If you want to truly manage your affiliate program to best of your abilities, you've got to do it yourself. By using an affiliate management software system, you can keep total control of your program, and keep all your commissions. You can decide how often to get in touch with your affiliates and make it personal rather than relying on group e-mail. Your affiliates will be impressed, and may even work harder for you. And as for recruiting, you're far better off working on your own. The network programs that offer to sell your program to potential affiliates do that for ALL their customers, so people who are being notified about your program are also being notified about countless others. You may get lost in shuffle.

So make a little time and take a little initiative. With just a little extra work, you can run your own affiliate program without sacrificing your personal involvement and your commissions to a network. Running your own program may seem intimidating now, but once you get hang of it you'll be glad you did.

If your affiliates need website content or if they distribute an ezine, you may want to supply them with an informative article about your business. This should not be a blatant ad, but an informative article that customer will benefit from reading whether they buy from you or not. Something effective might be a short piece about emerging trends in your line of business, and how you are responding to those trends. Close article with a small business blurb and your url link. People like reading new information, and you'll find you get a lot of clicks. And don't worry if you're not a good writer. Talk to someone at your local college English department. You may find excellent student writers who are willing to work for pizza. If you're not near a college, browse web. There are all sorts of inexpensive writing services available online.

You can also supply your affiliates with a catchy signature file that links to your business. Write two or three lines about why your business is great. Try to be a little witty. Include your url link at end. Dedicated affiliates could use this sig file to close e-mail with, and you'll find yourself with even more business.

What it boils down to is this: you've got to be proactive with your selling program. You can't expect a very basic set-up to make you rich. People are getting more and more web savvy all time, so you've got to surprise them with something original to get them to go to your site. If one thing isn't working keep trying something else until you get it right. If you spend even a little time tweaking your link system, you may just find your sales skyrocketing.