Something I'm quickly finding out as I explore affiliate marketing as a way to make money online is that I am not a natural born salesperson like some people are. Some people, like Chris, seem to have a salesperson gene. He can sell anything to anyone. When he worked in the electronics department at Wal-Mart back in Oregon, they were constantly amazed at his ability to sell three or four computers, televisions, and other big ticket items, per day... when the rest of them were lucky if they sold one.
As an affiliate one's job is to pre-sell the products or services one is promoting: to convince the audience not just to click on the link or ad, but to give out personal information or make a purchase. Not only do I have no talent for selling things I haven't used myself, even those things I truly believe in I can only seem to sell to family members. I can't even sell my eBay items!
Perhaps the problem is that I just don't have a big enough audience yet, which is something I continue to struggle with. My Google PageRank is low, and will probably continue to be as long as I accept paid posting opportunities through PayPerPost and similar programs. But with those programs I am guaranteed to be paid for the work I put in, so until I build other streams of reliable income I'm not willing to give them up. I am generating traffic through various social networks, but still haven't found the magical spell to convert those visitors into subscribers.
No matter, I'm not giving up yet, so I thought today I would give a rundown on the affiliate networks I've joined and my first impressions of them.
Market Leverage
Pros: Many claim it to be the highest paying program in the industry. There are many merchants which offer extremely high payouts for a single action, sometimes not even requiring a sale (paying instead for free trial signups or e-mail address submissions).
Cons: Insist upon telephone interview before approving new affiliates. Minimum of $25 earnings required before publisher is paid. Extremely restrictive with marketing rules. Many campaigns are e-mail only, which I feel encourages spam. Few campaigns allow publishers to offer incentives to customers, and in order to incentivize you must do so exclusively (i.e. sites offering incentives cannot promote non-incentive campaigns at all). Poorly written text links do not fit into natural writing flow, and cannot be changed without approval. Web site is difficult to navigate and has very little help available without having to contact staff directly, and in order to refer to terms and conditions and other information, one must actually log out.
Money Earned to Date: $0. And not for lack of trying, as this is the network I have been working with the longest.
MoreNiche
Pros: No elitism; all affiliate applications are automatically approved. Generous startup bonuses. Provides free web site templates and article copy for many products. Flexible linking guidelines - affiliates may use provided banners or design their own, and can use any text they wish for text links.
Cons: $100 minimum payout. Small selection of merchants, many of which fall into categories some publishers may be morally opposed to promoting.
Money Earned to Date: $35 in bonuses only. Have not spent much time actively promoting products yet.
Commission Junction
Pros: Probably the most popular network among merchants - if there's a specific merchant you're looking to promote, chances are you'll find it here. Web site is easy to understand and navigate.
Cons: You must be approved by each merchant individually, and many will reject you for no good reason (advertising is advertising; if they only pay when a sale is made, why should they care how much or how little traffic you have?). Merchants have also been known to boot a publisher they've previously approved, again without reason or explanation. $50 minimum payout. No commission paid for referring other publishers.
Money Earned to Date: None yet since re-signing. See my rant on minimum payouts below for the story on how I was robbed by them before.
pepperjamNETWORK
Pros: Houses many smaller merchants who are eager to work with publishers no matter how small. Communication directly with merchants is made readily available and easy to do.
Cons: $25 minimum payout.
Money Earned to Date: None yet. I only signed up a few days ago.
On minimum payouts... you'll notice I listed this as a con for every one of the above networks. Though it seems to be standard, my opinion is very strong that requiring a minimum earnings amount before paying a publisher is wrong. Merchants pay these networks for every transaction a given affiliate generates, not only for those who generate $25, $50, or $100 in commissions. That money was earned by the publisher and belongs to him or her, regardless of whether that publisher ever generates another sale in his or her lifetime. When there are costs involved with printing and mailing checks, and the affiliate network is covering those costs themselves, then a minumum payment amount is reasonable to reduce those costs, so that the company isn't paying a dollar in supplies and postage to mail out a 30-cent check. But in this day and age of electronic banking, there is very little cost involved, especially when electronic payments can be made automatically with no manpower needed, other than the initial programming of such a system.
Now, even if minimum payouts during the life of a relationship between publisher and affiliate network were acceptable, what is absolutely not acceptable is refusing to pay out any amount that publisher has earned when he or she decides to end the relationship. Some years ago I had an account with Commission Junction which only earned I think around $25 in the two or three years the account was open. At the time I was not actively trying to make money on the internet; I was only hoping that displaying a few affiliate banners would help to defray the cost of hosting my web sites (which were only a hobby back then). This was before the days of Google Adsense and other contextual pay-per-click advertising. Obviously it wasn't working, which is why after a couple of years I decided it wasn't worth bombarding my viewers with ads anymore. Commission Junction refused to pay me what I had earned because it was under the minimum payment threshold, even though I was closing out my account. It was my efforts that generated those sales, no one else's. The advertisers had paid Commission Junction for my sales, and Commission Junction chose to keep my money that I had rightfully earned. A reasonable processing fee to pay out my earnings would have been acceptable. But refusing to pay them at all is theft, no matter what their terms of service state. (My putting a policy on this site that states I am allowed to kidnap your relatives and sell them into slavery doesn't actually make it legal.) After this experience, signing up with them again made me feel dirty, but since they have some merchants I'm highly motivated to promote, I had to swallow my pride.
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