Affiliate programs allow website owners to affiliate themselves with other websites to sell products, advertising, or refer traffic.  Most affiliate programs are set up in such a way that the person referring sales, displaying advertisements, or referring traffic receives a portion of the money the affiliated website generates.

Different programs are set up in different ways.  For example, some have a flat rate, such as a percentage, that they offer as a payout to affiliate members.  Sell $20 of merchandise from your site and get $5 of those sales.

But not all affiliate programs are equal.  Some are more successful at generating revenue for website owners than others.  Depending on the type of website you operate, any ol' program may not work well for you.  To help make affiliate program shopping easier, we're testing a variety of programs and grading them, based on a number of criteria.

The Affiliate Program Report Card is divided into two main sections:

AFFILIATE PROGRAM INFORMATION contains the basics:  the program name, the payout (if published), any notes on the overall experience, and an overall grade.

DETAILED GRADES & RESULTS goes a little further.  In this section we'll grade each program on the speed of admission, the ease of setup, the quality of the product or service, and our results each month.

CLICK A PROGRAM NAME FOR A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM AND EXAMPLES OF THE SERVICE.

If you know of an affiliate program that we've missed, don't hesitate to drop us a line and let us know.  We'll give it a try and report back to you!