If you have a shopping cart on your site and you are not involved in affiliate marketing than you are missing out on one of the strongest online marketing techniques available to you. Affiliate marketing is a proven success and it is responsible for millions of dollars in sales for a great many websites.
In fact, affiliate marketing is one tool that levels the playing field for smaller online retailers. A tiny site can work day to day and gain thousands of affiliates in a short period of time. A thousand affiliates in six months for someone working an hour or two a day, a few days a week, is very realistic.
A rough definition of an affiliate program is simply a program that allows webmasters to display your ads on their website and get a cut of the sales generated from the traffic that they send to your site. So, if webmaster Joe puts an ad on his website for your product and a hundred people click that ad and go to your site and three people end up buying your product, Joe will earn a percentage of the money you make from these sales. At the end of each month, you send Joe his check.
One great aspect of the affiliate marketing campaign is that you pay for the advertising only if it is effective and you pay the affiliates only after you have received payment for the sales made. You can’t beat that!
The up front cost is generally under a couple of hundred dollars. This is to buy the affiliate software and install it on your server. This is an inexpensive way to begin and it also has advantages over the other option of joining an affiliate network.
There are a few big affiliate program networks that charge five grand or more to join and will integrate your site in to their network and expose it to their base of thousands of potential affiliates. This is a tempting way to spend five grand and it seems to makes sense that the exposure to the affiliates will be worth the large set up fee. But unless your site is truly unique you will also encounter serious competition within the network. Because of this, every time you recruit a valuable affiliate they will join the network and be exposed to your competitor’s offers plus those of a thousand other affiliate programs. Very distracting and not exactly preferable.
This is the advantage of an independent program. The affiliates you recruit will be focused on your program alone. Why spend so much money and so much time bringing in affiliates who are immediately directed to other programs as soon as they join? This is a big negative for affiliate networks that makes a strong case for running an independent program.
Setting up an affiliate program is very easy. You need some good affiliate software installed on your server and you need the ads. For the software, iDev has a great program for only a hundred dollars. They will install it for you for an additional fifty. For a great affiliate program software package, check out iDev’s at: http://www.idevdirect.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=906
The ads you can create on your own. If you are uncomfortable creating your own ads, look for a good art forum and post with a request for help from a graphic artist. Usually you can find a good artist for an affordable amount.
Once your affiliate software is set up and you have loaded a few ads, you can begin to recruit affiliates. The first thing to do is to submit your program to affiliate program directories. Simply search “affiliate program directories” and you will find a nice list. The directory traffic will bring in some nice affiliates but your own efforts in recruiting will generate the best results.
To recruit affiliates is a simple procedure. Search the web the way you would expect your customers to and go to the sites that come up in the top of the search results. Check the site out and if it looks good send the webmaster an email or a letter, or both. The letter is mentioned because spam filters have begun to block a lot of legitimate email and letters have had fantastic response rates. Working the phone is always good too.
As your affiliate base builds so will your sales. Run weekly or monthly specials, create new ads consistently and communicate with your affiliate using a newsletter and/or a blog. Keep the communications professional and consistent and you will see your program grow every month.
For a small investment you buy a lot of potential. It’s not a get rich quick scheme and it does take a serious effort on your part but the nice thing about affiliate programs is that if you have a good product, and you put the effort forth, you can build an online sales force consisting of thousands of websites helping you sell your product. You only pay for results and only after you get the cash. Few marketing programs compare.
8/16/2009
@5 Tips For Greater Affiliate Marketing Success
1) Follow The Leaders
Stay in affiliate marketing for long enough and a familiar pattern starts to appear. The first thing that you notice is that the same names keep cropping up on other affiliate programs that you might have an interest in. This pattern continues if you sign up to the various news letters that these names promote, but the most revealing secrets are in the emails that they send to you because they contain the news of what product they are about to promote and why you should also consider promoting the same product.
2) Your Commissions
A good affiliate program should pay you commission upwards of 40% depending on the price of the product or service in question, it should also have a two tier system in place. This means that you get a percentage of profits earned from all affiliates who have signed up under you in the same affiliate program.
3) Membership Websites
These type of websites have gained rapid popularity and for good reason, they offer you the chance to earn almost a regular monthly wage from all people who sign up under you. The secret of membership websites is in the quality of the products and services offered which you would normally find to expensive to purchase individually, you get full access to the website so long as you pay the monthly fee which can range from anything from $10 to $100 plus a month.
4) Check Cookies
An often over-looked but very important point regarding Internet marketing, how long does your affiliate cookie last? If your not sure what a cookie is, It is basically a harmless code embedded in your browser every time you visit a website. The cookie tells the website owner information about you and your surfing habits, but what's really interesting is the length of time attached to each cookie. You may be asking yourself "how does this effect me" Well let's say as an example that you decide to promote broomsticks as your affiliate product and the website gives cookies for a one month period only
Each new person that you send to the broomstick website would have to make a purchase within a month, but no later, for you to earn a commission which believe me is a hard thing to do even with a website with great ad copy. So what you need to look out for is affiliate programs that offer cookies for a minimum period of three months which will increase your chances of making a sale by at least 40%
5) Customer Care
The customer care that I'm talking about here concerns you as an affiliate marketer. Any website which you decide to promote should be willing to bend over backwards to help you succeed. There should be pre written solo ads, emails, videos, etc. Everything that you need to sell your product or service if you do not get this, then you are promoting the wrong affiliate program.
