U.K. Web Sites Making Money with
Affiliate Programs

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by Simon Mallinson

I have a number of sites of a lifestyle theme. Up until now most affiliate programmes have been tied into American web sites/programmes which suffice in terms of lower prices but then having to pay in US Dollars, as well as shipping costs back to the UK, virtually wipes out the benefits.

I came across IMVS having visited Popcorn and Dotmusic. Those sites were either reviewing new releases or offering chart information and then offering their readers the opportunity to buy online. Great idea, I thought.

I saw they were doing it through IMVS and having visited the IMVS site, noticed they were UK based and offered an affiliate programme. I phoned them up, got a brief rundown and quickly saw the potential.

IMVS also allows me to sell DVDs which I feel is going to be huge and will probably within a couple of years replace the sell through VHS market.

As you probably know, trying to sell books online (through Amazon) is a slog, whereas everyone I know buys CDs and videos.

Apart from promoting online music and videos from within my own sites, I thought why not go the whole hog and do it properly, so I register a few good domain names.

For example:

www.musicandvideo.co.uk
www.music-store.co.uk
www.video-store.co.uk
www.dvd-store.co.uk

The names obviously reflect the products I am trying to promote and therefore can be found by search engines. The goal was to have a good idea and move quickly. There are only so many decent music and video domains.

I designed the front end of the sites myself and linked through to the appropriate sections within IMVS to make navigation easier for the end user. I can also produce features on my own sites, promoting certain artists, programmes, etc., and like Popcorn and Dotmusic, give readers the chance to order there and then.

Does it work?

Oh, absolutely! After the initial set-up and search engine registration, sales kicked in almost immediately. I've had about £10,000 (US$16,000) worth of sales in just over a couple of months, and I get an 8% commission of everything sold.

Basically it is a numbers game. The sites average about 200 visitors a day, each generating between £160 and £400 sales a day. If I can get that up to 2000 daily, you can see the potential. I am competing with the likes of HMV, Virgin, etc., but without the costs of a high street shop. I can now offer a range of over 230,000 titles from the comfort of my small office.

Not bad for a Brit!