WebMoney - Tips to fully exploit an affiliate program

Don't shoot yourself in the foot before you even get going!

Make sure you read all the fine print on the Terms and Conditions (or Affiliate Agreement or whatever) which you normally will have to agree to before being accepted into an affiliate program. It's usually a tightly woven mass of legalese that only a lawyer could grow to love, but you still need to make the effort if you are serious about making your affiliation a success.

Check for instance whether the program demands exclusivity: one condition may be that you only feature one bookseller (or one music vendor or one widget manufacturer) on your site. Get carried away and link to two or more and the site running the affiliate program with the offending clause in the contract is perfectly justified in denying you payment.

Check also whether you are obliged to use the links (graphical or text) provided or whether you can "Roll your own". Again, you don't want to leave the door open for your revenue to be denied.

Offer value-added links

If you are going to link to an affiliate program, you will have much more success if you put a bit of thought and effort into the way you link to it. Just like a positive mention or review in a magazine is worth a lot more (in promotional terms) than paying for a glossy full-page ad (people tend to believe journalists), the same applies to your site as well.

For example, if you are going to partner a site that sells books, you could start including short reviews of specific books on your site, along with the other content already there. That way, your visitors know what to expect; they trust you to pick good books for them based on the trust you have already gained from the rest of your site.

Make it clear when you are selling something

If you run a site about an actor, for instance, and you decide that you'd like to earn a little money through an affiliate program, then be upfront about it. Include a link on your site "Buy the movies" and link it to a page that lists each movie the actor has starred in, together with details of the role played by the actor, any other interesting anecdotes, and a text link or graphical button saying "Buy It!". People don't mind a little honest capitalism; it's when you "trick" them by not labeling your links, so that they suddenly find themselves confronted with a form asking for credit card details, that they will lose faith in you.