Over the last 20 or so years, I’ve seen many “interesting” opinions on what to look for to find the best affiliate program where you can make money.
7 Point Checklist To Find The Best Affiliate Programs
Some people recommend you go for the highest payouts, and others will say network earnings per click (EPCs) are vital.
7 Point Checklist To Find The Best Affiliate Programs
Unless you’re intercepting the store or service provider’s traffic, these could be warning signs and not signals that the affiliate program is good. And this is why I’m writing this post.
7 Point Checklist To Find The Best Affiliate Programs
“What is the best affiliate program?” is one of the most common questions I get asked when speaking at conferences – especially publisher and SEO ones.
7 Point Checklist To Find The Best Affiliate Programs
So, I’d like to share seven of the most important factors I look at before promoting an affiliate program or when I have two good potentials and cannot determine which to test first.
7 Point Checklist To Find The Best Affiliate Programs
In addition to metrics, you’ll also learn the reasons why each matters and, in many cases, how to test and see if it will apply to your situation.
7 Point Checklist To Find The Best Affiliate Programs
This is how you can find an affiliate program with the best chance of making money.
This list isn’t in order, except for the first one. Before we jump in, I mention “testing” a lot throughout. The most basic affiliate tracking test is:
- Click your affiliate link.
- Add products to the cart.
- Checkout like a customer would.
- See if the commission shows up in your account.
Do not get distracted by cash back, coupons, multiple payments being available, ads running across the site for other companies or brands, etc. The goal is to see if basic tracking is working, not attribution testing.
Now here’s the list of what I look for when selecting affiliate programs, and what I recommend you look for, too.
1. Responsive Managers
The most important thing before joining an affiliate program is to write to an affiliate manager through the contact information in the network.
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