Hey guys. Kim Wolfe here. Here are 9 questions you need to answer before you choose an affiliate program. These questions are super important to answer because they help you avoid surprises and mistakes that can a) get your affiliate account shut down or b) even delay your affiliate commissions over an extended period of time. So, from personal experience, I’m trying to help you avoid affiliate program disasters including these: getting your affiliate account shut down, having your affiliate commissions held for more than a year, (Just know this really happened to me and it sucks!) or even worse not making any commissions because you’re promoting the wrong products to the wrong audience. So before you go joining an affiliate program whether it’s your 1st affiliate program or your 100th affiliate program. Here are the 9 things you need to know beforehand …so that you can avoid聽affiliate marketing disasters that cost you time, money and pain, like I’ve experienced.
Hey there. Kim Wolfe here with affiliatemarketinginformant.com. Informing you of everything you want and need to know about affiliate marketing. If this video helps you out, definitely give it a like, subscribe to my channel and comment below and let me know where you are in your affiliate marketing journey. Also be sure to check the link below, you’ll find a link to this聽handy checklist for you.
Which will help you remember these steps as you join each affiliate program. So here we go, Affiliate Program Question #1 What Taxpayer Identification Number Will You Use? So, this is the Click Bank affiliate program sign up instructions. You’ll see here, that it’s asking for a tax id. This is really relevant if you are an affiliate in the U.S. By law, every affiliate in the Unsuits report earnings over $600 to the IRS. Because of these requirements, just about every affiliate marketing program will require a taxpayer identification number. So you have the option of which number you use. You can use 1) your personal social security number, also referred to as SSN or 2) an employer identification number also referred to as an EIN. The recommendation is to use an employer identification number (EIN) instead of your social security number (SSN).
Pro Tip #1 is that you decide this once and then you use this for every affiliate program, and also if you are in the US, you can request a free EIN number from the IRS website. Pro Tip #2: If you’re not in the US, definitely check your government for specific requirements around affiliate marketing and making money online and any sort of business, to make sure that you are legally compliant.
Affiliate Program Question #2 What is the Affiliate Program’s Specialty? And how does that specialty align with what your website is about and what your audience wants? Each affiliate program has a specialty of products or services they offer. Some affiliate programs offer: Specific niche related products, such as the Vitamix. So, the Vitamix affiliate program specializes in promoting Vitamix blenders and it usually targets the health niche. Then you have affiliate programs that specialize in digital products. These are going to be affiliate programs like Click Bank and JVZoo and these training and software and digital templates are typically for the wealth, health and other niches.
Then you have large retailers who have affiliate programs, and they connect you with a variety of products. These programs are going to include companies like: Amazon, Home Depot, Target, Walmart, Wayfair and even eBay. Pro Tip: Choose the affiliate program that aligns with the type of products your audience wants and will buy. Affiliate Program Question #3 What does it cost to join? Most affiliate programs are free, but some are not. One example of an affiliate network that requires a fee is Awin.
Awin charges a $5 deposit fee to join the network, and it’s essentially, to verify聽your bank account details.
And minimize the risk of unethical activity and fraud but do know that once you pay this fee… this fee will be refunded to your account, as soon as you make your first sale with Awin. So just be prepared to really promote affiliate programs within Awin when you sign up to make sure you get your money back as soon as possible. Then you have affiliate programs that offer tiered levels where they may offer lower commission rates for free but higher commission rates for a fee. So here’s an example of what I mean. This is affiliate program for Wealthy Affiliate, a popular make money online niche affiliate program. The normal standard commissions are going to be $8 for the first month with this $19 special offer and then $23.50 thereafter, but if you are a starter聽member, you will only make $4 from the special offer and聽then $11.75 monthly after. So you can see, there it’s聽about double difference. If you’re a paying member, you get about double the commission. If you’re a free member, you get about half the commission.
Pro Tip: Try out the free聽affiliate program tier first. See if the product resonates with your audience and then decide if you want聽to upgrade to the paid tier after you get a few sales, to know that you can cover the program cost.
