Scam or should I give it a go?

Stick with adsense or try affiliate programs?

[shoreline]

I was recently contacted by a software vendor and asked to sell their product on my site. Their product would fit well with my sites content and they claim:

‘Excellent Conversions – Average 1:90, Unbeatable Payouts – Make up to $30 per sale, Monthly cash contests and Dedicated Support – Need landing pages, creatives, payouts? You got it!’

I have always used adsense and never given affiliate programs a try. My question is: do these affiliate programs work or should I just ignore it?

If I try it, I’m not only giving them free links, but tons of traffic which seems impossible for me to track. Is there a site that rates affiliate programs? What’s good and what’s bad?

I know this forum has a ton of information, so much in fact that it’s easy to get lost. Can someone please give me some advice or tips?

Thank you!

[berto]

Be sure to research this affiliate (and any other) thoroughly.

I had a couple of affiliates to which I sent a few thousands visitors with--supposedly--never a sale. After dropping these affiliates several months ago, they still report visitors coming from my sites--and still no conversions, of course. Bogus, made-up stats? Fraudulent, shady operators? You be the judge.

If anything looks suspicious or seems too good to be true, it probably is. Be careful. It's a jungle out there.

[teodorul]

i think that you should give them a try, anyway i don't think that the conversion rate will be so great as they say.

Would you buy the product?

When running this affiliate program test the landing pages every day.

Very important!
Track all the visitors you send using your tracking system.

How to track the visitors you send :

1. Creat a new html page on the server that hosts your webpage.
2. Insert in that page a redirect script to the landing page of the affiliate site.
3. Insert a tracking code to that page.
4. Link all the banners they give you to this page.

You can find a redirect script for free and very easy.
The tracking system can be found for free very easy.

I am using this method and i am very happy about the results. If you need help i will post here some examples.

[hunderdown]

One option would be to make a counter-offer. They want traffic from your site, obviously. So say you would be happy to work with them, but only on an impressions basis, or a set monthly fee.... They know damn well that exposure is worth something.

See what you can work out. It's good to diversify. I'm really pleased with AdSense but it's making me nervous that it now represents more than 2/3 of my site income. I don't like being dependent on one source, and am working on advertising proposals to send to some sites who I suspect would like to advertise directly.

[teodorul]

hunderdown if you want to minimise your adwords earning you know what to do, :) (just a joke)

i don't think that the affiliates will accept pau per impressions, and if you have and you know that your traffic is very targeted you will loose money working with pay per impressions.

[ardent]

If you think your visitors will buy this product give it a try. My recent experience says:

1. At the beginning of the relationship, speak with the affiliate manager or company rep on the phone - know who they are and make sure they know you. Discuss what works for them and some goals for both sides. Personal contacts are important in the affiliate business.

2. Try it for a month and track how many visitors you've sent. You don't have to make a huge amount of money in the trial period - use it the traffic as leverage for your next conversation with the affiliate manager.

3. If you are happy with conversions and commmission, tell the affiliate manager this. Discuss ways of making more money for both companies.

4. If you are not happy with the conversions, call the affiliate manager and discuss why things might not be working. If they like your traffic and know that you're paying attention, they'll pay to keep your traffic coming.

I make about as much on affiliate traffic as I do on Adsense, and affiliate revenue can be negotiated upwards when the company sees the quality of your leads. Companies with good affiliate managers end up with more of my traffic than do companies with "good user interfaces on their affiliate website".