Your first interest in any type of marketing campaign is to start developing a marketing strategy that is going to be focused on who you will need to determine your target market is. This is exactly who you think will be your consumers. For starters, you need to know how to break down your consumers.
Target market is the group of potential customers that will be selected for the reception of your marketing strategy. It certainly makes it easier to develop your strategy if you know exactly who/how old/where people live when trying to sell things to them. If you are looking to segment the market, you need to determine the different target markets for each segment. For example, if you are selling tires, (which everyone needs) you will need to divide your market by knowing how people shop for tires, and who they are.
If you are selling high cost/quality tires, you have to market to a market that is likely to buy them such as middle aged and established consumers as opposed to teens and twenty-something’s who may not be able to afford them.
There are different means that are used by professional marketers that help you to find your target audience. You can use both of them that are within your means. Some of these methods include:
1. Researching the market through surveys, interviews, and setting up shop in a mall to see who questions you the most etc. to see who would benefit the most from your product and be most likely to buy.
2. Host experimental sessions for people to try out your product and give their opinions for improvements etc. so that you can ensure that you giving the people what they want or need.
3. Host trial websites that are geared toward finding the market by letting the market come to you. You can best do this by utilizing keyword centered articles that will let you know who is coming toy our website.
It really doesn't matter if you stand on your front porch and just ask people what they want in a product or service like yours or not, as long as you get a good handle on who your market audience is. If you are selling T-shirts, you will likely want to appeal to younger people who are more likely to wear them; which means that you should market your wares to those people. To do this, you will have to begin your strategy where you know you will find them….on the internet.
When you are using the internet to market any product or service, you must understand the basics of what internet marketing is. When you are marketing on the internet, you are looking to reach a larger audience and therefore, you need something that will catch their attention and bring them to you. In order to do this, you will have to bring these people to your website.
Once you have your website built, you have to work on getting people to visit not just once, but over and over again. You can start this by using your website to do more than just sell stuff. You should always try to host a website that is also informational. It is generally the website’s that offer up to date information as well as sell wares.
It is through the information that you establish yourself as a trustworthy authority to your consumers. Doing this establishes trust with your consumers and brings them back again all of the time. Nobody wants to visit a website that is profiling outdated information in a month. It is the up to date website’s that get and keep clients. These are also the website that the search engines find relevant during a query.
A nice tip for keeping your information up to date; especially if you are selling a product or service that is rarely updated is to keep a weather program or stock ticker program running on your website because the search engine spiders and robots will view this as new content and still return to your site on a regular basis.
If you are running a website that can sell things directly or order services and make payments there etc. you will want to generate as much sales as possible.
What this means is that you need to make search engines come to your site for a particular product or service before others. It is because of this need that search engines have to become your best friend, which I will explain what these are below.
Search Engine Basics
Search engines are computer programs that are used to explore the internet in search of web pages. They do this by using "spiders," "crawlers," or "robots" which are used to search for the most up to date information on any given search request. This may seem like an odd place to introduce you to the search engines, but I can assure that this section is well placed. Giving you the basics here will help you to understand what I am saying in the later sections. Anyways….back to the basics and explanation of search engine spiders.
These spiders (like those that are used by Google) are able to follow the links present on web pages that are located by specific keywords. When spiders are searching for a new webpage, they copy all or parts of the text present on the page into their search engine database. Other spiders revisit these pages on a regular basis so that they can register changes or dead links. The wait time varies greatly from search engine to search engine. It is for this reason that your website should stay current.
The search engine will have hundreds of millions of web pages in its database. In order to deliver relevant results, the search engine companies have developed special ranking algorithms that calculate the order of search requirement results. The keyword or keyword phrase the visitor enters into the search form of the search engine will determine which web sites get picked up by the query. The pages the search engine find most relevant will be listed first. This will determine where you will be listed upon search requests.
For instance, if you are searching for "Beethoven," and the search engine finds a main headline on that page containing the phrase "Ludwig von Beethoven," it will assume that this page is fairly relevant to your needs. If, on the other hand, it finds the phrase only once, and it is buried in a long text, it will ignore it because it will assume that this is not important. That is why so many websites use special keywords more than once in a particular article or webpage, because that is how the spiders pick them up and place them higher in the results of a search.
What does this mean to you as a business person? Well…..this means that in order for you to even consider affiliation; you must first have a website. If you want your website to get attention, you have to appeal to search engines first. Many potential affiliates will not want to associate with just anyone prefer a site that gets traffic. Knowing about search engines and how to appeal to them will get you this traffic. I will offer more on traffic in another section later. Right now I would like to get you started with website affiliation because that is what this book is about and I have already given the basics about marketing in general.Free web directory
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Fundamentals of Website Affiliation
As you can imagine from the above section that spends a great of time focusing on the basics of internet marketing, you must realize that it was all just an informed lead in to the affiliation, which is the whole reason that we are here. The first thing that you have to think about when getting into the affiliation game is how to go about it. In order to understand this, you will need to know exactly what it is and get basic knowledge about it.
Affiliate programs are an excellent way to generate income for your site or someone else’s, and it is a pretty good introduction into ecommerce, however but it’s a numbers game. Basically, the more people who visit your site, the greater your chances become for creating a good income, especially if the programs you participate in are related to your site topic. Chances are you have probably come across many commercial sites that claim to offer the best affiliate program. What you will often learn is that this is simply not true.
So what exactly is an affiliate program, you might ask? An affiliate program is where a company offers to pay you a certain amount of money for either a click through from your site, or a fixed amount for a lead (where the visitor signs up for a newsletter, etc.) or a percentage of a purchase made by a visitor as a result of a click through. Even if the visitor does not make a purchase on the advertiser’s site right away, most programs will offer “cookie duration” of usually around 30-90 days.
What this really means is that as long as the visitor has the cookie in their cache; even if they return to the advertisers site one month later, you will still receive the commission from the sale however, as in all things that are business related, cookie duration is not a guarantee when you sign up for an affiliation program and is something that you need to check for before signing on.
Looking for the best affiliate programs
The best way to try to explain this to you is to give you some of my personal experiences when looking for an affiliation program.
“When I first started searching for and implementing affiliations with various companies; it was one of the largest parts of time wasted during my day when it came to managing my website. I spent a disgusting amount of hours searching for suitable affiliate programs, implementing the links and then keeping track of what they did”.
If you are hoping that marketing a website affiliation is going to get you rich quickly, forget about it. You will have to spend a lot of time in your project if you want to make it work for you. Then again, all money making ventures do, just ask Donald Trump.
“Of course, the income that was generated from each program was actually pretty low at that time because at that time the number of visitors to my site was not high either. With this in mind, it was not particularly uncommon for companies to disappear on me without warning me about it and since most affiliate programs only pay out at around the $25 mark, I would lose a lot of revenue in the end.
The other part of affiliation that I was not happy with was the idea of another companies banners being plastered all over my site, if you place too many of them on any given page it only serves to confuse and irritate your visitors. think about it; how do you like it when you visit a site. Any more than one animated element on a web page can be very distracting which leaves you with nothing gained at all, and many affiliate programs insist upon this type of bargain when signing on. By now, you must realize that I learned a lot just by trial and error. Affiliate tracking can also a problem. After you have successfully applied to become an affiliate for a company, they will usually supply you with some personalized code or link. It is very important that this code is implemented correctly into your page; because otherwise you may be sending the company visitors without being reimbursed. Most snippets of code contain a unique userid; which is used by the company to distinguish which site sent traffic. Even if you do implement this code in the right way, it has been my experience on occasion for it not to function correctly”. Having heard of my experiences, you can see why I would not really recommend that you hunt around and sign up without much research and thought first when finding a good affiliate program. Your time is too valuable and could be better spent creating content and updating your site. But there are some excellent individual companies offering affiliate programs out there.
What I have discovered to be very successful is to take advantage of companies like Offers Quest or Google for text link advertising. Text links are a great resource as they are bandwidth friendly, and when they are implemented properly add valuable content to your site which can also assist in search engine rankings.
When it comes to website affiliation, you will also need to know how to conduct a market study because this is how you will find your target audience. Without a targeted audience, your marketing campaign will not be effective. Below I have begun to give you an outline of what you should include in your market study. It is best to write it down; especially if you are hoping to entice someone else into investing in your marketing venture. That and it is a good way to keep track of your objective and provides a good guideline of what needs to be done.
Marketing Study Outline—What you need to know
In order to be able to conduct a decent targeting and marketing campaign, you must first understand the fundamentals of finding out who they are. They only way to do this is to follow a specific guideline for you to follow. Check out the guideline below.
1. Your Objective to the Research
• Explain in one paragraph why the research is being done, what you hope to learn and for what purpose the information that you attain may be used
2. Description of the Market
This should be general like one paragraph
Who is your Target Market(s)
• Why you chose this particular market
• Get a complete profile of your market (e.g., demographics, psychographics, behaviors)
• What benefits does your market seek (i.e., what points-of-pain or problems are being solved)
• What factors can affect their decision to purchase or use your product/service
• What attitudes do they have about the products/services that are currently not on the market
• How is the product used
• Products and Services that appeal to the target market
• In general terms, what is currently so appealing to this market
• If there are no current providers, what types of products/services may appeal to this market in the future (i.e., what is used now to solve the problem).
3. Market Metrics
Get many Size estimates (current and future) for all of the following:
• Overall market
• Current size as it stands
• Potential size for the future
• Actual penetration of current products/service within the entire market
Individual market segments
• Current size
• Potential size
• Actual penetration of current products/service within the total market
• Usage rates
• Frequency of product purchases
• Growth estimates (current and in the future) for:
• Overall market
• Individual market segments
Competitive Analysis
You must include a Summary of who your Current Competitors are
Listing the competition by market share ranking (by each target market if possible) is a good way to size them up. You can also be more specific by searching for individual points listed below.
Current Competitors - full analysis of top competitors including:
• Products & Services (e.g., description, uniqueness, pricing, etc.)
• Their Market share at current
• Current customers (targeted audience)
• Positioning and promotion strategies
• Partnerships/Alliances/Distributors
• Recent news
SWOT Analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats
It is extremely important to focus attention on the SWOT section of this report. While most other information in this report can be gleaned from company and secondary materials, much of what appears in the SWOT section is based on the researcher’s own opinions of the competitor based on the information
Affiliate programs are an excellent way to generate income for your site or someone else’s, and it is a pretty good introduction into ecommerce, however but it’s a numbers game. Basically, the more people who visit your site, the greater your chances become for creating a good income, especially if the programs you participate in are related to your site topic. Chances are you have probably come across many commercial sites that claim to offer the best affiliate program. What you will often learn is that this is simply not true.
So what exactly is an affiliate program, you might ask? An affiliate program is where a company offers to pay you a certain amount of money for either a click through from your site, or a fixed amount for a lead (where the visitor signs up for a newsletter, etc.) or a percentage of a purchase made by a visitor as a result of a click through. Even if the visitor does not make a purchase on the advertiser’s site right away, most programs will offer “cookie duration” of usually around 30-90 days.
What this really means is that as long as the visitor has the cookie in their cache; even if they return to the advertisers site one month later, you will still receive the commission from the sale however, as in all things that are business related, cookie duration is not a guarantee when you sign up for an affiliation program and is something that you need to check for before signing on.
