Affiliate Programs — Part 1

Today, we embark on a journey that many every novice webmaster may find themselves on. We would all love to have enough time and money to create our own content, but before you run, you have to learn to walk. Affiliate programs are free to signup for, and instantly gives you the ability to generate pages upon pages of content and if someone clicks on the signup link, and signs up, you get paid! I’m going to be starting from ground zero and choose an affiliate program, create a website, market it, and track its progress over the next few months.

This is the first post in the series:

Choosing an affiliate and navigating the website.

When choosing an affiliate program to promote, you should follow a few guidelines:

• Does the content interest you? It’s a proven fact that if you’re working with something you love, you’ll be much more motivated in it.
• What is their saturation level? If everyone is promoting XYZ, then maybe you will have a hard time promoting it. Try to choose something that you don’t see everywhere.
• How much do they support you? The affiliate needs you in order to make money, so they should support you, provide tools to you, and make themselves available to you.
• Are they active in dealing with chargebacks?
• What is the payout like? Should you choose per signup or percentage?
• How often do they update their content? Weekly updates are the bare minimum to me. The more, the better.

For purposes of this Blog, we have chosen PremiumCash, and we’re going to try to focus specifically on Jenna Haze, but we will deviate to show you examples of how you can access the mountain of content that will be available to you at any good affiliate program.

1. Exclusive content. They have secured Jenna Haze and Gina Lynn. Girls who have a very strong fan base and therefore easier to market to.
2. Good revenue programs. You can choose from either of the following: 50% revenue sharing, $35 per signup
3. Sales tools. They have some of the best galleries, banner options, ads, and the amount of configurability really impressed me.
4. Flexibility. I can create my own site, with my own graphics, and as long as they’re approved, use them to promote their content.
5. Library. Not only do you get content under PremiumCash, but the entire PremiumPass library is yours to promote.

To begin, I went through their sign up process. It was very quick and painless, and you do not have to choose 1 particular revenue program. You can be as flexible as you wish. There are multiple options for receiving your monies, but we chose check by mail for our testing purposes. Navigating their site is fairly straightforward, but as with any affiliate website, make sure you read everything, and expect to have to use some brain power. The more you understand the content, and how it relates to how you can display it on the web, the more you increase your chances to convert. I had decided that our first campaign was going to focus on Jenna Haze, who is talented, beautiful, and has a rabid fanbase. Here is an example of a banner, which links to our affiliate account, which I made in about 60 seconds after signing up:

One thing that makes me very happy with this affiliate program, is that their support is fantastic. I had sent in a request for a subdomain because the niche that we are going to go with would benefit from its own name. I had send in a request for something different and received an email from Marie Eve, declining my request but explaining why and offering assistance and her ICQ #. Not only was she gracious and helpful, but she has a wealth of knowledge that really let me know that they care about the webmasters who are trying to promote their websites. This is very important because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that we’re selling porn, it’s still a product and customer service on every level is key.

Next in the series: Setting up a site with affiliate content.