This is the end of the article and I hope you find the above five tips useful and profitable in the future. Just remember that great reward does not come without great effort on your part, no matter how much hype you hear about the easy money that can be made on the Internet. If you continue to work hard you will be rewarded.
Stay in affiliate marketing for long enough and a familiar pattern starts to appear. The first thing that you notice is that the same names keep cropping up on other affiliate programs that you might have an interest in. This pattern continues if you sign up to the various news letters that these names promote, but the most revealing secrets are in the emails that they send to you because they contain the news of what product they are about to promote and why you should also consider promoting the same product.
2) Your Commissions
A good affiliate program should pay you commission upwards of 40% depending on the price of the product or service in question, it should also have a two tier system in place. This means that you get a percentage of profits earned from all affiliates who have signed up under you in the same affiliate program.
3) Membership Websites
These type of websites have gained rapid popularity and for good reason, they offer you the chance to earn almost a regular monthly wage from all people who sign up under you. The secret of membership websites is in the quality of the products and services offered which you would normally find to expensive to purchase individually, you get full access to the website so long as you pay the monthly fee which can range from anything from $10 to $100 plus a month.
4) Check Cookies
An often over-looked but very important point regarding Internet marketing, how long does your affiliate cookie last? If your not sure what a cookie is, It is basically a harmless code embedded in your browser every time you visit a website. The cookie tells the website owner information about you and your surfing habits, but what's really interesting is the length of time attached to each cookie. You may be asking yourself "how does this effect me" Well let's say as an example that you decide to promote broomsticks as your affiliate product and the website gives cookies for a one month period only
Each new person that you send to the broomstick website would have to make a purchase within a month, but no later, for you to earn a commission which believe me is a hard thing to do even with a website with great ad copy. So what you need to look out for is affiliate programs that offer cookies for a minimum period of three months which will increase your chances of making a sale by at least 40%
5) Customer Care
The customer care that I'm talking about here concerns you as an affiliate marketer. Any website which you decide to promote should be willing to bend over backwards to help you succeed. There should be pre written solo ads, emails, videos, etc. Everything that you need to sell your product or service if you do not get this, then you are promoting the wrong affiliate program.
This is the end of the article and I hope you find the above five tips useful and profitable in the future. Just remember that great reward does not come without great effort on your part, no matter how much hype you hear about the easy money that can be made on the Internet. If you continue to work hard you will be rewarded.
@How To Avoid Embarrassing Mistakes When You Set Up Your First Program
My first affiliate program was up and running. Or so I thought. Instead, I found myself with a whole lot of egg on my face.
I’m glad to say that by now it’s all sorted out. I figured out what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how I could have avoided it even though technically it wasn’t really my fault. Yet it was. As you’ll see, there was one simple thing I could have done that would have prevented the whole problem.
And now that I’ve moved from being very embarrassed to appreciating the learning lesson, I decided to share it all with you so you won’t have to learn it the hard way.
Here’s what happened:
First of all, I decided to upgrade my shopping cart to the professional version. I had gone back and forth between whether I should do that or whether I should go with one of the programs that had the possibility for affiliate programs built in.
I decided to be optimistic: If I could recruit lots of affiliates and they really started selling lots of my ebooks, having my own program would be far cheaper.
Once I had upgraded, I found the affiliate program easy enough to set up. There were videos to guide me. All looked great. I set up a number of accounts for my friends online and off, looked up their affiliate links, and each one their links, ready for use. After all, customer service rules, right?
And now it was time for the pay-off. I eagerly waited for the sales to roll in.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Eventually, one of my new affiliates asked me why her link had expired. She wrote that when she clicked on it, she got an error message that told her that. So I clicked on her link, and sure enough: there was the error message. That wasn’t good at all.
It was late at night, so I had to wait till morning to really do anything about it. Meanwhile, I worried how many of my other new affiliates had actually sent their links to their lists and spent an hour sending out individual alerts.
In the morning, I called the help desk. It turned out that my shopping cart service had somehow forgotten to turn on a switch. The affiliate program looked great to me, but it wasn’t set up to work all the way through. Well, they fixed it right then.
So it seemed like it wasn’t my fault. But it was, at least in part. And there was a big lesson in it for me:
What could I have done to avoid this snafu? I’m really embarrassed I didn’t think of it earlier. I could have taken some of my friends’ affiliate links, copied them into a browser window and hit return. If I had done that, preferably before mailing them out, I would have discovered the problem immediately.
So then I had to set up my affiliate auto-responder in a big hurry (which should have been in place before I mailed out that first link, come to think of it), and broadcast apologies and updates.
Well... everything is working now. And to be safe and be instantly alerted to any possible troubles, I set myself up as my own affiliate and plugged a couple of banner ads with my link into my own blog. You better believe I will click on them regularly, and I’ll double-check any link I’ll send to my affiliates in the future.
