Anything I should know before starting my own Affiliate program?

DPatel304

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I'm currently running a 'web design' online business and thought a good way to drive some extra traffic would be to start an affiliate program. My site doesn't generate that much traffic, and I don't expect this affiliate program to be all that big, but I was wondering if there is anything I should know before I start this program.

My plan was to make a simple form that users can fill out to join the affiliate program. I haven't made the form yet, but aside from name, e-mail address, and phone number, I don't really know of any other information I would need to ask.

To keep things simple, I was just going to send payments via paypal, and, to track affiliates, I was thinking of just giving each affiliate a unique 'ID'. The 'ID' is basically an 8 character string (like: 'fsem42d9'). When a customer fills out an order for a website, there will be a spot to enter a 'coupon code'. I was thinking that the affiliate ID could also be a coupon for customers. So a customer will enter 'fsem42d9' as a coupon, and that customer will receive 10% off or something, and when we get the order, we will also see which affiliate referred this customer based on what coupon was used (each affiliate will obviously have their own ID but each ID will act as a 10% off coupon as well).

Anyway, I've never hosted my own affiliate program, so I want to know if there are things I should know. Thanks in advance.
 
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Anyone have any tips? It would really be appreciated. Thanks.
 
Seems like a good idea to me. You could use a full solution like iDevAffiliate if you wanted.
 
I would add that you give your affiliates good promotional materials to go with your program. Banner ads, example text ads, promo emails and autoresponder series come to mind.
 
Seems like a good idea to me. You could use a full solution like iDevAffiliate if you wanted.

Cool.. never heard of it, but will look into it.

I would add that you give your affiliates good promotional materials to go with your program. Banner ads, example text ads, promo emails and autoresponder series come to mind.

Yea.. that was what I was thinking. Might as well put some of the knowledge I've learned here and pass it on to my affiliates.
 
Great Tips I should know before starting my own Affiliate program.
 
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