The page you are viewing has an updated version within the artefact.ie domain.

Please click above menu links for information of your interest, to be redirected to updated pages or simply go to Artefact homepage. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by the optimizing works. If you are experiencing difficulties finding information you need, please don't hesitate to call us on +353 1 833 00 81 or email: info@artefact.ie

Artefact Team
Creative Graphic Design
Dublin, Ireland

Affiliate Programmes

Here's an interesting thing, or maybe it's just an obvious thing - there's a really high correlation between the number of people who tell you that there's a fortune to be made from affiliate programs and the number of people who are trying to sell you something to do with affiliate programs.

Now while some of the above are trying to sell you software to manage an affiliate program, most of them are trying to attract you to become an affiliate, or reseller, to help market their offerings. Fair enough, Artefact has no objection to being an affiliate if the product looks like one of good quality, one which will sell and one which carries a percentage sufficient to justify the bother of featuring and promoting it on the site. So -- you're an agent for an online bookstore and you sit back waiting for large checks to roll in - not! If the average price per book is $20 and you get an unusually generous 10% that's $2. What kind of traffic would you need on your site to get enough of these to live on? So, other than in exceptional cases, affiliate programs bring in a little supplementary income and that's it. They work best for those who have their own product to sell and who use an affiliate program to get others to help sell it. As a marketer with something to sell over the web, this is very useful for you to know. There are thousands of people out there who do not have a product/service to sell. They have a web site, some content designed to bring in some visitors, and an idea of leveraging off that community they've been building to make some income. Give them something of value to sell, a decent percentage, a properly structured programme which allows them access to check out how they're doing and voila, you have an international salesforce.

A very enlightening discussion of the pros and cons of different approaches to affiliate programs can be found in the archives of the i-sales newsgroup. One of the protagonists takes the view that most programs are so heavily weighted in favour of the vendor that they will eventually collapse and he favours a win-win approach whereby, among other things, affiliates who refer a customer would continue to receive commissions for subsequent purchases by that customer - a 'lifetime' commission concept designed to motivate the affiliate. This view is not shared by everyone. Visit the Audettemedia website to learn more.