Criteria for an affiliate-friendly associate program

When we look at affiliate programs to include in this directory, they must pass stringent criteria. These are designed to protect your affiliate commissions and make sure that you get paid for sales generated from your referral link.

These 4 criteria are essential to get listed in this directory:

1. No link to the merchant’s affiliate program on the sales page.

2. If a toll-free number is located on the sales page, there must be a way of tracking phone orders to the referring affiliate.

3. If there are demo versions of the product, there must be tracking in place to make sure that sales are assigned to the correct affiliate.

4. No Affiliate banners on the merchants own sales page, or other links that can take your referral off the merchant site without making a commission.

In addition, we will be looking at ways in which the merchants goes above and beyond to ensure affiliates are well looked after. This can include things like:

1. Using special scripts like Adrian Ling’s Easy Click Mate to prevent affiliates from merely substituting their own affiliate ID in a link on your page.

2. Providing marketing material - banners, promotional materials etc.

3. Having a two-tiered affiliate program structure - i.e. you make money on your referrals, but also on referrals of your referrals.

4. Recurring commissions on your referrals (more typical with some membership sites or web hosting companies that give you a commission every month for the lifetime of the customer you referred)