Earn $$$! No experience required! Start today, earn cash right away!" Does this sound too good to be true? It is too good to be true. But for those operating a Web site, signing up with the right affiliate programs can be the next best thing. Using affiliate programs to generate more sales and subscriptions for e-commerce and content sites is becoming a fast track to e-business success. Fast Company The popularity of online affiliate programs, which direct customers to online merchants and content providers through banners, buttons and links, is growing rapidly. Forrester Research estimates that the online sales generated by affiliate marketing programs will reach $22 billion within three years. CashPile.com in San Diego now lists more than 2,000 pre-screened affiliate programs at its online directory and the number is growing daily. Proflowers.com alone has signed up more than 70,000 online affiliates. But the best programs and affiliates are better than the rest. "The top 5 percent of affiliates produce over half of all affiliate revenues," reports Phil Trubey, CEO of CashPile.com. Many successful affiliates follow best practices for online marketing. Tracy Benelli, vice president of Proflowers.com reports that her company’s most successful affiliates follow a simple formula: "put the customer first, make the site easy to navigate and make it easy to find information." Repeat customers are key to long-term success and Benelli has found that giving users compelling reasons to return to a site, such as supporting a charity or offering rebate programs, has worked well. Affiliate programs have worked well for Proflowers, which has focused on a strong affiliate network, supported by three of its own managers, as the preferred way to win new customers. Rick Eggers, marketing vice president of Internet Service Provider CaliforniaCom Inc., finds effective layout can improve the results of affiliate links. "We give better placement to the ones that are making more money and getting repeat traffic." Most online affiliate programs have one thing in common: They are profitable for everyone involved. Typical customer acquisition costs for e-business start-ups range from $100 to $500. Popular portals such as AOL and Yahoo! charge millions of dollars plus commissions for long-term advertising programs. Affiliate programs can reduce these costs by more than eighty-percent, at the same time the referral fees and commissions paid to affiliates go directly to their bottom line. Affiliates, however, must earn their pay. Setting-up a portfolio of programs usually takes at least two weeks and at least a day per month for updates and upgrades, regardless of how few affiliate programs you link to your site. And the programs are not for everyone. "Affiliate programs generate traffic from consumers," notes Trubey of CashPile. Business-to-business sites rely more on conventional reseller and agent channels, although many can find select affiliate opportunities to enhance their visibility. Trubey advises site operators to take a merchandising approach and figure out what kinds of products visitors to a site might buy and what kinds of content they would pay for. Every affiliate program you choose becomes a part of your relation with your customers and part of their total experience at your Web site. "You have your own brand to manage," advises Steven Saars at Art of Science. "You want to keep your programs directly related to the topics and subjects on your site." Affiliates also must manage most of the issues common to business partnerships. Merchants who solicit new affiliates usually have standard contracts, but a Web site's ability to generate a special group of customers or enhance a firm's image can command a 20 percent premium over standard commissions and referral fees. Customer complaints related to experiences at linked sites can spill over to relationships with your own program and burn up management time. Collecting and accounting for commissions due takes time, effort and some appetite for risk. "It is very easy for merchants to alter records," cautions Eggers. "It’s a good idea to spot check." Larger sites have some ability to negotiate advances on commissions due, but start-ups need to take the risk that some merchants they promote on their site will go out of business before they pay their commissions. Tracy Benelli says Proflowers' most successful affiliates 'put the customer first.' A World Of Choices The range of choices that Web site operators can select to profit from affiliate programs can be overwhelming. That has created an opportunity for several start-ups to manage programs for other e-businesses — for a fee. Santa Barbara-based Commission Junction offers a full-service program to Web site operators which allows them to choose from up to 1,000 merchants pre-screened by the company. Commission Junction has standardized the interface between merchants and affiliates with a single program to report on traffic, sales and commission payments. Its program is especially valuable to United States sites that direct traffic to foreign sites, since it can process foreign currency payments and handle the details of local coordination through its offices in Europe and Asia. In addition, its program requires merchants to pay into a reserve account for future commission payments, minimizing payment disputes. LinkShare, the worldwide leader in affiliate marketing programs for companies doing business on the Internet, has been awarded a U.S. patent for its affiliate relationship tracking and reporting systems technology. The New York-based company has automated routine communication between affiliates and participating merchants, who fund the entire program at no cost to affiliates. It has developed a separate program for business-to-business transactions. LinkShare also offers a special sub-affiliate management program, which enables affiliates to earn additional profits from promotions and advertising which direct traffic to their own sites. CashPile of San Diego recently raised more than $4 million to develop a new set of services which will include turnkey solutions for affiliates. It already publishes a newsletter for affiliates to keep them up- to-date on potential opportunities and share their experiences with the results of current affiliate programs. Online rating services can help in choosing the affiliate programs that best match your site. BizRate.com uses feedback from consumers to rate the quality of service and products from most of the e-commerce sites which sponsor affiliate programs. Nonprofit agencies, including the Better Business Bureau and Trust-e of Cupertino, screen online content providers and merchants for their seal of approval. For-profit new venture Clicksure of Los Angeles offers certification for Web sites which meet ISO (International standards Organization) requirements for quality and business practices such as handling returns. Interactive services vendor Talk City of Campbell has organized a staff of volunteers who monitor Web sites and chat rooms to screen out potentially offensive content. Collect Each Time You Pass San Diego San Diego e-businesses are in one of the best locations to get the most out of affiliate programs. Many local firms offer leading-edge technology, while others offer lucrative programs with the added benefit of local support. WebSideStory offers some of the most valuable tools for managing an affiliate program. Its Hit Box Enterprise Service tracks the path of visitors to your site as they click from page to page and on to third party banners and links. In addition, it automatically tracks the return on investment of different advertising programs on your site to help you prioritize the placement and support you give the best affiliate programs and help decide which programs are not worth continuing. In addition, the Hit Box Service can help you monitor repeat traffic and conduct tests to determine whether individual affiliate programs impact repeat visits to your site. EyeTracking.com has a unique solution to maximize the placement of affiliate links on your Web site. Its technology measures the time Web site visitors view different locations on the site. The program enables e-business affiliates to test the effectiveness of link and banner ad placement to maximize usage of the most profitable links. Tests show that EyeTracking.com software can increase viewer response rates by more than 40 percent. San Diego’s Net Create specializes in "mass-produced custom Web sites for affiliates." The key to its solution is software which enables a consistent appearance on affiliates' sites and uniform business procedures for payments, special events and marketing support. NetCreate also has its own program to reward affiliates who direct new business to its own site. Many of the best known names in San Diego e-business have also joined the affiliate program bandwagon. Klickback.com, Priority Pharmacy, and TheGolfer.com are just a few of the many local e-commerce merchants which have found that affiliate programs pay. And like most affiliate programs, these business opportunities cost nothing to try. That's right, sometimes the best things in life are free.

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