New to Affiliates Programs - Any advice?

[well-its-1-louder]

Hi,

I've no background knowledge of affiliate programs and am wondering if this would be a good idea for our company, www.vintageheirloom.com?

We sell for the most part expensive, vintage bags and jewellery. Would an affiliates program be appropriate or possibly annoy and hinder customer loyalty rather than promote it?

I'm using WP with Woocommerce and have seen a plugin that connects Woocommerce with Ambassador. Does anyone have any previous experience with this company, worked well, any things to watch out for etc.

One issue that puzzles me if that I get the idea that you can put a tracking code on say a 3rd party blog banner, person clicks and buy product, that gets tracked. But what if customer abandons sale, comes back later directly to site and purchases? I'm guessing this isn't tracked. Is that right?

As an aside I've a blogger friend who I'd like to pay for sending traffic that leads to sales. Is this the best way to track? Would the addition of 'How did you hear about us' question during 'Add to cart' process be a back up method? Any downsides to that, other than customer ignoring it?

Thanks a lot for looking & any suggestions you may have!

Kevin

[well-its-1-louder]

Ashley & Kerri. Thanks for getting back to me and for the great resource links. I'll dive into those.

[KeriMorgret]

I'd go to Rae Hoffman's website at http://sugarrae.com/ and read all of her posts about affiliate marketing. She's one of the top in the business, and gives out good information.