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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Save Yourself Some Grief, when Applying to Affiliate Programs

Lets face it, there are thousands of affiliate programs out there, and despite your freakish skills as an affiliate marketer, quite a few of them will be non-performing duds.
Either you aren't going to make a penny off them, or the time and money invested will only return a pittance, not worth the trouble.

Time to do a few pre-signup checks.

*Look around for negative customer input on the web.
Check epinions and other similar sites. A merchant who rips off their customers won't treat you much better. Plus they may be on the way down, headed towards bankruptcy, etc.

*Are their commissions too good to be true? Recently I came across a gaming merchant offering $100 payouts on a $25 signup? Not surprisingly , there are affiliate complaints about the merchant. (even the old poker sites I affiliated with didn't offer terms like that.)

*What do other affiliates say about the merchant? Check the popular affiliate forums (like abestweb.com) to get a feel for the program. What are their complaints? Do the programs keep changing networks like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower? Probably not a good sign.

* Finally, scope out possible merchant problems using google-trends. This can give you a quick overview on possible problems with a merchant, or at least their website.

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