Well, with all the crap hitting the fan these days, mostly thanks to the FTC and Google, it is getting harder and harder to get a product into the Clickbank marketplace as a vendor. It seems that they are rejecting more and more products each day with no end in site. So what’s the solution? Well, if you are a product creator and still want to get affiliates, and Clickbank has said NO to your latest gem, your only other option is either to find another affiliate marketplace that will accept your product and pay affiliates for you (good luck) or run an in house affiliate program. This article is going to go over the pros and cons of running your own affiliate program.
Let’s start with the obvious pros. For starters, you’re not at the mercy of an affiliate marketplace like Clickbank. They don’t like your product? No problem. Pick up a script like Rapid Action Profits and not only sell anything you like, as long as your payment processor has no problem with it, but even set it up so that your affiliates get paid directly to their accounts. This is a no muss, no fuss solution.
Another advantage is that you can set your own commission rates. You don’t have to abide by anybody’s minimums and maximums. For example, with Clickbank, the most you can give an affiliate is 75%. With your own in house affiliate program, you can give 100% commissions if you like. The figure is totally up to you.
Okay, but what about the disadvantages of running your own in house affiliate program? Well, probably the biggest one is that you don’t have the advantage of having your product listed in a huge marketplace like the one at Clickbank so that affiliates can easily find you. So in order to get affiliates, you are really on your own.
This means that you have to do two things. For starters, you need to find independent listings where you can list your affiliate program. Problem is, most of these, especially the free ones, are pretty poor and very few people, if anybody, are going to find you.
In addition to that, you are going to have to actively look for affiliates. That means, in addition to promoting your actual product itself, you’re going to have to send out ads that actually look for affiliates. In essence, this splits up your marketing resources, which is never a good thing.
Another big con, if you don’t have something like Rapid Action Profits, where affiliates get paid right away, is that you have to manually pay them yourself. If you have a lot of affiliates, this can turn into a ton of work. And then of course there is the issue of 1099s at the end of the year.
So there you have it, the pros and cons of running an in house affiliate program.
As they say…choose your poison.
To YOUR Success,
Kevin Hutto