Demystifying Affiliate Programs for Shopping Carts

People love to have shopping carts. They spend so much time, money, and effort making sure their shopping carts work. Suddenly affiliate networks pop up, and what do you do?

Shouldn't it be easy to get a tracking program for your shopping cart? In theory, yes, but as Patrick Anderson shares in this article, the reality of shopping carts is more like a nightmare.

Patrick emphasizes that virtually every shopping cart in existence tries to offer an affiliate program, but few in reality work very well. The following are his solutions to your affiliate software challenge if you are using a shopping cart.

"$1,000: The Cookie Solution:

The simplest thing to is add cookie tracking, on your home page. Write in some Javascript to check the cookie and install one if they don't have one. Include a timer in the cookie so you make sure how long you want it to stay active.

The cookie sits on computer until they get to your order page; another Javascript looks to see if that same cookie, made earlier, is sitting on that browser.

Cookies track everything and Javascript manages it. Installed with your shopping cart, it can provide an easy, effective tracking tool.

Any Java capable browser allows you to read/write the cookies; it is also a way to begin to implement something into an existing shopping cart, depending on the cart.

The big question is whether people turn their cookies off; it is the Web browser's option. That can be a concern, but there is no 100% perfect affiliate program. Some things slip through; when working, cookies can be really effective.

As far as your affiliates are concerned, cookies provide more security than many of the other available programs. They want payments and security; if you generate these, with or without cookies, you'll have happy affiliates and a growing business.

The affiliate programs aren't easy to integrate with an existing shopping cart. It's like having a VW when you really need a truck...you can't do both things. You're not going to be able to take a shopping cart and make an affiliate program out of it.

The One-Five Product Solution For Your Shopping Cart.

The problem with shopping carts is how much you offer; on first contact, this can be overwhelming.

Too many choices leads to confusion, eliminating impulse buying and in effect, creating many buying decisions when there should be just one. It is one of the cases where less is more. It doesn't work. Show me one site that does it; show me a mall that's really successful. Most aren't successful because of multiple products.

Most importantly, the real goal of any Internet marketing program is the first buy. It is crucial. Just because you can put up a bunch of items doesn't mean you should; it's confusing to the consumer.

A solution is to leave your shopping cart as it is and integrate an affiliate program that focuses on your 5 best selling products. The goal is to generate affiliates and sales for these products, to introduce people to your business.

You simply introduce up to 5 entry portals to your site, based on single products. Target these products to specific niches and build your customer list. Get them registered as frequent buyers and get them comfortable with buying from your shopping cart.

The next step is where you listen , focus in on one sale, one pitch, and one order form. Use them as lead items, one thing they can plug in and buy. You can change the products in them, your lead product, and then back end them on everything in your shopping cart.

They are much more likely to buy multiple items after an initial purchase than they are on first contact.

Installing Custom Affiliate Software for your Shopping Cart

Every shopping cart has its own unique approach; it is not like you can simply plug in any affiliate program to the software. Even if you go in under this illusion, prepare for glitches.

I'm not disparaging shopping carts, but in this case it literally putting the cart before the horse. People grabbed up shopping carts before the affiliate industry took off; few if any built in the kind of affiliate tracking software we all take for granted now.

Anyone who has programmed knows that it can be tricky converting an old piece of code to work with a new piece. It is better to design from the ground up and integrate what you need into your Web Site. If you are looking for a shopping cart, see if there is a good affiliate solution

If you already have one, the best suggestions are to:

1. Simply install cookie-based tracking systems,

2. Focus on a 1-5 product lead affiliate program rather than converting your whole shopping cart system to work with your new affiliate software; or

3. Add significant programming costs to update your shopping cart to the software. Expect problems and tricks to pop up; if you budget for it, in a few months you may have a working solution.

Like all things on the Internet, shopping carts can add significantly to the cost and time to roll out your business online. In the affiliate industry, we are just catching up to the demands of shopping carts. It is never good to be a "beta" tester, so be careful. Determine the best solution to work with your shopping cart."