When to start with affiliate marketing

[Twimpress]

Hi,

I have developed a review website a while ago and I am planning to use affiliate marketing to make the website profitable in the future.

When is the best time to start with this? Should I wait until I have a lot of traffic or should I start right in the beginning?

Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

I think as long as the site is complete and there is enough content to look like a "site" when a merchant checks it, you should be good to go. Although sometimes bigger selective merchants won't approve you unless it looks like you are getting decent traffic.

Just be sure not to turn off visitors OR Google by having a bunch of ads and too little content. Content is the honey that will attract the bees.

 

[mlogan09]

I think as long as the site is complete and there is enough content to look like a "site" when a merchant checks it, you should be good to go...

I couldn't not agree more.

 

[Twimpress]

Thanks for your replies. I guess I just should start with a few ads!

 

[Disciple67]

Can someone riddle me this: why do these merchants care whether a site has enough traffic?? It's not like they're paying for ad space -- they only pay when they get what they want, whether a sale or a lead. So why should they care?? Isn't the added exposure, however minuscule, only ever an absolute positive for them???

I was able to convince an affiliate manger to accept me after an initial rejection by arguing just that -- and yet it seems to me such a no-brainer that I should have needed to point that out to anyone!

Okay, maybe some upscale luxury goods vendor only wants to be associated with "happening" or hip/cool sites. But the overwhelming vast majority of affiliate programs seem to suffer from apparent snobbishness for no good reason whatsoever.

 

[FitGal]

Can someone riddle me this: why do these merchants care whether a site has enough traffic?? It's not like they're paying for ad space -- they only pay when they get what they want, whether a sale or a lead. So why should they care?? Isn't the added exposure, however minuscule, only ever an absolute positive for them???

I was able to convince an affiliate manger to accept me after an initial rejection by arguing just that -- and yet it seems to me such a no-brainer that I should have needed to point that out to anyone!

Okay, maybe some upscale luxury goods vendor only wants to be associated with "happening" or hip/cool sites. But the overwhelming vast majority of affiliate programs seem to suffer from apparent snobbishness for no good reason whatsoever.

Fraud is one reason.
Concern over how the product is represented. After all the company does have branding and image to protect and they can also find themselves in trouble if an affiliate oversteps bounds.

I would image that managing a lot of affiliates that bring nothing to the table could be problematic.

 

[MatthewRichter]

'why do these merchants care whether a site has enough traffic'

Disciple, I think 'keeping up appearances' may be a key factor with a lot of the upmarket merchants. Apple is a tough nut to crack for example, they have extremely rigid Affiliate Policy regarding aesthetics and monthly traffic.

They way to circumvent rejection from the majors, at least until your Affiliate Portal is up to the target merchants standard is to use Amazon's Associate Program. I applied for an Apple Affiliate Account a while back but was rejected on low monthly traffic. And I guess promoting the Kindle Fire HD at the time did not help.

 

[DeniseTaylor]

From my own experience, I'd wait until you are established and seeing some traffic and rankings. I didn't monetize my very first site until it had substantial traffic and pages. It ended up being the best money-maker of all. It took patience to wait that long, but it was worth it. Another site, I tried to monetize with affiliate products right off the bat. It struggled. So I stay traffic and rankings should be obtained, then monetize.

 

[adamell39]

First of all you have to know your products. It's better to begin reviewing only one product that you know and love than to write about 100 products that you know nothing about. So start slow, don't wait, start now. But remember, only products you know, trust me, both Google and your affiliate partner of choice will love you.