By: Elisabeth Kuhn
I’m glad to say that by now it’s all sorted out. I figured out what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how I could have avoided it even though technically it wasn’t really my fault. Yet it was. As you’ll see, there was one simple thing I could have done that would have prevented the whole problem.
And now that I’ve moved from being very embarrassed to appreciating the learning lesson, I decided to share it all with you so you won’t have to learn it the hard way.
Here’s what happened:
First of all, I decided to upgrade my shopping cart to the professional version. I had gone back and forth between whether I should do that or whether I should go with one of the programs that had the possibility for affiliate programs built in.
I decided to be optimistic: If I could recruit lots of affiliates and they really started selling lots of my ebooks, having my own program would be far cheaper.
Once I had upgraded, I found the affiliate program easy enough to set up. There were videos to guide me. All looked great. I set up a number of accounts for my friends online and off, looked up their affiliate links, and each one their links, ready for use. After all, customer service rules, right?
And now it was time for the pay-off. I eagerly waited for the sales to roll in.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Eventually, one of my new affiliates asked me why her link had expired. She wrote that when she clicked on it, she got an error message that told her that. So I clicked on her link, and sure enough: there was the error message. That wasn’t good at all.
It was late at night, so I had to wait till morning to really do anything about it. Meanwhile, I worried how many of my other new affiliates had actually sent their links to their lists and spent an hour sending out individual alerts.
In the morning, I called the help desk. It turned out that my shopping cart service had somehow forgotten to turn on a switch. The affiliate program looked great to me, but it wasn’t set up to work all the way through. Well, they fixed it right then.
So it seemed like it wasn’t my fault. But it was, at least in part. And there was a big lesson in it for me:
What could I have done to avoid this snafu? I’m really embarrassed I didn’t think of it earlier. I could have taken some of my friends’ affiliate links, copied them into a browser window and hit return. If I had done that, preferably before mailing them out, I would have discovered the problem immediately.
So then I had to set up my affiliate auto-responder in a big hurry (which should have been in place before I mailed out that first link, come to think of it), and broadcast apologies and updates.
Well... everything is working now. And to be safe and be instantly alerted to any possible troubles, I set myself up as my own affiliate and plugged a couple of banner ads with my link into my own blog. You better believe I will click on them regularly, and I’ll double-check any link I’ll send to my affiliates in the future.
By: Elisabeth Kuhn
8/12/2009
@Dating Affiliate Program
More and more websites, even ones of whom you would not expect it from, are carrying banner advertisements for dating websites. Though it is not to everyone’s taste it does make business sense for sites to carry these ads, as they tend to pay off very well indeed. In business terms, the owner of the website where the ad is placed considers the dating site to be among his dating affiliates programs, and vice versa. Should you be on a website and see such a banner ad, and are wondering what possessed the site owner to put it there, consider that for every transaction that takes place as a result of the banner being clicked, the site owner can make 25% or more of the fee.
A statistic says that 33% of the Internet’s users are single and looking for a relationship. Therefore, it is very unsurprising that the Internet has become a major target for dating agencies both new and old and, with the relative anonymity of the medium a major selling point for the very possibly shy new user, there is something of a perfect marriage of customer and medium.
People who could not have been persuaded to join a common-or-garden style dating agency from an advertisement in a magazine will be a lot more willing to join an online agency that doesn’t trigger off any alarm bells with indiscreet letters or telephone calls. There is also an undeniable fact that people in relationships to cheat on their partner, for much the same reasons as above use these services. Though this is regrettable, it is worth remembering that the person doing the cheating is the bad guy (or gal!) here.
If you are a website owner and interested in finding a dating site affiliate, there are many companies and programs advertising just such a service on the Internet. Quality varies, it’s fair to say, but if you can find one that performs the service of synergizing your brands – a dating service for film buffs on a cinematic-leaning website, or a service for professionals on a recruitment-leaning site, for example – then so much the better. Tales have been heard of Asian-themed dating sites being advertised on white-supremacist message boards due to an unfortunate confluence of keywords, so it’s worth watching out for things that may trip you up.
Depending on the nature of your site and exactly how well it would be handled by your regular visitors and customers – who are after all the lifeblood of any site – it may be that you find a dating affiliate to improve the profitability of your site. You may also find that some of the through traffic that previously was just using up bandwidth starts to make money for you. Certainly, the prevalence of dating affiliate programs to be found on the Internet shows that there is a market there for the service. It may be that it is not for you, and that one of very many other affiliate programs works better on your site. Either way, it does give an example of exactly how versatile the Internet has become as a resource.
A statistic says that 33% of the Internet’s users are single and looking for a relationship. Therefore, it is very unsurprising that the Internet has become a major target for dating agencies both new and old and, with the relative anonymity of the medium a major selling point for the very possibly shy new user, there is something of a perfect marriage of customer and medium.
