How To Start Your Own Affiliate Program

Running your own affiliate program will increase your sales, due to the amount of affiliate marketers that are willing to promote literally any product or service in a popular niche for a good commission. You can either join a directory such as clickbank or commission junction as a vendor, use a hosted affiliate system or install your own affiliate software and provide the service from your own server.

Clickbank Vendor:

By listing your digital products on clickbank, you have access to over 100,000 active affiliates that are experts in driving targeted traffic to your website. If you learn how to harness the power of clickbank then you could experience a million dollar launch. The are many big affiliates who are willing to do joint ventures but you must be able to offer just as much worth as your partner.

It cost around $50 to get your product on the clickbank marketplace but if you dont make any sales within a certain amount of time then it will be removed, so its best to get your website making sales on a regular basis, before you list.

You must offer an affiliate page that will provide the affiliate with as many promotional materials as possible such as an email series, multiple banner sizes, ecover graphics, squeeze pages, peel away adverts, adwords keyword list and anything else that you use to promote your service. This will give you the best chance of attracting affiliates.

One of the main things that also attracts affiliates is the percentage of each sale that the affiliate will get for each sale generated through their affiliate link. On clickbank, you can offer up to 75%, so i would advise that you put it up to the maximum. This will get the most affiliates and if you want to change it down the line then you can but your affiliate numbers will drop if you do.

Hosted Affiliate System:

There are many more options other than clickbank such as white label affiliate solutions such as affplanet, that offer hosted software that you can configure to suite your business. All of the features that the best affiliate programs offer are included with paid packages and will allow you to recruit your own personal affiliates.

Same again, you must provide as many promotional materials as possible and offer a good percentage to attract affiliates. You will gain affiliates by linking to your affiliate account from your main website.

Self Hosted Software:

If you want further control over your affiliate program then you can purchase a script that would allow you to upload an affiliate system to your own server. This gives you full control as well as all the features you would expect from any other platform. Search google for PHP Affiliate Software.

Having an army of affiliates can help you double your sales in no time, especially if you have an active site already. Just be careful that you offer your affiliates a commission that you can handle. Dont undercut yourself and ensure you will always make a profit.

If you offer services with a free trial then you should let your affiliates know that commissions will only be earned once a payment is made and a certain holding period would apply for refunds to take place. Its no good paying your affiliate a commission if the customer asks for a refund as this would harm your business.