Given below is a list of questions that you need to ask those web masters, who offer the best affiliate programs.
(1) Quite a few affiliate programmes do not charge anything for registration. When you find them, check out their reputation. Are they well known? Then, you can consider incorporating some of them into your website.
(2) There are two kinds of programs—one tier and two tier. The one tier program is limited to payments for any sales that have been generated by you. The two tier program expands to sales that you have made, plus a commission on sales that have been generated by affiliates whom you have invited to join your programme.
(3) There has to be a tracking system in place to permit you to check out your referrals. Additionally, you need to know the length of time that they are allowed to remain on the system. If you do not do this, you may lose your referrals and your sales.
(4) You should sell only those products or services that come from a legitimate company. So, check out your online retailer. Familiarise yourself with their services or products, their sales graph, and so on.
(5) Every text link or banner gets clicked on several times per day. We refer to these clicks as hits. Find out how many hits on an average result in a sale. Such statistics are referred to as hit per sale ratio.
(7) Different affiliate programmes have different commissions, but generally, the amount varies between 5% and 20%. Every hit earns you an amount between 0.01% and 0.05%.
(8) Your affiliate program cannot be a very dependable one, if it is hiding detailed statistics from you. This data should be available round the clock.
(9) Finally, ask the affiliate company when you will receive your commission cheques. While some pay monthly, others pay quarterly. Anyway, go in for the one that suits you best.
(10) Now-a-days, the best affiliate programs have put a new rule in place. You will have to achieve a certain minimum target set aside for sales.