There are plenty of people out there who suspect affiliate marketing is a scam - and sometimes they're right! But when you're selling online, making use of affiliates is pretty close to an absolute must - you pay nothing until your affiliate actually makes a sale, and get some pretty impressive benefits:

    * Expanded Visibility: More outlets selling your product means more web
       browsers hearing about it
    * Leveraged Sales Force: You are essentially enrolling an army of
       salespeople with no salary
    * Viral Growth: You can't reach every potential customer from a single site
    * More Sales: Ultimately, just about every sale made by an affiliate is likely to
       be one you wouldn't otherwise have - and you know you want more sales

Just because a Web browser is seeking a solution that you can provide doesn't mean they'll find your site - the Internet is just too big for that to work. Unless they specifically seek your product by name, the chances are low that they'll reach your site. Being listed by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of affiliates expands the likelihood of your product being found exponentially - it can also greatly enhance your organic search engine positioning.

And affiliates don't get paid until they make a sale. Sure, you'll have to carve out a chunk of your revenues to pay them when they do, but this is no worse than paying an employee to sell. To butcher an old sales adage, the happiest business owner is the one writing a large check to an affiliate - because it means an even larger check is being deposited into their own bank account.

To reach the point where Web users are searching for your product by name, you need widespread recognition of it - and few things do a better job of getting your name out there than having an army of affiliates listing it. Eventually, your product becomes the name everyone's heard of - and in the world of Marketing, that's just about the ultimate position to be in.

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How do you get going with affiliate marketing? The good news is that, as a Plimus vendor, this is going to be very simple! You do not need to maintain anything yourself, as Plimus provides you with an affiliate engine that can recruit, retain and manage affiliates. However, that's not to say you are off scot-free. The process you'll need to follow is:

 

    1. Define contracts you wish to make available to affiliates
    2. Accept affiliate requests and set any non-standard commission amounts
    3. Optionally promote your affiliate program on your own website

    4. Issue Invitation links to potential affiliate partners

You can learn about setting up affiliate programs through our Video Lesson, or simply read on.

Step One

Within the Contract settings, check the box next to the title 'Available to Affiliates'. You can also set here a default commission level; as you can see from the field default, most vendors start at 30%. However, be aware that you can change this on an individual basis for each affilate you accept into your program.

Step Two

Plimus affiliates will now be able to find your product, and will contact you through the Plimus system to ask to become your affiliate. You have a number of choices at this stage: most easily, you can respond to each individually, adjusting the commission level as you see fit based on each affiliate's characteristics (larger, more well-known affiliates may be worth a higher commission to encourage them to promote your product, for instance). Alternatively, you may head to the General Settings area of the Control Panel, and, in the middle of the page, check the box next to the title 'Automatically Approve All Affiliates'. Doing so reduces the administrative load, but will assign the default commission level to each additional affiliate, so if you plan to differentiate much you might not want to do this. Once an affiliate is approved, they receive everything they need to add your product to their site 

Step Three

Although Plimus affiliates can see your product, that doesn't mean you're accessing every possible affiliate out there! Add an 'affiliates' area to your website, and provide instructions on how new affiliates can join the Plimus program and apply to represent your product. It's generally not recommended you immediately reveal what the commission level is (this can have a negative impact on customers' opinion of your pricing, after all): just let them know they'll find out once they're logged in as a Plimus affiliate.

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All the financial details of your program will be managed by Plimus: you'll not need to use your calculator and write checks. Your monthly revenue income will simply be decremented by the amount owed to the affiliates, and we will deliver it to them directly. Importantly, there is no additional charge by Plimus for connecting you to, and managing, your affiliates: this is simply an element of our business that you are already paying for as a component of our standard fees.

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Adding affiliates immediately expands your breadth, without any up-front investment. Sure, you'll lose a ferw bucks to commissions (hopefully), but the new revenues quickly help you grow your business.

Keep reading in the Coupon section to learn how to push coupons to your affiliates, giving them even more incentive to promote your products.