Online Affiliate Programs - How to Pick The Right One

by Lance Dwayne Ronald Brown

So you are on a quest to find an internet affiliate program. You like the fact that they handle all the orders, take care of the shipping, and collect payment from the customer. All you do is market your affiliate website and get a cheque from them every month. Nice and simple. The trouble is there is just so many to choose from and they all are boasting loudly. For the most part you have to get past all the advertising which borders on lying and get to the truth behind the company. The following is a list of things to check for so you can make a wise choice.

#1 How many years has the company been in business. I wouldn't go near any company that hasn't been around for at least 10 years. Why? Because you may be signing up with a company deep in the red and about to go under. I am ashamed to say it but it has happened to me. All because I didn't check them out thoroughly. I don't understand all this hype about "pre-launch" and "get in now before we launch". To me that just means they are unproven and unstable.

#2 Personally if you can't pick up the phone and talk directly to Julie or Sally who works in the front office I would run for the hills. Flashing scam bells and whistles should go off in your head if you get an answering machine all the time. Sadly this is all too true on the internet. There should also be a physical address where the main office is that you could drive to one Sunday if you felt like it.

#3 Just how popular are their products that they market. Stay away from some new thing that the world just can't do without. Chances are the world will do without it and you will left holding the bag of purple widgets you thought everyone would buy. The more products they have the better. They should be selling things that sell well in the real world and are already well established out there.

#4 Is the company a member of the Better Business Bureau. The better the reputation they have the better you should feel. I actually know of a program out there right now (which I won't say which one it is to protect the people involved) that people haven't checked out to well because one of the co-founders of the company actually has 42 Better Business Bureau complaints against him resulting from previous scams he had run. This should kill your enthusiasm and you should not be saying things like "maybe he has turned over a new leaf" or "I'll just pretend I didn't know that and carry on in this anyway". It amazes me how people can be duped like this when they ought to just cut their losses and start over.

#5 How extensive is the back office training. Do you have a mentor who is willing to help you and is his success tied to yours. Fire off a few emails to your future mentor and see if he gives a rip or if he is just trying to sell you something and say goodbye. Personally I like this type of affiliate program because it makes everyone accountable.

#6 Watch out for affiliate companies that only take one kind of payment. The more kinds of payment they accept the better. Why? Because if that payment processor should decide they don't like XYZ affiliate company (for whatever reason they may have invented) that whole affiliate company will go down with your investment. Personally I don't like companies that won't pay you by a cheque in the mail just because I have seen this very thing happen a few times.

#7 Your future affiliate program should be a free affiliate program to join but if you do pay something you should also be able to get out after a reasonable amount of time with your money back. Another good thing to look for is a discussion forum where you can login and learn about questions or problems other affiliates are having with the program. This can be very intuitive and give you an inside view before you get too involved.

So there you have a few ways to look for an internet affiliate program. As the Beatles would say "speaking words of wisdom... let it be".


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