Hi I'm Making a start

[Bamboo]

Hi All,

My name is Mike, I am from Northern NSW and I am just starting out.

I want to link to sites of small businesses that sell products. These businesses don't have established affiliate programs. I want to approach them and ask if I can link to them for a percentage of the sale price.

What is a basic commission percentage? How do I link and get paid? How is this done technically? Is there software that will show the link and sale came from my site. Pardon my ignorance, but I don't know where to start.

Mike

[newbie]

Originally Posted by Bamboo

Hi All,

My name is Mike, I am from Northern NSW and I am just starting out.

I want to link to sites of small businesses that sell products. These businesses don't have established affiliate programs. I want to approach them and ask if I can link to them for a percentage of the sale price.

What is a basic commission percentage? How do I link and get paid? How is this done technically? Is there software that will show the link and sale came from my site. Pardon my ignorance, but I don't know where to start.

Mike

Welcome Mike.

Commissions vary from merchant to merchant and (via some merchants) from product to product.

"How do I link and get paid?" - That is a good question but the best answer is to leave all of that to an affiliate network to look after.

If the merchant does not have an established affiliate program then the best thing to do is to point them in that direction. Managing the relationship as well as recording the transactions is best left to an affiliate network.

The network charges the merchant an oncost to act as aggregator but, when you consider all that is involved, it is good value for money.

[HarveyJ]

Not to mention some affiliate networks will actually pay you for acquiring new merchant leads for them.

You can get basic affiliate tracking plugins for CMS like Joomla. I've seen a couple for Wordpress, but seeing as it was never intended to be used like that, I doubt the quality of them.

[fintan]

This can be lucrative if done right, however, it depends on how much experience you have and the volume of sales you can generate.

No small business is going to consider this unless you can bring them in enough sales that covers the time, hassle and expensive of setting up an affiliate programme.

However, in saying that using and setting up something like this is pretty easy:
iDevAffiliate - Affiliate Tracking Software - Affiliate Program Software
As its literally just a tracking pixel on the sale confirmation page.

So the answer is, build up some experience and a track record and then go for it

[Lamnia]

I agree with most of the posts on here. If a company doesn't offer an affiliate program there are 2 likely reasons why not.
1. The internet petrifies them and the only reason they have a website is they are conditioned to have one.

2. Managing an affiliate program is to time consuming for them and not worth the bother.

So how do you get round this

To set yourself as an affiliate network will cost big $$$$$$$$$$$$$

I am presuming that if you are approaching small businesses to market for them you are talking Paypal payment services type business. This could be managed by setting up an affiliate program for each company you offer to manage. Basically you would add the affiliate program to their existing website so they can offer an affiliate program and you just become an affiliate.

The more Im typing this, the more I think this could be quite a good idea!!!
You need an affiliate script to make the service I have found one here
PhpAffiliate :: Paypal Affiliate Software Script PHP

I have used it myself and it does offer a fully managed affiliate program.

So say for example you find a company that sells Handbags and uses a paypal shopping cart or buy it now buttons. You can upload the script to their website and then all they need to do is add an extra line of code to their paypal buttons. Then they have an affiliate scheme for their website. Im pretty sure you could charge quite a bit for this and as the code is only $34 US
Then you just join their affiliate program and post their links on your site.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Lamnia

I agree with most of the posts on here. If a company doesn't offer an affiliate program there are 2 likely reasons why not.
1. The internet petrifies them and the only reason they have a website is they are conditioned to have one.

2. Managing an affiliate program is to time consuming for them and not worth the bother.

So how do you get round this

To set yourself as an affiliate network will cost big $$$$$$$$$$$$$

I am presuming that if you are approaching small businesses to market for them you are talking Paypal payment services type business. This could be managed by setting up an affiliate program for each company you offer to manage. Basically you would add the affiliate program to their existing website so they can offer an affiliate program and you just become an affiliate.

The more Im typing this, the more I think this could be quite a good idea!!!
You need an affiliate script to make the service I have found one here
PhpAffiliate :: Paypal Affiliate Software Script PHP

I have used it myself and it does offer a fully managed affiliate program.

So say for example you find a company that sells Handbags and uses a paypal shopping cart or buy it now buttons. You can upload the script to their website and then all they need to do is add an extra line of code to their paypal buttons. Then they have an affiliate scheme for their website. Im pretty sure you could charge quite a bit for this and as the code is only $34 US
Then you just join their affiliate program and post their links on your site.

Hi,

Welcoem to the forum! We have a policy of no affiliate links in the forum, therefore I have removed it from the above post.

Tim

[aguawebs]

Hey Mike - I missed this one

Where abouts are you in NNSW? I'm from there too

[newbie]

Originally Posted by aguawebs

Hey Mike - I missed this one

Where abouts are you in NNSW? I'm from there too

We should all go fishing.

[aguawebs]

Yes - I'd forgotten about that... all that bad weather

How's your boat doing?

[newbie]

Originally Posted by aguawebs

Yes - I'd forgotten about that... all that bad weather

How's your boat doing?

It has been so inexpensive to run lately that I have forgotten what it costs when it actually gets wet.

Anglers Warehouse told me the schnapper are biting. You and I will have to get out there and do some damage one day soon.

[aguawebs]

If the snapper are biting - I'll pay for fuel - I'll even shout you lunch, no worries there