The All-you-need Guide To Picking A Winning Affiliate Program In Any Niche Market

One important factor of successful affiliate marketing is finding the right affiliate program to promote, something many affiliate marketers ignore or do wrong. The reason is there are easily tens of thousands of affiliate programs out there; we simply get overwhelmed just by looking at them.

Here are some tips you can use to identify and pick the right affiliate program for yourself.

1. Do your market research first - It is very easy to fall into the trap of promoting a product that nobody wants except yourself. Make sure there is a market actively looking for the product you promote? If not you would only be wasting all your efforts and resources.

Use keyword research tools to find out such niche markets.

2. Look for affiliate programs that cater to the needs of your market - Find a product or affiliate program to promote to your market and satisfy their needs. If you already have a list and website, then you need to evaluate the traffic you are getting at your website and analyze if they will be interested in the products you are trying to promote to them. If you are promoting well but still fail to make any sales, chances are you do not have the target audience for that product. For example, if your list is a group of dog enthusiast, you can look for affiliate programs that offer dog training or dog care products.

3. Keep a lookout for affiliate programs in demand - Look for affiliate programs that offer products which are already in demand and are selling well. Always remember that popular affiliate programs do not necessary mean more income. You may be facing some really strong competition from your fellow affiliates. That is the negative aspect. Sometimes you need to join an affiliate program and then test the returns and total commissions you are getting before you come to any conclusion. If it is not promoting well, figure out whether the problem lies with you, if it does not, then simply just try another program.

4. Find affiliate programs with a good track record - Make sure your affiliate programs have a proven track record in commission payouts and high quality products. It would be better if the affiliate program is 2-tiered. You can earn recurring income from affiliates in your downline.

Remember never to promote low quality and trashy products. Give an honest review and promote honestly. Do not promote a benefit the product cannot deliver. They harm your reputation and you will lose your credibility.

Find an affiliate program that pays out at least 30% of commissions, and a sales copy that converts well! I cannot stress enough about this point. You do not want to promote an affiliate program that in the first place cannot sell to targeted referrals because of a lousy sales copy. That is the bad thing about affiliate marketing; you are only credited after a sale. Hence the sales copy must be very powerful.

Also find out if they provide advertising materials like product graphics, banner advertisements, and targeted keywords for your pay-per-click advertisement as well as pre-written email promotional messages. If they do, chances are they are putting in effort to help their affiliates.

5. Find out how you are credited with the sale - How does the company track your links? Do they use cookies? What happens if your visitors turn off their cookies in their web browsers? What if your visitors delete their cookies? Do they have any other tracking methods? If a visitor visits your affiliate link first, and then decided to bought the product after clicking through another affiliate link, who will be credited with the sale? Finding out about these technical stuff aids you in creating your own marketing plan.

6. Look out for dishonest affiliate programs - Some affiliate program owners, use their own affiliate links to ride over your affiliate links. What do I mean by that? For example, you refer a subscriber to the salescopy; he signs up for the owner's newsletter and clicks on the owner's self-generated affiliate link. Hence, when the subscriber buys the product, the owner is credited entirely with the sale. Never promote such an affiliate program.

To Your Affiliate Success!