Looking for the best affiliate programs
The best way to try to explain this to you is to give you some of my personal experiences when looking for an affiliation program.
“When I first started searching for and implementing affiliations with various companies; it was one of the largest parts of time wasted during my day when it came to managing my website. I spent a disgusting amount of hours searching for suitable affiliate programs, implementing the links and then keeping track of what they did”.
If you are hoping that marketing a website affiliation is going to get you rich quickly, forget about it. You will have to spend a lot of time in your project if you want to make it work for you. Then again, all money making ventures do, just ask Donald Trump.
“Of course, the income that was generated from each program was actually pretty low at that time because at that time the number of visitors to my site was not high either. With this in mind, it was not particularly uncommon for companies to disappear on me without warning me about it and since most affiliate programs only pay out at around the $25 mark, I would lose a lot of revenue in the end.
The other part of affiliation that I was not happy with was the idea of another companies banners being plastered all over my site, if you place too many of them on any given page it only serves to confuse and irritate your visitors. think about it; how do you like it when you visit a site. Any more than one animated element on a web page can be very distracting which leaves you with nothing gained at all, and many affiliate programs insist upon this type of bargain when signing on. By now, you must realize that I learned a lot just by trial and error. Affiliate tracking can also a problem. After you have successfully applied to become an affiliate for a company, they will usually supply you with some personalized code or link. It is very important that this code is implemented correctly into your page; because otherwise you may be sending the company visitors without being reimbursed. Most snippets of code contain a unique userid; which is used by the company to distinguish which site sent traffic. Even if you do implement this code in the right way, it has been my experience on occasion for it not to function correctly”. Having heard of my experiences, you can see why I would not really recommend that you hunt around and sign up without much research and thought first when finding a good affiliate program. Your time is too valuable and could be better spent creating content and updating your site. But there are some excellent individual companies offering affiliate programs out there.
What I have discovered to be very successful is to take advantage of companies like Offers Quest or Google for text link advertising. Text links are a great resource as they are bandwidth friendly, and when they are implemented properly add valuable content to your site which can also assist in search engine rankings.
When it comes to website affiliation, you will also need to know how to conduct a market study because this is how you will find your target audience. Without a targeted audience, your marketing campaign will not be effective. Below I have begun to give you an outline of what you should include in your market study. It is best to write it down; especially if you are hoping to entice someone else into investing in your marketing venture. That and it is a good way to keep track of your objective and provides a good guideline of what needs to be done.
Marketing Study Outline—What you need to know
In order to be able to conduct a decent targeting and marketing campaign, you must first understand the fundamentals of finding out who they are. They only way to do this is to follow a specific guideline for you to follow. Check out the guideline below.
1. Your Objective to the Research
• Explain in one paragraph why the research is being done, what you hope to learn and for what purpose the information that you attain may be used
2. Description of the Market
This should be general like one paragraph
Who is your Target Market(s)
• Why you chose this particular market
• Get a complete profile of your market (e.g., demographics, psychographics, behaviors)
• What benefits does your market seek (i.e., what points-of-pain or problems are being solved)
• What factors can affect their decision to purchase or use your product/service
• What attitudes do they have about the products/services that are currently not on the market
• How is the product used
• Products and Services that appeal to the target market
• In general terms, what is currently so appealing to this market
• If there are no current providers, what types of products/services may appeal to this market in the future (i.e., what is used now to solve the problem).
3. Market Metrics
Get many Size estimates (current and future) for all of the following:
• Overall market
• Current size as it stands
• Potential size for the future
• Actual penetration of current products/service within the entire market
Individual market segments
• Current size
• Potential size
• Actual penetration of current products/service within the total market
• Usage rates
• Frequency of product purchases
• Growth estimates (current and in the future) for:
• Overall market
• Individual market segments
Competitive Analysis
You must include a Summary of who your Current Competitors are
Listing the competition by market share ranking (by each target market if possible) is a good way to size them up. You can also be more specific by searching for individual points listed below.
Current Competitors - full analysis of top competitors including:
• Products & Services (e.g., description, uniqueness, pricing, etc.)
• Their Market share at current
• Current customers (targeted audience)
• Positioning and promotion strategies
• Partnerships/Alliances/Distributors
• Recent news
SWOT Analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats
It is extremely important to focus attention on the SWOT section of this report. While most other information in this report can be gleaned from company and secondary materials, much of what appears in the SWOT section is based on the researcher’s own opinions of the competitor based on the information
How to Deal with Online Merchants Creating Partnerships
When you decide to become an affiliate marketer, you are basically just asking another web host to add a link to your website to theirs which will bring your website more traffic and hopefully generate more sales for them, which gives you a commission sale. Of course, there are some things that affiliates look for in a website before they will sign you on as an affiliate. Before you even consider signing on as an affiliate, you should make sure that your website has something to offer that theirs doesn’t.
To be more specific, even if you are going to a “like” website as an affiliate, you don’t want to approach a site that is selling the exact same thing as you because that makes you direct competition with you. For example, if you are selling designer clothing of a particular label, you do not want to try to go to asite that is selling the exact same items as you, but a like site that may offer the same brand, but not the same items. That way, both sites are selling the same label, but can push each other’s sites for the items that they don’t carry.
Once you know exactly what type of website you want to run and which web companies are actually offering you the right revenue sharing opportunities for products and services that complement your web site genre, you can’t just offer to put up banners and buttons on their behalf. It is best to begin by writing up a review page of the product or service and how it will definitely help boost sales, especially if you are recognized as being knowledgeable in your field.
One of the best ways to show that you know what you are doing is to offer articles and reviews on your website about your items for sale. Keyword articles are best for getting search engine to come calling. You can also put in a brief history of the product’s inception etc. Basically just put in as much information as you can about your product or service so that visitors and merchants will know that you are on top of things and know what you are doing. Here are some more things that you should do when dealing with potential affiliates that you are trying to get in with.
Talk to People
Talking to people could not only increase your sales, but also save you some heartache in the long run. It is very easy to talk to an affiliate company, and you can start by contacting the merchant, let them know what you are doing to promote their product and ask their advice as to how you could improve your marketing technique. Think about it, it is always best to approach a potential affiliate with a standing technique in mind as well as an outline of what you plan to do to help them. If you have the means, try it out for a while so that you can approach a merchant with solid facts backing you up.
When you ask the merchant for advice you are setting yourself in great standing with them and showing them that you understand their knowledge. After all, the merchant knows their product best right? They would also have a very good idea of the strategies that are used by other affiliates to boost sales. Don’t bother checking for this information on an affiliate site because you will not be getting to the nitty gritty of it.
By contacting the merchant yourself, you are also showing your enthusiasm for marketing their products and services and that you are working to become known as a "power" or "super" affiliate! Any merchant who understands affiliate marketing knows that over 90% of sales are generated by less than 5% of their affiliates. A good merchant will see your efforts and give you further information and resources and may even boost your commission fees as a result of your efforts and success. All of this means more money for you both!
Dealing with merchants directly:
When you are dealing directly with a merchant, there are some things that you have to realize. You need to know how to deal with them but also what to expect to encounter from the as well. That is what this section is going to help you with. Let’s take a look at some of the various things that you can expect to hear and deal with when going through a merchant.
a) If you are going to go to the trouble of emailing a merchant and they don’t respond the first time, do not worry about it, be persistent because many merchants receive countless numbers of emails daily and take time to sift through them and weed out the spam. If they still fail to respond to your, think twice about continuing promotion on their behalf because a lack of communication can also be indicative of other problems such as payment or just plain disinterest. You should also bear in mind that some merchants work on the shotgun principle. What this means is that they make big promises, set a high payouts knowing full well that few affiliates will ever reach it. Next thing you know, they get as many affiliates promoting their products and services as possible which will give them the maximum exposure, with the minimum cost and effort on their part. It’s not a good business model for them to use in the long term and after a while affiliates drop away, but not before the company has raked in thousands. Many MLM (multi-level marketing) programs also workon this principle and only the guys at the top generate any serious revenue so you need to expect this and watch out for it.
A good way to protect your payments from merchants is to sign up for affiliate programs that are extremely well established ad networks such as Offers Quest or FastClick if you want to get paid for your work. When you are working with a major ad network means that even if you only make a few dollars from each program, those dollars that are generated will all feed a common account, accumulate rapidly which will allow you to reach the payout threshold in a shorter time period. Most ad networks work with merchants on a "money up front" or monthly "pay as you go" basis because this decreases the risk of those merchants who are suddenly disappearing with your hard earned commissions.
For this to work, you need to demonstrate your web marketing prowess
b) Unless you have a web site that already generates high traffic, don’t ask the merchant for higher commissions in the first communication. So many affiliates do this and end up being totally ignored because most affiliates probably can’t deliver on their promises due to the fact that too many of their claims are unachievable. If you don’t have a solid sales record for the product or service you are promoting, you’ll need to prove yourself to merchants off the bat and put some thought into your promotion and rack up a few sales before attempting to secure higher payout rates. Be professional in your communications
c) When you are communicating with merchants, you have to make sure that you use a professional manner not the laid back style that you use when talking toy our friends. If you have suggestions of how a merchant could improve an offer that would convert into more sales, let them know, but be very polite and constructive in your feedback –not insulting by saying things like: "Your banners suck" because this will alienate them.
d) You have to remember that the Internet as a trading place is still very new in comparison to the business platforms of the last few millennia like regular advertising through television or newspaper ads
To be more specific, even if you are going to a “like” website as an affiliate, you don’t want to approach a site that is selling the exact same thing as you because that makes you direct competition with you. For example, if you are selling designer clothing of a particular label, you do not want to try to go to asite that is selling the exact same items as you, but a like site that may offer the same brand, but not the same items. That way, both sites are selling the same label, but can push each other’s sites for the items that they don’t carry.
Once you know exactly what type of website you want to run and which web companies are actually offering you the right revenue sharing opportunities for products and services that complement your web site genre, you can’t just offer to put up banners and buttons on their behalf. It is best to begin by writing up a review page of the product or service and how it will definitely help boost sales, especially if you are recognized as being knowledgeable in your field.
One of the best ways to show that you know what you are doing is to offer articles and reviews on your website about your items for sale. Keyword articles are best for getting search engine to come calling. You can also put in a brief history of the product’s inception etc. Basically just put in as much information as you can about your product or service so that visitors and merchants will know that you are on top of things and know what you are doing. Here are some more things that you should do when dealing with potential affiliates that you are trying to get in with.
Talk to People
Talking to people could not only increase your sales, but also save you some heartache in the long run. It is very easy to talk to an affiliate company, and you can start by contacting the merchant, let them know what you are doing to promote their product and ask their advice as to how you could improve your marketing technique. Think about it, it is always best to approach a potential affiliate with a standing technique in mind as well as an outline of what you plan to do to help them. If you have the means, try it out for a while so that you can approach a merchant with solid facts backing you up.
When you ask the merchant for advice you are setting yourself in great standing with them and showing them that you understand their knowledge. After all, the merchant knows their product best right? They would also have a very good idea of the strategies that are used by other affiliates to boost sales. Don’t bother checking for this information on an affiliate site because you will not be getting to the nitty gritty of it.
