Who should an affiliate marketer promote Famous well-known brands or smaller companies?

You probably have noticed as an affiliate that there are thousands of different affiliate programs available to promote in 4 large affiliate marketing networks and many smaller networks and of course the many in-house programs for individual merchants.

One of my first questions as a new affiliate was "Which merchants or which affiliate programs should I join?". It can be very baffling.  How do you decide when you are still green?  The answer is really not that complicated.

First of all, you must consider the website you are working on. Instead of joining every program under the sun, pick the topic of your website and look for programs for that topic or issue.  Don't worry about the name of the company yet.

Secondly, Look at those merchants/affiliate programs and check the cookie duration and the commission percent.  The cookie duration is the time from when the website visitor clicks on an affiliate link during which the affiliate will get credit for a sale. If the cookie duration is 30 days then if a visitor makes a purchase before the 30 days are over, the affiliate earns the commission. If the visitor returns to the merchant site on day 31 and makes a purchase, no commission is paid.

You should avoid promoting affiliate programs with short cookies because most visitors don't really buy on the first day unless the products are very cheap consumables. The more expensive a product is, the more likely that it will not be purchased on the first day.  The merchant should offer a cookie of at least 30 days. 60 days or more is ideal.

The commission percent  is the percent of the sale not including shipping or handling that is paid to the affiliate. The percent will vary greatly, but in general you'll get around 10% for most tangible products and you should expect at least 20% for digital products since no manufacturing was involved and digital products can be e-mailed or downloaded automatically so no human was involved in processing the order.

You'll find many, probably, hundreds or thousands of websites telling you to only sell digital products that offer 50% commission or higher. I completely disagree. Most of those programs (typically offered on Clickbank) are crap,  yes worthless junk.  Not only that but those products are expensive crap.  Charging the same price or more than a print book would cost.  You might make a sale, but the visitor will not be very likely to come back to your site for products, advice, etc.  Can you sleep well at night knowing that you indirectly sold someone expensive junk?  I cannot.

I am not saying that digital products are bad. Many digital products are very nice. It is just that the ones offering 50% or more in commission are typically crap.  I have successfully promoted quality digital products (that were also much cheaper than the crappy ones) and best of all I can sleep well at night knowing that I let visitors know about products that meet their needs.  Electronics, computers, and books typically give the lowest commission of around 4%.

After you review merchants in the same category as your website, apply to those that have a decent cookie and commission.  Many will reject you. Wait a couple days and see who has accepted you. During your wait, work on your website design and add some non-affiliate content.

Look at your list of approved affiliate programs. You'll see a mix of famous well-known brands and others that you've never heard of. Here is the simple answer.

Do tests and see what works.  Some offer lower commissions and shorter cookies, but their websites have fewer leaks and great products with good prices. Others will offer high commissions but have few products or the products are much more expensive.

Promote each program separately and in the same way. After a month, check your conversions and total earnings for each one and compare them.  If the famous brand didn't convert into enough sales to make up for its lower commission percent then drop them.  At the end of the day the important thing is that you make money and that you can pay your bills.  Programs that don't convert should be dropped if you have competitor products on the same site that do convert. You need to remove the non-performing merchant's products because they are taking away clicks to the program that is working.

If none of your programs convert to any sales in a month then check your website and change the way that you are promoting them. Not every marketing method will work for everyone or every website.