How to Choose Good Affiliate Programs for Your Site :D

[kotitihaere]

Kia ora all!

I see that there have been quite a few posts in the last few months from people looking for ideas on affiliate programs, so here I will give you my 10% worth on good affiliate programs. By good I mean ones that have worked for me personally, but if you are new to the game, it may give you a place to start with so many different ones out there

General Affiliate Programs
Here are my top list of general affiliate programs that would suit a website regardless of content.

Google Adsense
This is my top earner. You put a bit of code onto your pages and each time someone clicks on an add you will get paid.

Pros
Payment is made straight into NZ bank accounts
There are a variety of add sizes and types to choose from
The adds can be customised to fit into your site look and feel

Cons
Minimum threshold payment is USD$100 - aroha mai - I am not too sure of the payment threshold in NZD and can not find it! But I think it will be between $NZD150 - 200
In order to meet the minimum threshold per month and get a monthly payment you need quite a bit of traffic which means a well promoted site
You may not want to have google adds all over your site

Books
Books are really good to have on your site and as there is such a wide range of books available, finding ones that will suit your site should not be hard. Books are my #3 earner.

If you are looking for a good Book place to use, I suggest using fishpond.co.nz and not Amazon for the following reasons:
* they pay straight into NZ bank account (Amazon will not pay into a non US bank account)
* They pay 10% commission on books regardless of how many products are shipped (Amazon will pay about 4%)
* payment threshold is $20NZD (Amazon is $100USD - it used to be lower!)

However, having said all of that, if your target audience is global you may want to stick with Amazon, although alot of my customers through fishpond.co.nz are not in NZ and each month there are international shipments.

T Shirts, homeware etc
T Shirts for me used to be a low earner, but I now create my own that are very niche and this has taken over as my #2 best earner.

CafePress is a large site that has millions of T Shirts, homeware and apparel and you may find products there that will fit your site. The Cafepress affiliate program is through Commission Junction and pays into NZ bank accounts.

You can also create your own shop and products there too and then others can offer your designs as an affiliate also!

Pros of CafePress
They have an affiliate program which means that people can promote your products on their sites
Cons of CafePress
They have high base prices whcih means in order to make a good profit, your products will be expensive

If however, having an affiliate program to offer on your site is not all that important to you, you can open a shop at http://www.artamatik.com/ - although a US domain the owner is in Christchurch and is really helpful with things you may want to know. http://www.maoricreations.com/designastore/ is also where I have put up a "How to Design a Store" site to also help.

Pros of Artimatik
The base price is lower, so you can have more of a profit markup and make a larger profit at a reasonable price
It is NZ based
Cons of Artimatik
No affiliate program

Specific Affiliate Programs
Specific affiliate programs depend on your site content so a good place to start is the New Zealand Affiliate Program list at this site or over at the
The Affiliate Directory which has programs sorted by categories

Good luck!

[kotitihaere]

And here I am again!

I have realised that there are a few other things that I forgot to mention that may help, so instead of editing the first post, I will carry on here.

The most important thing
The most important thing before you even consider adding in affiliate programs (ap) is that content is king - people will visit your site for the content and return if the content is relavant to them.

People do not surf the net looking for adds but content, so if you have one sentence on a page then the rest filled with adds, the chances of them coming back are low and having return visitors is good!

How many ap's to use?
When choosing an ap for your site, try initially to limit it to say 1 - 3 because if you use 10 different ap then you have 10 different thresholds to meet before payout!

If you are after certain products and you find 2 sites with ap that have the same products which site offers:
1. lowest threshhold
2. Lowest price

The lowest threshold will mean you could get paid earlier than the other site and the lowest price could mean that people will be more willing to buy.

Using Google Adsense
If you are going to use AdSense, be aware that google used to put adds that are relavant to a site according to the content of the site but have recently changed the way that they do things by putting adds on a site that "is relavant to what the person is looking for".

What this means is that if someone was looking at a travel site, then visited your site on horses, the adds could show for travel and not horses. This can be turned off in the admin of Google Adsense so that the adds served on the site are relavant to the site.

I personally have the option for "My Site Relavant Adds" turned on and have not experienced a drop in income on my site. To me, if a person is on a travel site, travel is what they are interested in, then if they move on to look at horses, that is what they are interested in. Sooner or later, having travel adds following you around the net would mean you would not even bother looking at the adds and therefore no click - no income!

Google suggests that the best working adds are the big ones - I have personally found that the thin, unobtrusive add links at the top of all of my pages (www.maori.org.nz) work the best - but different things will work for different sites, so have a play around.

Generating a good income
It is possible to generate enough passive income a month to equal a wage, but it takes a lot of time and alot of work. About 3 years ago I decided to travel the world and wanted to have regular income each month while travelling, so changing, adding and tweaking things on my sites (content and layout - trying different places for adds etc) for about 2 months solid has paid off - literally!

How well you do will depend on two main factors:
1. How good is your content - remember content is king!
2. How easy it is to find your site / pages in the search engines - if you can not be found easily then people will not regularly visit and it will take a while for you to get income

More Reading
Here is a post that I did a while ago called My Guideline for Good Affiliate Programs to sign up to - and while old, it is still relavant.

That's all for now folks - Good Luck!

[heidrek]

Getting noticed on search engines is my main challenge.

I suspect it'll be easier trying to compete with onl;y Nz sites, but still if you aren't on G pg1 you don't exist!

Don't suppose you know of any good mortgage/deb/insurance related Aff programs?
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[mBUCKS]

Dear Webmasters,

If you are looking for an affiliate program with high payouts, may I suggest mBUCKS. Since 2003, our company has been operating premium SMS-Chat portals in 19 countries, including New Zealand. This year we set up an affiliate program for webmasters to promote our portals and can offer €3.50 / NZD7.00 per lead. You can visit our website at http://www.mbucks.biz and see for yourself what mBUCKS can do for you. Here you can also register, choose a banner and get started right away . If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us by filling out the following form: http://www.mbucks.biz/contacts/affiliate.

Kind regards,

Scott, mBUCKS Support Team New Zealand