The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Programs  

by Robert Valente

Affiliate programs are a great idea for the owner of the product and for the affiliate who wants to earn some extra cash. The owner has a sales team that promotes and sells his or her product and doesn’t have to pay anything out until a sale is generated. The affiliate has an existing product that can be sold and doesn’t have to go out and create his or her own product. The problem usually is that most affiliate don’t have an existing website that they can drive potential customers to. Many affiliates think that it’s just as simple as driving traffic to the product owner’s website. That can be done using a URL that’s unique to the affiliate. That’s all well and good, however, that may not be the best way do develop business.

You see, when you drive traffic to the product owners web site, the owner is the one that gets the information about that prospective buyer. He can keep that info and market to them in the future. That means that for all the work the affiliate did to drive that traffic to the product owners site, all the affiliate gets for that is whatever commission was agreed upon for the sale. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we all know that in order to build a business on-line and have it continue, you need a list of targeted prospects. If you’re going to join an affiliate program, you might as well benefit as much as you can from it.

The owner didn’t do a thing to get that information; the affiliate did the advertising, whatever form it was. It could have been pay-per-click, it could have been advertising in an ezine or classified ad, etc. What ever the affiliate did, it either cost him time or money, most likely both.

What’s the answer? The best answer is to get your own lead capture page. A lead capture page is designed solely to get the prospect’s information. After you get the information you can direct your prospect to the owner’s site to buy whatever they’re selling. Once you get the information of the prospect, you start building a list of targeted prospects that you can focus your marketing on in the future.

It may take a little time to develop a large list, but once you get a good list of prospects, you have a group who has demonstrated that they are interested in buying online or developing a business, or whatever it may be. A good list is gold. You have your target audience you can market to and it’s free.

Affiliate programs can be great, but don’t give away all of your leads to someone else. You did the work to get that prospect; you should be able to benefit from your effort. Is it worth the time building a list like that? It most certainly is. It may cost a little bit to have a lead capture page, but it’s well worth the investment. It’s definitely an investment in your future. If you want to be in the online marketing business for any length of time and you want to make a substantial income. You should consider this very carefully. Think about it, if you’re are doing the work anyway, it makes sense that you should benefit from it.

There is a lot of money to be made in affiliate programs. Just be smart in your efforts. Don’t give away all or your best resources.

About the Author

Robert Valente is a successful internet marketer teaching others how to market online. For more information, go to: Affiliate Programs

I read an article not long ago about Affiliate Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Sorry, I don’t remember where the article was or who the author is. The author was trying to describe affiliate marketing. As I remember, he did a pretty good job, it was interesting and quite informative. I thought about that article today and some things occurred to me. As an affiliate marketer we apply the same principles to the biz as we do in the rest of our lives.

• Any avid fisherman can tell you when it’s the best time to fish for pan fish or game fish at his favorite fishing hole. How? By watching and observing nature. Don’t try to fish with the north wind blowing, or when the cat tails turn green on the bottom it is time to pan fish.
• Most guys, over the age of thirty, know when to have a a fresh supply of chocolate and or salty snacks on hand. Why? By watching and observing nature. We will leave it at that.
• Most veteran campers can tell you where not to layout your sleeping bag. How? By…………..

Anyway, you get the idea. Affiliate marketing is much the same way. Exercise a little patients, some good observation techniques and follow the laws of nature. Generally that means following a different path than most, taking the time to evaluate options and most important, don’t mess with mother nature.

Always be sure that the program you intend to promote has a support system that suites your needs, that the staff is available when you need them, and that the tools, resources and training you need is readily available. All that sounds like common sense right? It is, yet 97% of those trying to make money on the internet never do!

I hope this post was at least somewhat interesting, I will share with you my experiences, both good and bad in the coming months in hopes that it will help some people avoid the know bummers out there and shed some light on some of the better programs. How am I able to that? By watching and observing nature.