People who could not have been persuaded to join a common-or-garden style dating agency from an advertisement in a magazine will be a lot more willing to join an online agency that doesn’t trigger off any alarm bells with indiscreet letters or telephone calls. There is also an undeniable fact that people in relationships to cheat on their partner, for much the same reasons as above use these services. Though this is regrettable, it is worth remembering that the person doing the cheating is the bad guy (or gal!) here.
If you are a website owner and interested in finding a dating site affiliate, there are many companies and programs advertising just such a service on the Internet. Quality varies, it’s fair to say, but if you can find one that performs the service of synergizing your brands – a dating service for film buffs on a cinematic-leaning website, or a service for professionals on a recruitment-leaning site, for example – then so much the better. Tales have been heard of Asian-themed dating sites being advertised on white-supremacist message boards due to an unfortunate confluence of keywords, so it’s worth watching out for things that may trip you up.
Depending on the nature of your site and exactly how well it would be handled by your regular visitors and customers – who are after all the lifeblood of any site – it may be that you find a dating affiliate to improve the profitability of your site. You may also find that some of the through traffic that previously was just using up bandwidth starts to make money for you. Certainly, the prevalence of dating affiliate programs to be found on the Internet shows that there is a market there for the service. It may be that it is not for you, and that one of very many other affiliate programs works better on your site. Either way, it does give an example of exactly how versatile the Internet has become as a resource.
@Select the Best Affiliate Program
Are you having difficulties in selecting an internet affiliate program to join and promote? Too many opportunities to sort through Uncertain of your next step guess what - you are not alone. Join the crowd! You will probably find the road full of potholes in your research, review and selection of the right affiliate program for you.
You should consider the following steps to help you make the decision on which affiliate program to join and promote. First, you need to find the affiliate programs that are available for you to join and promote. Second, you need to sort through all these opportunities to learn the details of each affiliate program. Third, you need to select a program (or programs) that fit your wants and needs (whatever they may be).
I am making the basic assumption that you want to select a program that will result in cash flowing into your pocket rather than flowing out of your pocket. Look out for the potholes in the road. There are a lot of them out there. You should keep in mind that most affiliate programs will not make any promises regarding your future potential earnings or lack of earnings. Warning - Avoid any program that makes promises that seem unrealistic or too good to be true.
You should review a wide selection of affiliate programs before you decide which program (or programs) is right for you. As painful as it sounds, you need to do the research before making any decision. You should perform sufficient (and not necessarily exhaustive) research to understand what programs exist and what they provide to the affiliate (promoter/seller) and customer (buyer). The amount of research you perform depends on what you need to make an informative decision.
The process of research is probably the most painful and yet the most educational part of setting up an online internet business. Do not cut it short because you will probably pay for it dearly in different ways at a later date. This includes spending unnecessary money, pursuing the wrong marketing paths and just plain wasting your time and energy.
It is essential to perform thorough research if you are going to profit from any promotional effort of an affiliate program. It is an established fact that commercial success starts with having a product to sell (hopefully a product that provides value, usefulness and/or happiness to the buyer of the product). It is another well known fact that the economics picture is not complete without a seller and a buyer that are willing and able to sell and buy the product. Warning - Do not get involved with an affiliate program where it is uncertain what comprises the actual product being sold.
Many factors, including the selling price of the product and the total cost of the product (potential costs include manufacturing, storing, distributing, marketing, and selling), need to be evaluated to determine if a profit can be made on the promotion and sale of an affiliate product. As a side note, the difference between financial success and failure could be a simple matter of promoting a product that has more appeal or intrinsic value to the potential buyer than the cost of the product.
The research process should consist of gathering sufficient information on potential opportunities that will enable you to make an informed decision on what affiliate program(s) to join and promote. You will need to devote precious time and energy to accomplish this phase of the affiliate selection process.
In order to locate the affiliate opportunities, you should start by using a national search engine. Select "key words" in your search (such as: affiliate opportunities, affiliate ebook, affiliate networks, affiliate income, affiliate marketing, etc) to locate opportunities. Be innovative and change the search word(s) to match your personal needs and interest.
You should probably direct your attention to the top 10 to 20 search results for any key word group since these are likely to be the websites with the highest level of internet traffic. Higher traffic is an indicator that the website gets visitors and is probably in demand. Demand is important since it is one part of the economic "demand versus supply" equation.
Write down the appropriate information from each website that will provide you with data to review after you complete you’re online searching. You should probably print out the sales letter and any other useful information that will help in your follow-up review and evaluation. Part of your research will include communicating with the owner of each website that you are considering.
In addition, join some of the internet discussion boards and chat rooms that discuss the topic of affiliate programs. This can potentially provide a wealth of information in your review and comparison process. You can use the search engines to find these discussion boards and chat rooms.
Another source of information resides in ebook and ezine articles that have already been written on the subject of affiliate programs and affiliate marketing. You can locate these ebook and articles by using the search engines. Do not hesitate to communicate with the authors. Work with the authors because it may help you in your quest for usable information. You may find some authors willing to discuss your specific concerns since it may provide them with useful material for their future use.
In the process of performing your research, you will be compiling a lot of hand-written notes and web page printouts of potential affiliate programs. Furthermore, you will probably accumulate material on your computer’s hard drive of website pages on affiliate programs that you had an interest in performing a follow-up analysis upon.
