The Importance of Choosing an Affiliate Program with Long Term Affiliate Revenue

When you first hear about the prospect of making incredible amounts of affiliate revenue by doing some affiliate marketing it's exciting. Suddenly you have your chance to try your hand at stepping out into the wide, wonderful world of e-commerce without taking on all of the risks associated with starting your own business. The problem is, not all affiliate programs are going to provide you with any type of long term stability.

Why is that significant? In order to step out into the ranks of the wealthy (or at least the "not too broke") you have to have a long term affiliate revenue you can count on. If you're just looking for a way to make a quick buck, any affiliate program will do. All companies are looking for marketing, and the couple hundred dollars in affiliate revenue you can make right around Christmas will go a long way toward helping boost the pile under your tree.

On the other hand, if you want to make working as an affiliate a career choice you're going to have to take care to choose your company carefully to ensure that you are in a position to receive affiliate revenue for many years to come-otherwise you're going to have to go back to getting a J-O-B, punching a time clock and saying good-bye to those mornings spent happily sitting in front of your computer in your pajamas. Since the entire reason most people begin working as an affiliate in the first place is to say good-bye to their J-O-B, this defeats the purpose!

How can you tell whether an affiliate program is going to have the staying power to provide you with long term revenue? What characteristics can you look for when choosing a company to help keep you from signing on the dotted line and sinking your own hard-earned marketing budget into a "here today, gone tomorrow" one hit wonder?

The first thing you want to ask when choosing a parent company with which to affiliate is "How long have they been in business?" The Internet gives birth to thousands of e-commerce sites a year, and many of these individuals have been doing business for less than six months. While a start-up company always presents great potential for growth, there is also a serious risk that they'll tumble in the first five years under the weight of their start-up costs.

If you can find a start-up company to affiliate with that isn't going to require you to sink tremendous amounts of your own money into a long term marketing campaign by all means give it a try. The worst that can happen is you'll be out a little bit of your time. Bear in mind, however, that if you choose to make affiliate  marketing a career with the hope of long term affiliate revenue you're going to want to make sure that you don't put all of your eggs in one basket-find another, established company to work with as well. That way if the company crumbles you have a back-up plan to keep you in toilet paper while you're looking around for other opportunities!