Help needed to launch Affiliate Program.

[GuessCashPrize]

Our site is not published yet. Because before we publish our site, we want to get some advertisers . And for the reason above, we want to launch "pay per lead ( Advertiser Sign Up )" affiliate program. Our questions are 1) Is it good idea to choose affiliate program for the reason above? Is there better way? 2) Which affiliate network should we contact or choose? 3) How much will the budget be? Will there always be registration fee?

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi GuessCashPrize,

Welcome to 5 Star.

"Our site is not published yet. Because before we publish our site on online-sweepstake community, we want to get some advertisers to sponsor some amount of cash prize. And for the reason above, we want to launch "pay per lead ( Advertiser Sign Up )" affiliate program."

This isn't going to be the answer you want to hear but...

I'm an affiliate management consultant but I also advocate for the rights of affiliates. I strongly believe no merchant should even consider launching an affiliate program until after your site is up and you've done your own marketing so you can test and measure and tweak your conversion rates.

The affiliate's only job is to drive qualified traffic. It's up to you to make sure your site and offer can close the sale or lead. Since affiliates only get paid when a sale or lead is closed I don't think it fair to even get them involved until you have throughly tested your site and conversions and optimized everything for success.

Starting an affiliate program and doing it right, takes time, money and resources. Getting good affiliates on board is hard. The last thing you want to do is get affiliates on board only to find out your conversions are weak due to a bunch of issues affiliates have no control over - like your site design, cart, order process, copy, pricing or a myriad of other things.

So get your site optimized 1st, then think about an affiliate program.
If you understand why I say this and want further advice on how to
do it I can give you more info.