How I pick an affiliate program
Know them.
I like dealing directly with the company when pimping an affiliate product. You get to know the people better and it is amazing how flexible good companies can be.
I have a handful of individual companies that I do affiliate marketing for and it is a whole lot more fun going direct then having a blank face.
I still have a few campaigns I run from some of the big boys (linkshare, cj, etc.) but they are essentially on auto pilot and withering away slowly due to lack of attention from me.
Find them.
I am always looking for new affiliate products to pimp. Usually I’ll go through cj and find a product/service that I am interested in and check their home page to see if they have a direct affiliate program. I am much more likely to even bother with a test campaign if they meet this criteria. Sometimes I get lucky and hear about some great offers by word of mouth or via a post on bumpzee.
But the biggest thing I look for is if they are running the program themselves vs just farming the whole operation.
Exceptions.
I always make exceptions to my rule. It really depends. I’ll test almost any campaign and see if I can get it working (profitable) for me. But I am more likely to put forth effort if the program is run internally. Because I know the company is more likely to really care about it affiliates.
