"Creating" affiliates for own products - best practice?

Newbie question to the affiliate cosmos

[pmkpmk]

I'm starting a niche website offering niche products. The nature of these products allows it that other niche sites might be inclined to advertise for them too. So my question is: how do you start an affiliate network? Are there service providers who offer you the framework, tracking and billing and you simply include your products? Are there open-source solutions to use on your own server? Is it a viable approach to manually create and track links?

Any help will be appreciated!

[eljefe3]

It really depends how much time and effort you want to put into your program as to which solution is best for you. You can find affiliate tracking solutions very cheaply on the various script websites. Upside here is it's quite cheap to buy one of these, whereas the downside is it will take a lot of time to set up the system, keep track of billing, paying out affiliates, etc.

Also you'll have to do your own advertising and promoting of the site which will include recruting affiliates, posting your program on various affiliate program websites etc. This takes time.

On the other end, you can sign up with a big program that will manage it for you.....at a cost. If all you want to do is cut a check and not actively promote your pgoram, then this solution is for you. It will save you a lot of time, but will cost you a lot of $$.

Then there are some in-between programs which won't charge you a lot, may have some good affiliates available etc. These programs will take up more of your time than a fully managed program, but will cost considerably less.