by Ted Cooper
AssociatePrograms.com
Are you looking for a simple, inexpensive way to dip your toe into the E-Commerce profit stream? You might try providing links from your Web site to sites that offer associate programs (also called affiliate, bounty, or referral programs). You place an icon or banner ad on your Web site that links to a site where a product or service is sold. Whenever someone linked from your site purchases the product or service, you receive a commission on the purchase. The commission generally ranges from one to twenty-five percent of the sales price.
Don’t retire just yet, though. Any commissions you earn will probably be measured in ones or tens, rather than hundreds or thousands of dollars.
AssociatePrograms.com has an extensive listing of these. Be aware, however, that many of the listings found there are written by people who want you to come to their own site, then follow their link to the program’s site, so that they have a chance to receive a commission if you buy anything. This means that YOU SHOULD NOT ACCEPT AS ACCURATE the information listed on AssociatePrograms.com about any program. Visit the program site yourself and carefully read all information on the program, including: the mechanism for tracking any visitors you refer, how you earn a commission, how often you get paid, etc. Also, be aware that some of the programs listed on AssociatePrograms.com are multi-level marketing programs (MLMs).
AssociatesProgram.com can be even more valuable to you if you have a product or service to sell via the Internet. Study the better programs listed there and you’ll have a starting point for developing your own affiliate program.
ClickZ Today
This site features often-useful daily columns written by industry experts, as well as weekly interviews with industry leaders. The target audience is site publishers and interactive agencies. The editorial focus is advertising, marketing and sales. ClickZ recently gave birth to a daughter site, Zcommerce , which focuses more specifically on E-Commerce.
Who’s Marketing Online www.wmo.com was also added to the site family via acquisition.
CyberAtlas
Eighteen months ago this was one of our favorite resources. If someone called to ask how many purple-haired cricket players in Miami owned an email account during in May, our first stop would be CyberAtlas. There we’d find capsules of research reports, along with links to the author’s Web site. Invariably, we could find answers to very bizarre queries.
Sadly, CyberAtlas seems to be only a shadow of its former self. At its best, the site was updated sporadically. Lately, updates seem to have slipped even further… perhaps to every once in awhile. For instance, as I write this in July 1998, 3 of the 5 articles under the front page’s HIGHLIGHTS section are dated 1997. The breadth of its current coverage doesn’t seem quite as strong, either.
All this notwithstanding, we continue to use CyberAtlas. Whenever we need Web statistics and marketing information, CyberAtlas still merits a visit.
Emmerce
Billed by Computer World (its publisher) as “The Webzine for Electronic Commerce Strategists”, Emmerce is full of helpful bits of information. One recent article discussed the Web strategies and results of J. Crew, Estee Lauder, Borders Books, E-Loan and General Motors. Good information offered in digestible portions.
Ted Cooper is a HAL-PC member who is president of Planet Computer Services. He can be reached at cooper@planet-connect.com (no Spam, please!) or (713) 526-6800. He leads the HAL-PC E-Commerce SIG, which meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6:30 PM.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.