Bad Affiliate Programs

Why is one doing much better than others?

[bandt84]

Hello folks! This is my first post and I want to start by thanking all of you wonderful people for helping out so patiently. Whatever your faith, I do believe that this kind of thing will mean something for you somewhere along the way. I can tell you that it is helping me to realize a dream.

Down to business - I have my first site published. It is a small discussion group. I am utilizing banners for three seperate affiliate programs, (all similar products and related to the group theme). One of the three has had about 1,000 hits in the last week. The other two indicate just a few hits each. These are self operated affiliate programs, (not third party like cj and others). My questions are:

1. Is there a good tool to verify the actual banner clicks to keep these people honest? I am teaching myself Frontpage and utilizing templates. I am not real affluent with actual code yet.

2. I could be accused of being a little naive. Are there alot of crooked affiliate programs and do you think that's what I'm most likely finding out?

Thanks again in advance, Bandt84

[buckworks]

Crooked merchants do exist, but they're by no means the majority. Merchant cluelessness is a much bigger problem, in my experience. Get some more merchants into your mix, test how they perform for you, and phase out those that don't deliver good results. As you become more experienced, you'll become more able to identify things that are genuine problems as opposed to statistical ups and downs, and maybe help the occasional merchant to get a clue.

Regarding the banners, where are they located? That can make quite a difference in how often they get clicked. If you have them rotating in the same spot, location wouldn't be an issue, but if you have different banners in different places, it might be.

Also, how effective are the banners themselves? Some banners attract more clicks simply because they're better designed.