Affiliate Program Resources
Web Marketing Today, Issue 62, October 12, 1999
You'll find a rapidly increasing number of sites to assist you in finding good affiliate programs. We can only list a few here.
Major Affiliate Service Bureaus
These services encourage you to become an affiliate in their network of merchant affiliate programs. Here you'll find hundreds of programs:
- Commission Junction (http://www.cj.com/go.asp?69320) caters to smaller merchants, but some of the commissions exceed major online retailers. Better known names include: Tower Records, Fingerhut, PC Flowers and Gifts, and Chumbo.
- Be Free (http://www.befree.com/) the first affiliate program service, and claims some of the largest merchants, such as Art.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, Egghead.com, Furniture.com, Travelocity, MicroWarehouse, Priceline.com, etc.
- LinkShare (http://www.linkshare.com) also has a number of major brands, including 1-800-Flowers (http://affiliate.1800flowers.com/?wmt one of this month's advertisers), Borders.com, JCPenney, OfficeMax, Dell, Disney, etc.
Directories of Affiliate Programs
An increasing number of directories list available programs by topic, commission, etc. I'll mention only two:
Refer-It.com (http://www.refer-it.com/?wmt) is the first, and probably the best directory, rating and listing more than a thousand programs by product category.
CashPile.com (http://www.cashpile.com/?wmt62) provides many resources for affiliates, included program reviews, discussion areas, and other articles.
Newsletters
Allan Gardyne's weekly e-mail Associate Programs Newsletter (http://www.associateprograms.com/?wmt) is the best single resource I know to keep you up-to-date. You'll also find a great deal of helpful information on Allan's site on setting up an affiliate program. He is one of the few who has parlayed writing about affiliate programs into living in the South Pacific. He says, "I live with my wife in a pole home among gum trees, palms and jacarandas at Tuan, a tiny fishing village in sub-tropical Queensland, Australia. Tuan, about 25 kilometres south of Maryborough, is so small it doesn't have a shop." Ah, the joys of Internet business.
Merchant Articles and Resources
The E-Commerce Research Room's "Affiliate Programs" section links to dozens of articles aimed at merchants interested in setting up affiliate programs. It has only light coverage from the affiliate's point of view. http://www.wilsonweb.com/research/associate.htm
