How to Set Up an Affiliate Marketing System

Affiliate programs allow a company to produce a great deal of traffic and in doing so increase sales levels due third party promotions and sales. Not only this, but as you only pay for what actually results into sales, it is an extremely effective way to advertise your services and products.

Depending on how many affiliates you choose to take on, your payment policy and the kind of products you have on offer, the setting up of your own affiliate system can be either very straightforward or totally daunting.

You have two options as far as your affiliate system is concerned and these are either outsourcing the whole lot or running your own affiliate system from your own web host.  Both of these options have their benefits, just as they have their drawbacks.  If you plan to have only a small number of affiliates you will be able to manage your own affiliate software. On the other hand, if a large number of affiliates are what you are looking for you may be better off outsourcing.  This will make handling several sign ups, tracking payments and the monitoring of clicks much easier.

Different Types of Affiliates  There are so many different types of affiliates available for you to choose from.  You can opt for pay per sale which is when an individual is paid only upon the generation of a sale from the link of the affiliate.  Unless the particular product you have on offer is in high demand, this is probably the least attractive option open to most affiliates.

Another kind is what is known as pay per lead, where payment is made for traffic only. In this instance the affiliate is paid when a visitor is generated from his site.  Although this is an attractive form to affiliates, it can prove to be costly to website owners as not all visits result in sales.

Considerations  Whether or not you decide to approve affiliates manually or automatically is something to consider when you are setting up an affiliate.  It is advisable to begin affiliate programs with your already established customer sites prior to moving on to new ones.

When dealing with pay per clicks, it is likely that you will have to control the affiliates as the quality of the visitor plays a great part of the sales generation.  You will be able to make a judgment of the website or the individual to see if this particular affiliate is actually leading to any sales by manually reviewing the situation.

If you opt for using your own affiliate system, you will find one of your main challenges is how you are going to pay the affiliate a proportion of the monies received from customers.   You can be assisted with this element of your business by using software such as Affiliate Shop which helps you to keep track of, and pay commissions.

21 Comments

  • Jorge EZ Affiliate

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    Hi Reed,

    Do you know of any tracking software that will help track affiliates using PPC advertising?

    I use PayDotCom and ClickBank; hopefully you have some solution to track affiliate PPC campaigns.

    Thanks in advance.

    Jorge

  • Wayne Bell

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    Another gret post Reed. There are a lot of things to consider when thinking about running or starting your own affiliate program although the awards can make it all worth the effort. As for me, with the affiliate programs, tools and resources like the ones promoted at:> http://bellshomeprofitnetwork.synthasite.com/ along with the ongoing support of the owners of what I consider to be the two Best Affiliate programs online today, my wife and I are quite content with helping others to share in our success’s by showing them how to collect their own share of a $200 Billion Plus Yearly Profit System and start living their dreams.

    Regards
    Wayne & Susn Bell
    http://bellshomeprofitnetwork.synthasite.com/

  • Larry

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    Thanks for the valuable information about affillate programs. This was enlighting to some one new to internet business.
    Thanks

  • Bob

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    This is good information.Right now I am not
    big enough to need either. But will keep this in mind for future use.
    Thank you Reed,
    Bob

  • Jerry Goodwin

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    Hi Reed,

    I pretty much use Clickbank for all my stuff right now, but this is very interesting and informative. I just recently signed up with paydotcom too and I sell a few things through CJ.

    At this point I am not really selling anything through affiliates but it something that is definitely in my near future plans.

  • Delords

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    Good post Reed,

    I have been using clickbank,moreniche,hostgator and some other programs and its been going on good,

    Affiliate marketing is really the best way to earn online if one can build it well.

  • I’ve used gotopro and linkbrander to track clicks. It makes things more obvious what’s working and also your marketing a bit more scientific rather than based on your gut feelings.

  • Timothy Millar

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    Thanks once again for the great information
    especially where to get these services, I anticipate needing them very shortly. But ofcourse I will offer it to you first Reed!
    “The Leprechaun”

    Timothy Millars last blog post..Blogging for Traffic?

  • John Bandy

    Reply Reply October 13, 2008

    Hi Reed,
    I enjoy reading your articls alot. I didn’t know there were so many different ways in affiliate marketing. I learn something everyday. If I failed to respond to some of your emails don’t get upset with me. I have my PC so overloaded with downloads and it has slowed my progress. Talk with you later and thanks.
    John

  • David Smyth

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    Thanks Reed.

    Pay per lead is never really a viable option for many. So much traffic these days is in the so-called ‘junk’ category (no disrespect intended).

    I’m learning from the articles on your blog Reed. Kudos.