By contacting the merchant yourself, you are also showing your enthusiasm for marketing their products and services and that you are working to become known as a "power" or "super" affiliate! Any merchant who understands affiliate marketing knows that over 90% of sales are generated by less than 5% of their affiliates. A good merchant will see your efforts and give you further information and resources and may even boost your commission fees as a result of your efforts and success. All of this means more money for you both!
Dealing with merchants directly:
When you are dealing directly with a merchant, there are some things that you have to realize. You need to know how to deal with them but also what to expect to encounter from the as well. That is what this section is going to help you with. Let’s take a look at some of the various things that you can expect to hear and deal with when going through a merchant.
a) If you are going to go to the trouble of emailing a merchant and they don’t respond the first time, do not worry about it, be persistent because many merchants receive countless numbers of emails daily and take time to sift through them and weed out the spam. If they still fail to respond to your, think twice about continuing promotion on their behalf because a lack of communication can also be indicative of other problems such as payment or just plain disinterest. You should also bear in mind that some merchants work on the shotgun principle. What this means is that they make big promises, set a high payouts knowing full well that few affiliates will ever reach it. Next thing you know, they get as many affiliates promoting their products and services as possible which will give them the maximum exposure, with the minimum cost and effort on their part. It’s not a good business model for them to use in the long term and after a while affiliates drop away, but not before the company has raked in thousands. Many MLM (multi-level marketing) programs also workon this principle and only the guys at the top generate any serious revenue so you need to expect this and watch out for it.
A good way to protect your payments from merchants is to sign up for affiliate programs that are extremely well established ad networks such as Offers Quest or FastClick if you want to get paid for your work. When you are working with a major ad network means that even if you only make a few dollars from each program, those dollars that are generated will all feed a common account, accumulate rapidly which will allow you to reach the payout threshold in a shorter time period. Most ad networks work with merchants on a "money up front" or monthly "pay as you go" basis because this decreases the risk of those merchants who are suddenly disappearing with your hard earned commissions.
For this to work, you need to demonstrate your web marketing prowess
b) Unless you have a web site that already generates high traffic, don’t ask the merchant for higher commissions in the first communication. So many affiliates do this and end up being totally ignored because most affiliates probably can’t deliver on their promises due to the fact that too many of their claims are unachievable. If you don’t have a solid sales record for the product or service you are promoting, you’ll need to prove yourself to merchants off the bat and put some thought into your promotion and rack up a few sales before attempting to secure higher payout rates. Be professional in your communications
c) When you are communicating with merchants, you have to make sure that you use a professional manner not the laid back style that you use when talking toy our friends. If you have suggestions of how a merchant could improve an offer that would convert into more sales, let them know, but be very polite and constructive in your feedback –not insulting by saying things like: "Your banners suck" because this will alienate them.
d) You have to remember that the Internet as a trading place is still very new in comparison to the business platforms of the last few millennia like regular advertising through television or newspaper ads
Email advertising as an affiliate marketing tool
Direct promotion that are using email has boomed over recent years, but has brought with it mountains of spam. If you intend on using email as a method of advertising products and services, you have to be sure that you stand behind the products you’re promoting and make yourself available to answer any questions that may be asked. If you hide from people, they will wonder what you are hiding.
An effective promotion technique that I have found is to combine email with the ad article strategy. This generally means creating an ezine or newsletter promotion that visitors can sign up for that goes directly to their email inboxes. You can occasionally put a summary of a product or service, however, you should include just enough information to stir the curiosity of your readers in an ezine. The summary then contains a link to the ad article on our site. The benefit of this is not only that you have a good opportunity to promote the product or service, but while visitors are on your site they may also look at other sections at the same time This way you as the advertiser benefits through having highly targeted potential clients visit their site.
Getting Started As an Affiliate Marketer
If you are a beginning Internet Marketer and you do not actually have any money to work with the best way to start marketing is by using the payperclick
search engines. The truth is, when you are a marketer products are not the things that actually sell, it is the traffic that sells. However true this is you still want to promote the programs that meet certain criteria. If you are wondering what the criteria are they are listed below and are as follows:
1. Look for programs that offer to pay you over $10.00 per sale. If not that then at least search for programs that pay you $50.00 per month or more in residual income because just one customer can be worth $1,200.00 to you in 10 years.
2. Look for products to promote that don’t have more than one or two external
links to that connect to other programs. If you’re going to pay good money to send people to a web site, you should at least make sure that you’re sending them to a good money resource and not a resource that has with 50 holes in it.
3. Look for products that have limited ordering options because you don’t want to send people to a site if you only get credit when they pay by credit card. The result will be that you will lose people because the site also accepts payment via PayPal and the average person doesn’t know how to integrate PayPal with their current affiliate software or some other more complicated payment method like direct checking.
4. Try to find sales sites. You can check out associateprograms.com and find five programs that meet the criteria. It will take some digging, but they are there if you look for them. Let’s say you’re promoting sneakers, for example. What you are going to want to do now is find as many applicable keywords as you can that are directly relating to sneakers. You can find lists of keyword variations for any products or services by going to jimtools.com and clicking the ’keywords’ button at the top.
How this works is that you can do keyword searches and find every variation of the word sneakers that you can think of. If you save all your keywords in a text file you can place bids at all the major payperclick search engines. Here is a list of some of them:
http://www.overture.com They are very critical and will bring you the most leads.
http://www.findwhat.com delivers pretty good traffic
http://www.bay9.com
http://www.ahha.com
http://www.kanoodle.com
http://www.sprinks.com
http://www.searchandconquer.com This one is Free
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com
There is a trick to making huge profits with payperclick search engines and one of them is to bid on as many keywords as possible. How it works is that you bid on a 100 keywords and it is the exact same thing as getting 100 links back to your web site. When you are submitting your listings, you must always be sure to put the price there as well. The key factor here is that you want everyone who clicks through your site to be prepared to divvy up some cash.
If you don’t do this, you’ll loose a lot of money from the people who are always seeking freebies every single time. With this in mind, say you submitted 350 keywords that are relating to sneakers to each and every one of the search engines above. If all of them are totaled together they will give you a combined total of 150 clicks per day.
An effective promotion technique that I have found is to combine email with the ad article strategy. This generally means creating an ezine or newsletter promotion that visitors can sign up for that goes directly to their email inboxes. You can occasionally put a summary of a product or service, however, you should include just enough information to stir the curiosity of your readers in an ezine. The summary then contains a link to the ad article on our site. The benefit of this is not only that you have a good opportunity to promote the product or service, but while visitors are on your site they may also look at other sections at the same time This way you as the advertiser benefits through having highly targeted potential clients visit their site.
Getting Started As an Affiliate Marketer
If you are a beginning Internet Marketer and you do not actually have any money to work with the best way to start marketing is by using the payperclick
search engines. The truth is, when you are a marketer products are not the things that actually sell, it is the traffic that sells. However true this is you still want to promote the programs that meet certain criteria. If you are wondering what the criteria are they are listed below and are as follows:
1. Look for programs that offer to pay you over $10.00 per sale. If not that then at least search for programs that pay you $50.00 per month or more in residual income because just one customer can be worth $1,200.00 to you in 10 years.
2. Look for products to promote that don’t have more than one or two external
links to that connect to other programs. If you’re going to pay good money to send people to a web site, you should at least make sure that you’re sending them to a good money resource and not a resource that has with 50 holes in it.
3. Look for products that have limited ordering options because you don’t want to send people to a site if you only get credit when they pay by credit card. The result will be that you will lose people because the site also accepts payment via PayPal and the average person doesn’t know how to integrate PayPal with their current affiliate software or some other more complicated payment method like direct checking.
4. Try to find sales sites. You can check out associateprograms.com and find five programs that meet the criteria. It will take some digging, but they are there if you look for them. Let’s say you’re promoting sneakers, for example. What you are going to want to do now is find as many applicable keywords as you can that are directly relating to sneakers. You can find lists of keyword variations for any products or services by going to jimtools.com and clicking the ’keywords’ button at the top.
How this works is that you can do keyword searches and find every variation of the word sneakers that you can think of. If you save all your keywords in a text file you can place bids at all the major payperclick search engines. Here is a list of some of them:
http://www.overture.com They are very critical and will bring you the most leads.
http://www.findwhat.com delivers pretty good traffic
http://www.bay9.com
http://www.ahha.com
http://www.kanoodle.com
http://www.sprinks.com
http://www.searchandconquer.com This one is Free
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com
There is a trick to making huge profits with payperclick search engines and one of them is to bid on as many keywords as possible. How it works is that you bid on a 100 keywords and it is the exact same thing as getting 100 links back to your web site. When you are submitting your listings, you must always be sure to put the price there as well. The key factor here is that you want everyone who clicks through your site to be prepared to divvy up some cash.
If you don’t do this, you’ll loose a lot of money from the people who are always seeking freebies every single time. With this in mind, say you submitted 350 keywords that are relating to sneakers to each and every one of the search engines above. If all of them are totaled together they will give you a combined total of 150 clicks per day.
Make money using Popunder Ads
While pop-under ads would appear not to pay as much as say emails do, they actually provide better dividends. Most Internet users have become quite accustomed to closing pop ups before they load. Because of this, you will not be able to make money on an ad that doesn’t appear. Pop under ads load in the background, so you’ll receive higher payouts with minimum interference while giving the advertiser a decent "show" here are a few reasons why this works.
1. Technology in advertising delivery: Some banner networks now have the delivery of pop under ads down to a “T”. What they do is load quickly which allows your visitor is only shown a popunder ad once per visit and that is why some networks allow you to specify that the particular visitor only sees the pop unders once every few days.
2. Read the fine print: Remember that you will probably not be paid for every pop up/pop under ad that is displayed so you have to read the fine print in the terms and conditions area that is always in the network you are applying to and you will find that no matter how many ads that are presented to a particular visitor in a single day, you will only be credited with one notice. A good Internet advertising agency will also target popunder ads to your audience and just like every other banner ad campaign you will also have to be allowed to choose which pop under advertising you wish to display
3. Putting pop under ads to use: Pop under code from the networks is easy to use than it ever was before. The code that is supplied by the agency is usually pasted between the head tags in the HTML of the web pages where you want the ad to be triggered. Popunder ads can usually be run in tandem with a banner ad campaign, depending on the agency’s own set of guidelines.
The best link cloaking method
If you create a new web page that contains the following HTML code in it and save it this link cloaking method works. This example was provided by MerchantABC
Now, rather than using your personal link with your cookie ID as you can see below:
http://www.merchantabc.com/app/aftrack.php?afid=12345
you should have a link that looks like the example below:
http://www.yoursite.com/offer.htm (link to the page you created)
As soon as someone clicks on the new link, the page would automatically redirect to your affiliate URL. You just have to make sure that you set the link to your cloaked page in a new window so that you don’t lose visitors from your site.
Unavoidable Search Engine Issues
The Robots line in the cloaking page is there specifically to prevent Search Engines such as Google from trying to index the page. Google hates meta refresh pages because it thinks that they are a spamming technique. It’s safer for them to keep search engine robots out of the page, and since the page will have no content, there’s no point in it being indexed anyway.
