This article will provide some useful information to those who are planning to start affiliate marketing. The profit in this business is the sales commission. Affiliates are interested in the products that offer high sales commissions. The merchants want to sell their products but they want to pay less sales commission to get the maximum benefit.

This article will guide the merchants on how to set their sales commission. Also it will tell the affiliates how to choose the products on the basis of sales commission offered.

Affiliate Marketers and Sales Commission

Whenever an affiliate marketer plans to enter into this field, the following questions arise in his mind:

“Will I be able to earn commission by selling merchants products? What will be my percentage? Will I be able to earn a good amount from selling the products or not?”

There are different types of affiliate programs. The first type is called “Pay per Sale”, the second is “Pay per Lead” and last is “Pay per Click”. There are some more types, but these three are the most popular among affiliate marketers.

In the pay per sale option, the merchant pays the affiliates on every sale. Usually the commission rate is anywhere between 10-50%. The products that are really hot in the market usually give less commission. In the pay per lead, the affiliate is paid for every person that is registered on the merchant website. Usually a visitor is offered to use a free product on a trial basis and their credit card information is stored. The visitors credit card is not charged during the trial period. After the trial period has expired, if the visitor is interested, he will be charged. In the pay per click option, the affiliate is paid for every click that is made on his affiliate link. The affiliate is paid for every click, even if the visitors do not make any purchases. Obviously the commission on per click is much less as compared to other options.

In the beginning, only select the products that are hot and are really making sales, even if their sales commission is lower. Greater sales will compensate you. If you are choosing the product just on the basis of high profits and not on the basis of its demand, then you may suffer. Another good way is to choose the hot products with less profit and some new products with high profit. Then keep an eye on your sales. If the new products are giving you the sales then it is ok. Otherwise remove them and select some other new product with good sales commission.

If your website has really a good and constant flow of traffic, then pay per click is a very good option for you. Because you are paid for every click and you are not required to make any sales.

Merchants and Sales Commission

If you are a merchant, then always offer a commission that is both acceptable by your affiliates and you. If you offer a very low commission, then there are less chances of affiliates interest in your products and this may reduce your sales. On the other hand, if you are offering a very high commission, it will attract the affiliates but in the long term you may suffer. So always try to offer a reasonable commission.

If you are a merchant and are going to introduce a new product to the market, then you can offer some really high commissions in the start. This may be like 50% of the sale. This will attract the affiliates and you will get a large number of affiliates in very little time. The affiliates will be highly motivated to make as many sales as they can so that they can earn high commissions. This will greatly increase your sales. Once your product has become popular and in demand, then you may reduce the sales commission gradually.

As a conclusion, setting a reasonable commission is an important factor for the merchants to do good business. Also the affiliate marketers should select the products that are giving them good profit and are easy to sell.

Alec Olive is an Affiliate Marketer. Find out how you can start your online business at http://www.AffiliateCashSecretsOnline.com

Every affiliate marketer is required to use some legal documents to run his business. Without these documents you may lose everything. Just a single complaint from your customer can shutdown your business.

Here is the list of legal documents that you must have to protect your business and yourself.

1. Privacy Policy

This is the document that describes how you are collecting and using your visitors information. It should clearly indicate that you will not use the information of your visitors for any other purposes and you will not share their personal information. Without this document, you may face problems from your visitors and other agencies like the Federal Trade Commission.

2. Terms of Use & Disclaimer

This document limits your responsibility to your website users. It really protects you. This document usually contains Use of Site, licenses, limitation of liability, miscellaneous items, etc. For example, if you have a website where people are allowed to post their views about some products, then you may want to mention that these views are just the opinions of the visitors and are not the thoughts of the site owner.

3. Affiliate Agreement

This form is needed if you are running an affiliate program. It is used to set the terms and conditions that must be followed by your affiliates. Affiliates are then required to observe these rules while they advertise your products. Affiliates will be required to sign this agreement before starting the business with you. You can freeze their commissions or cancel their membership if they are not following this agreement.

4. No-Spam Agreement

Spamming is an activity where you send email messages to a person who has not allowed you to do so. Also posting your ads in the newsgroups and forums where such activity is not allowed is also called spamming. You should only post your advertisements in the forums and newsgroups that allow you to do so or if they are on the same topic. Similarly, posting your ads in the chat rooms and message boards is
not permitted and is called spam.

In a no-spam agreement, it is stated that you have an anti-spam policy. It is also stated that you will not send any unsolicited emails to advertise your programs, services or products without the permission of user.

5. Copyright Notice

Copyright notice is to protect your website content and graphics. It tells the visitors how they can use this content. If you do not want to share your website content, you should indicate it in copyright notices. Without this notice, people may steal your website content and graphics. If someone wants to use your content or graphics then he is required to get the prior permission from you. Otherwise, he is breaking the copyright laws and he may suffer from that. If you want to allow people to use you website information, then you should mention it clearly in the copyright notice which content, graphics or product is free to use by anyone.