Affiliate Program Question #4 How do the Commission Rates Compare? Some products can be found in multiple affiliate programs. In some cases, the commission rates may be the same. In other cases, you may receive a higher commission rate from one affiliate program compared to the other. Let’s say you have a recipe website where you create healthy meals for your audience. You could recommend the Vitamix blender as a must-have appliance to make that recipe creation process easier. For the Vitamix blender alone, you can leverage 4 different affiliate programs for this blender. First affiliate program is the Vitamix affiliate program.
Anywhere from 3-8% on their various blenders. The second affiliate program is Amazon.
Anywhere between 1-4% on their blenders. The third is the Walmart affiliate program. Around 4% for their blenders. And then last but not least, there’s the Wayfair affiliate program, up to 7% commission rates on various items. So just a quick disclaimer,聽the commission rates will vary per program and will change over time. So the commission rates that you see listed here may be different than what you see, depending on when you join the program yourself. Pro Tip: Choose the affiliate program that offers the most product聽referral options in one place. This will provide you with easier management of your affiliate programs and affiliate link.
Affiliate Program Question #5 How Long Do You Get Credit for the Referral? A referral period is the length of time you get credit for the sale. Your affiliate link includes a tracking ID that links any referrals and sales to you. Some affiliate programs refer to this as the referral period. Other affiliate programs refer to this as the cookie duration. So, the question to ask before joining any affiliate program is: How long is the referral period? How long is the cookie duration? These time periods vary greatly across different affiliate programs. The Amazon affiliate program offers a 24-hour cookie period. Wayfair affiliate programs offer a 7-day referral period. Commission Junction affiliate network offers a standard 30-day referral period. Wealthy Affiliate program offers a lifetime cookie.
Pro Tip: Don’t put money before your audience. It’s okay to choose a program with a smaller referral period (for a product from an affiliate program) that serves your audience really well. (You will see better results if you always put your viewers first.) Affiliate Program Question #6 How many products can you聽promote from the one program? Managing affiliate programs and links can be very time-consuming. So, having the option to promote more products from one affiliate program is always a benefit to you and your time. There are two ways to tap into large marketplaces of products from one program: 1. Choose a Large Retailer You can save time and make it easier on yourself by choosing large retailers聽like Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, Target, and Wayfair.
These large retailers connect you with a large marketplace of products under one program. Not only can you recommend the Vitamix blenders, but you can also promote other blenders like Nutri Bullet, Ninja and Oster. Pro Tip: You can create a “Top Blenders for 2021” list that recommends the most popular blenders from different brands with different price points. And that’s a way to utilize affiliate programs like Amazon Wayfair, Walmart, Target, etc. 2.
Choose an Affiliate Network Affiliate Networks house many聽affiliate programs in one place. You can tap into very large聽marketplaces of different types of products through affiliate networks. Pro Tip: Many of the large聽retailers use affiliate networks to manage their affiliate programs. So, look for the affiliate聽links on retailer website to find out who hosts their affiliate program. Affiliate Program Question #7 What Promotional Tools do they Offer you?
Most affiliate programs offer pre-packaged content to help you promote the affiliate offer. Pre-designed content helps you start promoting the affiliate products faster. Because you don’t have to think up what to say or design the content yourself. Promotional content can include: Banner ads – which are聽images you can place in your headers or sidebars. Pre-designed landing pages,聽so, (done for you landing pages to link to).
Email swipe files done for you. Email content to email your audience. Demo videos so, done for you product demonstration to include in your review, blog, post, etc. Pre-design funnels – usually include an email opt-in to get subscribers in a pre-recorded webinar to help you close the sale and even Early access to products so you can try it out beforehand. Affi Orama is another example of an affiliate marketing and make money online affiliate program and this is the resources they offer for promoting their products.
This is the Aficio jetpack 2.0 Resource. Aficio jetpack is one of their products. If I scroll down, you can see here that I have a product overview with key benefits. So, you can take these, and you can use these in your materials. Whether it’s emails, landing pages, etc., you can call out who Aficio jetpack is for. So, it gives you done for you sentences and lines so you can tell who this is for.
