When joining affiliate programs it’s important to determine who the visitors to your site are.  Affiliate programs are targeted towards a certain market, and if you choose programs that aren’t rightly aligned for your audience, you’ll never make the commissions you intended.

When choosing affiliate programs you’ll need to invest in plenty of research.  Considering your target audience’s needs is the primary focus for ensuring that they will find the program appealing and be enticed to click through and make a purchase.

Before joining an affiliate program, review the site.  It’s important to remember that since you are referring your customer to the merchant’s site that you are recommending that merchant as an honest and reputable business partner.  Your customer’s trust that you are referring them to legitimate businesses.  Take the time to review the merchant’s website.  Preview the design of the site, the layout, their ordering policies, and check their history to make sure they are an upstanding businesses.  Choose affiliate programs that you would buy products from yourself.

Determine how the affiliate program interacts with their associates.  Do they have a person that you may contact should you have any affiliate marketing questions?  Reputable companies provide a marketing professional with whom you can interact, send Emails to, and discuss marketing strategies with.  It is important to associate yourself with companies that understand the importance of the merchant/affiliate relationship and take that relationship seriously.

Preview the types of marketing materials they make readily available when making your decision.  Do they use banner ads, text links, HTML code for newsletters, and do they have a wide variety of graphic ads?  Also, make sure that they frequently update their ads as well.  If they are still running Christmas ads in July, they might have difficulty managing their affiliate marketing department.

Always read through and understand the terms of payment to ensure that you choose marketing programs that are best suited for your needs.  Every associate program offers its own payment structure and terms.  Determine how you will be paid, as some programs pay on a weekly basis, while others pay on a monthly basis after you reach a set threshold.  By taking these factors into consideration, you can make certain that you select the best affiliate programs for your needs.