Can I Join?

Yes, of course, you can join an affiliate program. A company would be crazy to say that you can’t join. After all, it’s possible that you might send some business its way, and it doesn’t cost the company anything to sign you up. Actually, about the only way not to get approved for an affiliate program is to run a Web site that the company finds objectionable — like a XXX adult site or one that tells how to rob banks with a homemade nuclear weapon.

Finding partners

So who’s running affiliate programs? Where do you go to sign up? The short answer is that just about everyone’s doing some kind of affiliate program these days. If you just use your Web browser’s page-search function, you can hunt for the word affiliate on the sites that you visit in the normal course of your surfing, and you’re guaranteed to trip over tons of programs. Many of the outfits that I list in other chapters of this book offer them, too.

You can also go to particular Web sites to find out the lowdown on affiliate programs. Table 15-3 lists some of the best sites for finding up-to-date news on the latest and greatest of these programs. (Figure 15-1 shows one of them.)

Table 15-3. Top Affiliate Information Sites

Company	Web Address
AffiliateMatch.com	www.affiliatematch.com
AssociatePrograms.com	www.associateprograms.com
ClickQuick.com	www.clickquick.com
LinkShare	www.linkshare.com
Refer-it.com	www.refer-it.com
WhichAffiliate	www.whichaffiliate.com

It’s not a bad idea to cruise the search engines on a regular basis and hunt down any new programs that have come up since you last looked. In addition to keywords limiting things to your site’s subject area, try some of these search terms: affiliate program, associate program, and bounty program. Don’t forget the program part, or you’ll spend the rest of your natural life trying to dig out from under all the results.

Working with a network

Not long after the idea of affiliate programs arose, people came up with the idea of affiliate-program networks. Program networks aren’t just Web sites that offer you a large choice of programs to sign up for. They actually take care of nearly everything for you. All you do is go to a network’s Web site, sign up, and state what kind of companies you want to sign up with. The network advises you and sets you up with some good ones. It’s kind of like an e-commerce dating service.

LinkShare (www.linkshare.com) is an affiliate network that brings several programs together under one roof. You can find Commission Junction, a service similar to LinkShare’s, at www.cj.com. Check out both Web sites to see what they can offer you.

Here’s how to sign up as a Commission Junction affiliate:

1.	Go to https://signup.cj.com/member/publisherSignUp.do. The Commission Junction Publisher Application page appears, as shown in Figure 15-2. Figure 15-2. The first step in becoming a Commission Junction affiliate. [View full size image]
2.	Choose your language and which country you’re in.
3.	Select the currency in which you want your figures calculated.
4.	Click the Next button.
5.	Read the legal agreement in the box at the top of the page. When you reach the bottom of the agreement, click the Accept button. (See Figure 15-3.) Figure 15-3. Providing the detailed information. [View full size image] The check box beneath the agreement is automatically selected.
6.	Select the next two check boxes as well, affirming that you have read the privacy policy (you can click a link if you want to read it) and that you are of legal age.
7.	Under the Site Information heading, fill out the appropriate information for your site (Web Site Name, Description, Category, and so on).
8.	Under the Contact Information and Company information heading, enter the pertinent data.
9.	Under Payment Information, select either Check or Direct Deposit. (The latter is available only in the U.S., U.K., and Canada.) If you select Direct Deposit, more options appear, asking you for your bank information. This is a secure Web page.
10.	In the text box at the bottom of the page, enter the printed characters next to that text box. This is simply a method for proving that you are an actual human being who is manually entering this information. That keeps automated programs from using the forms.
11.	Click the Accept Terms button at the bottom of the page. You receive an e-mail with your account number, password, and so on.

From now on, just go to www.cj.com, enter your e-mail address (it has to be the same one you signed up with) and your password, click the Go button, and you’re in. From here, you can explore all that Commission Junction has to offer, from new affiliate advertising possibilities to managing your account with it.