You must not be tempted to have search engines index the cloaking page in the hope that your affiliate URL page will be listed highly because the penalty that is imposed by some search engines if you are caught is not worth the risk. You could loose everything this way.
You can play it even safer by having all of these special pages in one directory and then introducing a robots exclusion statement for that directory in your robots.txt file. I would highly recommend that you begin by cloaking your affiliate links. You will definitely experienced higher conversions and therefore commission revenue when you begin implementing cloaking strategies. There’s nothing unethical about it; and like many other site owners, you have to work hard on our site and have poured thousands of hours into it over the years there’s nothing wrong with receiving a few bucks for this effort.
1. Technology in advertising delivery: Some banner networks now have the delivery of pop under ads down to a “T”. What they do is load quickly which allows your visitor is only shown a popunder ad once per visit and that is why some networks allow you to specify that the particular visitor only sees the pop unders once every few days.
2. Read the fine print: Remember that you will probably not be paid for every pop up/pop under ad that is displayed so you have to read the fine print in the terms and conditions area that is always in the network you are applying to and you will find that no matter how many ads that are presented to a particular visitor in a single day, you will only be credited with one notice. A good Internet advertising agency will also target popunder ads to your audience and just like every other banner ad campaign you will also have to be allowed to choose which pop under advertising you wish to display
3. Putting pop under ads to use: Pop under code from the networks is easy to use than it ever was before. The code that is supplied by the agency is usually pasted between the head tags in the HTML of the web pages where you want the ad to be triggered. Popunder ads can usually be run in tandem with a banner ad campaign, depending on the agency’s own set of guidelines.
The best link cloaking method
If you create a new web page that contains the following HTML code in it and save it this link cloaking method works. This example was provided by MerchantABC
Now, rather than using your personal link with your cookie ID as you can see below:
http://www.merchantabc.com/app/aftrack.php?afid=12345
you should have a link that looks like the example below:
http://www.yoursite.com/offer.htm (link to the page you created)
As soon as someone clicks on the new link, the page would automatically redirect to your affiliate URL. You just have to make sure that you set the link to your cloaked page in a new window so that you don’t lose visitors from your site.
Unavoidable Search Engine Issues
The Robots line in the cloaking page is there specifically to prevent Search Engines such as Google from trying to index the page. Google hates meta refresh pages because it thinks that they are a spamming technique. It’s safer for them to keep search engine robots out of the page, and since the page will have no content, there’s no point in it being indexed anyway.
You must not be tempted to have search engines index the cloaking page in the hope that your affiliate URL page will be listed highly because the penalty that is imposed by some search engines if you are caught is not worth the risk. You could loose everything this way.
You can play it even safer by having all of these special pages in one directory and then introducing a robots exclusion statement for that directory in your robots.txt file. I would highly recommend that you begin by cloaking your affiliate links. You will definitely experienced higher conversions and therefore commission revenue when you begin implementing cloaking strategies. There’s nothing unethical about it; and like many other site owners, you have to work hard on our site and have poured thousands of hours into it over the years there’s nothing wrong with receiving a few bucks for this effort.
Making Money with Affiliation with Pay Per Click
It doesn’t really take a whole lot of knowledge to realize that the internet is the new wave in marketing right now. It is even better than traditional methods for marketing because this method can give you returns almost immediately upon your investment if you know what you are doing and how to best capitalize off of it.
As you can probably imagine, the entire purpose of using affiliation as a part of your marketing technique is so that you can make some money. Below, you will learn how you can make money with affiliation without spending more than you can afford to spend. There are more ways to generate traffic to your website and this is just one of them. However, I Thought that it deserved more attention on its own as its popularity gets higher. Look Below for more options.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay per click advertising is a bonus for affiliate marketers because it basically does exactly what it says. When your visitors click onto your web pages you will get paid just for the visit. It doesn’t apply to how much stuff the visitors purchase. Let’s take a look at some of the most common questions about it to help you get an exact idea of what this really is.
What Is Pay Per Click?
Pay per click advertising on search engines allows you choose keywords you would like your site to appear for when a search query is performed. You get to decide how much you are willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search results. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your site will appear in the results for the keywords you choose. Because of this, your site’s appearance listing can rapidly fluctuate. However, this method is great for the marketer that is just starting out.
Which Search Engines Offer Pay Per Click Advertising?
There is literally hundreds of pay per click search engines such as MSN, Yahoo, Google and Overture. Generally, the larger the pay per click search engine is, the more you will have to bid to get to the top for your keywords. This is why it is worth investigating different search engines to find what it would cost to bid on your keywords and how much traffic they draw in.
The largest companies in the pay per click industry are Overture and Google. Google is not a pay per click search engine, but it does provide pay per click advertising in text ad boxes to the right of search results it delivers. It also delivers pay per click ads to other content sites as well. One advantage the lesser known search engines have is that these search engines can provide lower costs per click to rank for a keyword than the larger search engines.
In addition to the general pay per click search engines, you may also be able to find thematic search engines that serve your industry or specifically cater to your target audience.
Important Thoughts Before Choosing Pay Per Click Search Engine
One very important thing that you must do when you use pay per click advertising is that you must test, test, and test again before you settle on your bid amount. You shouldn’t start off with a major investment before testing the service. Start with the minimum bid amount and see how the search engine performs in terms of the traffic it delivers and how well that traffic converts into paying customers.
A necessary aspect of your testing is having a method in place that allows you to track your return on the money that you have invested. For example, if your goal is to bring in new subscribers to your newsletter, you could direct visitors arriving from your pay per click link to a subscription form that is set up just for them. You can then monitor how many clicks actually result in a newsubscription. As such, you will know how much you are paying for each new subscriber.
Before you begin spending any money with a pay per click search engine, be sure they can answer the following questions first:
• How many searches a month are performed at the search engine approximately?
• What major search partners or affiliates does the search engine already have?
• How many searches are generated each month by the search partners or affiliates?
• Is it possible to avoid having your listing appear in the results of the affiliate sites?
• What fraud prevention and security precautions are in place?
• What is the procedure for filing a "fraudulent clicks" report?
• Will an account be credited for fraudulent clicks discovered?
• Is it possible to refuse to have a listing appearing for searches originating from specific countries?
• Is there a term of service for search partners or affiliates that is easy to see? Look for search engines that have very strict guidelines for dealing with their search affiliates. This is important because you want to be sure the search engine is working hard to prevent fraud among all of its affiliates.
While search engine optimization can be an intensive and time consuming process that requires a complete site overhaul, pay per click advertising is fast, easy and a much more exact science than search engine optimization. Pay per click search engine advertising offers so many benefits that overshadow search engine optimization such as the following benefits:
• You only have to pay for visitors to your website whereas most banner and rich media ad campaigns that are purchased on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis.
• Pay per click programs only charge you when someone actually visits your website.
• You get the chance to reach worldwide consumers during a time when a consumer is using a search engine like Google to look for information so that you don’t have to interrupt them while online in order for you to get them to visit your site.
• You get the advantage of Precise Targeting that will help to get Target people who are looking for your products, services, and informational content regardless of age, sex, income, or other classifications.
• You can easily control your expenses when you use pay per click because you know exactly what you are getting for your money. If you receive visitors from the marketing campaign, you’ll pay a price that you get to determine for each visitor.
• Rapid testing and feedback from pay per click advertising can be instant if you use one of the pay per click ROI tracking or campaign management tools. You’ll know exactly how well your investment is performing in real time. It just doesn’t get any easier than this.
• You get the advantage of having Rapid deployment that is complete with ROI tracking is very fast to set up and can be up and running in 15 minutes. There are no banners (and associated costs) to create and haggle over; simply write some text ads and get them up and running.
• The affordability that you get with pay per click is awesome whether your monthly budget is $20.00 or $200.00 you can use pay per click advertising to grow your business.
• Not only can you be up and running in 20 minutes, you can reach a global audience quickly and easily, particularly with Google AdWords.
As you can probably imagine, the entire purpose of using affiliation as a part of your marketing technique is so that you can make some money. Below, you will learn how you can make money with affiliation without spending more than you can afford to spend. There are more ways to generate traffic to your website and this is just one of them. However, I Thought that it deserved more attention on its own as its popularity gets higher. Look Below for more options.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay per click advertising is a bonus for affiliate marketers because it basically does exactly what it says. When your visitors click onto your web pages you will get paid just for the visit. It doesn’t apply to how much stuff the visitors purchase. Let’s take a look at some of the most common questions about it to help you get an exact idea of what this really is.
What Is Pay Per Click?
Pay per click advertising on search engines allows you choose keywords you would like your site to appear for when a search query is performed. You get to decide how much you are willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search results. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your site will appear in the results for the keywords you choose. Because of this, your site’s appearance listing can rapidly fluctuate. However, this method is great for the marketer that is just starting out.
Which Search Engines Offer Pay Per Click Advertising?
There is literally hundreds of pay per click search engines such as MSN, Yahoo, Google and Overture. Generally, the larger the pay per click search engine is, the more you will have to bid to get to the top for your keywords. This is why it is worth investigating different search engines to find what it would cost to bid on your keywords and how much traffic they draw in.
The largest companies in the pay per click industry are Overture and Google. Google is not a pay per click search engine, but it does provide pay per click advertising in text ad boxes to the right of search results it delivers. It also delivers pay per click ads to other content sites as well. One advantage the lesser known search engines have is that these search engines can provide lower costs per click to rank for a keyword than the larger search engines.
In addition to the general pay per click search engines, you may also be able to find thematic search engines that serve your industry or specifically cater to your target audience.
Important Thoughts Before Choosing Pay Per Click Search Engine
One very important thing that you must do when you use pay per click advertising is that you must test, test, and test again before you settle on your bid amount. You shouldn’t start off with a major investment before testing the service. Start with the minimum bid amount and see how the search engine performs in terms of the traffic it delivers and how well that traffic converts into paying customers.
A necessary aspect of your testing is having a method in place that allows you to track your return on the money that you have invested. For example, if your goal is to bring in new subscribers to your newsletter, you could direct visitors arriving from your pay per click link to a subscription form that is set up just for them. You can then monitor how many clicks actually result in a newsubscription. As such, you will know how much you are paying for each new subscriber.
Before you begin spending any money with a pay per click search engine, be sure they can answer the following questions first:
• How many searches a month are performed at the search engine approximately?
• What major search partners or affiliates does the search engine already have?
• How many searches are generated each month by the search partners or affiliates?
• Is it possible to avoid having your listing appear in the results of the affiliate sites?
• What fraud prevention and security precautions are in place?
• What is the procedure for filing a "fraudulent clicks" report?
• Will an account be credited for fraudulent clicks discovered?
• Is it possible to refuse to have a listing appearing for searches originating from specific countries?
• Is there a term of service for search partners or affiliates that is easy to see? Look for search engines that have very strict guidelines for dealing with their search affiliates. This is important because you want to be sure the search engine is working hard to prevent fraud among all of its affiliates.
While search engine optimization can be an intensive and time consuming process that requires a complete site overhaul, pay per click advertising is fast, easy and a much more exact science than search engine optimization. Pay per click search engine advertising offers so many benefits that overshadow search engine optimization such as the following benefits:
• You only have to pay for visitors to your website whereas most banner and rich media ad campaigns that are purchased on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis.
