Featured Product:

An excellent method to increase affiliate leads is to offer a Web Page that acts as a featured product at affiliate’s Web Site. This can be a stand alone Web Page or one that merges in with Web Page content at affiliate’s site. The key is to focus on product being sold, a one product offer that stands out from rest of page. This can be integrated into a site almost as a sponsorship, without cost. For example, if a high traffic area of an affiliate’s Web Site is available, encourage them to feature your product in that section alone. It is more effective for affiliate to test response rates, and for affiliate network it will result in more qualified leads.

This approach basically eliminates grouping of affiliate programs and encourages people to click on this important product, because it appears to be featured. The featured product enables you to gain exposure at affiliate’s site in a way that is perceived favorably by visitors.

Storefront:

The best affiliate responses can come from a storefront integrated into another Web Site. This can be as simple as putting a logo graphic on top of page with a return link to affiliate’s Web Site, so that storefront appears to be an important part of Web Site as a whole.

Storefronts increase credibility by offering a selection of products in a single setting. The storefront should not be one of many at an affiliate’s Web Site, but an integral part of their efforts. While this requires more work on part of affiliate network, returns can be much greater. Popular portal sites use this strategy often, but by extending it to highly trafficked sites, you can increase branding and perceived value of what you offer.

A good idea is to mix text/banner ad approach in number 2 to a storefront, so you can offer multiple products. A good rule of thumb is not to offer more than 3-5 products at another Web Site; too many choices confuse visitor.

Finally, most glaring lack of focus in most affiliate networks is ad copy. Words are what motivate people to read, act, and buy. Without a good headline, testimonial, and ad copy, all your efforts will be hindered. Be sure that you look at words you use in any of four methods and find ones that work best for you, and your affiliates. Adapt your words until you find ones that pull best.

As I like to say, there are two types of businesses online; those who test, and those who lose money. If you are not testing, counting, and quantifying your affiliate network efforts, you are missing most of value . . . guaranteed.

For example on WWW Treasure Hunt site at http://www.wwwtreasurehunt.com I have two affiliate programs. I needed one affiliate program to compensate for Treasure Hunter sign-ups and one to reward affiliates for advertisers. For first option, I used a script which I obtained from Superscripts at http://www.superscripts.com/agentspro/cgibin/agents.cgi?salad which my hosting company installed and configured for me for free. This script allows treasure hunters to sign-up from an affiliate site without actually leaving it. For second option, I chose to have whole site replicated but had it configured specifically to track advertiser sign-ups only.

If you don't have your own merchant account, you could use a service like Clickbank. They provide a payment facility and will track your affiliate sales. You can find out more by visiting http://hop.clickbank.net/?hollyj55

If you have your own merchant account but want an outside company to handle and track your affiliate program, you could use a service like either http://www.linkshare.com or http://www.cj.com/ who make it easy and handle everything for a fee.

When deciding on which service to use to set-up your affiliate program, think of things from affiliate's point of view and what's important to them. A key factor to running a successful affiliate program is having happy affiliates. Make things easy for them. Offer different banner sizes, text links, real-time stats and e-mail notification when sales are made.

Once your affiliate program has been set-up, you'll need to promote it. As a starting point, list your site at http://www.revenews.com, http://www.associateprograms.com/ and http://www.affiliatebroadcast.com. These sites also provide information on marketing your own affiliate program.

The point is there are lots of options for you to choose from. Depending upon your circumstances, financial situation and whether you sell products or services, but which every method you choose, you could soon be on your way to becoming next Amazon.com!