Let’s face it, not every product or merchant is a winner. Some products can be “hot” this year but “not so hot” the next. And with the growth of affiliate marketing, new merchants are popping up all the time. Some of them might offer higher commissions, lower minimum payouts, longer cookies, and better affiliate support than your current programs.

So spend some time before the year is over and take a long, hard look at the offers you promote. Here are three tips that will help you make some decisions about products and merchants…

1 – Stop promoting marginal programs. This is basically a version of the 80/20 rule: Spend 80% of your time, money and effort on the 20% of offers that yield the most profit — and drop the rest.

Of course, this “survival of the fittest” philosophy is the golden rule for PPC marketers, since they’re paying for every click. When you’re paying for traffic, it’s only logical to spend more on the traffic that makes you the most money.

But the same rule also holds true if you’re doing article marketing, blog monetization, or opt-in marketing. Your investment may be in site or blog development, outsourced writing, list building, or a combination, but all of these efforts still cost you both time and money. (Read our post “Do You Know What Your Articles Are Worth?” for a way to measure the ROI of article marketing.)

While content and email marketing can be much more forgiving when it comes to ROI, it’s still a fact that some of the offers you promote with these methods will be winners… and others will be underachievers or outright losers. Some programs may offer excellent products, but you suffer leakage through phone orders or parasite affiliates who could be cannibalizing your traffic.

So make it a point to focus on, build up, and expand on those promotions that have proven to pay the best.

2 – Check out the new merchants in your niche. Most affiliates have one or two “winner” affiliate programs that have earned their undying loyalty — and don’t get us wrong, loyalty is a good thing in this business. There’s nothing better than working with a merchant who consistently provides good affiliate support, a dedicated program manager, accurate tracking, and prompt payment.

But when was the last time you researched new affiliate programs in your niche? In many industries, merchants are ready and willing to compete with each other in terms of cookie length and commission percentage. And in some industries, you’ll often find three or more strong merchants with products you can be proud to promote. It’s in your own best interest to investigate these new merchants and test their offers using your chosen marketing method.

3 – Look for complementary offers and test them. No niche market exists in a vacuum. The chances are very good that your current niche audience is probably interested in lots of related products and services.

For example, a responsive audience for “country music MP3 downloads” may also be interested — and willing to buy — everything from country-themed home furnishings to western hats and boots. Why not hunt down and test some programs in those niches as well?

You might also want to take some time to look for resale or reprint rights to products that would appeal to your audience. Purchasing a resale or reprint rights license, and selling this product to your current audience, is a relatively low-risk way to decide whether you’d like to get into product development in the future.

Next in this series… time to analyze that ROI…