There are many creatives available in an affiliate program interface for you to choose from. Banners and text links are the most used, but what are the other creatives available?

I can think of 7 creatives, which are: banners, text links, content links, forms, data-feeds, widgets and coupons.

Depending on the site you have, you may use one or more creatives listed below:

1) Banners: Static, animated or flash banners can be used effectively if placed in the first fold of the website. While they provide a good branding opportunity to merchants, conversion in sales is low for the affiliates as visitors immediately identify them as advertisement.

2) Text links: Short or long text links with key words or phrases are very effective when placed in a page relevant to the product promoted. Conversion is much higher than banners as visitors are more keen to click on them.

3) Content links: They can be simple or elaborated HTML creatives containing affiliate links that can be quickly  placed in a page just in copying a piece of code. They can be articles with content , photos and links, or a big ad like in a magazine.

4) Forms: A simple search box, multi fields search box, lead form, or enquiry form can be placed in an affiliate site and provide very good results as the visitor get a result for what he is looking for. They can be easily used in copying a piece of code on your site.

5) Data feeds: A data feed is a merchant’s catalogue of products that can contain from 10 to 50,000 products. The data feed is a CSV file, usually comma or pipe delimited, that you can open in Excel or Open Office Calc. Full affiliate sites are built with data feeds but implementation is more challenging for beginners.

6) Widgets: They use a selection of products from the data feed and can be of any size with 4 or 5 tabs. They are made by the affiliate manager and you should be able to get a custom one with the products you want and that matches your site’s design. Only a short piece of code has to be copied and they will auto-update automatically on your site.

7) Coupons: They are very effective promotional tools and look like “Xmas10″ or “Mom45″. A lot of Internet shoppers are chasing discount coupons for their next purchase, and placing an affiliate link with the coupon code in your site is a good idea. There are Coupon sites that use coupon data feeds to populate their sites that are very popular.

I hope that you will find in this list a few new ideas on how to promote your affiliate programs.

Go to Pantika Home Page. Article by Michel Gerard

When starting affiliate marketing choosing a good Network is important. Commission Junction is one of the most trusted Network by merchants and affiliates alike. In CJ, affiliates have access to a huge directory of products, and when promoting several merchants, the earned commission from each of them is added and paid together.

The network is trusted by affiliates as commissions are paid by the merchants to the network and then paid back to the affiliates.

Unfortunately, Commission Junction penalizes small affiliates who produce impressions and clicks but no sales. One of my friend affiliate recently saw her hard earned commissions, that were paid by the merchants to the Network and credited to her CJ account, vanish. After writing to them, this is what she received:

“Thank you for your inquiry. The $10 fee you see in your account is a dormancy fee, due to not having generated any commissions in six consecutive months. After six months without having made a sale, your account will be deducted $10 per month until the balance is $0– then the account will be deactivated. All this is stated in the Publisher Service Agreement, “PSA”, which you agreed to upon signing up for an account with Commission Junction.

Once an account is deactivated the relationships you had with advertisers prior to deactivation have been terminated and your links are no longer valid until you restore your advertiser relationships. You will need to reapply to advertisers and, in some cases, create new links.”

This dormancy $10/month fee is really unfair for small affiliates who may not have been making sales but still advertise the merchants as impressions and clicks are still recorded. The bottom line of this is that CJ is great for experienced affiliates who know they will constantly make sales but it is advised for newer affiliates to start working with networks that won’t penalize them with fees.

Go to Pantika Home Page. Article by Michel Gerard