Let’s take a realistic look at affiliate programs, what they can and can’t do for your business and how to maximize your chances of creating a successful, long-term business with them.

An affiliate program (also known as a reseller, associate, referral or partnership program) is essentially a revenue-sharing arrangement whereby you, the affiliate, receive payment from the owner of a product or service that you promote on their behalf. Affiliate programs are an excellent way for the new internet entrepreneur to start an online business.

Types of Affiliate Programs

There are various types of affiliate programs.

The most simple involves you, the affiliate, placing a banner ad, graphic or text link at your site which is linked to the site of the business you are promoting. This link is coded with your unique affiliate ID so that the site visitor is recorded at the target site as having originated from your site, thereby allowing you to be credited with the sale.

Payment is generally a fixed percentage of the sale value (commission) or “pay per click”, where the affiliate is paid a certain amount for every time a site visitor clicks on the link at the affiliate’s site, whether or not a sale is made.

The more sophisticated affiliate programs are multi-tier and allow the affiliate to earn commissions not only on the traffic they directly refer to the target site but also a proportion of sales generated by their sub-affiliates.

Benefits of Affiliate Programs

The greatest benefit of affiliate programs is that when you are just starting out in your own online business you don’t have to worry about creating your own product or service. You just promote someone else’s and get a share of the revenue pie for your efforts.

You also don’t have to concern yourself with warehousing, transport or logistics headaches. All of this is handled by the business whose products/services you are promoting. All you need concentrate on is driving traffic to that business’s website. This means that a high proportion of your revenue is profit.

The owner of the product/service is also responsible for collecting payment, customer service and the myriad other details that come up on a day to day basis in running the business.

Disadvantages of Affiliate Programs

The main and obvious disadvantage of affiliate programs is that it is the owner of the product/service who earns the lion’s share of the profit on the sale.

You’re working on commission. You will NEVER earn by way of affiliate program commissions as much as you can earn by way of profits from producing and selling your own product/service.

As a result, affiliate programs represent a high opportunity cost when you consider what you could earn if you instead channeled the time and energy you spend on promoting affiliate programs into creating and promoting your own product/service.

For this reason, it does not make sound business sense to rely solely on affiliate program income for the longer term growth of your business.

Instead, think of them as a way of dipping your toe in the water when you’re first getting started, and a nice little sideline once you’ve created your own product/service. Do NOT build your business around affiliate programs with the intention this will always be the backbone of your business. You’ll be stunting your own growth if you do.

Then how we want to start an affiliate needs if or when we have a product to market and to starts an affiliate program to it?

I would recommend you have a look to PayDotCom. Why PayDotCom?

PayDotCom is a new online marketplace and will catalog thousands of products and services, both digital and physical products.

Advantages of PayDotCom are:

* Purchases pay instantly to your PayPal account.
* Sell physical products and Digital Goods
* Collect Subscriptions for your service or membership sites
* Get Paid Instantly
* No Pre Approval
* Stats Tracking
* Promotional tools for your affiliates
* Create a new product line in 60 seconds.

To use PayDotCom you just:

* Be a member of PayPal account.
* Signup for a free account.
* Create a new product line in 60 seconds.
* Add a “Buy It At PayDotCom” button on your web site.

PayDotCom will then:

* Provide real-time access to your custom “Thank-You” page.
* Enable our affiliates to promote your products.
* Enable you to recruit an army of affiliates to promote your products.
* Provide you and all affiliates with real-time sales reporting.
* Provide you and all affiliates tools and stats to track all your campaigns.
* Provide you with a MASS pay file to pay your affiliates using PayPal account.

PayPal now allows any of their members to use Mass Pay regardless of their country.

With PayDotCom, your customers can pay you via your PayPal account. They can use their available PayPal funds or they can use their Checking Account, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, Bravo, Visa Debit, MasterCard Debit, or Novus that is on file with their PayPal account.

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