Many affiliate marketers may think that it is common sense to only devote time to promoting reliable affiliate programs. However, some experienced marketers can find themselves in this position, even when they thought they were being careful. By learning a few key things to pay attention to before deciding to promote any affiliate product, marketers can save themselves a lot of time and make more money online.

Affiliate Networks vs Affiliate Programs

As the name implies, an affiliate network is actually a company that regulates, tracks, and often manages individual affiliate programs for other companies. That means a single network can potentially consist of hundreds or even thousands of specific companies which have their own products or services that affiliates can promote.

There are also a lot of websites that run their own, independent affiliate program that isn’t part of any other network. Other websites may actually be a member of multiple networks at the same time to increase their exposure. It is important to recognize this difference to be able to properly research the right company or companies.

Blindly Trusting Affiliate Networks

It is common for affiliate marketers to stick with promoting products through the major affiliate networks, since they are reliable networks that always pay on time. While this is generally a beneficial strategy, blindly trusting anything on a network can be a big mistake.

The reasoning behind this is the fact that no network, despite their policies and safeguards, can ensure that their advertisers actually sell reliable products or services. As a result, an affiliate can spend a lot of time building a website to promote a line of products from a particular vendor, only to find out that the vendor has horrible customer service or a faulty product.

Avoiding Refunds and Chargebacks

Typically, a lot beginner affiliate marketers think that only the advertising vendors need to worry about refunds or credit card chargebacks. However, when a referred customer requests a refund or files a chargeback, affiliates also lose their commission from the sale. Even if a network suspends a company for high refund rates, their initial affiliates were still the major victims in that situation because they wasted their time and effort.

When an affiliate is promoting a low-quality vendor or product that results in refunds, returns, or credit card chargebacks, that poor promotion choice takes money away from the affiliate that they should have earned. The best way for marketers to ensure that they don’t waste their time promoting a bad product is to do a bit of research before dedicating more time, work, or money to that particular project.

Advertiser Quality Inspection

Whether an independent affiliate program or a major affiliate network has been selected, each individual advertiser or product should be researched before a marketer can reliably decide to promote it. The best way to start is to search for information on the company selling the product to learn things about their reputation, customer service, refund policies, and even refund rates when possible.

Additional research can also be done on the actual products to be promoted to ensure that they are high-quality products that previous customers have been satisfied purchasing. With this extra effort, refund rates can be nearly wiped out from an affiliate marketing account, which can drastically help to increase total monthly revenue. With some affiliates having refund rates ranging from 10% – 30%, the difference between promoting a reliable and unreliable affiliate program can be staggering.


A wealth of information on affiliate marketing and affiliate website building as well as information on book affiliate programs.

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Filed under: Affiliate Marketing

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