The process of research is not only time consuming but also may consume some of your money. How much money you spend depends on the types of programs you are considering. Furthermore, you may have to join a program or purchase something (for example, buy the ebook that is being promoted) in order to get the information you need for your review and evaluation phase. You should always ask for a free copy - it does not hurt to try.
Keep yourself organized by putting the paper information (hand-written notes and web page printouts) into 3-ring binders. Use tab inserts to separate each affiliate program. Each tab insert should be labeled with an appropriate affiliate program title. This will enable easy identification of each program in the binder and access to the detailed data.
The next step is to make a "summary table" that includes each affiliate program you are considering. The summary table should contain information on each affiliate program such as: name of the program, URL website, definition of what the program offers to the affiliate, description of what is offered to the customer of the product, cost of the program to the customer, commission payable to the affiliate, description of the downlink sales commissions (if any), training available to the affiliate by the owner of the product, sales material available to the affiliate, etc.
Next, you need to review, evaluate and compare the various affiliate programs at a summarized level. This is the phase of utilizing all the information that you collected, categorized and organized during the search phase. This process can now be accomplished with considerably less stress and anxiety than just looking at a list of affiliate programs.
You now have the important and essential information (that fulfills your needs) necessary to make an informed decision. The summary table provides you with the data to compare the different affiliate opportunities (whether it is only two or many).
At this point, your review and evaluation process will probably lead to more questions. However, your questions should now be much targeted. Any follow-up research you need to perform to obtain answers should be highly focused.
Make certain you communicate with the owner of each affiliate program to gain as much knowledge as possible about the respective affiliate program. The owner of the program should be anxious to hear your questions and help you since it could result in increased revenue to the owner. Make your questions as direct and to the point as possible to uncover your deepest concerns.
Finally, what did you achieve or learn from your search of ebook and ezine articles on the topic of affiliate topics? Use this information in your decision process. You should communicate with the author(s) if you found something of interest that can help you in your eventual decision. The author(s) should also be willing to talk to you since it could result in material for future ebook they might write.
I hope you find this information valuable and worth your time in reading. A decision based on having the appropriate information is definitely worth more than a decision made by "guessing." This article is just the beginning. You will find your niche in affiliate programs by performing a proper research, review and comparison of available programs before making your informed decision. Good luck in your quest to find the right affiliate program(s) for your future personal and financial success.
You should consider the following steps to help you make the decision on which affiliate program to join and promote. First, you need to find the affiliate programs that are available for you to join and promote. Second, you need to sort through all these opportunities to learn the details of each affiliate program. Third, you need to select a program (or programs) that fit your wants and needs (whatever they may be).
I am making the basic assumption that you want to select a program that will result in cash flowing into your pocket rather than flowing out of your pocket. Look out for the potholes in the road. There are a lot of them out there. You should keep in mind that most affiliate programs will not make any promises regarding your future potential earnings or lack of earnings. Warning - Avoid any program that makes promises that seem unrealistic or too good to be true.
You should review a wide selection of affiliate programs before you decide which program (or programs) is right for you. As painful as it sounds, you need to do the research before making any decision. You should perform sufficient (and not necessarily exhaustive) research to understand what programs exist and what they provide to the affiliate (promoter/seller) and customer (buyer). The amount of research you perform depends on what you need to make an informative decision.
The process of research is probably the most painful and yet the most educational part of setting up an online internet business. Do not cut it short because you will probably pay for it dearly in different ways at a later date. This includes spending unnecessary money, pursuing the wrong marketing paths and just plain wasting your time and energy.
It is essential to perform thorough research if you are going to profit from any promotional effort of an affiliate program. It is an established fact that commercial success starts with having a product to sell (hopefully a product that provides value, usefulness and/or happiness to the buyer of the product). It is another well known fact that the economics picture is not complete without a seller and a buyer that are willing and able to sell and buy the product. Warning - Do not get involved with an affiliate program where it is uncertain what comprises the actual product being sold.
Many factors, including the selling price of the product and the total cost of the product (potential costs include manufacturing, storing, distributing, marketing, and selling), need to be evaluated to determine if a profit can be made on the promotion and sale of an affiliate product. As a side note, the difference between financial success and failure could be a simple matter of promoting a product that has more appeal or intrinsic value to the potential buyer than the cost of the product.
The research process should consist of gathering sufficient information on potential opportunities that will enable you to make an informed decision on what affiliate program(s) to join and promote. You will need to devote precious time and energy to accomplish this phase of the affiliate selection process.
In order to locate the affiliate opportunities, you should start by using a national search engine. Select "key words" in your search (such as: affiliate opportunities, affiliate ebook, affiliate networks, affiliate income, affiliate marketing, etc) to locate opportunities. Be innovative and change the search word(s) to match your personal needs and interest.
You should probably direct your attention to the top 10 to 20 search results for any key word group since these are likely to be the websites with the highest level of internet traffic. Higher traffic is an indicator that the website gets visitors and is probably in demand. Demand is important since it is one part of the economic "demand versus supply" equation.
