On the other hand, if you meet a dog that is snarling, growling, and showing his fangs, it's a pretty good indication that that dog is a lot less that ?friendly.? So it's a pretty simple matter to distinguish a friendly dog from an unfriendly dog. You don't need to run any tests or check out his background or consult your shrink.

It's too bad that it isn't that easy to tell a friendly affiliate marketing program from an unfriendly one. But there are some tests I use to decide, and I hope they work as well for you as they do for me.

Unfriendly Affiliate Programs

The first and most obvious way to determine if an affiliate program is friendly or unfriendly is to try to contact the merchant or the manager of the program. If I don't get an answer within 24 business hours of your inquiry, I move on.

Unfriendly affiliate programs don't provide adequate tools for making sales. That means you as an affiliate marketer are pretty much on your own. You will get an affiliate link?.maybe a banner?.and that will be about it.

And when you check on the level of product satisfaction - by visiting related blogs and forums ? if you find that there are lots of complaints about either the product or the merchant, you better believe that ?this dog will bite you!?

Tail-Wagging Affiliate Programs

Affiliate-friendly programs are designed to make life EASY for the affiliate marketer. First, when you send a contact email to the merchant or to his affiliate manager, you will get a response promptly. Any questions that you may have will be addressed forthwith. You won't be left ?chasing your tail!?

Tail-wagging affiliate programs offer all kinds of sales help. They'll refer you to training or at the very least provide plenty of good information to help you get up to speed with their product and program. You won't have to dig for information like a dog digging for a bone. It will be served up willingly and graciously.

Also friendly merchants will go out of their way to make your affiliate marketing efforts more effective. On related blogs and forums you'll find a very high degree of satisfaction with both the product and the merchant. (This doesn't mean you'll NEVER find a dissatisfied customer. It just means that ALMOST all customers are satisfied.)

We all spend a lot of time and effort?not to mention money?.promoting affiliate products, so choose affiliate programs that are tail-wagging affiliate friendly. To sum up:

When you visit a merchant's website, look for a link to an affiliates page, which contains the tools and information you need to sell the product.

Search the web for blogs and forums in which users of the product participate. The feedback on both should generally be positive.

Once you've found a potential ?tail-wagger,? conduct the ?24-hour test?; send the merchant and/or the affiliate manager an email indicating your interest in selling the product. If no reply results, the product fails the test.

Read the affiliate agreement before you sign up and begin selling the product. Make sure the terms and commission are acceptable.