Commission Structures



When deciding on what to promote look at the commission structure to figure out how many sales you need to make to reach the minimum payout. If you can’t do it in 3 sales then don’t join the program – this applies to in-house programs specifically. In a network you may be promoting several merchants and their products, so getting to the minimum is easier.

Reporting is critical to developing your campaigns and deciding which offer to promote and which ones to get rid of. You need to know what kind of traffic you are sending to the merchant and how it is converting as well as which banner or creative is working well for you. One of the nice features of the ShareASale network in particular is they show you the last 60 days of the affiliate average EPC (or Earnings per Click) of a merchant as well as the return/refund rate and average commissions. So you will know if a program is actively producing revenue and what their return rate is.

Networks, like ShareASale will even alert you if a merchant is running low on funds or not funded at all so you can quickly decide to switch merchants or contact the affiliate manager to see what is going on and when they will fund their accounts properly. This is especially important because some seasonal merchants, like Halloween merchants in particular, don’t fund their account year round. You would be sending traffic to dead links since the network shuts them down as they are no longer funded.

Return days, gap life, or cookie life:  is the amount of time the customer referred is still considered yours.

So let us say the return days is 30. This means if the customer comes back on the 30th day and makes a purchase they are still your referral and you get credit for the sale. If they make the purchase on the 31st day you get nothing as the cookie has expired.

In my experience over 95% of the sales are made the same day, so don’t be afraid of a one-day cookie. Keep in mind that your visitor may have different buying behaviors depending on the content you are using to promote a product. A longer tracking gap is always better.

One of the questions most frequently asked is what if the visitor clicks on my affiliate link then later click on another affiliate’s link – who gets credit for the referral? This will vary from program to program.  Modern programs have attribution options beyond just the last click. Always check with your affiliate manager on this. 

Each merchant will have their own Affiliate Agreement:

Please read these carefully. It will tell you what terms/keywords you cannot go after, usually their trademarks. So don’t try to buy domains that are misspellings or similar to the trademarks as you will get declined and even worse forfeit any commissions earned and be black listed in the network. The agreement will also tell you about payment cycles, and how refunds are handled, guidelines for email marketing as well as return days (cookie life). 

Step 8. Choosing a Product to Promote:

  • What would someone visiting your site on your topic need or want?
  • How can you help your readers?
  • What problems does this product solve and how?
  • What kind of person or “perfect customer” are you looking for?
  • What kind of searches do potential customers use to find the product or service they need?
  • Can you give added value on your website?
  • Will the product or service blend in with your website content?

Answer each of the above questions when deciding what to promote.

You want the products or services you are advertising to be helpful to your audience and blend in very well with your content, as well as allow you to create even more content like “reviews of products” or services you have tried and tips for getting the most out of them.

Picking a product to promote can be a crapshoot, unless you do your homework.

This means you should buy the product, check out the customer service. Really look at the website.

  • Would you buy from them? 
  • Are there potential leakage problems like 800 numbers or other areas where your sale may not be tracked? 
  • List the reasons why you desire the product or why you think others will want it.
  • Write your own review of the product. 
  • Take a video of the package when it arrives, show what is inside and how you use the product. 


Just from doing these things, you now already have some unique content for your site.

Where to find products to promote?


My top recommendation for finding products is to stick with the top performing networks first before venturing out into a private program/in-house program. Some of the major factors for my decision are payment, tracking, reporting, return days (cookie life) and availability of creative (banners, articles, videos, instant storefronts and widgets). 

This is not to say there are not some excellent in-house programs available that are very profitable and niche specific for you out there. However you will need to do some checking on them before deciding to work with them.

Important Reminder:

Be aware that any program that charges you a fee to sign up is a scam or insists you have to be a customer before you can be an affiliate is not worth your time and trouble. Be sure there is an affiliate manager to contact and that they respond in a reasonable amount of time to your questions.

To find out if a merchant or product retailer has an affiliate program I start out with just doing a search for “product name affiliate” or “company name affiliate”. On the retailers home page the affiliate link is usually at the bottom and will say “affiliate” , “affiliate program” or “partners”. Look at your competition in the market space you plan to enter and see what types of ads they are running.  Click on a few to see where they go and if you see the “affiliates” page linked at the bottom. Make a spread sheet of all the programs or products you are interested in promoting.