While JV partners may give you more leeway because of the relationship you have with them, affiliates often won’t. If they see something that could reduce their chances of success, they’ll just move on to another product.

So here are a few things to be mindful of:

• No one wants to be your guinea pig–wasting their time and money by sending people to a lousy sales page. In fact, savvy partners won’t sign on unless they know how many sales page visitors are currently buying (aka your conversion rate). So track and have those numbers ready before you start recruiting.

• Also, set realistic expectations by telling them what type of prospects you’re getting those numbers from. Because a 10% conversion rate is much easier to achieve from subscribers who already know, like and trust you versus traffic from pay-per-click ads.

• Finally, avoid commission-killers on your sales page, such as:

• Navigation buttons or a lot of links to other pages–which slashes the odds that the prospect will actually buy

• An opt-in form–which (in their eyes) could allow you to “steal” the customer away and take credit for the sale

• A link for new affiliates to sign-up at the bottom–which encourages some prospects to sign-up as an affiliate first, hoping to get a commission on their own purchase

(Most programs prevent this but that doesn’t stop people from trying–and again, it increases the odds the original referrer won’t end up not getting credit for their purchase.)

Tomorrow, the last of the 5 common mistakes to avoid when approaching joint venture partners and affiliates. In case you missed it, the first three were…

Forgetting the “What’s In It for Me?”

Failing to Set Your Joint Venture Up for Success

How to Make It Hard for Others to Promote You