There are many affiliate businesses offering a wide variety of benefits to their members. However, some of these programs and the claims they make are not to be trusted. Good affiliate businesses provide great earnings opportunities, but you need to do affiliate due diligent: how to evaluate affiliate business to distinguish them from questionable ones. Below are some factors to consider before joining any program.
Products
Products are probably the most important thing to look at. Without the right products to sell, an affiliate program is pretty much useless. You also want to make sure the affiliate program has multiple products and not just one. Usually, affiliate programs that only have one or two products are doomed for failure because they don’t have enough variety. But if an affiliate program has multiple products, they can offer the consumer more options while working with a price point to maximize revenue. This produces more income streams for you as the seller.
Who is Behind the Business?
You can learn so much by just by picking up the phone and call. But don’t be surprised if 90% of the business opportunities out there don’t have a phone number associated with the website. 2.5% have a phone number with a poor quality answering machine. And the other 2.5 % have ‘slick willy’ waiting to burn up your credit card.
Of course, it will cost you a few coins to talk with the business owner, but it is a cheap investment in your future. Here are some things to note when you do get a live person. Ask if he/she is the owner. Plus, if they don’t have a clear website explaining what their business opportunity is about, ask about the things you feel are missing. Remember, if you do get a hold of the owner, they will probably give you about 5-10 minutes of their time, so know your questions before you pick up the phone.
Check Their Track Record
You only want to do business with honest and reliable companies. Before joining any affiliate business, do a little research. If people have had bad experiences, you better believe they will blog about, post it on forums or anywhere they can to let others know. Read testimonials and reviews and check them out with the Better Business Bureau. You want to make sure that the company you choose to do business with will pay you on time.
Payment
At all times, check to understand what the available methods of payment are offered to the affiliates in each affiliate online program. If they are just providing the payments in some particular method, then check to confirm if you can use that method. For example, if an organization pays through Paypal, then you ought to see if you can receive payment in your country through Paypal since Paypal is not available in each country.
And finally – If the organization has been in operation for many years, if they have thousands of products to promote, offer a helpful support service, have a good payment schedule and options, then you should consider joining that organization. Stay away from the organizations that are new in the business and are not offering a good number of products to promote. You should always trust your business instincts. If something is wrong, it is better to refuse. Or conversely, if you feel that this is your chance, then proceed.