• Pay per click programs only charge you when someone actually visits your website.
• You get the chance to reach worldwide consumers during a time when a consumer is using a search engine like Google to look for information so that you don’t have to interrupt them while online in order for you to get them to visit your site.
• You get the advantage of Precise Targeting that will help to get Target people who are looking for your products, services, and informational content regardless of age, sex, income, or other classifications.
• You can easily control your expenses when you use pay per click because you know exactly what you are getting for your money. If you receive visitors from the marketing campaign, you’ll pay a price that you get to determine for each visitor.
• Rapid testing and feedback from pay per click advertising can be instant if you use one of the pay per click ROI tracking or campaign management tools. You’ll know exactly how well your investment is performing in real time. It just doesn’t get any easier than this.
• You get the advantage of having Rapid deployment that is complete with ROI tracking is very fast to set up and can be up and running in 15 minutes. There are no banners (and associated costs) to create and haggle over; simply write some text ads and get them up and running.
• The affordability that you get with pay per click is awesome whether your monthly budget is $20.00 or $200.00 you can use pay per click advertising to grow your business.
• Not only can you be up and running in 20 minutes, you can reach a global audience quickly and easily, particularly with Google AdWords.
How to Find Good Affiliation Programs to promote
Because there are literally tens of thousands of affiliate programs on the Internet these days that are covering just about every product and service you could imagine. Finding the right affiliate programs can be a difficult task, but it does pay off; so it’s well worth the effort. If you’re new to affiliate programs, here’s a good list of things that you can do to find the right programs for you:
First of all, you have to know that to the business owner, affiliate programs are seen as a virtually ’free’ marketing tool that allows them to generate extra business without having to invest in any significant up-front costs. Because affiliate programs pay based solely on their performance, they typically have nothing to lose by recruiting as many affiliates as possible.
This is an important thing to keep in mind because most affiliate programs will do their best to present themselves as a great affiliate match for any site because business owners see that they have nothing to lose if you can’t generate sales. However if you are the marketing affiliate, you do because that means that it is lost income potential.
You have to learn to define who your audience for example: Do you have general traffic or specific types of visitors? Is your audience mainly comprised of a particular age demographic? Male/Female? If it’s possible, first narrow down what kind of potential shoppers you might have visiting your site. This is again called ‘finding your target audience’. Remember to write everything down.
Secondly, you have to decide which industries fit in best with your audience. Before you can start looking for affiliate programs, you have to decide what kind of stuff would appeal most to that audience you’ve just defined. In the above example we’re dealing with middle aged women who were looking for entertainment (maybe they were at a chat site, reading stories, playing games, whatever). Then try to decide what your target audience is willing to spending a little money on. Write this down too. Actually, just for the record, write it all down!
Now you have to see if there are any good affiliate programs that sell that stuff. I know that this sounds like a given, but you’d be surprised how many affiliates put up affiliate programs because they pay high commissions, only to find out it doesn’t matter because no-one’s buying anything.
Here is a good formula to remember always:
No buyers = no money!
Think about it this way; if your web site relates to your interests, would you buy it? Now what do you think about applying that theory to the audience you just defined? Who might they buy from? Now you have to try to narrow it down even further by using the programs that have the best reputation, commissions,
Marketing materials, and of course trying to tie it all into offers for the actual BUYER.
This part should be easiest if you apply it personally. Use your common sense about the price of the products or services you will be marketing for these programs; they might pay 50% commissions, but do they charge twice what they should to the buyer? If so would you be willing to pay those prices? Of course you are going to want good commissions, but you also need to market something people will actually buy or else you will not get any at all, which usually means fair prices from the sellers! You might earn less per sale, but think about the volume of sales, and the right balance that makes you the most money.
Avoid any affiliate programs that offer crap deals for the buyer. Compare the commission structures, and try to find programs with a good history of conversions and prompt payments. You need to push affiliate programs that have good commissions structures and good conversions (how many visitors does it take to get a sale?) You also want to make sure you get paid!
DON’T FORGET TO READ THE AFFILIATE TERMS FIRST! You might be surprised how many affiliate programs have some terms buried in their fine print that don’t work in your favor that is why I gave you a sample merchant contract to look through so that you can get an idea of the terms that may be inside of them.
When it comes to how many sponsors do you need to start with you should consider how much money you have first. If you’re just starting out, it’s best to try out a few sponsors that will gauge which will perform best. How many programs should you start with? Try out however many good, related programs there are that you can give a reasonable ’chance’ to promote in a reasonable amount of time. Remember whoever sponsors your website is investing in your abilities too.
If you have lots of traffic on your website, you might be able to rotate dozens of sponsors across your site. If you only have a couple hundred visitors a month, you should limit yourself to only a few, because you don’t have the audience to support a larger test of affiliate programs. You need to send a fair bit of traffic to an affiliate program before you can truly gauge it’s performance, and you probably don’t want to be in the ’testing phase’ for months on end so you should limit yourself accordingly.
Finally, you should begin by knowing that sending 5 visitors to an affiliate link without a sale is simply not a fair test. Depending on what you’re selling and who you’re trying to sell to it can take a lot of traffic to start seeing revenue. If you remove affiliate programs without giving them a fair shake, you could be cheating yourself out of income; that next visitor may have been your first sale. The moral here is again to BE PATIENT!
At this point you’re ready to start earning some money. If you narrowed your list down too much, don’t worry just try to find other related things to sell from different affiliate programs rather that settle with mediocre programs you’ve scratched off the list. Once you’ve given the programs enough time to check for results, you’re ready to start narrowing down your affiliate programs to the ones that work for you Let’s take a look at least two of the best affiliate programs that I have seen and worked with so far and what they have to offer.
ClickBank
There are many reasons why I like the ClickBank affiliate program so much. The Clickbank Marketplace is an awesome program that helps you generate revenue that is included in their affiliate zone. This site is a friendly, resourceful one that generates traffic, commission sales and runs by itself.
Clickbank also features a professional design and comes fully developed as a search engine that is fed by the Clickbank’s Marketplace of over 50,000 products and businesses. The Clickbank Marketplace offers an automated database update system and Clickbank cookie features giving you commissions on sales from visitor’s for up to three months after a visitor has left your site!
The commission percentage structure is based on monthly revenues through sales from your Clickbank ID. You receive a commission rate determined by the partner site from 5-65%. This is one place where you won’t have to site around and wait for your checks because ClickBank pays you through faster venues like PayPal.
ClickBank not only allows you to accept credit cards on your web site without the need for a merchant account, it also provides other ways in which you can generate income as well. I’ll highlight five different ways you can start making money with ClickBank by the end of the day.
First of all, you have to know that to the business owner, affiliate programs are seen as a virtually ’free’ marketing tool that allows them to generate extra business without having to invest in any significant up-front costs. Because affiliate programs pay based solely on their performance, they typically have nothing to lose by recruiting as many affiliates as possible.
This is an important thing to keep in mind because most affiliate programs will do their best to present themselves as a great affiliate match for any site because business owners see that they have nothing to lose if you can’t generate sales. However if you are the marketing affiliate, you do because that means that it is lost income potential.
You have to learn to define who your audience for example: Do you have general traffic or specific types of visitors? Is your audience mainly comprised of a particular age demographic? Male/Female? If it’s possible, first narrow down what kind of potential shoppers you might have visiting your site. This is again called ‘finding your target audience’. Remember to write everything down.
Secondly, you have to decide which industries fit in best with your audience. Before you can start looking for affiliate programs, you have to decide what kind of stuff would appeal most to that audience you’ve just defined. In the above example we’re dealing with middle aged women who were looking for entertainment (maybe they were at a chat site, reading stories, playing games, whatever). Then try to decide what your target audience is willing to spending a little money on. Write this down too. Actually, just for the record, write it all down!
Now you have to see if there are any good affiliate programs that sell that stuff. I know that this sounds like a given, but you’d be surprised how many affiliates put up affiliate programs because they pay high commissions, only to find out it doesn’t matter because no-one’s buying anything.
Here is a good formula to remember always:
No buyers = no money!
Think about it this way; if your web site relates to your interests, would you buy it? Now what do you think about applying that theory to the audience you just defined? Who might they buy from? Now you have to try to narrow it down even further by using the programs that have the best reputation, commissions,
Marketing materials, and of course trying to tie it all into offers for the actual BUYER.
This part should be easiest if you apply it personally. Use your common sense about the price of the products or services you will be marketing for these programs; they might pay 50% commissions, but do they charge twice what they should to the buyer? If so would you be willing to pay those prices? Of course you are going to want good commissions, but you also need to market something people will actually buy or else you will not get any at all, which usually means fair prices from the sellers! You might earn less per sale, but think about the volume of sales, and the right balance that makes you the most money.
Avoid any affiliate programs that offer crap deals for the buyer. Compare the commission structures, and try to find programs with a good history of conversions and prompt payments. You need to push affiliate programs that have good commissions structures and good conversions (how many visitors does it take to get a sale?) You also want to make sure you get paid!
DON’T FORGET TO READ THE AFFILIATE TERMS FIRST! You might be surprised how many affiliate programs have some terms buried in their fine print that don’t work in your favor that is why I gave you a sample merchant contract to look through so that you can get an idea of the terms that may be inside of them.
When it comes to how many sponsors do you need to start with you should consider how much money you have first. If you’re just starting out, it’s best to try out a few sponsors that will gauge which will perform best. How many programs should you start with? Try out however many good, related programs there are that you can give a reasonable ’chance’ to promote in a reasonable amount of time. Remember whoever sponsors your website is investing in your abilities too.
If you have lots of traffic on your website, you might be able to rotate dozens of sponsors across your site. If you only have a couple hundred visitors a month, you should limit yourself to only a few, because you don’t have the audience to support a larger test of affiliate programs. You need to send a fair bit of traffic to an affiliate program before you can truly gauge it’s performance, and you probably don’t want to be in the ’testing phase’ for months on end so you should limit yourself accordingly.
Finally, you should begin by knowing that sending 5 visitors to an affiliate link without a sale is simply not a fair test. Depending on what you’re selling and who you’re trying to sell to it can take a lot of traffic to start seeing revenue. If you remove affiliate programs without giving them a fair shake, you could be cheating yourself out of income; that next visitor may have been your first sale. The moral here is again to BE PATIENT!
At this point you’re ready to start earning some money. If you narrowed your list down too much, don’t worry just try to find other related things to sell from different affiliate programs rather that settle with mediocre programs you’ve scratched off the list. Once you’ve given the programs enough time to check for results, you’re ready to start narrowing down your affiliate programs to the ones that work for you Let’s take a look at least two of the best affiliate programs that I have seen and worked with so far and what they have to offer.
ClickBank
There are many reasons why I like the ClickBank affiliate program so much. The Clickbank Marketplace is an awesome program that helps you generate revenue that is included in their affiliate zone. This site is a friendly, resourceful one that generates traffic, commission sales and runs by itself.
Clickbank also features a professional design and comes fully developed as a search engine that is fed by the Clickbank’s Marketplace of over 50,000 products and businesses. The Clickbank Marketplace offers an automated database update system and Clickbank cookie features giving you commissions on sales from visitor’s for up to three months after a visitor has left your site!
