You'll want to consider the price of the product or service and the commissions paid on each sale. To marketing anything effectively you have to put in some effort. You may feel it's fine getting paid peanuts for clickthroughs on links filling unused space if your only effort is actually putting them up. After all it's tough out there and every little helps, right?
But think first. Are you simply adding clutter to your site with the net result that it actually reduces your overall income? Or needlessly directing valuable visitors to the exit?
To generate a realistic income from affiliate programs you need to sell in quantity.
Actively marketing something is an entirely different proposition to simply sticking a banner or affiliate link on your page. Think about the time and energy you plan to devote and be realistic about the returns you can expect to see. What's your traffic like? Assuming 1% of visitors buy (one in one hundred – a ballpark figure you can start with) will that get you one sale a day? 3 sales? Do a rough calculation of how much you are actually earning for each hour of promotion, etc., and then ask yourself,
"Would I work in a job that paid this much per hour?"
If the answer is, "No"... then why bother?
Choose another program that pays better and fully meets your requirements (at least as close as possible). There are many, many programs out there and the number grows daily. You can afford to pick and choose.
In certain categories demand is now so high that vendors have begun to compete with each other to gain your allegiance.
Joining affiliate programs, getting links, marketing the products and checking your stats does take up your time, no matter what vendors imply.
Invest your time wisely from the start and you'll reduce the potential for lost income later on. Time is money.
Cheap and Easy Affiliate Programs?
No product sells itself. Depending on factors already mentioned, some things may be easier to sell than others but ultimately to make money ...
YOU MUST ACTIVELY PROMOTE THE PRODUCT!
That being so, it's worth bearing in mind that if you can sell one thing well, you can almost always sell something entirely different equally well.
The reason sales professionals remain in one field throughout their entire career is not because they cant sell anything else, but because the knowledge acquired about their industry over the years helps them to close deals, or simply because they enjoy what they do.
Don't be misled into believing that because something's cheap it will be easy to sell - that's not necessarily true. Whilst the prospect's perceived risk is reduced with a lower price tag, that's only one of many components in a buying decision.
Undoubtedly, this component will gain greater importance as the asking price increases. However, nobody likes to loose any money, no matter how little!
It all comes back to the trust factor again. As any marketing professional or sales representative will tell you, it takes almost as much work and effort to sell something that costs just $50 as it does to sell something that costs $250. The question is... do you believe in it?
I've got to have that!
The important point about any sale is the product's perceived value to the prospective buyer. It's an amazing fact that as a persons desire for something increases, they miraculously find it easier and easier to afford! Put simply:
If someone wants something badly enough, they'll find a way to pay for it!
It's your job to create this desire by selling (or more correctly, pre-selling as an affiliate) the benefits, not the product's features. You need to gently arouse your visitor's interest without getting pushy. The better the affiliate program, the more it will help you in this area (see the NitroMarketing affiliate program for lots of help covering a wide range of products).
Don't waste your time selling something for pocket money, when by simply changing the product and your mindset, you could be earning a comfortable income!
Having said that, don't go to the other extreme of deciding what affiliate programs to join based solely on the size of the commissions offered. The program still needs to meet your other criteria for you to make good money.
Next up: 2 Tier Affiliate Programs.
