Swords Affiliate Program – How to Generate Revenue

Swords.com recently launched the industry’s top affiliate program for swords, knives and other bladed weapons. Our 50-50 revenue share* is one of the most generous available anywhere, along with a 90-day cookie – which means that if any referral of yours makes a purchase at any time within a 3 month period, you’ll be entitled to a split in the proceeds. We have partnered with ShareASale, a reputable Affiliate Network to provide you with real time statistics of your commissions and handle your payments in a timely manner.

Joining the Swords Affiliate Program Makes Sense

When you partner with Swords.com, you’re partnering with the leading brand in the swords arena – our footprint is global. We have sourced over 10,000 products from the leading forges and manufacturers around the globe and will continue to make new partnerships and add new items to our store on an ongoing basis We sell high quality swords, knives and weapons in a wide range of interest groups – from japanese/samurai, martial arts and medieval items, to anime, movie, video game, fantasy replicas, gifts and collectibles. Our products fetch anywhere from $30 to $3,000. Our knowledgeable and professional staff is committed to a 100% customer satisfaction, both before and after a sale.

What does this all mean? High conversions. This means that whenever you refer a customer to us, we’ll close the deal – and you get to pocket a nice chunk of the revenue. Best of all, we do all of the work for you!

Creating an Account

You need to first set up an account with ShareASale, a well-known and award-winning Affiliate Network. Go to http://shareasale.com and click on the Affiliate Signup button to create your account in 5 easy steps:

1. Pick a user name and password, followed by your country of residence
2. Identify one website that is associated with you. This is the website that you will be promoting our swords on. Swords.com will review your site and determine if it is appropriate and relevant to our market. You must have a “live” website in order to participate in our affiliate program.
3. ShareASale will then confirm your ownership of that website. You will be asked to provide a valid email address for that website domain. For instance, it you’ve identified your website as “http://mywebsite.com”, then please provide any email address at that domain where you can receive emails (e.g., myemail@mywebsite.com). ShareASale will send a confirmation email to that “myemail@mywebsite.com” address.
4. You will need to enter your personal and contact information** so ShareASale may disburse payments owed to you. You may also provide a brief description of your website and your marketing plans (i.e., how you plan on promoting our products to generate leads).
5. The final step is to specify how you would like to be paid for the commissions that you generate. The options are:

• Payments delivered directly to your bank account via Direct Deposit – this option is the fastest and easiest way for you to receive your money, and funds will be deposited into your bank account on the 20th of every month in which you are eligible for payment.
• You may also choose to receive a check via Postal Mail which will be sent out on the 20th of every month for which you are eligible for payment. This method can take up to a week for delivery time via the Postal System.

That’s it! ShareASale will then send email to the email address t hat you provided in Step #3 above. Follow the instructions in that email. You will then be able to login to your ShareASale account and have full use of that account.

Signing Up to the Swords Affiliate Program

Go to ShareASale and log in to your account via the Affiliate Login page, using the credentials provided in Step #1 above. You will be presented with an Affiliate Account Manager dashboard, where you can manage your account. Your User ID (Affiliate Code) will be visible on the top left of the screen, as well as the current balance in your account (revenue generated and owed to you).

To sign up to the Swords.com Affiliate Program, go to the “Find/Join Merchants” column, and click on the “View and Search Merchant List” link. Scroll to the bottom of the page, click on the “Basic Keyword Search” link, type “Swords.com” and hit the BEGIN SEARCH button. You should see our Affiliate Program listed below the search box – click on the “Join Program” link.

You’re done!

Generating Leads

How much revenue you generate is now up to you. The more you promote our products, the more referrals you send our way. The more referrals you send our way, the more revenue you’ll likely generate. Some affiliates promote our products via Pay-Per-Click advertising on Yahoo, Google and Bing. Others promote our swords, knives and weapons on their websites and blogs.

Make sure all links that you have to our products is tagged with your affiliate code. This is the only way for ShareASale to track your visitors and determine your commission if they make a purchase. Once a referral containing your affiliate code visits our website, they will be tracked for 90 days. If they return at any time within that 90 day period and make a purchase, you will be credited with the sale and earn a commission.

To get links containing your affiliate code, go to the “Get Links” section of your account dashboard, and click on “Get a link/banner”.  You will see Swords.com listed as a merchant at the bottom of the page. Click on “Get Links” under Swords.com. You have a choice between inclusion of a text link, or inclusion of a banner link on your website.

• Text Links – One sample text link is “Buy High Quality Swords, Knives and Weapons. 20-35% OFF All Items!“. Click where it says “Get this Banner’s HTML Code” – you will be presented with a text box, with the HTML code to copy and paste on your website. It should read as follows:

Buy High Quality <a href=”http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=180912&u=xxxxxx&m=22868&urllink=&afftrack=”>Swords</a>, Knives and Weapons. 20-35% OFF All Items!

• Banners are images that you can embed on your website. Below each banner will be a “Get this Banner’s HTML Code” link. If you click on this link  you will be presented with a text box, with the HTML code to copy and paste on your website. It should read similar to this:

<a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=180901&u=xxxxxx&m=22868&urllink=&afftrack=”><img src=”http://www.shareasale.com/image/swords-banner1-120×240.gif” alt=”Buy Swords – Swords.com – Japanese Medieval Fantasy Anime Movie Swords” border=”0″></a>

Your User ID (Affiliate Code) will be listed where the “xxxxxx” is. This is the code that tracks your visitors and your commissions. In fact, you are free to use ANY text link or banner that you wish. Just use the template above to customize your own text or banner link. Your links must, at a minimum, have the following:

<a href=”http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=180912&U=xxxxxx&M=22868″>YOUR TEXT OR IMAGE HERE</a>

where “xxxxxx” is your User ID/Affiliate Code.

Linking to a Specific Sword

Say you want to link to a specific product page in our store – e.g., to the Paul Chen Shinto Katana product page, found at http://swords.com/buy/skull-sword-cane.html. You want to direct your visitors to this page, where they can buy the sword. In order to accomplish this, go to the “Get Links” column of your ShareASale dashboard, and click on the “Create a Custom Link to a Page” link. You will need to complete the following:

• Select “Swords.com” as the “Merchant for this Link”
• Enter the URL of the destination page, http://swords.com/buy/shinto-katana-paul-chen.html
• Hit the Create Link button

You’ll be presented with the custom HTML code to embed in your website. This will contain your Affiliate Code and direct anyone clicking on the link to the chosen destination page, where they will be able to make a purchase.

We hope that you’ve found these simple tips and how-tos useful. We value your partnership with us, and look forward to generating some nice revenue for you. Read more about our Swords Affiliate Program.

* actual revenue share may vary from item to item, depending on our margins and ongoing promotions

** Please note that ShareASale does not, in any circumstance, give away or sell your contact information to ANY other company.