The commission percentage structure is based on monthly revenues through sales from your Clickbank ID. You receive a commission rate determined by the partner site from 5-65%. This is one place where you won’t have to site around and wait for your checks because ClickBank pays you through faster venues like PayPal.
ClickBank not only allows you to accept credit cards on your web site without the need for a merchant account, it also provides other ways in which you can generate income as well. I’ll highlight five different ways you can start making money with ClickBank by the end of the day.
Affiliate Tracking
This information was received by an article written by Todd Farmer & Jeff Doak
Affiliate Managers and many other web marketers have started to use a variety of tracking technologies and strategies, over the last few years, in their quest for accurately keeping track of their referred customers. Tracking customers "from click through to sale" can be accomplished with various tracking methods, such as:
• Simple Direct URL Links
• CGI/URL Tracking
• Cookie Tracking
• Self Replicated Pages
• Sub Domain Tracking
• Database Record Match Tracking
One of the good things about these methods is that each of them has strengths, and each has weaknesses. However, you’ll see that Cookie Tracking (which I mentioned in an above section) is the clear winner as the preferred single tracking method when it comes to reliable, flexible, and convenient tracking.
When you are searching through the different tracking methods, an affiliate manager has to consider these things first:
• How flexible is the method? For example: Can you track everything that you want to track and will it work with my shopping cart or ordering system?
• How easy is it for the tracking to be started and completed? Ask yourself: ‘Do I have to exert much effort re-designing and maintaining my website to work with the tracking method?’
• How much can you count on the tracking method?
• How easily can an affiliate with a lot of experience defeat the tracking method?
• Does this tracking method affect the performance of your website or web server?
Direct URL Links
A Simple, Direct URL Link is the most basic and the most limited form of referral tracking technology. The affiliate ID is only visible to the customer inthe URL when you are using this method because it passes the referring affiliate’s ID directly to the URL of a specific page that the affiliate or YOU choose (which must be equipped with an order form).
This specific page is then coded with a script, which reads the referring affiliate’s ID in the URL, and passes it into a "hidden field" in the order form on the page or to a visible "reference number", that can be printed or reported by the visitor to the website.
While this simple method is good at keeping track of immediate sales on a single-page sales site, it cannot track the affiliate ID if the customer leaves this page and returns later. In that way it is inconvenient. Since the affiliate ID is visible in the URL, customers can easily defeat the tracking by simply removing the affiliate ID from the URL.
CGI/URL Tracking
CGI/URL Tracking is a relatively effective, but sort of inefficient means of tracking that passes the affiliate ID throughout the merchant’s entire website. How it works is that the affiliate ID is visible in the URL just like in the above method and "follows" the visitor until she reaches the ordering system, where the ID is detected from the URL string. This how it follows the customer throughout the site and, in most cases, by processing all internal site links through a Perl script or JavaScript that does the following:
1. reads the current URL
2. grabs hold of the affiliate ID
3. Appends it to the URL of the next page.
This method is a bit of a fragile one because it requires a great deal of careful design of the website and maintenance of every link that is included inside of the merchant’s site. Of course, when the site exists under heavy traffic, the script can become a "bottleneck" to the merchant’s web site. In addition, if the script ever fails, the merchant’s site will fail.
The CGI/URL Tracking method is usually used in conjunction with "cookie tracking". This combination allows for the tracking of customers who have disabled their cookies. CGI/URL Tracking, however, is losing its popularity as a backup mechanism because in most circumstances, Internet users who are security-conscious enough to disable cookies are also savvy enough to navigate around the CGI/URL method as well. Customers today can easily disable the tracking by simply removing the affiliate ID from the URL and re-entering the site.
Cookie Tracking
Cookie Tracking is the most popular and annoying method to track customers "from click through to order", because it is simple to implement & use, it doesn’t require any significant web design considerations, nor does it impact the performance of the web site or web server. This method works by simply writing a small text file, which is called a "cookie", to a user’s browser when they click on an affiliate link. This cookie holds the referring affiliate’s ID, which can be identified at the merchant’s order page to credit affiliates for referred sales.
Cookies make tracking affiliate-referred-sales very convenient for the webmaster. The cookie can be read and used on any page or on any form, and can be used in conjunction with almost any ordering system. Not to mention, the cookie that records the affiliate’s ID can "live" for as long as the merchant wants it to. This is how the affiliates get credit for customers who clicked on a link weeks, or months, before finally purchasing or making a repeat purchase.
Cookie Tracking is essentially invisible to the user, because cookies are written and read "behind the scenes". Unlike the other methods, the merchant’s URL does not need to display the affiliate ID for the tracking to work. The only drawback with cookies is that a small number of web users intentionally "disable" cookies, and therefore, they cannot be tracked.
The number of Cookie Enabled browsers is growing, because a majority of web surfers’ favorite sites require cookie use; plus, the option to disable cookies isnot obvious in the two major browsers like internet explorer and Netscape. Those users who take the trouble to disable cookies are, oftentimes, the same users who will probably be wary of other tracking methods and have learned to intentionally bypass those as well.
Affiliate Managers and many other web marketers have started to use a variety of tracking technologies and strategies, over the last few years, in their quest for accurately keeping track of their referred customers. Tracking customers "from click through to sale" can be accomplished with various tracking methods, such as:
• Simple Direct URL Links
• CGI/URL Tracking
• Cookie Tracking
• Self Replicated Pages
• Sub Domain Tracking
• Database Record Match Tracking
One of the good things about these methods is that each of them has strengths, and each has weaknesses. However, you’ll see that Cookie Tracking (which I mentioned in an above section) is the clear winner as the preferred single tracking method when it comes to reliable, flexible, and convenient tracking.
When you are searching through the different tracking methods, an affiliate manager has to consider these things first:
• How flexible is the method? For example: Can you track everything that you want to track and will it work with my shopping cart or ordering system?
• How easy is it for the tracking to be started and completed? Ask yourself: ‘Do I have to exert much effort re-designing and maintaining my website to work with the tracking method?’
• How much can you count on the tracking method?
• How easily can an affiliate with a lot of experience defeat the tracking method?
• Does this tracking method affect the performance of your website or web server?
Direct URL Links
A Simple, Direct URL Link is the most basic and the most limited form of referral tracking technology. The affiliate ID is only visible to the customer inthe URL when you are using this method because it passes the referring affiliate’s ID directly to the URL of a specific page that the affiliate or YOU choose (which must be equipped with an order form).
This specific page is then coded with a script, which reads the referring affiliate’s ID in the URL, and passes it into a "hidden field" in the order form on the page or to a visible "reference number", that can be printed or reported by the visitor to the website.
While this simple method is good at keeping track of immediate sales on a single-page sales site, it cannot track the affiliate ID if the customer leaves this page and returns later. In that way it is inconvenient. Since the affiliate ID is visible in the URL, customers can easily defeat the tracking by simply removing the affiliate ID from the URL.
CGI/URL Tracking
CGI/URL Tracking is a relatively effective, but sort of inefficient means of tracking that passes the affiliate ID throughout the merchant’s entire website. How it works is that the affiliate ID is visible in the URL just like in the above method and "follows" the visitor until she reaches the ordering system, where the ID is detected from the URL string. This how it follows the customer throughout the site and, in most cases, by processing all internal site links through a Perl script or JavaScript that does the following:
1. reads the current URL
2. grabs hold of the affiliate ID
3. Appends it to the URL of the next page.
This method is a bit of a fragile one because it requires a great deal of careful design of the website and maintenance of every link that is included inside of the merchant’s site. Of course, when the site exists under heavy traffic, the script can become a "bottleneck" to the merchant’s web site. In addition, if the script ever fails, the merchant’s site will fail.
The CGI/URL Tracking method is usually used in conjunction with "cookie tracking". This combination allows for the tracking of customers who have disabled their cookies. CGI/URL Tracking, however, is losing its popularity as a backup mechanism because in most circumstances, Internet users who are security-conscious enough to disable cookies are also savvy enough to navigate around the CGI/URL method as well. Customers today can easily disable the tracking by simply removing the affiliate ID from the URL and re-entering the site.
Cookie Tracking
Cookie Tracking is the most popular and annoying method to track customers "from click through to order", because it is simple to implement & use, it doesn’t require any significant web design considerations, nor does it impact the performance of the web site or web server. This method works by simply writing a small text file, which is called a "cookie", to a user’s browser when they click on an affiliate link. This cookie holds the referring affiliate’s ID, which can be identified at the merchant’s order page to credit affiliates for referred sales.
Cookies make tracking affiliate-referred-sales very convenient for the webmaster. The cookie can be read and used on any page or on any form, and can be used in conjunction with almost any ordering system. Not to mention, the cookie that records the affiliate’s ID can "live" for as long as the merchant wants it to. This is how the affiliates get credit for customers who clicked on a link weeks, or months, before finally purchasing or making a repeat purchase.
Cookie Tracking is essentially invisible to the user, because cookies are written and read "behind the scenes". Unlike the other methods, the merchant’s URL does not need to display the affiliate ID for the tracking to work. The only drawback with cookies is that a small number of web users intentionally "disable" cookies, and therefore, they cannot be tracked.
The number of Cookie Enabled browsers is growing, because a majority of web surfers’ favorite sites require cookie use; plus, the option to disable cookies isnot obvious in the two major browsers like internet explorer and Netscape. Those users who take the trouble to disable cookies are, oftentimes, the same users who will probably be wary of other tracking methods and have learned to intentionally bypass those as well.
Trading Links
There are many different reasons and ways that trading links increases traffic to your site so it just made sense to cover it. First of all, each link that is pointing to your site opens a new gateway for people to find you as they surf the web. That is why so many affiliates seek to do it in the first place.
Secondly, trading links gives you better chances of getting listed in paid submission search engines for free. THAT’S RIGHT FOR FREE! When you are ranking your site, the search engines do link analysis as part of their algorithms. Your search engine rankings and link analysis score steadily increases as proportionally as the number of relevant quality links back to your site increases.
How Search Engines Evaluate Links:
In order to be able to figure out how search engine evaluate your links, you have to ask yourself these key questions first:
! How many sites do you have linking to your site right now?
! What is the "Page Rank" of the site that links to yours?
! Are the links reciprocal or one way?
! Does your site [or the site that links to you] have links that are relevant to the content in the site?
! Are these valuable links or is this link a part of a "Link Farm"?
Just for the record Reciprocal Links are the easiest to obtain and will aid in gaining better placement on the search engines, but they are not as valuable as One Way Links because you have to look for a link on their Home page to their Links page. The most common name to find it under is usually called "Links", but "Resources" is also quite popular.
If you cannot find this link or if they don’t have a link that is easily found, you may want to skip them all together. If you can’t find their reciprocal links, chances are no one else, including the search engines, will find them either, so you don’t have to panic about it.
You will want to be sure that their reciprocal links exist in the same domain as their site. There is no point to having a link to your site on a site other than the one in which you want to exchange links with. Why would you? You have to check and see how they have their reciprocal links configured. To do that, ask yourself these questions: Are there categories? Are the listings in alphabetical order within the categories? Is it just a free-for-all (another term for "link farm") or are the other links somewhat relevant? You want your link to be in a relevant category that can easily be found.
