Top 5 Reasons You Should Be Running an Affiliate Program

Affiliate programs are commission-based operations run by a business, whereby affiliates are paid for selling products, services or leads. Whether your business is a small individually-run site or a large company, here are some great reasons you should have an affiliate program for your business:

1. Expand Your Sales Force
An affiliate program can extend the sales force by using a commission-based model. Having an affiliate program and using affiliate software is just like adding extra members to any existing sales team you may already have. For a small or average-sized business this can open up the possibility of greatly increasing the manpower available to direct traffic to your site while for larger businesses starting an affiliate program it’s just the next obvious step in modern expansion. It’s one way to increase your stake in the market without having to physically hire more staff. Many times existing customers will choose to join an affiliate program and this makes for a great resource – they are likely already familiar with your product and will take their own steps to promote it.

2. Pay For Performance – You Only Have To Pay For Sales Delivered
This is one of the big positive points of affiliate marketing. As a business owner you want to get the most out of your money whether you’re a small, medium or large company and so paying based on performance is the optimal choice. You decide what you’re going to pay affiliates by coming up with a Cost Per Action (CPA) and affiliates only receive the CPA once they’ve achieved the goals you have set out for them.

3. Affiliate Programs Are Low Cost and High Reward
Affiliate marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways there is to get your business or product out there. For instance if you are a small business in search of more subscribers and potential customers, a pay-per-lead program would be the perfect fit while for an average-sized or bigger business sales can be increased by paying out for each individual item sold. You can find the perfect motivation for affiliates and a great profit margin for the business. For a larger business the low expense of starting an affiliate program is rewarded by the opening of new online markets.

4. Affiliate Software Simplifies the Whole Process
It’s easy to download the correct affiliate software for the initial set-up and monitoring of a program. This software allows you to host the program and customize it to meet your requirements. Affiliate software lets you choose your payment options and rank affiliates based on performance while affiliate tracking software lets you keep an eye on said performance so that you can track sales, commission and profit.

Consider iDevAffiliate

5. Cutting Out The Middle-Man Saves Money
Going through an affiliate network can be expensive. Combined with the use of affiliate tracking software, the creation and monitoring of your very own affiliate program is a more affordable alternative to using a third party to facilitate the operation. It also means you get to keep all profits and if you run an efficient affiliate program you will soon see the benefits of choosing to keep the program in-house. If you run a small business, it is easy to set up a program by yourself using the software, all you have to do is keep an eye on it from time to time and with the right software a larger business can delegate the task to the administrative staff.

So there we have it, just some of the key reasons any business should use affiliate software to set up their own program. As online marketing continues to advance, creating your own affiliate program is a wise choice to ensure your business continues to grow and sales continue to rise. With such a reasonable start-up cost and ease of use, it’s the smart choice for savvy businesses.