Losing Money From Bad Affiliate Programs
Choosing the wrong product or service to market as an Affiliate or choosing the wrong Affiliate Program is not only a waste of your time, it is also a money losing proposition. Let me explain, Like most bloggers I work a full time job and do the blogging and website stuff in my spare time. At work our Antivirus software had expired and I was delegated the task of either renewing or finding a more suitable candidate for replacement. Being the ever enterprising internet marketer, I thought let me look into Antivirus
software makers that have an affiliate program and maybe I can make a little money and make a site for other people like me looking for this information.
So I did my homework and found one that I really liked and thought would be a good match for my company and what we needed. I went to their homepage and looked at the various types of products that were available and the pricing. I then signed up for the affiliate program, created a small site about Antivirus software and placed my links on the page.
A funny thing happened along the way…..
When I went to my site and clicked through my Affiliate link I was quite surprised to find out that the software was going to cost 33% more through my Affiliate link than if I had purchased it through their own site. Considering the Affiliate payout was only 20%, this particular Affiliate program is netting this company 13% more than when they sell it on their own page. The usual process once you find a product that fits the bill, is to find the lowest price possible for that product. So how am I going to make any money if that product can be bought for 33% off of the price someone will have to pay going through my affiliate link? Right, not going to happen, I can do all the promotion in the world and get all the clicks in the world, but what good is that if they don’t buy it from me?
When choosing an affiliate program to work with, you should always check the link and verify that the pricing is at least the same as the products home page. Affiliate Marketing is a tough business with thousands of other Affiliate Marketers out there to compete with, why make your job harder by choosing the wrong Affiliate Marketing Program. Choose wisely, and research your niche, your audience and your affiliate marketing programs.
affiliate link affiliate marketing affiliate program anti virus software Online Affiliate Network
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February 6th, 2008 at 4:30 am
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Aaron Wakling
Aaron Wakling’s last blog post..LIBOR - London Interbank Offered Rate
February 6th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Good point. Haven’t really noticed that yet but I’ll keep a closer eye on it.
Suzanne’s last blog post..Video Conferencing
February 8th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Internet is full of junks and when we talk about affiliate marketing or make money online, there are much more junks! To be a successful marketer, we must do some research on each and every program, before joining. Coz, our money, time and effort is involved there.
I hope that fellow Bloggers will learn some lessons from your post. Thanks.
EarnBlogger’s last blog post..BranfordMagazine WordPress Theme
February 10th, 2008 at 9:48 am
@ earn blogger
if you said so, what happen if all publisher doesn’t want to try something new, all the research begin from trial and error, ??
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February 16th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Great post! I can’t believe that some companies think that they can get away with this! (And do!) Always good to check around I guess if you want to buy something online. But of course we just don’t have the time to visit every merchant and affiliate program out there.
Maybe a new ‘rip-off’ blog needs to be created!
Keep up the good work
-Bec
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October 8th, 2008 at 4:35 am
That’s priceless! How can they do that. It just goes to show how careful you need to be. I guess you should always check it out thoroughly, before and after..
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