Explore their content
It wouldn’t make any sense to share or trade links with another site without knowing first what their site has in it. Is there anything that your average visitor would find objectionable? Is their site in working order? After all, you will be placing a link on your site to this site and it will reflect you too.
Place the other website’s link on your site first & test the response
If the site that you are thinking of linking has passed your inspection, as a show of good faith, you can place a link to your potential partner’s website on your site first. During your visit, you should have found some sort of information regarding their site’s title and description as well as the category or theme that they would prefer. If this is not clear, you should be able to write a little something for them. Remember it should be a theme that matches your own.
Properly contact the other website merchant
While you are visiting the website, you should have discovered how they want to be contacted for a link exchange. If they have a form to fill out, be sure that you use it. Read and follow their directions properly. Typically, they will then ask you for a link to their site first. If you have been following my tips, you have already done that. Do not tell them you have placed a link to their website before you actually do. Many of these people are quick to look and see. If it’s not there, your request may be ignored or at least will take a lot longer.
E-mailing your request
When you are looking to request a link trade, you should see if there are specific ways to go about it by email. If they don’t have a form, look for a specific e-mail address they want used for such inquiries. No matter who you e-mail, be brief and to the point. If they have already included a subject line in their e-mail link, don’t change it. If they haven’t, simply have it say, "Link exchange" or "Link request." A subject line that isn’t clear is bound to be deleted as spam without being read. You must also make sure that you don’t use attachments unless specifically asked to do so. In your e-mail introduce yourself and the website you represent. Include the full URL:
http://www.anynameyouwant.com
This will make it easier for the webmaster to copy-and-paste your linking information if it is approved. You must also let the other party know that you have visited their site. A good way to do this is to complement them on something unique to their website that would require a bit of surfing to see.
Secondly, trading links gives you better chances of getting listed in paid submission search engines for free. THAT’S RIGHT FOR FREE! When you are ranking your site, the search engines do link analysis as part of their algorithms. Your search engine rankings and link analysis score steadily increases as proportionally as the number of relevant quality links back to your site increases.
How Search Engines Evaluate Links:
In order to be able to figure out how search engine evaluate your links, you have to ask yourself these key questions first:
! How many sites do you have linking to your site right now?
! What is the "Page Rank" of the site that links to yours?
! Are the links reciprocal or one way?
! Does your site [or the site that links to you] have links that are relevant to the content in the site?
! Are these valuable links or is this link a part of a "Link Farm"?
Just for the record Reciprocal Links are the easiest to obtain and will aid in gaining better placement on the search engines, but they are not as valuable as One Way Links because you have to look for a link on their Home page to their Links page. The most common name to find it under is usually called "Links", but "Resources" is also quite popular.
If you cannot find this link or if they don’t have a link that is easily found, you may want to skip them all together. If you can’t find their reciprocal links, chances are no one else, including the search engines, will find them either, so you don’t have to panic about it.
You will want to be sure that their reciprocal links exist in the same domain as their site. There is no point to having a link to your site on a site other than the one in which you want to exchange links with. Why would you? You have to check and see how they have their reciprocal links configured. To do that, ask yourself these questions: Are there categories? Are the listings in alphabetical order within the categories? Is it just a free-for-all (another term for "link farm") or are the other links somewhat relevant? You want your link to be in a relevant category that can easily be found.
Explore their content
It wouldn’t make any sense to share or trade links with another site without knowing first what their site has in it. Is there anything that your average visitor would find objectionable? Is their site in working order? After all, you will be placing a link on your site to this site and it will reflect you too.
Place the other website’s link on your site first & test the response
If the site that you are thinking of linking has passed your inspection, as a show of good faith, you can place a link to your potential partner’s website on your site first. During your visit, you should have found some sort of information regarding their site’s title and description as well as the category or theme that they would prefer. If this is not clear, you should be able to write a little something for them. Remember it should be a theme that matches your own.
Properly contact the other website merchant
While you are visiting the website, you should have discovered how they want to be contacted for a link exchange. If they have a form to fill out, be sure that you use it. Read and follow their directions properly. Typically, they will then ask you for a link to their site first. If you have been following my tips, you have already done that. Do not tell them you have placed a link to their website before you actually do. Many of these people are quick to look and see. If it’s not there, your request may be ignored or at least will take a lot longer.
E-mailing your request
When you are looking to request a link trade, you should see if there are specific ways to go about it by email. If they don’t have a form, look for a specific e-mail address they want used for such inquiries. No matter who you e-mail, be brief and to the point. If they have already included a subject line in their e-mail link, don’t change it. If they haven’t, simply have it say, "Link exchange" or "Link request." A subject line that isn’t clear is bound to be deleted as spam without being read. You must also make sure that you don’t use attachments unless specifically asked to do so. In your e-mail introduce yourself and the website you represent. Include the full URL:
http://www.anynameyouwant.com
This will make it easier for the webmaster to copy-and-paste your linking information if it is approved. You must also let the other party know that you have visited their site. A good way to do this is to complement them on something unique to their website that would require a bit of surfing to see.
Popular Affiliate mistakes & How to fix them
Affiliates who are struggling to earn $100 a month often find it hard to believe that other people could possibly earn as much as $10,000 or even $100,000 a month in commissions. You should believe it. Big commissions do happen and I know because I have seen and tried it myself.
According to Forrester Research, which predicts that affiliate programs and affiliate networks will represent 20%, or $53 billion, of e-commerce sales by 2005, in most programs, 5% of the affiliates generate the vast majority of the sales. If you’re not in that 5% and want to be, you’ll have to change what you’re doing. Part of changing what you re doing, is to avoid doing the things that need changing in the first place.
Many new and old affiliates alike do not succeed because they make mistakes that hinder their revenue potential. Even if you are making these common mistakes, you can fix them. That is why this section had to be included. If you are making these mistakes, this section will show you how to fix them. If youare just starting, this section will show you what to avoid.
Here are 12 mistakes you could be making, and how to fix them.
1. Are you telling people how to make money on the Internet when you don’t know how to do it yourself?
It is just possible that you can succeed at this, but it’s the most obvious trap into which new affiliates fall….making false promises. Often this starts because; you just want to get sales. You can fix this by joining a few affiliate programs and set up a site offering Internet marketing tips, work-from-home tips, instant-business tips, or be-your-own-boss tips.
The advantages of doing this include having great products to promote, high commissions and lots of help from other Internet marketers. However, you should know that if you do this, you will face two massive challenges.
1. You’ll have hundreds of thousands of web pages out there competing with yours.
2. You’re competing with the planet’s best marketing EXPERTS. Some of the brightest brains in Internet marketing are working full-time to grab the attention of your target audience.
I’m not saying you can’t succeed in this field, but if you’re new to affiliate programs, this is definitely NOT the best place to begin. If you’re struggling, you have to find a less popular forum. You don’t have to abandon your existing web site to do this. Just launch a new one based on a new theme. Later, when you’ve learned more and really have something to offer, it will be time to revamp your marketing tips web site. If you want an idea for a product to promote, here’s one. You could promote this book! Okay, you can just go find your own products to pitch, it was just a thought. Of course, you’ll have some competition, but it’s not TOO lively. Eitherway, you will have to choose a new theme. Try a new niche when you are having a problem with your site.
2. Are you promoting the PROGRAM instead of the PRODUCT?
Too many times, affiliates join a two-tier affiliate program and then create a page that is geared toward telling other people to join it. It is a common mistake that is made all to often. I’ve done this myself with my own efforts a few times. So many times new affiliates are so busy promoting their affiliate program, they actually forget to promote the products all together. That is just silly since it is the selling of the product that gives you your revenue. You should feel free to try that technique of promoting your program as well, but not solely and if you do but don’t pin all your hopes on it. Unless you’re really skilled at signing up key people in key places, or know how to sign up many thousands of affiliates, you’re not likely to get rich on second-tier commissions. When you promote the program over the site, the people that you sign up will tend to copy you and try to sign up more people! That sounds like the worst aspects of multi-level marketing. Who’s going to actually SELL something and earn commissions? Only a tiny percentage of the thousands of dollars I earn each month from my affiliates is from second-tier commissions. I succeed because I promote the PRODUCTS. They’re incredibly good value, I believe in them, and I succeed by telling people so because of that fact. It’s that simple. If you want to succeed as an affiliate promote the product FIRST and promote the program second by signing on sub-affiliates on your website.
3. Are you using banners instead of endorsements?
It really does takes time, effort and money to buy and study the product you’re trying to sell. However, personal, enthusiastic endorsements out-sell everything else by miles. If you are always just trying to pimp out bannersinstead of offering real testimonials etc. you will not sell as well. Banners do not tell real people what real people want and their experiences with a product. That comes from YOU. If you put in the effort, you’ll get the sales. You can probably quadruple your sales by endorsing the products you sell. You can also combine graphics, text, short descriptions and relevant articles. However, best of all are your own, original personal endorsements. The key to this is to write honest, enthusiastic endorsements.
4. Are you failing to capture email addresses?
If you don’t collect addresses, your marketing effort is just not doing its job. You will have become the Rico Suave of marketing. Who is Rico Suave you may ask? That is my point exactly. He is a one hit wonder and you don’t want to be that.
If you can’t capture email addresses it usually means that you’re making only one attempt per visitor to achieve a sale and then you are giving up. As branding expert Rob Frankel says, people like buying from people they know, like and trust. If you’re not giving people a chance to get to know and trust you, don’t be surprised if they don’t buy. If you’re not collecting email addresses, you’re seriously crippling your marketing capabilities. Remember how the big dot-coms poured in piles of money into banner advertising and TV advertising? Now they’ve finally realized that collecting email addresses is a much better value. It’s getting harder and harder to do now because we’re all ransacked with spam and newsletters which don’t provide the information we need. So get started now, before the competition becomes even stronger by scooping you on it. You may not want to take on the commitment of publishing a weekly newsletter. Perhaps you don’t believe you have the necessary skills. One option is to simply offer a monthly Update newsletter, telling people what’s new onyour site. The other one is to hire a ghost writer to do it for you. This way you get all of the expertise and you get to put your name on it. Perhaps you don’t like the thought of being tied to a weekly or monthly publishing schedule. You don’t have to be. You can publish irregularly, only when you feel you have something worth saying or selling to the public. It might even help you to garner more interest that way. Of course, you can also add an opt-in e-mail list.
5.Do you have visitors but no sales?
Some affiliates complain that they receive thousands of visitors but can’t turn those visitors into buyers. Chances are, it is because you are just not promoting it properly. That is why you need to know your market and sell to them specifically. If you aren’t getting any sales, you are probably not focusing on your targeted market. Once you do that, you should sell better.
6. Are you Repeating yourself?
If you are just regurgitating the same old thing? It’s time to try something new. If you keep repeating actions which fail, you’ll continue failing. It’s that simple. If what you’re doing isn’t working well, it’s time to change it, to move out of your comfort zone and try something new. Here’s something you can do. You can syndicate your columns or tips all over the Net to other web sites. Imagine how that would boost your image, your traffic and your sales. In doing this, each web site that is publishing your column simply puts two lines of JavaScript code on its page at the location where your column is to appear. All you have to really do is paste your column into a Syndicator form and click a button. That one button click automatically updates all syndicated web site pages. You don’t even have to create the script. The key point here is to try new techniques.
