I just signed up for a CJ account...and cafepress aff program..

Now my next step is to place cafepress marketplace items on my CP shop..so that when ppl come to my shop and buy it...I will get commision ?

I am all confused...about this whole affiliate thing...plz guide me...

You can put affiliate links on any web site you own. You cannot put affiliate links on any web page owned by CafePress

http://www.tutortanith.com/affiliatelinking.htm

if you have your own domains, blogs, newsletters etc, that ouhave access and permission to post what you want, these are the locations you'd want to put affiliate links.

an affiliate link is a link to a product or design or page that is not YOUR product or design or shop... that you include your commission junction id on.

affiliating allows you to send traffic to products that are not of your creation, and when someone buys those products because of your link, you make a commission.

quote:

Originally posted by PROUDSIKH.us:
Now my next step is to place cafepress marketplace items on my CP shop..so that when ppl come to my shop and buy it...I will get commision ?

No.. You cannot put affiliate links in your shop. But like Jen and Diane stated, if you have an external website you can put affiliate links there.

ohh ok...Now I know...

I won't place any cafepress marketplace links on my own shop...thanks to all 3 ppl who guided me the correct direction...

I have a few external websites...I can link it from there...

Now my another question is...
Can I put my own t-shirt as an affiliate link on my external website ? Is that allowed ...?

I can link to anything on cafepress marketplace ?

Yes you can link to anything in the CP marketplace. Only shops that are participating in the affiliate program making their products available to affiliates show up in the marketplace.

You can link to your own stuff from your affiliate sites with affiliate links if you do one (or both) of the following:

1 - Enable the affiliate redirect through your shop management page on CP. On this page you provide CP with your CJ affiliate ID so the CP servers can cross reference it to your account.

2 - Use &xid=[cpaccount#] in your affiliate links so your cp account number is cross referenced to your cj link.

Personally, I use both methods. Better to be safe than sorry I always say.

Linking to your own stuff without using the above methods is against the affiliate program terms of service but as long as you do the above it is ok.

Great tutorial and very simple explanations.
I think I "kinda" get it now.

So I can toss affiliate links onto my Blog (on blogger) but NOT on my Cafe Press Shop.... correct?

I have a couple of blogs --can I put the links on all of them or do I have to choose just one?


Thanks for your time!

You got it EasyWriter! The only thing that could prevent you from putting the links in your blog is if the blog is a free one hosted by one of the big blogging companies. Sometimes their terms of service prohibit affiliate linking. So if you are using a blog company like blogger, wordpress, etc that actually host the blog, you will want to check their terms of service.

Any blog you host at your own website though should be safe. For example, wordpress hosted by wordpress I think they don't allow affiliate linking but if you host your own installed copy of wordpress at your own website, you can affiliate link within it.

Ok. I'm back. I'm trying to figure out this affiliate stuff. I added a "link" to my store on my free blog on the sidebar and it has not been taken out.

As far as me being able to help any Cafe Press shop owners out by putting a banner ad on my free blog, it sounds like I won't be able to do this?

Seems to me that the affiliate program really only is for people with their own websites that they pay for --so I wonder then, if it's worth it for me to be doing this, since my ability to reciprocate would be null (since I also can't put their cafe press shops on my shop).

Hmmmm.....

Reciprocation isn't a part of it.

An affiliate is a person who promotes products owned by someone else. They get paid, so they don't need or expect a link back.

As shop keeper your job is to keep people in your shop, not send them shopping somewhere else. So links to other stores might be a nice social gesture but it isn't a good business practice.

quote:

Originally posted by easywriter:
Seems to me that the affiliate program really only is for people with their own websites that they pay for --so I wonder then, if it's worth it for me to be doing this, since my ability to reciprocate would be null (since I also can't put their cafe press shops on my shop).

The first step would be to determine if you have the time to put into becoming successful at affiliate marketing. Not everyone does. And not everyone has the desire to put the time into it that it needs. There are a lot more factors to it working well than having an external website and putting up links.

Some people do better by staying away from trying to be an affiliate and kicking butt creating designs. If that is your passion, forget about trying to be an affiliate and do what you enjoy. Then make those designs available to affiliates to help you sell. Sometimes this is a better option than spreading yourself too thin trying to do everything just because its there (if that makes any sense)..

If you do want to get into affiliate marketing, research it. The CafePress forums wont have the answers for everything. Go to places where experts hang out, read tutorials on affiliate marketing outside the scope of the CafePress program. Once you have a good understanding, a LOT of the things that make no sense to you as a shopkeeper here will start to make sense.

Really, affiliate marketing is too involved to expect it to be covered completely here. Personally, I think it was CafePress' goal to recruit affiliates and not necessarily to educate folks how to be one. I imagine thats why a lot of the basic beginner stuff isnt here. Luckily we have a great community that has banded together to help make a lot of us affiliates.

I hope this post isn't sounding like I'm coming down on anyone for not understanding, because its not intended to be that way. I just want folks to take a good hard look at what your goals are and what you enjoy and to understand that just because it is here doesn't mean you gotta be one.

Also, like Diane said, there is really nothing reciprocal about affiliate marketing. Shopkeepers had made the affiliate program into a banner exchange kinda deal but thats really not what affiliate marketing is about. Most merchants don't have "partners" that provide all their products that become an affiliate of the merchant to sell other "partners" stuff. In the case of POD services, we are kinda in a strange water... I think that adds to the confusion.