And then you can see, you’ve got swipe emails, example reviews, testimonials, banners, and media resources. I’m going to click into the banner so you can see what happens. And the cool thing is, these images and banners are already uploaded online for you. You just literally copy and paste this code, insert it into your website and it’s automatically got your affiliate link embedded into it. So it’s pretty cool and it makes, and it makes it easy for me to promote this product throughout my website and anywhere where I can install this code. Pro Tip: Offering you promotional content as an affiliate these days is pretty standard. So, if you come across an affiliate program that doesn’t offer you any pre-written copy or designs, then consider how long it will take for you to develop all that yourself.
You may be better off choosing聽another affiliate program or reach out to the company and ask them if they can provide you some helpful content to help you promote their product. Affiliate Program Question #8 Do you get reocurring sales? What happens if your referral buys another product or service down the road? Do you make an affiliate聽commission from that sale too? That’s the idea behind reoccurring sales.
Amazon affiliate program does not give you credit beyond the first sale but other affiliate programs with monthly reoccurring fees normally do. ClickFunnels is a very popular affiliate program with online marketers today. As you can see here, they offer 40% of their monthly recurring commission聽to you as an affiliate. Pro Tip: Before you commit聽to the affiliate program, research whether another affiliate program offers the same product with continued sales. If no and the product is a聽good fit for your customers, then promote it anyway.
Affiliate Program Question #9 What are the Terms and Conditions? You need to read all of the rules, guidelines, policies, conditions, and restrictions!!! This is the most important area to read, know and understand before you sign up. And these policies will be presented to you at the time of sign up. In most cases, you will be asked to “agree” to the various agreements and terms before you can process the request to become an affiliate. However, you can usually find these policies before you sign up. Search on the affiliate program’s聽website for these details and read them thoroughly and even take notes! For example, the amazon affiliate program requires that you don’t have your family purchase from your affiliate links.
And you cannot include any affiliate links and any materials other than your approved website and social media or your amazon affiliate account can be shut down. To learn more about the聽amazon affiliate requirements definitely check out the link above or below for the 10 Amazon Requirements that you need to know before you join. A second example is the聽ClickBank affiliate program. The ClickBank customer distribution requirement also referred to as the聽CDR requires new affiliates to get 5 unique sales from聽two separate payment methods before they can get paid.
And from affiliate to affiliate,聽just know that I learned that the hard way!
I actually started making Click Bank sales a year prior to getting paid for them because I didn’t understand the CDR requirement before I joined so it took me over a year to meet that requirement. Therefore, it took me over a year to get paid my $1200 in commissions. And let me tell you, that really sucks…having to wait that long and knowing that I didn’t know that beforehand!!! I would have done my promotion techniques differently to try to speed up the sales so it would have hit that requirement sooner rather than later. So don’t take the step lightly. This is probably one of the most important steps as an affiliate and if you don’t do this, you’re going to be surprised whether you get your affiliate account shut down, or you have to wait longer than expected to get your commission because you’re not meeting the requirements that are required of you.
Pro Tip: Most affiliate programs state that you cannot use your affiliate聽link to buy a product. Buying a product and getting聽an affiliate commission at the same time, therefore, reducing the amount you paid for the product is considered to be fraudulent and will get your affiliate account shut down in every case. So those are the 9 Questions You Need to聽Answer Before You Choose an Affiliate Program. I hope this video has helped you out.
Don’t forget that you can聽download this free checklist right here to refer to聽every time before you join a new affiliate program. And if you’re serious about succeeding with affiliate marketing, definitely check out the free training link below as well. It’s hands down the best free starter training聽I’ve found for you yet. Don’t forget to give this video聽a like if it helps you out, subscribe to my channel and comment below if you have any questions and just let me know where you are in your affiliate marketing journey.
I love to hear your stories聽and I’m happy to help you out!
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