7. Are you building a business without a foundation?
Are you promoting questionable products and services in the hope of earning high commissions? Or are you building something of VALUE? Are you creating a business you’re proud of? These are important questions that you have to ask. Even if it’s a small website that you are running, you have to build a USEFUL, strong web site, one which provides valuable information and helps people. Not only will this give you a great sense of achievement, it will do wonders for your marketing. If you build a site or write a newsletter which helps people, your readers will do a lot of your marketing for you. “If you build it, they will come”. They really will. I love it when I see my sites mentioned on other web sites, in newsletters, in mailing lists and in books. I love it when web sites link to mine and so will you. Often times, when you do this for another websites, they will do it in return.
Such a website takes time to build but after a while momentum builds. If you’re the expert in your particular field, you’ll be interviewed for articles in newsletters and books – and those articles will attract more interviews for more articles. All of those links and favorable mentions don’t just boost your reputation and sales, they help boost your ranking in search engines such as Google too because the more you are there, the more the spiders will find your content relevant during a search.
8. Are you selling ONLY other people’s products?
It is possible to earn a living that way, but such successes are rare. To make the most money that you can, you should create your OWN product. Then you can use affiliate programs for back-end sales. That works well because someone who has just bought a product is often in the mood for buying a second, complementary product.
When you create your own product, you can control your destiny in a way that you can’t do when you are only selling for someone else. This way you get to control how it is marketed. You control how much profit you make. Create your own product.
9. Are you just SELLING instead of HELPING?
This question is asking if your web site or newsletter just selling, or is it helping people learn? The fact of the matter is that if you create a helpful, learning community you’ll put people in the mood for buying. That is just the way it is.
10. Are you learning from mediocre sources?
Because the conditions are constantly changing so fast on the Net, you need to learn fast and grab the opportunities which exist now. One way to save much of your precious time is to learn from Internet experts. You won’t make so many mistakes that way. Learn from people who are earning a very good living from Internet marketing. Check out as many resources as you can. It is just common sense, someone else may have something to say that I don’t already know in this book……hey, anything’s possible.
11. Have you forgotten to add a dash of personality?
I have said this too many times before. Too much of the Internet is cold and anonymous. Your web site visitors appreciate knowing that there’s a real person running the site they’re visiting. Inject your personality into your site because that shows that the site is not just a salesman talking to them, but a real person just like them.
12. Are you failing to PLAN properly?
First of all, you have to decide what you want to do. Here are three main options that are best for affiliates like us to use. Let me tell you that they all work.
According to Forrester Research, which predicts that affiliate programs and affiliate networks will represent 20%, or $53 billion, of e-commerce sales by 2005, in most programs, 5% of the affiliates generate the vast majority of the sales. If you’re not in that 5% and want to be, you’ll have to change what you’re doing. Part of changing what you re doing, is to avoid doing the things that need changing in the first place.
Many new and old affiliates alike do not succeed because they make mistakes that hinder their revenue potential. Even if you are making these common mistakes, you can fix them. That is why this section had to be included. If you are making these mistakes, this section will show you how to fix them. If youare just starting, this section will show you what to avoid.
Here are 12 mistakes you could be making, and how to fix them.
1. Are you telling people how to make money on the Internet when you don’t know how to do it yourself?
It is just possible that you can succeed at this, but it’s the most obvious trap into which new affiliates fall….making false promises. Often this starts because; you just want to get sales. You can fix this by joining a few affiliate programs and set up a site offering Internet marketing tips, work-from-home tips, instant-business tips, or be-your-own-boss tips.
The advantages of doing this include having great products to promote, high commissions and lots of help from other Internet marketers. However, you should know that if you do this, you will face two massive challenges.
1. You’ll have hundreds of thousands of web pages out there competing with yours.
2. You’re competing with the planet’s best marketing EXPERTS. Some of the brightest brains in Internet marketing are working full-time to grab the attention of your target audience.
I’m not saying you can’t succeed in this field, but if you’re new to affiliate programs, this is definitely NOT the best place to begin. If you’re struggling, you have to find a less popular forum. You don’t have to abandon your existing web site to do this. Just launch a new one based on a new theme. Later, when you’ve learned more and really have something to offer, it will be time to revamp your marketing tips web site. If you want an idea for a product to promote, here’s one. You could promote this book! Okay, you can just go find your own products to pitch, it was just a thought. Of course, you’ll have some competition, but it’s not TOO lively. Eitherway, you will have to choose a new theme. Try a new niche when you are having a problem with your site.
2. Are you promoting the PROGRAM instead of the PRODUCT?
Too many times, affiliates join a two-tier affiliate program and then create a page that is geared toward telling other people to join it. It is a common mistake that is made all to often. I’ve done this myself with my own efforts a few times. So many times new affiliates are so busy promoting their affiliate program, they actually forget to promote the products all together. That is just silly since it is the selling of the product that gives you your revenue. You should feel free to try that technique of promoting your program as well, but not solely and if you do but don’t pin all your hopes on it. Unless you’re really skilled at signing up key people in key places, or know how to sign up many thousands of affiliates, you’re not likely to get rich on second-tier commissions. When you promote the program over the site, the people that you sign up will tend to copy you and try to sign up more people! That sounds like the worst aspects of multi-level marketing. Who’s going to actually SELL something and earn commissions? Only a tiny percentage of the thousands of dollars I earn each month from my affiliates is from second-tier commissions. I succeed because I promote the PRODUCTS. They’re incredibly good value, I believe in them, and I succeed by telling people so because of that fact. It’s that simple. If you want to succeed as an affiliate promote the product FIRST and promote the program second by signing on sub-affiliates on your website.
3. Are you using banners instead of endorsements?
It really does takes time, effort and money to buy and study the product you’re trying to sell. However, personal, enthusiastic endorsements out-sell everything else by miles. If you are always just trying to pimp out bannersinstead of offering real testimonials etc. you will not sell as well. Banners do not tell real people what real people want and their experiences with a product. That comes from YOU. If you put in the effort, you’ll get the sales. You can probably quadruple your sales by endorsing the products you sell. You can also combine graphics, text, short descriptions and relevant articles. However, best of all are your own, original personal endorsements. The key to this is to write honest, enthusiastic endorsements.
4. Are you failing to capture email addresses?
If you don’t collect addresses, your marketing effort is just not doing its job. You will have become the Rico Suave of marketing. Who is Rico Suave you may ask? That is my point exactly. He is a one hit wonder and you don’t want to be that.
If you can’t capture email addresses it usually means that you’re making only one attempt per visitor to achieve a sale and then you are giving up. As branding expert Rob Frankel says, people like buying from people they know, like and trust. If you’re not giving people a chance to get to know and trust you, don’t be surprised if they don’t buy. If you’re not collecting email addresses, you’re seriously crippling your marketing capabilities. Remember how the big dot-coms poured in piles of money into banner advertising and TV advertising? Now they’ve finally realized that collecting email addresses is a much better value. It’s getting harder and harder to do now because we’re all ransacked with spam and newsletters which don’t provide the information we need. So get started now, before the competition becomes even stronger by scooping you on it. You may not want to take on the commitment of publishing a weekly newsletter. Perhaps you don’t believe you have the necessary skills. One option is to simply offer a monthly Update newsletter, telling people what’s new onyour site. The other one is to hire a ghost writer to do it for you. This way you get all of the expertise and you get to put your name on it. Perhaps you don’t like the thought of being tied to a weekly or monthly publishing schedule. You don’t have to be. You can publish irregularly, only when you feel you have something worth saying or selling to the public. It might even help you to garner more interest that way. Of course, you can also add an opt-in e-mail list.
5.Do you have visitors but no sales?
Some affiliates complain that they receive thousands of visitors but can’t turn those visitors into buyers. Chances are, it is because you are just not promoting it properly. That is why you need to know your market and sell to them specifically. If you aren’t getting any sales, you are probably not focusing on your targeted market. Once you do that, you should sell better.
6. Are you Repeating yourself?
If you are just regurgitating the same old thing? It’s time to try something new. If you keep repeating actions which fail, you’ll continue failing. It’s that simple. If what you’re doing isn’t working well, it’s time to change it, to move out of your comfort zone and try something new. Here’s something you can do. You can syndicate your columns or tips all over the Net to other web sites. Imagine how that would boost your image, your traffic and your sales. In doing this, each web site that is publishing your column simply puts two lines of JavaScript code on its page at the location where your column is to appear. All you have to really do is paste your column into a Syndicator form and click a button. That one button click automatically updates all syndicated web site pages. You don’t even have to create the script. The key point here is to try new techniques.
7. Are you building a business without a foundation?
Are you promoting questionable products and services in the hope of earning high commissions? Or are you building something of VALUE? Are you creating a business you’re proud of? These are important questions that you have to ask. Even if it’s a small website that you are running, you have to build a USEFUL, strong web site, one which provides valuable information and helps people. Not only will this give you a great sense of achievement, it will do wonders for your marketing. If you build a site or write a newsletter which helps people, your readers will do a lot of your marketing for you. “If you build it, they will come”. They really will. I love it when I see my sites mentioned on other web sites, in newsletters, in mailing lists and in books. I love it when web sites link to mine and so will you. Often times, when you do this for another websites, they will do it in return.
Such a website takes time to build but after a while momentum builds. If you’re the expert in your particular field, you’ll be interviewed for articles in newsletters and books – and those articles will attract more interviews for more articles. All of those links and favorable mentions don’t just boost your reputation and sales, they help boost your ranking in search engines such as Google too because the more you are there, the more the spiders will find your content relevant during a search.
8. Are you selling ONLY other people’s products?
It is possible to earn a living that way, but such successes are rare. To make the most money that you can, you should create your OWN product. Then you can use affiliate programs for back-end sales. That works well because someone who has just bought a product is often in the mood for buying a second, complementary product.
When you create your own product, you can control your destiny in a way that you can’t do when you are only selling for someone else. This way you get to control how it is marketed. You control how much profit you make. Create your own product.
9. Are you just SELLING instead of HELPING?
This question is asking if your web site or newsletter just selling, or is it helping people learn? The fact of the matter is that if you create a helpful, learning community you’ll put people in the mood for buying. That is just the way it is.
10. Are you learning from mediocre sources?
Because the conditions are constantly changing so fast on the Net, you need to learn fast and grab the opportunities which exist now. One way to save much of your precious time is to learn from Internet experts. You won’t make so many mistakes that way. Learn from people who are earning a very good living from Internet marketing. Check out as many resources as you can. It is just common sense, someone else may have something to say that I don’t already know in this book……hey, anything’s possible.
11. Have you forgotten to add a dash of personality?
I have said this too many times before. Too much of the Internet is cold and anonymous. Your web site visitors appreciate knowing that there’s a real person running the site they’re visiting. Inject your personality into your site because that shows that the site is not just a salesman talking to them, but a real person just like them.
12. Are you failing to PLAN properly?
First of all, you have to decide what you want to do. Here are three main options that are best for affiliates like us to use. Let me tell you that they all work.
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