6. Earnings Disclaimer

If you are selling any information package or running an affiliate program then you need this document. Without this document your business may be shut down by FTC.

Before starting your online business, make sure that your business is safe by using the above mentioned documents. Without these documents your business is in the danger.

Alec Olive is an Affiliate Marketer. Find out how you can start your online business at http://www.AffiliateCashSecretsOnline.com

After an affiliate marketer chooses a product to promote, he is given a unique website link called an affiliate link. In this link, the unique identity of an affiliate marketer is attached. The affiliate marketer is required to promote this affiliate link as much as he can. For this purpose websites, forums, blogs, newsletters and many other ways are used. Whenever a visitor clicks on an affiliate link to go to the merchants website and make a purchase, the affiliate is credited.

This means that if someone looks at your affiliate link and removes your affiliate id from that link and then uses it to purchase products, you will not be credited. The reason is that merchant will not be able to know which affiliate had sent this buyer. The only way to get credited is the complete affiliate link.

Usually the back of the URL shows the affiliate link in this form: aff_id=someidlike123
It is the unique affiliate id of the affiliate marketer.

Risk

You can see in the above example that it is really very easy to remove the trailing affiliate id from the affiliate link. Anyone can remove your affiliate id and visit the merchant website to purchase. When this happens, you lose the commission that was rightfully yours. This is a problem for the affiliate marketer.

How to Resolve This Issue

There is a solution for this issue. You can hide your affiliate id in the affiliate URL in a way that it cannot be stripped off. But this can only be done if you are using your own hosting. Just follow the following steps to do this:

Using your file manager, make a new HTML file. Name this file relevant to the product you are promoting. In this file use the coding from this website

The back of the would be something like this /hiding-your-affiliate-link/

After putting the code from the above mentioned website, save your file with an HTML extension. Now when someone types your personalized web address, the code in the HTML file will show them your affiliate link in such a way that they will not be able to edit it. They will not know that the link they are clicking is an affiliate link.

But if someone still does not want to use an affiliate id, he can do that by deleting their cookie files and changing some internal files. But the chances of this act are less likely as most of the people do not have much time. And it is not giving them any loss if they are using your affiliate id to purchase something on the internet.

Affiliate URL is the link that is promoted by the affiliates to generate their affiliate revenue. This URL contains their affiliate id to identify them. Do not use the plain and simple affiliate URL, because it will be really easy for anyone to remove your id and make a purchase. If this happened you would not collect commission, even though you had sent the user to make a purchase. The solution to this is to hide your affiliate id in your affiliate URL so that it cannot be easily removed. For this purpose you need to have your own hosting.

Alec Olive is an Affiliate Marketer. Find out how you can start your online business at http://www.AffiliateCashSecretsOnline.com

All affiliate marketers are looking for the successful program that will give the biggest returns. Some marketers think there is a magic formula. However, the reality is far more complicated than that. In affiliate marketing, as in all businesses, it is good marketing practices proven over years of hard work and determination that are likely to lead to success. There are methods that have worked before with online marketing and it is those methods that will continue to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today.

There is a temptation by affiliate marketers to try to fill up one website with numerous affiliate marketing programs. The biggest problem with this scenario is most of these affiliate programs are not complementary to each other. In fact, very often, people new to affiliate marketing join so many programs that some are in competition with each other. This creates a huge credibility problem if they are all located on the same website. It will be obvious to most people that you are more interested in making money off of them than you are in filling the buyer’s needs.

Some even try to pass off sites like these as “affiliate directories” or one-stop-shopping sites, but this tactic rarely proves successful.

Filling a prospective buyer’s needs is the surest way to big profits in affiliate marketing, so keep that as your focus. Do not lump all of your programs together just to save some money on web hosting.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do for those who buy them. Include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Offering a valuable incentive is an easy way to get people to provide a testimonial.

Writing articles that highlight the uses of the product or service should also be included on your website as an additional page. Make these pages attractive and compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should entice the readers to read more. Use graphics to highlight the special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and they will want to find out more.

Offer free reports or e-books to your readers. If possible position them at the very top of your page so it they simply cannot be missed. Create autoresponder messages that will be mailed to those who sign up, or opt-in. Remember, the money is in the list, so you want to be able to contact as many of the visitors who come to your site. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect.

By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product they may decide to purchase down the road. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product but do not make it sound like a sales pitch. As much as possible, avoid using the word “free” because there are still older spam filters that dumps this kind of content into the junk folder before anyone has a chance to read them. Optimizing delivery is the key to any email campaign.

You must get to know your target audience. If the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports.

Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day that means you can made 10 sales based on the average statistic.

The tactics given above do not really sound very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part.

Try to use these tips for all of your affiliate marketing programs. You can end up creating a good source of income and surviving in this business and that is not something all marketers can do.

Tom Schaffer is an escapee from the corporate world and is pursuing a life of affiliate marketing at http://www.jerseyshoremarketing.com. You can see his current venture at: http://www.jerseyshoremarketing.com/redirect1.html