Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants

Review Your Competition

There’s a good chance that when you visit your competitor’s Web site you’ll see those three little words that make marketing mangers smile—Become an Affiliate. In other words, because of its popularity, there’s a very good chance your competitors have an affiliate program.

Scouting your competitor’s program gives you a chance to see what they offer the same affiliates you are going to try and recruit. Before you even begin to plan, review their program, see what they offer, and see how you may be able to improve upon it.

Your first step is to find your competitor’s affiliate programs. That’s easy to do. Here are some good places to start.

First go to Associate Programs.com (www.associateprograms.com) (see Figure 4.5). ...