Write down the appropriate information from each website that will provide you with data to review after you complete you’re online searching. You should probably print out the sales letter and any other useful information that will help in your follow-up review and evaluation. Part of your research will include communicating with the owner of each website that you are considering.
In addition, join some of the internet discussion boards and chat rooms that discuss the topic of affiliate programs. This can potentially provide a wealth of information in your review and comparison process. You can use the search engines to find these discussion boards and chat rooms.
Another source of information resides in ebook and ezine articles that have already been written on the subject of affiliate programs and affiliate marketing. You can locate these ebook and articles by using the search engines. Do not hesitate to communicate with the authors. Work with the authors because it may help you in your quest for usable information. You may find some authors willing to discuss your specific concerns since it may provide them with useful material for their future use.
In the process of performing your research, you will be compiling a lot of hand-written notes and web page printouts of potential affiliate programs. Furthermore, you will probably accumulate material on your computer’s hard drive of website pages on affiliate programs that you had an interest in performing a follow-up analysis upon.
The process of research is not only time consuming but also may consume some of your money. How much money you spend depends on the types of programs you are considering. Furthermore, you may have to join a program or purchase something (for example, buy the ebook that is being promoted) in order to get the information you need for your review and evaluation phase. You should always ask for a free copy - it does not hurt to try.
Keep yourself organized by putting the paper information (hand-written notes and web page printouts) into 3-ring binders. Use tab inserts to separate each affiliate program. Each tab insert should be labeled with an appropriate affiliate program title. This will enable easy identification of each program in the binder and access to the detailed data.
The next step is to make a "summary table" that includes each affiliate program you are considering. The summary table should contain information on each affiliate program such as: name of the program, URL website, definition of what the program offers to the affiliate, description of what is offered to the customer of the product, cost of the program to the customer, commission payable to the affiliate, description of the downlink sales commissions (if any), training available to the affiliate by the owner of the product, sales material available to the affiliate, etc.
Next, you need to review, evaluate and compare the various affiliate programs at a summarized level. This is the phase of utilizing all the information that you collected, categorized and organized during the search phase. This process can now be accomplished with considerably less stress and anxiety than just looking at a list of affiliate programs.
You now have the important and essential information (that fulfills your needs) necessary to make an informed decision. The summary table provides you with the data to compare the different affiliate opportunities (whether it is only two or many).
At this point, your review and evaluation process will probably lead to more questions. However, your questions should now be much targeted. Any follow-up research you need to perform to obtain answers should be highly focused.
Make certain you communicate with the owner of each affiliate program to gain as much knowledge as possible about the respective affiliate program. The owner of the program should be anxious to hear your questions and help you since it could result in increased revenue to the owner. Make your questions as direct and to the point as possible to uncover your deepest concerns.
Finally, what did you achieve or learn from your search of ebook and ezine articles on the topic of affiliate topics? Use this information in your decision process. You should communicate with the author(s) if you found something of interest that can help you in your eventual decision. The author(s) should also be willing to talk to you since it could result in material for future ebook they might write.
I hope you find this information valuable and worth your time in reading. A decision based on having the appropriate information is definitely worth more than a decision made by "guessing." This article is just the beginning. You will find your niche in affiliate programs by performing a proper research, review and comparison of available programs before making your informed decision. Good luck in your quest to find the right affiliate program(s) for your future personal and financial success.
@Set Up Your Own Web Affiliate Program Today!
Rather than being a part of a web affiliate program, why not start up your own today? The truth of the matter is that setting up a web affiliate program is a lot easier than most people think. True, it is not effortless, but neither is anything worth doing. If you are getting tired of the same old affiliate programs paying you a dreary wage, you will find that running your own program might suit you better. If you are looking to run your own affiliate program, you will find that there are a number of things that you should keep in mind.
When setting up your own web affiliate program, you will find that you can either get in touch with an affiliate service provider or network, or you can buy your affiliate tracking software. Both of these options are feasible, but you will find that one might be better for you than the other. It all has to do with how well you know the business and what you can do to stay afloat on your own. Make sure that you know what the benefits of each are before you go ahead.
With an affiliate service provider or network, you will find that many aspects of the day to day business will be taken care of for you. For instance, you will find that you do not need to worry about things like accounting, or paying the affiliates yourself. You don't need to worry about updating or maintaining the software. You will also find that one of the biggest advantages they offer is that you will not need to worry about things like affiliate managing fraud. If dealing with any of this sounds strange or unnerving to you, you should look for a good provider or network.
However, if you already know that you can handle these things and more, you are going to want to purchase the software. The best reason to buy the software is that you are going to want total control over the whole operation. You will be in charge of everything and you will have the final say. For many people, this is quite important. If you are already aware of the ins and outs of the institution of affiliate marketing, this is definitely going to be the right option for you. You will find that the independence is quite important to the way that you run your business, if not vital.
This is perhaps the most important decision that you need to be sure of when you decide to set up a web affiliate program. Make sure that you feel comfortable with whatever your choice is going to be and that you take the time to really think about how your choice will affect the rest of your life and your business. This is not a decision to make lightly, but once you have made it, you will see that everything starts falling into place.
