Internet Marketing Trip

Today, still on the way to improve a new website (actually, powered by WordPress) and add content to it, I applied to few more merchants affiliate programs, at LinkShare.com. LinkShare is quite a big network network, with some great offers from merchants like Apple, Toshiba, Toys’R'Us, FootLocker and many more.

When you apply you are :

Beign automatically rejected is something I can understand, only if the merchant don’t want anymore affiliates, but I think the affiliate program shouldn’t be first available for application. It’s a waste of time for affiliates to look at conditions if they don’t need any more affiliates.

But there are other reasons that can make your application denied. So as I said at the beginning of this post, I applied to few merchants, some approved me instantly, and others approved me after a few hours. Some also reviewed me and rejected me, here are the reasons.

Actually, these are the possible reasons, they won’t tell you the exact one, you will have to find out yourself.
* inability to access web site - Wrong, I use HostGator as a web hosting, and they have a 99.9% uptime, I doubt they get the 0.1% downtime. I worked on the website today and everything was fine.
* web site not yet live - Wrong, site is live, perectly running, new content.
* traffic levels too low - Of course, the website is brand new.
* inappropriate material on site - Do they talk about pornography, racism, illegal stuff ? Nothing like this on my website.
* content not relevant to merchant - Content is exactly relevant to merchant, their offer IS the topic.
* merchant not adding any new affiliates at this point - already mentioned, I can understand that although the application shouldn’t be available)

So, the only thing I was rejected is because the website is brand new and traffic is not high enough. But, if all merchants acted like this, then I would never have something to offer ! Or I would just have to build all the traffic, but no link to any offer, no money.

I’d like to have any opinion about that matter, of course, I could re-apply when the website gets more traffic. But don’t you think that as long as a website is relevant to the merchants offer, then it should be approved.

If I only have 1 visitor a day, but this one visitor buys something, it is one sale a day for me, but for the merchant too. If my content is as good as a website getting loads of traffic, then it should convert the same, shouldn’t it ?