Which Affiliate?

[DoubleCheese]

I'm about to set up a couple of sites as a project to see if I can generate some more income and I was wondering which Affiliate is reccomended? Affiliate Window, Commission Junction and any others that specialise in financial services?

Thanks.

 

[helium]

Affiliate Window seem to be pretty popular, i have tried CJ in the past with little success.

 

[wonder_lander]

Depends on what merchants you want. Not all merchants are available at all networks.

My two favourite are AFfiliate Window and Webgains but I also like paid on results. Although those are my favourites the majority of our income comes from the Amazon Associates programme. It's slow reporting and delayed payment terms are a bit meh but it's suprising to see the stuff that people add to their baskets!

 

[Edward01]

Humm this is something i've been looking into recently but there is a lot of crap talked about it. You mind answering a couple of questions?

Do you actually make much money from your site wonder_lander, enought o live off or just supplement your income? Is it a blog/news site etc? Do you write the articles yourself or pay other people? How many visitors are you averaging a month? Do you use adwords as well? How long has your site been up? How long did it take to start seeing returns?

any other information or advice you can give me would be appreciated.

If some of those are too personally just disregard them, thanks in advance.

 

[wonder_lander]

Humm this is something i've been looking into recently but there is a lot of crap talked about it. You mind answering a couple of questions?

Sure no problem. People often look at Affiliate Marketing (AM) as a get rich quick scheme, which it certainly isn't! In fact unless you're going to start paying for traffic it generally takes 6 months for a site to settle in the Google rankings and to begin to deliver consistent visitors./

Do you actually make much money from your site wonder_lander, enought o live off or just supplement your income?

My wife does this full time with me providing techincal and creative input. She earns more than she did in her last full time job as a chef. We have knocking on 30 developed sites with more to start
[/QUOTE]

Is it a blog/news site etc?

Check out my blog for details on some of our sites. I'm not going to direectly self promote my blog or sites but I've made another thread in the forum in recent days which contains a link to my blog!

Do you write the articles yourself or pay other people?

I rarely write anything these days. Writing is split between my wife and 3rd party writers

How many visitors are you averaging a month?

It's not about the number of visitors but the average order value / average basket value and how well they convert. If I was getting 100,000 visitors but only selling low value items that don't convert well then we wouldn't be making a great deal of money! Being a big fish in a little pond can often be better than a small fish in a big pond!

Do you use adwords as well?

If I'm trialling a niche or wanting to give a site a kick start then yes I will consider using adwords and microsofts alternative.

How long has your site been up?

We've been doing this since Jan 2009.

How long did it take to start seeing returns?

I launched a site last month which made a net profit of £107 in its first month. This covered stock images / content writing / PPC costs

any other information or advice you can give me would be appreciated.

It's not an easy way to make money! In my experience people often get down hearted with their sites and give up. You must be prepared to plug away at it to do a good job.

I would also choose niches that you have a keen interest in. It's far easier to come up with topics for subjects that you have an interest in!