I get a lot of phone calls from people who want to jump right into affiliate marketing. One of the first questions they ask is usually, which affiliate network should I go with?
Commission Junction? ClickBank? ShareASale? (add your favorite network here….)
The answer is…… All of them.
Let me ‘splain it to ya Lucy.
When you promote any affiliate program you are in fact putting forth some risk. At the very least you might be promoting a product or service that, in the end, might not payoff. First of all, it might not be a productive program, but you also have to consider whether or not you are going to get paid.
Yup, that’s right, sometimes affiliate programs suck, and find a reason not to pay you. Some of them even pay a ton of money to high powered attorneys so that they can write up super tricky terms of service policies, with the intention of shafting some of their affiliates.
It’s called business boys and girls, and even though it sucks, it is what it is. If it’s more profitable to screw some people, then there are companies out there that will do it.
So you have to spread out the risk on your end, where you can. This is why you want to put your eggs in a lot of different baskets. Promote several programs and networks. Because if any ONE program or network decides not to pay you, you’re still in business.
Consider this. You are a small time affiliate, promoting ONE program you love. It converts well, so you put all your time into it. It seems to be working, because you see the sales racking up in your affiliate statistics. Let’s say that at the end of the month you have three grand coming your way. A decent chunk of change.
But most affiliate programs take a little while to pay off. So you being gung ho for the product, start promoting it even more, because you want six grand next month. You put a few dollars of your own into some Adwords advertising, pimping their product with your own cash.
Then payday comes and goes. You run out to the mailbox every day, but sorry Sparky, that check ain’t coming.
To your surprise, you login one day to see your stats, and your password doesn’t work any more.
Or maybe it does. Doesn’t matter, let’s just say you learn that you AIN’T gettin’ paid.
Think about it. It’s devastating.
Even more so if you were counting on that cash, like so many new affiliates are.
But if you had spread the risk around, and had the same three grand coming from 10 different programs or networks, and only one of them went down the shitter, then you might have only lost a few hundred bucks.
You’d still make a few dollars, be able to pay your advertising costs, and live to tell the story another day.
That’s the difference boys and girls. Spread that risk out a little. Never put all your eggs in one affiliate basket, no matter how great the program is. It will come back to bite you, and let me tell you, those bites can hurt if you weren’t prepared for them.