    D.

    David Smyths last blog post..Online Advertising – How To Effectively Promote Your Business

  • khalifah

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    HELLO REED

    nice to meet u…

    good articles..

  • Geoff Dodd

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    Reed, I think you have to make it ‘brain-dead-easy’ for affiliates, by providing them with copy and paste html snippets for banners, links, html emails, etc. By doing the work well once you get paid back a gazillion times. Sounds like my definition of ‘residual income.’ Affiliates need tons of personal support and training and motivation – competitions, bonuses, etc. Geoff Dodd

  • Manotosh Gangopadhyay

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    Respected Sir,
    Regardsir. I want your important valuable advise so that I can achive my goal. Presently I am no any computer surf from cyber cafe sir. Have a nice day sir. Yours Sincerely MAnotosh Gangopadhay

  • Jayson Herewini

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    By Jayson Herewini Print-Web-Media on Oct 14, 2008 | Reply

    Another great article Reed!, I really enjoy reading your emails and blogs, I find them informative and helpful, I didn’t realise that there were options available for affilliate marketing. thanks heaps very
    Jayson
    Jayson Herewini- Print-Web-Media last blog post..16 Methods For Free Advertising

  • PV Reymond

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    Hi Reed,

    You gave powerful information here.

    I just want to say something about a point you touched…

    Having an Affiliate Program is a MUST if you want to grow.

    Many people don’t want to set up Affiliate Programs because they think that they would lose money giving commissions to affiliates… It is completely wrong, it is the wrong approach.

    You need affiliates in order to grow because they will send traffic to your site and you don’t have to pay one cent for it.

    They are doing the hard work for you. You only have to pay them a commission when someone referred by them buys. You are not going to lose money, you are going to make more money.

    On the other hand, you can be driving a lot of traffic to your site by yourself, but it is impossible to reach everybody.

    Well, your affiliates can send you traffic that by yourself you would never be able to get… They have lists, contacts and relationships that you don’t have.

    No matter how many products you have or what business you are in, the fact is that in order to maximize your earnings you need an Affiliate Program. If you don’t have one you are leaving money on the table.

    Thanks,
    ^PV Reymond

    http://www.pvreymond.com

  • Jussi Koiranen

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    Having an own affiliate system seems cool! That’s why I’m in Network Marketing. Paying for click doesn’t seem very smart, but pay per opt-in could be much smarter. The Merchant gets a sign-up for his list and pays possibly a dollar and that’s it or then share a bigger bunch after his list produces a sale. That’s the kinda program I’d prefer to join. Not that I wouldn’t being paid for every click on the merchants links…

  • admin

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    @Jorge so you want to track what keywords the affiliate is using?

    @Wayne thank you

    @Larry you’re welcome

    @Bob you are big enough this post will help you grow

    @Jerry I highly recommend having affiliates market you

    @Delords affiliate marketing is definitely one of the best ways to make money but I would say being the product owner and having affiliates will pay better

    @internet marketing nice to hear you are tracking your performance keep up the great work

    @Timothy you’re welcome

    @John thank you, hope your computer speeds up soon.

    @David you’d want to be careful with pay-per-lead but you could limit it to certain people such as JV partners whom you trust

    @khalifah thank you

    @Geoff agreed you need to make it VERY easy if you want affiliates to promote you

    @Manotosh and what is your goal?

    @Jayson thank you

    @PV awesome comment, we definitely see eye to eye on a lot.

    @Jussi I think many people would have a bigger list if they were to pay per optin

  • khalifah

    Reply Reply October 14, 2008

    hi reed

    powerful information….

    “Once you start
    believing there’s
    nothing you
    can’t do.

    dr.khalifah
    SILENT MILLIONAIRE’S CLUB

    khalifahs last blog post..JEJAK GEMILANG JUTAWAN SENYAP

  • Linda Basta

    Reply Reply October 15, 2008

    hi
    Your posts are always terrific. Thanks so much. Not ready yet, but I hope to have a small group of affiliates for ‘my stuff’ eventually.
    I’ll be saving this.
    thanks again

    Linda

  • Jane

    Reply Reply October 15, 2008

    I have tried various programs but my problem is promotion. I keep promoting certain Clickbank products but i don’t get any new traffic. My best results have come from traffic exchanges.
    I am really too old for all this and it boggles my mind a bit but your article explained alittle to me ( old70year brain!)

  • admin

    Reply Reply October 15, 2008

    @khalifah, @Linda, thanks

    @Jane I’d recommend creating some sort of product and getting others to promote it so you have a list that you can promote to over and over again.

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