Ask Mr. D - Affiliate Programs

By Bill Daugherty
Posted Wednesday, November 17, 2004

I see a lot of references to Affiliate Programs as a way to boost revenues. However, I have never seen an explanation of what an affiliate program is and how it works. I am a producer of educational media and use my site to market my products. As I am not getting much traffic to my site, I am wondering if an affiliate program would help me.

I would appreciate any suggestions that you might have.

Signed,

Heron Gardner
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Dear Heron,

What an affiliate program does is reward individuals (your affiliates) for sending traffic to your site by placing a link to you on their web-site or in their newsletter.

You then reward them by paying the affiliate a commission on actions resulting from their link to your site. This commission may be a percentage of the sale amount or a set dollar figure.

This is an excellent way to increase your traffic and revenues. Imagine having hundreds, or thousands, of web-sites and newsletters linking to your site. What could that do for your business?

If you would like to check out some affiliate programs or software, just go to any search engine and conduct a search for "affiliate program" - There are a ton of them out there.

Good luck with your affiliate program.

Do you have an advertising or marketing question you'd like to see published in this column? Send it to mailto:MrD@epm.zzn.com. You can visit Mr. D's website at: (http://www.freeadsgalore.com)

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