- Look around at other competing businesses that offer affiliate programs, and think of ways that you can make your
affiliate program more attractive.

- The affiliate program has a great payment structure. For me, a
high commission that is also a high percentage of the purchase price
is essential. Nothing under 25% commission.

- Pay your affiliates well for their efforts.
If you're thinking about offering a 10% commission for sales of your product and a competing business is paying a 50%
commission for referrals, you'll lose affiliates to your competitor.

- Make sure the affiliate program you are joining has a good looking
site. You do not want to be sending visitors to a site that you do
not like yourself.

- Don't leave your affiliates out in the cold.

Provide your affiliates with lots of sales items that they can use to successfully promote your products.

Some items you could offer your affiliates:

- e-zine ads (sponsor ads, classified ads, 2 liners)
- signature file ads
- sales letters/solo ads
- brandable ebooks
- sample recommendations
- email courses
- your articles that they can reprint with their affiliate URLs in your resource box.

- Also make sure that the affiliate statistics are updated
automatically and immediately. You do not want to find out today
about a sale you made a week ago.

- Publish an affiliate's newsletter.

Your affiliate's newsletter will help you to share your tips with your affiliates, and keep them going in the right direction.

You could also use your newsletter to keep your top affiliates excited about your program.

Some effective ways to do this are:

- Share what your top affiliates do to earn big commission checks.
- Showcase their sites and tell why their sites sell.
- List your 5 or 10 highest earning affiliates for the month.

- Know how often you are going to be paid. If you are tossing up
between 2 programs and one pays monthly and the other pays quarterly,
the one that pays monthly is better. You do not want to wait months
before getting paid for your hard work!

- Track your affiliates' sales accurately.

Your affiliates will find out if they send you customers and you don't credit them with their commissions.

Your affiliate program will lose credibility and you'll end up losing your affiliates as word gets around.

- See if the affiliate program gives examples of how the top
affiliates are doing. This can be a great pointer to whether it is
good or not. If some affiliates are earning many thousands per month,
it is a good affiliate program.

- Participate in affiliate marketing forums.

Share your valuable advice and expertise with the members of the forums you participate in.

Include your signature file that promotes your affiliate program, and always follow the rules of the forums you join.

- Along these lines, also see if they give examples of what
marketing methods these successful affiliates are using to get the
best results.