Joining an affiliate network is not as easy as it sounds, because when you sign up they all ask the same question.

• What’s the name of your website and how many visitors do you get.

Now when you are new its impossible to give this information and usually your application gets rejected. So the best thing to do is once you have submitted your application is to send in a motivational email explaining you are new to the game and need to see what offers they have available before you can build a website. Be persistent and email them everyday if you have to. Eventually they will approve you and open your account.

Terms and Conditions

The next thing you need to take a careful look at is their terms and conditions and their payment cycle.

The payment cycle is very important because if they state payment is made in 30 days it means you get paid in 60 days. If it states 60 days you get paid in 90 days. So just be aware of this because it can affect your cash flow if you are using paid advertising.

Also another thing to check for is how are they going to pay you. Is it by EFT or Cheque. Here in SA its pretty straight forward, but overseas some sites pay via Ebookers or Paypal so just make sure because currently you can not transfer money into South Africa with paypal.

The second thing to look at is who carries the risk if a merchant doesn’t pay them. Some networks do not carry this risk and should a merchant default on their payment you have no claim and it can cost you a lot of money especially if you use paid advertising. Trust me I have been caught like this a few times, so careful consideration should be taken in to account if you decide to promote a product on a network and they exclude themselves from the risk.

Once your application is approved and your account is open the next thing to do is search for offers and products you would like to promote.

I will go into detail on this in the next post, but if you having any questions please feel free to post them below in the comments section.