If you sell anything on your website, be it a service, product, or information, you'll be wise to implement an affiliate program. An affiliate program is where your company pays a commission for a sale or lead generated by a person who has signed up for your affiliate program. Affiliates can be other business, individual people, or groups of friends who are trying to make a few extra bucks by promoting the products and services you sell. Online affiliate income is in the billions each year and is the driving force behind the success of many business and industries. Perhaps the biggest success story is from Amazon. In their humble beginnings, Amazon started what is known as one of the first affiliate programs. By allowing individuals to get a share of the sales through their website, Amazon was able to grow from "just another online store" to a multi-billion dollar company that many consider pioneers of online shopping. Their affiliate program allowed them to gain a share of the visitors from thousands of other websites. If the visitor purchased something, the owner of the referring website would be cut a commission check. If not, Amazon just gained a FREE visitor to their website. Either way, it was (and still is) a win-win situation for Amazon.
There are a couple of options for implementing your own affiliate program. The first is to develop your affiliate tracking and reporting software and integrate it into your website. This option is time consuming and very expensive as you'll be dealing with payroll, tax implications, and legal issues. The second option is to sign up for services that handle all the micromanagement for you. Start your affiliate program today by checking out
Commission Junction,
Clickbank, or
Share a Sale. Be sure to read their requirements to see if your website qualifies. Each of these services will make implementing your own affiliate program easy.
