Before we conclude this chapter and the affiliate marketing section, I’d like to give you a little heads-up about what you need to look for when applying to an affiliate program. Even though the concept of affiliate marketing is the same on every different program, the terms may vary.
When you first sign up to an affiliate program, read the affiliate program terms carefully. I don’t just say that to get myself off the hook. Read it ALL and read it thoroughly, as you may be surprised at what you’ll find there. Here’s a breakdown by order of importance of what to check.
Is the product any good?
I hate promoting lousy products for two reasons. One, it undermines my credibility with my readers, and two, I don’t make enough revenue off them because there are many refunds. By the way, if I wasn’t clear about this before, when a user refunds a purchase, your affiliate commission is taken away as well.
Before promoting a specific product I tend to either use it myself or read a bit of reviews about it online. I mainly look to see if it’s not actually a scam since so many Bitcoin scams are out there.
In fact I’ve been burnt by this in the past. I started promoting an “investment program” called Bitcoin Trader which later on ran off with the investors’ money (including my own). Imagine how I felt when angry emails came my way from people who deposited money in that program due to my recommendation.
Sometimes you can even ask for a free trial or a sample to test out the product from the merchant. Just tell them that you want to promote them as an affiliate and you need to get firsthand experience of the product.
If you don’t manage to get your hands on the product you’re promoting, I highly advise to state that when you promote it. Transparency and credibility are key when trying to build a loyal audience which will follow your recommendations.
What are the payment terms of this specific program?
Here are some questions to ask yourself when inspecting the payment terms:
How much is the payout?
Is it a CPA model, rev share model or hybrid?
Is this a recurring payment?
Am I getting paid in dollars or Bitcoins?
When will I get paid? Some companies pay you immediately and some can hold your funds up to 90 days from the date the deal was made (e.g. Amazon).
Is there any threshold to my payment? (Do I need to surpass a minimal amount of sales before I can get paid?)
Some of these questions may not seem critical now, but if you want to build a sustainable Bitcoin business, you’ll have to know the answers for these questions. For example, if you’re going to get paid only 90 days after you bring in customers that can seriously hinder your cash flow.
Another example is if you get paid in Bitcoin and not in dollars. This means that:
A. You are subjected to the ever-fluctuating Bitcoin exchange rate.
B. You will also need to pay additional fees for converting these Bitcoins back to dollars (if you intend to do so).
What is the cookie length?
It’s important to know if your cookie expires after 24 hours (e.g. Amazon) or if it lasts for three months (e.g. Local Bitcoins). This will affect how many paying customers you’ll be able to bring onboard. Since if the cookie lasts longer, you’ll get paid even if the customer decides to purchase at a later date.
Are there any restriction on the way you can promote the product?
Some affiliate programs apply restrictions on how you can promote the product. For example, many brands don’t like affiliates using their brand name in their paid Adwords ads (if you don’t know what Adwords is, don’t worry we’ll get to it later on). Other vendors may prohibit the promotion of their product anywhere outside of your own website (e.g. Plus500).
Is the company Affiliate oriented?
Some companies, like Coinbase for example, have an affiliate program but they don’t really “take care” of their affiliates. Meaning there’s no dedicated affiliate section, no affiliate managers to answer your questions and no media section where you can download banners, articles or other marketing materials to help you in your efforts.
This is important, because if you’re going to invest time and money in promoting a company you need to make sure it’s willing to give you the support you need. How can you trust that a company’s affiliate tracking is working well when they don’t even supply you with basic marketing materials?
You’ll notice that this criteria is near the bottom of my list since I consider it to be important but not crucial. I have some companies I promote that have lousy affiliate orientation but still generate me a great amount on income.
Also, if you do get a dedicated affiliate manager, it’s best to send him an email or give him a call to say “Hi”. You won’t believe how much personal connections will get you better affiliate terms…
Is this product already being promoted online?
Finally, you want to check if the product is already promoted online. You’re doing this for two reasons:
1. To find out who your competitors are and what they’re doing.
2. To find out if it’s a profitable product to promote - if you see many competitors that’s actually a good thing, since it means that money is being made by promoting this product.
“But how do I find out if it’s being promoted?”
Simple. Just google the product’s name + the word “review” or the product category + the word
“comparison”. If someone is already promoting it you’ll probably see an article about it. Once you find that article, just go to the link which points to the product and see if it’s an affiliate link - you already know how they look don’t you?
Keep in mind that sometimes the affiliate link will be cloaked on the product’s website. Meaning you won’t see the affiliate ID even though it is an affiliate link. That is why it’s best to check the link on the referring page and not on the product page.
Let’s give a short example. Say I want to promote Plus500’s Bitcoin trading services. I go online and typo into Google “Plus500 Bitcoin review” and see what comes up. Immediately there are 2 results that I consider to be affiliate websites (mainly because of the website name):
I will now go to each one of the sites and look for the link to Plus500. Before clicking that link I will look at the bottom left corner to see if it’s an affiliate link or not. Let’s start off with the first website - NewsBTC. Once I hover over the link to Plus500 you can see at the bottom that this is in fact an affiliate link.
I will now examine the next website, CoinQA. Here when I hover over the link, I don’t see a regular affiliate link but rather a link cloaking scheme which usually looks like this:
http://WebsiteName/VendorName.
This is done so that people who are looking exactly at what we’re doing won’t know these are affiliate links. Usually any link that isn’t a direct “copy & paste” of the vendor URL is probably some sort of an affiliate link.
You’ll notice that if I click these links and reach the merchant’s site I won’t see any affiliate link extension. As I mentioned before this is known as link cloaking and is sometimes done in order to hide the fact that you have reached a website through an affiliate link. Here’s how Plus500’s website looks after I click newsBTC’s link:
As you can see, no one can tell this was an affiliate link since the affiliate URL add-on was removed.