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Saved by 1 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2009-05-02

Joel on 2009-05-02 - Tags Affiliate , Marketing

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I can comment on this from the perspective of an affiliate promoting products on networks like CJ. Affiliate programs can be a very profitable way to gain customers, but there are lots of issues that come up. In particular:

-Before your product is listed on an affiliate network, you need to put down a significant investment- mid to high $XX,XXX as a prepayment to the network

-Especially for a webapp, there could be issues of rampant fraud-affilites using VCCs to sign up and so on- this is something you will need to be proactive about filtering out

-Products that do well on affiliate networks have a large target market- if your webapp is niche affiliates won't bother to take the time to set up campaigns to promote your product

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Regards to the prepayment, you sure there aren't networks that just bill when fees are due?

Regards to fraud, that's definitely a real issue.

Regards to niche, from what I've learned from doing some affiliate work and research, niche is extremely important and much desired by affiliates - even though my product isn't narrowly targeted - just saying..

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