Business Concerns for Affiliate Marketers

Being an affiliate marketer means you are running a business and you will have legitimate concerns.

Being an affiliate marketer means you are running a business and you will have legitimate concerns about who and what products you promote. As an affiliate marketer, you are recommending products to people. So it is important that you only recommend quality products. Otherwise, your reputation could become damaged.

Keep the following points in mind when setting up your affiliate marketing aspect of your business.

When looking for affiliate programs and products read their guidelines and terms of service. Some programs only approve affiliates from certain countries due to payment issues.

The best programs are those that payout using a universal payment system such as PayPal. Other programs will mail you a cheque, but there may be fees attached to this. For example, Aweber sends cheques, but they're not in the same currency as my main bank account. So it costs me a currency conversion fee, as well as £15 for adding the cheque from another country. This means a small affiliate cheque might actually cost me money to put it in the back! Direct payments are now being offered by some of the larger affiliate programs. Remember that restrictions will apply so look into those before you start running promotions.

Another area to be cautious of is that of payment thresholds. A threshold means that you will not receive any payment until a certain amount is reached. These amounts will vary by company and can be as much as $100 or more. Consider this carefully before applying. Do you want to be promoting without getting paid?

Make sure you understand how often you get paid as well. Some programs offer weekly or monthly payments. It is always nice to know when you can expect to get paid.

When selecting an affiliate program look for ones that have a help desk or support system in place. They should also have affiliate tools such as articles, banners, and ready to go text links for you to use. They may also have a Frequently Asked Question section as well. This is where you will find information about how you get paid along with how often and if they have any threshold in place.

It is often a good idea to email the program before applying. This way you can check out their support system and see how quickly they reply. After all, you don’t want to send your customers to a site that has non-existent customer service.

If possible connect with other affiliates and see if they enjoy promoting this particular company. Questions to ask are if they are making sales, do customers ask for refunds, and if they have had any issues when it comes to getting paid.

Once you have these concerns covered you can then decide on whether to sign up with this particular program or not.

My final piece of advice comes to disclosure. Remember to disclose your affiliate links. Even if you use a tool like Pretty Links, you still need to tell people about your affiliate links. In most English-speaking countries, you are required to say that something is an affiliate link. I prefer a blanket disclosure, and I assume a link that I click is an affiliate link. Some audiences are not familiar with affiliate marketing and may need extra guidance and support around what an affiliate link is, and why you're using them.

P.S Ready to start promoting as an affiliate? Join Affiliate Marketing from Scratch and brush up on the basics of getting started with affiliate marketing, and how to become successful without being sleazy!

Categories: Affiliate Marketing