Online Affiliate Programs

There are two types of service available to run your affiliate programs: either you can use the available online services that exist today, or you can purchase your own affiliate program and run it from your own server.

Online Affiliate Systems 

1. Clickbank 

I have always been impressed with Clickbank. They kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. They not only take Credit Cards online, but they have a built-in affiliate program that automatically and instantly credits your affiliates with affiliate payments after a successful sale.

In addition, you don't need to worry about having your PayPal account suspended or terminated, as they also take PayPal transactions through your Clickbank account as well.

You can also sell up to 500 products through a single Clickbank account, and further, they've introduced monthly billing. With the hundreds of supported scripts and programs for Clickbank that exist in the marketplace, they've got my sure vote as #1.

There are four "down sides" to Clickbank:

1. They have a 56 day refund policy, whereas I believe that 30 days is more than enough to determine the quality of goods.
2. If your refund rate exceeds 3 or 4%, they will disapprove of your product. You will still be able to sell other products through your account, but they will deny the failed product.
3. If you're waiting for international cheques to arrive, then clearing the cheque can take around 5 weeks. Your bank will also charge fees for clearing the cheque so it's best that you wait until your payment is large enough to cash at the bank.
4. Lastly, if you don't use your account in nine periods (of two weeks), then Clickbank start deducting $1 per period for holding your funds. I lost my first Clickbank commission this way *sob*.

2. EbizAC

This service is not just an affiliate program, it's an all in one website solution that gives you complete control over your online presence with these powerful solutions:

1. Affiliate Program Manager
2. Email Autoresponder
3. Mailing List System
4. RSS Autoresponder
5. Digital Product Download Protection
6. Ad Tracking System
7. Membership Site Manager
8. Customer Support Manager
9. And a ton of other useful tools and features

3. Pay Dot Com

Pay Dot Com is a relatively new challenger to the Clickbank Marketplace. It aims to be cheaper and provide a better range than Clickbank. You can promote as an affiliate without any payment required to join up, and you can also sell one product through PDC without having to pay a fee.

While this may sound like an attractive alternative, there are three strikes aginst PDC that have personally hurt my online business, and for these reasons I prefer to steer away from them:

1. You are required to own and operate your own PayPal account in conjunction with PDC. When PDC started there were two merchants available: PayPal and StormPay. Due to circumstances with StormPay, they were removed from the PDC system. This means that if your PayPal account is closed, you will no longer be able to use Pay Dot Com for your affiliate business.
2. Now as far as affiliate programs go, I no longer trust PDC with my business. Having performed several tests with my partners, it is proven that up to 30% of affiliate sales are not credited to the affiliate. Some transactions are credited fully to the product owner, and commissions are not paid.
3. You are responsible for payments of commissions. There is no automatic payment system where your affiliates are automatically credited. These funds are held in your own PayPal account and you must pay them out at the end of the month.

4. Sale Flurry

This system is also very new, and promises to be a great system for people who want to try something a little different.

Navigation around the site may seem a little clumsy, but promises to be a better solution than PayDotCom - though you are still fully responsible for making your own commission payments to your affiliates.

This means that (unfortunately) you'll need to pay out using PayPal or issue international cheques for your affiliates.

The main thing is that it is a FREE program to join - and you only pay fees upon sale. And yes, these fees are quite low if you don't intend to purchase your own affiliate management system.