When you are considering whether or not you should start up your own web affiliate program, you will find that there are a number of things to keep in mind. Remember that you will need to think about how much time and what kind of priority it is going to be for you. Don't get in over your head!
When setting up your own web affiliate program, you will find that you can either get in touch with an affiliate service provider or network, or you can buy your affiliate tracking software. Both of these options are feasible, but you will find that one might be better for you than the other. It all has to do with how well you know the business and what you can do to stay afloat on your own. Make sure that you know what the benefits of each are before you go ahead.
With an affiliate service provider or network, you will find that many aspects of the day to day business will be taken care of for you. For instance, you will find that you do not need to worry about things like accounting, or paying the affiliates yourself. You don't need to worry about updating or maintaining the software. You will also find that one of the biggest advantages they offer is that you will not need to worry about things like affiliate managing fraud. If dealing with any of this sounds strange or unnerving to you, you should look for a good provider or network.
However, if you already know that you can handle these things and more, you are going to want to purchase the software. The best reason to buy the software is that you are going to want total control over the whole operation. You will be in charge of everything and you will have the final say. For many people, this is quite important. If you are already aware of the ins and outs of the institution of affiliate marketing, this is definitely going to be the right option for you. You will find that the independence is quite important to the way that you run your business, if not vital.
This is perhaps the most important decision that you need to be sure of when you decide to set up a web affiliate program. Make sure that you feel comfortable with whatever your choice is going to be and that you take the time to really think about how your choice will affect the rest of your life and your business. This is not a decision to make lightly, but once you have made it, you will see that everything starts falling into place.
When you are considering whether or not you should start up your own web affiliate program, you will find that there are a number of things to keep in mind. Remember that you will need to think about how much time and what kind of priority it is going to be for you. Don't get in over your head!
@The Ebay Affiliate Program
Many people believe that becoming an eBay affiliate is a cumbersome process and that diving into this unfamiliar world is beyond them. Good news. They are wrong! Becoming an eBay affiliate is an easy endeavor – you’ll be making extra money before you know it. In fact, you could make A LOT of extra money. eBay has featured multiple individuals that have made millions of dollars with their affiliate program. It’s actually quite a simple process. You place a link to eBay, or a particular auction or category on eBay, and a potential buyer will click on your link. If they end up buying a product, and many do, you will make a percentage of the overall price of the sale.
The eBay affiliate program can work for anyone. Most affiliates are webmasters, Internet researchers, online sellers and partners. You can promote the site with text links, a vast assortment of banners, eBay articles, placing classified links, etc. You can even download a snippet of code from eBay and place an entire category of auctions on your site. The content will update automatically so you don’t have to worry about spending time learning how to manipulate html code. The top 25 affiliates listed on eBay earn well over 100k per month in monthly commissions and most of them use a well-balanced mix of the above methodologies to achieve that success.
Affiliates can also cross promote other eBay sellers items and get commissions from these sales. However, eBay does not allow you to put these links on certain web pages such as My World, About Me and item pages. It is highly recommended that you take the time to read the affiliate terms and conditions thoroughly before joining and utilizing the program. This might take a little bit of time but it will be worth it in the end.
There are many other affiliate programs out there, but eBay has become one of the most popular, and profitable, opportunities available today. This is partly due to the myriad of opportunities that it offers. If you own a website that deals with fishing there are items that can be sold. If you have a website that deals with dolls with pink hair and red outfits there are items that can be sold. The possibilities are endless with this opportunity because it gives you the ability to reach a niche market. Affiliates can concentrate on a particular subject and sell what they know.
Most of the methodologies that eBay affiliates utilize are easy and automatic. You can offer millions of products and not have to worry about keeping track of inventory or shipping off products. Once the sale is completed, your commission percentage is automatically credited to you and is easily accessible at any time. How easy is that?
As of April 1, 2008, eBay is now administering its own affiliate program. It's called the eBay Partner Network. They were previously utilizing a service called Commission Junction. eBay feels they can offer even more services to their affiliates by tackling this endeavor on their own.
The eBay affiliate program can work for anyone. Most affiliates are webmasters, Internet researchers, online sellers and partners. You can promote the site with text links, a vast assortment of banners, eBay articles, placing classified links, etc. You can even download a snippet of code from eBay and place an entire category of auctions on your site. The content will update automatically so you don’t have to worry about spending time learning how to manipulate html code. The top 25 affiliates listed on eBay earn well over 100k per month in monthly commissions and most of them use a well-balanced mix of the above methodologies to achieve that success.
Affiliates can also cross promote other eBay sellers items and get commissions from these sales. However, eBay does not allow you to put these links on certain web pages such as My World, About Me and item pages. It is highly recommended that you take the time to read the affiliate terms and conditions thoroughly before joining and utilizing the program. This might take a little bit of time but it will be worth it in the end.
There are many other affiliate programs out there, but eBay has become one of the most popular, and profitable, opportunities available today. This is partly due to the myriad of opportunities that it offers. If you own a website that deals with fishing there are items that can be sold. If you have a website that deals with dolls with pink hair and red outfits there are items that can be sold. The possibilities are endless with this opportunity because it gives you the ability to reach a niche market. Affiliates can concentrate on a particular subject and sell what they know.
