Having a Successful Affiliate Program

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Author: Kale McClelland

Article source: http://www.articledeshboard.com/. Used with author's permission.

1 - Affiliate Sales Preparation
The advantages of affiliate marketing have become an attractive investment over the years for both merchants and publishers alike. For the merchant, benefits that have been reaped are evident in the broadened market where their advertisements have been able to reach as services and products receive higher exposure levels that other marketing techniques fail to deliver. Within a short time frame, merchants are able to see an increase in traffic to their website after they join an affiliate program. In order to gain the most from this kind of advertising, you must follow certain procedures.
In regards to affiliate programs, it is important to exercise appropriate preparation for the anticipated flow of traffic to come. This means you will have to prep your website to handle affiliate sales. Below you will find three ways to accomplish this task:
1) Know Your Competition
One of the biggest questions in the minds of affiliates is why your products and services will prove beneficial to their needs when there are other larger sites and well-known competition knocking at their doors. Preparation and knowledge is key in proving your point (and worth), as you investigate the kind of products your competitors sell, their prices, and how much they pay affiliates.
Becoming familiar with the sales process of your competitors is highly recommended, as it shows where they gain sales. For example, some companies promote a featured product or lure consumers with an initially inexpensive service and then market more expensive selections as a follow-up. The best-prepared merchant actually makes a purchase from their competition to become fully immersed in their process. Additionally, to gather clues regarding the sales strategy of your competitors, signing up for free emails or newsletters is a great way to receive information that answers many questions.
2) Conversion Rate and EPC
As you prepare for affiliate website traffic, you must calculate your conversion rate and affiliate earnings per click (EPC). You will be able to accomplish this quite easily with results that will help in enlisting affiliates. You can find your conversion rate by taking the number of sales and dividing it by the number of unique visitors to your sales page. The EPC is the average amount of money an affiliate can make for each potential customer that they send to your site. You calculate this by multiplying the average per order commission and the conversion rate. If you have a high EPC, this is very attractive to affiliates.
If you want to improve your EPC, here are a few things for you to consider. You could increase your average revenue per order if you offer an up-sell option during the checkout procedure. This will increase your affiliate commission rate, advance your sales letter conversion rate and promote the purchase of add-on items to consumers.
3) Establish Affiliate Tracking Software
When entering the world of affiliate marketing, it is important to install software that will track where each referred sale originates. Success hinges on providing these types of reports to affiliates (in real-time), so they can gauge how much they have earned and will earn in the future. One way to send out this kind of news is to create email newsletters. Today, merchants typically choose between purchasing software that runs on their server, designing and creating a customized solution, and using a third-party affiliate tracking service.

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