Hosting a web site or even a blog can be expensive. You need to pay hosting fees, optionally pay for a domain name (and renew it every so often), and may need to purchase software, images and more. Of course, you also invest many hours of hard work in the site.
Are you looking for ways to earn money to cover expenses and to reward you for all of the hard work you have put into the site or blog? Use of affiliate advertising may be the answer. Footnote.com has recently announced an affiliate program that offers history-related and family history-related ads for your site that will help you pay the bills.
An e-commerce affiliate is a website which contains links back to an e-commerce site such as Amazon.com, Google.com or others. You see these ads on a wide variety of sites. The web site's owner is paid a commission when someone clicks on an ad and then purchases something from the e-commerce site. Google Ads are the most popular but you can find many other affiliate advertising programs as well.
When you place a Footnote.com banner or text link on your site, or promote Footnote.com's products via email or search engines, Footnote.com will share the revenue with you. Unlike some of the other affiliate programs, the new Footnote.com ads are always history or family history-related.
I have looked at many affiliate marketing programs and I have used a number of them. However, I find Footnote.com's program to be quite unusual. First of all, the company has an introductory offer that allows all new affiliates a whopping 40% commission on all sales for a limited time. That is a much higher commission than most other genealogy or history-related affiliate marketing programs.
Footnote.com normally uses a three-tier commission level: 20%, 30% and 40% commissions. As the number of your sales referrals increase, you get paid a higher and higher commission on each sale. However, during this introductory period, the company is paying ALL affiliates the maximum of a 40% commission. I suspect that offer will not last forever.
Even if a visitor to your site clicks on the ad but doesn't buy anything, you may eventually earn a commission from his return visit to Footnote.com. When a visitor clicks on a Footnote.com ad that is displayed on your site, a cookie is placed on the visitor's computer. The cookie life is set for 180 days. Each visitor is tracked so that even if that visitor doesn't sign up on the first visit but returns later and makes a purchase, Footnote.com will know that the purchaser was originally referred by your site. You'll earn a commission when that customer purchases anything as long as the purchase is made within six months from the same computer and the cookie has not been deleted or replaced by another affiliate's cookie.
Footnote also pays a bit more promptly than some of the other affiliate marketing programs. Checks are mailed on the 15th of the month after the sale is made. For example, on March 15th, payment for all valid sales in February would be mailed to the affiliate.
All reporting is available to you online at any time. You can log in to your affiliate interface as often as you wish to view your stats in real time.
Joining the Footnote.com affiliate program is free. All you need to do is supply some information about yourself, including the address to used for mailing the checks, receive an affiliate ID and then copy-and-paste some HTML code into your web site or blog. You can also add text links at the bottom of e-mail messages that you send thereby adding another potential revenue-generating distribution method.
Note: Footnote.com has a strong NO SPAMMING policy. Any and all Footnote links intended for use in emails must be approved by the Footnote affiliate team prior to use. If you use spam mail to promote the service in violation of Footnote.com's policies, you immediately forfeit all payments for any resulting referrals. Experience has shown that e-mail recipients will complain quickly and loudly to any company mentioned in spam mail ads so I'd suggest that you "think before you click."
A side benefit of having Footnote.com ads on your site versus other affiliate marketing programs is that all the ads are history or family history-related. At one time I used Google Ads on a web site I owned but eventually gave them up because they often displayed non-relevant ads. I'd write an article with the phrase "family history" in it and Google world display ads such as "the lowest prices in history on plasma televisions!" You will not have that problem with Footnote.com ads. If your web site or blog is focused on genealogy, history or any related topics, your site's visitors will appreciate the fact that the ads are also related. That relationship also should result in a higher clickthrough rate.
Joining the Footnote.com affiliate advertising program is free. Any web site or blog may join if:
- You have a Web site
- Your site is relevant to Footnote.com content (not required, but may be helpful)
- There are no broken links or images
- Your site is active and is not visibly under construction
- Your site does not use software which facilitates contextual pop up advertising or cookie overwriting
- Your site does not contain pornographic or questionable material
I can also offer a personal testimonial. My newsletter has been sponsored by Footnote.com since the day Footnote.com's web site went live. I have spent many hours with the company's senior managers as well as with the programming staff and others. In my mind, their honesty and integrity is unquestioned. I am pleased to have Footnote.com as a sponsor of this newsletter and suspect you will enjoy a similar relationship if you include their ads on your site.
For more information about the Footnote.com Affiliate Marketing program, go to http://www.footnote.com/affiliates. I'd suggest that you also click on "Frequently Asked Questions" on that page.
Dick, thanks for the tip. I've had several bad experiences with online ads - inappropriate products and gaudy graphics. Footnote is something I'd love to see succeed and if I can help make that happen, that's even better. Making a few bucks commission in the process would be delightful.
Posted by: Denise Olson | July 20, 2007 at 05:05 AM
In addition to viewing and clicking on the Footnote sponsorship here, I've been following the Footnote Unofficial Blog and have been delighted with its quality content. I'm headed over to read the FAQs right now. There might just be a good partnership for us.
Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com/ssg1.htm
Posted by: Happy Dae | July 20, 2007 at 05:36 AM