How to Choose an Affiliate Program

Learning how to choose an affiliate program is an important step to earning money

online. There is much competition among people trying to earn revenue as well as

affiliate programs to assist you in this endeavor. 



Here are the tips to choosing an affiliate program:



1. Choose programs that offer hot products – items that people are buying and

that are popular among online buyers. This is an easy step because you can learn

the trends just by reading any social media sites, blogs and watching what is selling

on auction sites for example. The only caveat is that these products change

frequently. 



2. Research the affiliate programs you are interested in. Learn if they have clear

information about their payments and if there are many complaints about them. 



3. Choose a two-tier program. This is where you earn money from the referrals

you send to the affiliate program as well as their business.



4. Make use of mentors. Even seasoned marketers need advice.For example, 

many affiliate marketers and bloggers are always willing to advise others

and make connections. Finding an affiliate program that they endorse is often a

good way to get started.



5. Choose a program that provides support that available to you via phone and

email. You want a partner to guide you along and help you to earn money and

avoid mistakes.



Deciding on the best affiliate program is vital to earning revenue and maintaining

that revenue stream. Research, get advice and make use of mentors. Soon you

may be one of the Super Affiliates too.



Connie Roberts aka ConnieFoggles is the author of 3 blogs, including 

Brain Foggles, her product review blog, and is now writing

at MurrayNewlands.com 

Landing Page Optimization: A Tutorial from XTEND

Why is landing page optimization still important? Get ready for landing page
optimization bootcamp!

It is very simple – more revenue! Take a look at the example below to understand
the magnitude:

A $10K a month media buy generating 50K monthly landing page
visitors converting at 3% will generate revenue of $52,500 (based on a $35 Life
Time Value). Let’s assume a 20% improvement which will increase the conversion
rate to 3.6%, and will increase revenue generated from the media buy to $63,000.
A $10,500 monthly revenue lift over one year will lift total revenue to $126,000!

Before coming to XTEND, I worked at Amadesa (a website testing company),
and in many optimization projects we frequently experienced revenue boosts
ranging from 15% to over 100% with the majority of improvements in the 20-60%
range. So if we want to be optimistic with this example, and assume a 40% lift we
could generate an additional $252,000 a year! That isn’t small potatoes…

Walk Before You Run

Landing page optimization can be complex but once you get the hang of it the
results start becoming addictive. Like anything in life you need to walk before you
run, and practice makes perfect. Landing page optimization or any page or flow
optimization can be confusing as there are many variables to take into
consideration:

1. Should one start with split testing or multivariate testing?
2. What page elements should I test?
3. How many versions of each page element should one test?
4. Do I have enough traffic to reach statistical significance?
5. Should tests be segmented by media source, geography, day of the
   week etc?
6. Do I need to use a new technology or service provider for testing? If so
   which one?

If an organization does not have experience testing, it is recommend to start with a
simple split test or A/B test of the main element on a landing page such as the
layout’s (template) unique selling point (USP) or pictures. It is very important to
test the main elements as they will most likely have the highest impact on the
conversion rate. Make sure each element version in a test is visibly different from
each other, if the changes aren’t bold enough and the versions are only subtly
different then most likely the results will not be significant.

Once you get the handle of split testing you should use more advanced
methodologies such as multivariate (MVT) and traffic segmentation. These

techniques will enable you to test hundreds of combinations of landing pages
as well as traffic sources and other sub segments such as Geography, Browser
type, time of day etc.

Success Will Come

Persistency pays off. Make sure you persist, as it can take a few tests until you get
the handle of what page elements are the most impacting. Also, guiding your
creative team to design and write ideas outside of the box might take some practice.

Remember that you are testing, therefore it is important to experiment outside
stringent brand guidelines as you never know what will make a user respond and
take action.

Test in Waves…

As traffic is usually limited and testing many page elements can be a daunting task,
I recommend testing in waves. Your first wave of testing might be only for the
page layout (template) and your second wave can be for the main graphic and
USP. Your third wave might still be for the main graphic or image but this time you
will test bolder images. In each wave you should strive to learn something, and
even if you don’t gain a lift in conversion rate you can still learn. If your conversion
rate dropped you learned that the tested elements do have impact, therefore you
should continue to test these elements but make sure to create versions that are
different. If the tested elements had no impact (the conversion rate didn’t change)
you should test different elements in your subsequent waves. Basically each wave
provides an opportunity to build on the results and conclusions of your previous
waves until you’ve reached satisfactory results.

The single most important aspect
of optimization is patience and persistence – it will most likely take you a few tests
to see first successes but as shown in the above example it pays off big time.

Useful Links
Tips and tricks from optimization experts:

1. Google Website Optimizer FAQ’s
2. Jonathan Mendez – Founder of Omniture Test and Target one of the first
   Optimization Platforms.
3. Tim Ash – Author of the “Landing Page Optimization” book
4. Bryan Eisenberg of future now

Web site optimization platforms:

1. Amadesa – A complete platform for website optimization and personalization
2. Omniture – From analytics to optimization a complete suite of online
   marketing technologies
3. SiteSpect – None Java script based A/B and Multivariate testing platform
4. Google Website Optimizer – Google’s free website testing and
   optimization tool.

Tools:

1. Website Optimization ROI Calculator
2. Traffic Estimators

Consultancies

1. Conversion Rate Experts – international conversion consulting company.
   Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultants.
2. Widemile – Multivariate testing for agencies.
3. Maxymiser – UK based Optimization Company.

Dov Yarkoni is the VP of Business Development and Sales at XTEND

We thank Dov Yarkoni for this post. It originally appeared on the
Xtend Blog on October 19, 2009