding merchants' requirements in advance will help you ensure you don't end up banned, or not being paid, by the services with which you choose to affiliate your site. We'll discuss these problems in more detail in the section titled "Affiliate Issues".

• What's the minimum payout? The lower the minimum payout, the sooner you can access your earnings.
• What's the payment method? Also look at the method of payment -- for non-US publishers using a US-based network, payment via PayPal may be more attractive than payment via check, for example.

That's a basic list, but it should give you a solid starting point for assessing the networks themselves. Once you've signed up, of course, you'll have to review the offerings of various merchants in your vertical, and choose ones that suit you best. Here are some of the aspects you should give some thought to as you review the programs on offer:

• What's the advertiser's site like? The impression users will receive when they arrive at the merchant's site really is worth thinking about; the landing page to which your affiliate link points is of critical importance. If your site's stylishly designed, contains quality content, and has a classy feel, users may well shudder if, upon clicking a link from your site, they arrive at a mishmash of a site that looks cheap and makes them feel uncertain about divulging their credit cards numbers. This may be even more crucial if the user is used to visiting a site that competes with your merchant's site. Good landing pages make for greater conversion rates, so make sure you assess each merchant's offering before you sign up.
• What's the ad creative like? If you don't have any flexibility in terms of the ways you can present the merchant's message, or, for instance, you want to use a graphical banner but don't want to spend your time and money reinventing the wheel, the appearance of the merchant's ads is going to be important to you. Will the ad complement your site? Does the message it presents (through graphics and text) support or springboard from the messages you're promoting? Would you be pleased -- or even proud -- to display the ad on your pages?
• What's the product like? Does the product really suit your target audience? Are they likely to see the value in it and have the ability to purchase it? What do you think of the product? Are you prepared to stand behind it? Would you use it yourself? If product support is needed, is it provided? Does it appear to be a quality support service, or a sham? Be honest, as the answers to these questions will be critical to your success in promoting the affiliate products you choose. It's easy enough to drop an affiliate banner for any old product into your site, but it's difficult to write a glowing, sales-generating review (complete with in-context affiliate link) of a product you don't feel you can personally endorse.
• What's the hook? Can you see a natural, logical fit between the product, your site, and your audience? Can you identify within your site plan an opportunity -- or series of opportunities -- that make perfect sense as spots to link to the advertiser's site? Is there a natural place -- and a way -- you can promote this product to make it irresistible to your audience?

Try It Yourself!
When you find a product whose affiliate program you think you'd like to join, try out that product yourself (if you can afford to). Purchase it online, note the nature of the storefront, the post-sales follow-up you receive, and how quickly the product is shipped and delivered. Contact the company's customer support team with a query or complaint. Only by experiencing the advertiser's products and service firsthand will you be able to communicate with intelligence and clarity to target audience members. This experience will also give you an idea of what customers (like you!) will expect of the product or service, and to what degree that merchant will meet or exceeded those expectations. Such information will be useful fodder when it's time to write promotional content, reviews, and other online sales collateral.

As I explained above, the goal throughout this section is to create a site structure that ensures that the affiliate programs we've found address our audience members at specific points within their use of our content. At each point, we'll provide them with an offering that suits their needs. But these aren't just any old offerings -- the products we've decided to promote on our astronomy site are available for purchase through attractive, professional, credible storefronts. These sites are recognized as authorities in their fields (the sites we reviewed included Astronomy.com, the Discovery Channel site, Telescopes.com, and so on) -- they're sites we can be proud to promote to our valued users.

Once you've chosen your affiliate networks and signed up, joining specific programs is usually as easy as registering your interest and being provided with the affiliate code to drop in to your site. From then on, you'll be able to track your success through the network's interface, and use the information it provides to tweak your approach and improve your conversions.