Key Characteristics of a Good Affiliate Program

he decision to enter the field of affiliate marketing is one you should not take lightly. While it's definitely easy to get started in affiliate marketing, carrying on is harder work. Your best chance at success is choosing a good affiliate program.
The best ones support their members every step of the way. Too many sub-standard affiliate programs encourage sign ups. However, they don't provide the resources to help their members succeed. It's as if they forget about the roster of members striving to promote their products.

Adventures in affiliate land are more enjoyable when you choose a quality program. With that in mind, here are key characteristics of a good affiliate program:

They're Part of a Burgeoning Market

This is vital to your affiliate marketing success. Don't choose an affiliate program that's part of a dying industry or field. Research the up and coming niches that are gaining momentum. Research the new products within them. You want to catch the wave of growth in any affiliate-marketing program you select.

An example for the 21st century is online promotion via content. Today, promoting a business through article writing is very popular and growing. So is article marketing automation to ensure that those articles reach their intended audiences. Affiliate programs exist where you can be part of this phenomenon. This trend will only grow as more people move business promotions online.

They Offer Generous Commissions

A quality affiliate program rewards their members with healthy commissions. They make affiliate marketing worthwhile. After all, you expend time, effort and resources when it comes to promoting products and services. You want a good return on these investments.

Look for an affiliate program that offers significant commissions. A commission of five or ten percent isn't going to cut it if you want to earn a good income. You need commissions of at least 25 percent.

In addition, you want compensation of the same amount for renewals. You also want two-tier commissions. Look for an affiliate program that offers a percentage of sales for those you refer to the program.

They Pay Out Each Month

You have bills to pay each month. Therefore, you want income paid to you each month. A good affiliate program pays monthly, not quarterly. They have a set payment schedule each month and pay on time. Most have a minimum payment threshold, which is fine. Just make sure that they don't hold back payments for an inordinate amount of time.

They Offer an Easy-to-View Tracking Service

You want to know how you're doing as an affiliate program member. Select a service that provides detailed commission and traffic reports. You need to know if you're reaching potential customers in the first place. You also need to know if that traffic is converting into customers.

Knowing this information helps you focus your marketing efforts better. With a user-friendly tracking service, you can also monitor your downline's performance. Knowing how they are doing helps you plan for future income growth.

They Offer Support in Multiple Ways

A good affiliate program provides marketing materials and personal support to members. Marketing materials they provide include HTML ads, banners, links, text ads, e-mail ads and reports. Personal support comes from a program representative addressing promptly any problems or concerns you have.

Consider our article-marketing example we talked about earlier. A quality content distribution service would offer support through a help desk. They would answer their members concerns on setting up an account and using their service properly.

They would explain thoroughly article distribution automation to help their members' market articles efficiently. This level of support is what you want from any affiliate program. As an affiliate member support from a quality program is conducive to you remaining in the program.

They Are Cutting Edge

The best affiliate programs stay current on trends and happenings in their business. They stay abreast of new technologies and developments in their field and pass this information on to their members. This helps affiliates market their products and services better.

Again, we'll look at our quality content distribution service example. You would expect that a program such as this would stay abreast of new publishers' entering the market. If you were marketing their program this would be a selling point.

Your marketing message to potential customers and downline members would trumpet this fact. Your ads would convey the fact that this article service deals with the newest and most popular publishers in the industry. This would certainly encourage sign ups.

The above characteristics are what to look for in a good affiliate program. Find one that offers these and set your affiliate adventure off on the right foot. After that, it's up to you to use what they offer to build your business.