Forum

[hometrend]

Hi to fellow Affilorama members. Just joined and am impressed with what I've discovered so far on the site. Looking forward to learning more.

Has anyone got any advice on whether it's possible to affiliate with a merchant that is not on an affiliate program? Say you see a product you would like to promote, maybe after having reviewed it, but the merchant is not on a program or maybe would not want to join a specific program on a long term basis. Is there any software that could track linking to the merchant's specific product on their website and detect the sale(s) transaction. Obviously the terms e.g. commission % etc would have to be agreed beforehand. The niche I'm looking at doesn't seem to have many merchants offering affiliate programs. Any thoughts/suggestions welcome! Thanks.

John

 

[faradina]

It could be possible depending on the arrangement you have with the merchant but it would more likely be a merchant-reseller type of relationship rather than a merchant-affiliate one, specially if the merchant does not have a system for tracking referrals. I have not yet heard of any software on the market that can be used by an affiliate to track sales on the merchant website.
There is also a certain amount of risk in promoting the products of a merchant that does not have an affiliate program and is not registered with an affiliate network. You see, with an affiliate network such as clickbank, cj, or linkshare, it is the network that controls payments and you can be more or less sure of being paid because the network is a third party and will arbitrate any dispute. Without a network, there's only you and the merchant; what happens in the case of disputed sales/referrals?

 

[hometrend]

Fara,
Many thanks for your quick response. Very good points. I will need to weigh up the risks. Another option I thought of is making the product review site for this niche completely independent and rely on advertiser revenue e.g. Google adsense. It may also be possible to sell relevant information products to help revenue.
Thanks
John