The affiliate business is great for home-based internet marketing. Business opportunities are everywhere if you want to work from home as an affiliate marketer.

But there are so many affiliate programs out there - how do you figure out where to best focus your efforts? How can you tell which affiliate programs might be more profitable for you?

Things To Look For
In An Affiliate Program…

Here are a few things you should look for when deciding upon which affiliate programs to promote. Unfotunately many programs I've come across don't provide all this information, so if in doubt, email the affiliate manager. Find out BEFORE you invest your time in promoting their wares.

• What's the offer? Will they be paying you a percentage of the sales they'll make via your referrals? Or maybe it's pay per click, or pay per lead?
• How much? What's the percentage? Or how much do you get per lead or click? If in doubt, double check.
• Do they have a good affiliate manager? Does their affiliate manager reply to your questions in a timely way? Are they helpful and friendly?
• Conversion Rate : What's their conversion rate like? Or in other words, of the number of visitors a typical affiliate sends to their site, how many turn into actual paying customers?
  
  Your aim should be to find suitable affiliate programs that have high conversion rates.
  
  Some affiliate programs will not be willing to share this data with you. So what do you do then?
  
  Well you can get a rough idea by checking out the quality of the sales page/s to which you would be directing your visitors. Does the sales page entice you to buy?
  
  Let's assume that you're a good example of the type of person they're targeting with their products or services. If not, just try and see it from your visitors' point of view…
  
  Does the merchant's presentation look professional? Do they seem trustworthy? Does the product sound interesting and viable? Are you tempted to buy it yourself?
  
  If you aren't, or if you look at their sales pages with suspicion and distrust, then the likelihood is, others will probably react in the same way. And this could suggest that the merchant just isn't doing such a good job at turning visitors into paying customers. In this instance, you may choose to spend your time looking for another affiliate program instead.



• Affiliate tools : Do they have any good promotional tools you can use? Some programs have a diverse and sophisticated array of tools you can use to promote their products and services. Others just provide you with the bare minimum of a text link and leave you to it. That may not bother you, but it's worth knowing what you can use, nevertheless.
  
  For a great affiliate program you can join that has loads of promotional tools you can use, click here…
  
  

  Not sure what to do? Try this free point-and-click system's affiliate program action guide.
  
  This action guide is a step-by-step guide that will take you through the various things you can do to get started as an affiliate marketer. You can implement each Action Step within 15 minutes. Each issue of the program is very short. All you have to do is one action step per week. Follow the whole program and you will be well on your way.
  
  Click here to access their free affiliate action guide…

• What's their cookie period? Huh? What's a cookie?
  
  Well basically, a cookie helps to track the visitor - it's what helps the affiliate program software determine that it was, in fact, you who sent visitor 2679 (who bought £200 worth of stuff) to their site.
  
  It's what links the visitor to you.
  
  The good news is that most programs have a 'cookie period' - a time frame within which you still get commission, even if that visitor returns a certain amount of time later to eventually purchase something.
  
  The period during which affiliate programs are willing to pay you commission, vary quite a bit. One affiliate program might only be willing to pay you commission for any purchases made during that visitor's first session at their site (i.e. if they don't buy now, you don't get your commission - not a great deal for you). Others have 30, 60, 90 day periods. Some affiliate programs even have life-time periods.
  
  Obviously the longer the cookie period, the better, as this increases your chances of receiving commission, should the visitor choose to return and buy something later on.



• Is it Two-Tier? Huh?
  
  OK, say Shirley visits your gorgeous site. She then decides to click on your affiliate link, that takes her to the merchant's site.
  
  Now, say Shirley already runs a web site herself, and sees that this merchant has an affiliate program. Shirley thinks, 'Hey I like the look of this! I'm going to sign up to their affiliate program and see if I can do a bit of affiliate marketing myself.'
  
  She signs up to their affiliate program and starts referring her own visitors to the site…
  
  If Shirley makes commission, you make commission: The affiliate program may, for example, offer to pay you 5% of anything Shirley makes. That's a basic example of second tier. It might not sound like much but when you have lots of affiliate marketers in your downline, the commission can all start to mount up nicely.
• Is this merchant reliable? Or if you're signing up via an affiliate network, are they reliable? Can you trust them to pay you? And can you trust them to pay you on time?
• What are their payout terms?
  • What is their minimum payout level? How much do you need to earn in terms of commission before they'll send you payment?
  • How often will they send you your commission? Quarterly? Monthly?
  • When will you be paid? If they'll be paying you by cheque, when are the cheques sent (not 'cut') and by when can you expect them?
  • How will you be paid? Cheque? Paypal? Payment direct to your bank account?
• How do they handle returns? Do you get it deducted from your commission? And if they do deduct commission from your balance for returns, how long is their return period?

Those are just a few things to keep in mind when you're looking around for good affililate programs to promote.

As mentioned earlier, the affiliate business can be a great option for home-based internet marketing. There are many affiliate-based business opportunities out there that can enable you to work from home, and become a top-earning affiliate. 

But it all begins with being able to identify profitable, reliable affiliate programs. After all, if you're going to put the same amount of marketing-effort in, you might as well choose an affiliate program that will generate the most revenue for you, right?

The Home Business Geek