www.affiliateconfession.com

The Apple Store affiliate program is a joke. When joining affiliate programs one of the most important things to look at is how much you’re going to get paid as a percentage of a sale. So how much does Apple’s affiliate program pay? A mere 1%. And if you make $8,000 in total sales for the month they will bump it up to 1.5% and if you manage to increase your sales to $16,000 per month you get another .5% increase bringing your total take to a whopping 2% of sales. Big deal.

Come on Apple, you act as though you guys aren’t making any money! This has to be the stingiest affiliate program on the net. I know Steve Jobs salary is only $1 per year to run the whole shebang at Apple, but us affiliates out here would like a little more.

I wouldn’t be ranting and raving about this except for the fact that I got a nice form letter at CJ from the Apple affiliate manager asking me to join their program. I deleted it after reading their terms…and then I got a second personal email from said affiliate manager acting as though he was perplexed as to why I wouldn’t want to join. It’s the 1% payout dude. I’d like to get more than $4 for selling a $400 iPhone.

And you know what? You can.

If you join the eBay affiliate program, open your own Apple affiliate store and end up selling that same iPhone you will earn $6.75. But that’s not all, eBay also pays you $25 for new sign-ups and I get around 1 new sign-up for every 125 people that go to eBay through my sites. And it gets even better when you find out that the average iPhone sells for around $500 on eBay and an unlocked iPhone that you can use with any mobile carrier sells for $550 to $600.

And yes, it just keeps getting better because eBay raises their payout by 20% when you reach the $5,000 sales mark instead of Apple’s $8,000 tier.

So, let’s break this down. If you sell $5,000 worth of iPhones through the Apple Store affiliate program you will earn $50. If you sell that same $5,000 worth of iPhones by driving traffic to eBay you will earn $55.80 and I can guarantee you will have a few sign-ups at $25 each in the process. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out the best deal here, now does it?

That brings me back to my original question. Why would anyone want to be an Apple Store affiliate?

Alan
PS - If you want to build your own eBay affiliate storeselling Apple iPhones or anything else you can find from Apple on eBay, you should check out Build A Niche Store.

Tags: apple store, iphone, ebay affiliate, steve jobs, affiliate manager