You have been working as a affiliate for different affiliate programs. You may or may not be satisfied with the earnings what you get from these affiliate program. Have you ever thought of starting your own affiliate program?
I did think about this 3 years back and I am running different affiliate programs. The latest one is the HomeJob Referral Program. All my affiliate program was targeted to Indian Internet users and was branded as HomeJobs for Indians.
Well, in this post I am explaining how to start your own affiliate program using my 3 years of running affiliate programs and managing 1000’s of affiliates
Planning your affiliate program
The first part is the planning your affiliate program. You need to look into the revenue from your affiliate program and the payments that you need to do to your affiliates. You need to work a lot on planning your affiliate program as this is the main factor that can help you keep running your affiliate program. My first affiliate program was the HomeJob Affiliate program which was free for anybody to join. I was paying a referral bonus up to level 10 for referrals and my main intention of this program was to create content for my websites. I was paying up to US$ 2.00 for good articles submitted by the affiliates of HomeJob Affiliate Program. I could build more than 2000 pages in a very short span of time. I had facing problem of moderation as I was getting lots of submissions and most of the content written was just for the sake of getting the payment. To restrict the number of submission, I announced the closure of this affiliate program and start a new program with high earning opportunities called HomeJob Pro. The program was well tuned and I had a budget to run the program for 2 years. In the start I charged a registration fees of US$ 25 and I was sharing this with the referring affiliates and the Franchisee who gave me new registration. My aim for charging the registration fees was to filter out people who just wanted to try something only because it was free. The registration was valid only for 1 year and has come up well. Most of the affiliates earned good and the demand of the program was so high that again I had to increase the registration fees. When I stopped new registration in Jan 2008, the fees was US$ 100 and still I had many who got registered.
So now to the point, you need to plan your affiliate program to make sure that the revenue that you generate from the sales should be more than enough to meet all your expense as well as make prompt payment to your affiliates. If you do not pay promptly, then its gone. The testimonials given by your affiliates are the best tool to increase your sales and increase the number of affiliates working for you
Reasons to get Good number of Sign-ups
I was getting good number of sign-ups every month and the reason was prompt payment. I am proud to say that, till today all the due payments are released from my side. I used good number of tools to manage my affiliates. I had an excellent support centre, Live Support system and knowledgebase. I purchased all licensed tools for my affiliate program and had dedicated server to host my affiliate websites as well as my project websites.
Advantages of running an affiliate program
You build up good relation with lots of people who are interested in earning money online. I have 1000’s of affiliates working for my program and I do have a direct contact with all of them. I get lots of emails related to home jobs opportunities and many ask for help in building up their blogs and websites. Other biggest advantage of running an affiliate program is to sell your products. You can get your products sold by paying an affiliate commission to your affiliates
I am closing this post here, but I know this does not cover even 10% of knowledge that you need to start an affiliate program. Don’t worry, I will share all my experience and you will be seeing tons of posts coming up periodically, stay tuned in or subscribe to my posts by email or RSS Feeds. You can find the link below