Advice for building a successful affiliate program

Hey I was wondering if anyone here had any advice for making an affiliate program successful.

Our company is currently using Open Cart for our CMS do would you recommend using the affiliate program that it comes with built in? Or should we go to a third party affiliate program.

Quick Stats

Our average sale is around $23.00

Our sites conversion rate is 2% give or take 1/2 a percent

Our current affiliate payout is 20% of the total sale.

With these numbers is an affiliate program worth the hassle, meaning do you think its enough to entice affiliate or should we search for other avenues to increase sales?

Any help is greatly appreciated thank you in advanced.

I think 20% is just fair. However, you need to market your product out there more. Have you signed up with affiliate sites like Clickbank? I think this will open more opportunity for you.

What are you selling? From my experience, if you sell certain types of products, you might be better off with a DISCOUNT CODE system. People love discounts and your affiliates come off as less pushy when they send out discount codes. It looks more helpful and it is easier to track.

Hi chaps/chapesses

I have a an opportunity to sell a fairly niched, high ticket range of products (ergonomic furniture) and am considering employing affiliate publishers to help drive traffic to my - as yet to be created - landing page. The goal for the affiliate would be to get the customer to either sign up for a free trial of a chair/desk, or buy one on a no-quibbles money-back guarantee basis. I may also be employing some 'real world' sales stategies - ie. cold calling, obtaining testimonials and possibly third parties who could provide referrals.
I would really appreciate your advice on the best way to proceed. So my questions are:

1) Shall I sign up to an affiliate network or create my own affiliate programme with a Magento/Wordpress plugin or suchlike?

2) What sort of commission should I offer affiliates and on what basis should I pay them? On completion of a trial booking or on completion of a sale? Currently, with real world efforts, 90% of those taking a trial will eventually end up buying but my concern with paying affiliates for a form fill is that I could end up with junk form completions that will lead to nothing.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.