Most of the methodologies that eBay affiliates utilize are easy and automatic. You can offer millions of products and not have to worry about keeping track of inventory or shipping off products. Once the sale is completed, your commission percentage is automatically credited to you and is easily accessible at any time. How easy is that?
As of April 1, 2008, eBay is now administering its own affiliate program. It's called the eBay Partner Network. They were previously utilizing a service called Commission Junction. eBay feels they can offer even more services to their affiliates by tackling this endeavor on their own.
8/11/2009
@Affiliate New Program – Don’t Be Blind With Affiliate Marketing
You’ve stumbles upon the perfect product to sell as an affiliate marketer. The sales page is so good you think great an “affiliate new program”. The ideas are new and fresh. The product seems to be cutting edge “the next big thing”. The cost is right, the commission fantastic, and the graphics beautiful. Exciting isn’t? Slow down stud. You might be skillful enough to get tons of traffic to your landing page and quickly start generating a lot of sales, but it can be risky to take a new program at face value. What if the product is no good?
Yes you know Refunds; this could be a nightmare for an affiliate. New programs that promote goods that fail to be as good as advertised can cause chargeback’s and refund requests at a rapid speed. All those commission cheques you received that you were happy about will all disappear and all your hard work would be for nothing.
There is something even worse than just loosing those commission cheques. You would destroy the relationship you worked so hard to build with your customers, also all future earning can be in jeopardy because your customers would question every other product you try to sell or recommend to them, and this can set you back months or even years. You would not want to see your profits disappear as angry customers clamor for refunds; this is why you need to do research before putting your name on or promoting a new affiliate product.
What’s the Solution? You should examine the product before promoting it. You must find out if it is good or not. Is it worth the hype, is it all it is advertised to be. Will your customers like it or not? You should get information from people you trust, someone with first hand experience with the product, find out if what is said on the sales page is consistent with the actual product. A good place to check out for this information is forums, and chat rooms if you find forums based on affiliate marketing you can simply ask other fellow affiliates if they know about the particular product. You should get enough information to make an informative decision.
Of course purchasing the actual product and testing it for yourself is also a good idea, this is obviously the best way to test an item. Once you do all of this you would be in a good position to promote a new affiliate product. You can target more traffic with greater efficiency if you know first hand about a product and have high confidence in your product. This would make the possibility of customers purchasing your products higher.
When choosing products to sell and promote be careful and be sure to keep your eyes open and don’t enter blindly. A little vision can give a substantial head start on successful affiliate advertising. Do research on your product and it can save you a world of trouble. If you need more information on affiliate new program check out the attached link.
Yes you know Refunds; this could be a nightmare for an affiliate. New programs that promote goods that fail to be as good as advertised can cause chargeback’s and refund requests at a rapid speed. All those commission cheques you received that you were happy about will all disappear and all your hard work would be for nothing.
There is something even worse than just loosing those commission cheques. You would destroy the relationship you worked so hard to build with your customers, also all future earning can be in jeopardy because your customers would question every other product you try to sell or recommend to them, and this can set you back months or even years. You would not want to see your profits disappear as angry customers clamor for refunds; this is why you need to do research before putting your name on or promoting a new affiliate product.
What’s the Solution? You should examine the product before promoting it. You must find out if it is good or not. Is it worth the hype, is it all it is advertised to be. Will your customers like it or not? You should get information from people you trust, someone with first hand experience with the product, find out if what is said on the sales page is consistent with the actual product. A good place to check out for this information is forums, and chat rooms if you find forums based on affiliate marketing you can simply ask other fellow affiliates if they know about the particular product. You should get enough information to make an informative decision.
Of course purchasing the actual product and testing it for yourself is also a good idea, this is obviously the best way to test an item. Once you do all of this you would be in a good position to promote a new affiliate product. You can target more traffic with greater efficiency if you know first hand about a product and have high confidence in your product. This would make the possibility of customers purchasing your products higher.
When choosing products to sell and promote be careful and be sure to keep your eyes open and don’t enter blindly. A little vision can give a substantial head start on successful affiliate advertising. Do research on your product and it can save you a world of trouble. If you need more information on affiliate new program check out the attached link.
@Affiliate Marketing - Benefits Of Having Your Own Affiliate Program
It is a good thing if you are an affiliate for various programs when you are starting out, depending on the level of marketing expertise you have. Your list and your partners could really pay off well for you.
Over time, you will find steady earnings that will really propel you some in your internet marketing business. While your situation becomes more favorable, you must continue to aim for expansion and be excellent in what you have chosen to undertake as an affiliate.
But the best thing is really having your own affiliate program or joint venture program. This is not about being an affiliate for somebody else. This is now having your own affiliate force.
The good thing about having an affiliate program is that it’s virtually risk free because it’s a pay per sale or pay per performance. You only pay for results. No sale and it won’t cost you anything. There are lots of sales and commissions paid out. The more commissions you pay, the more income you get.
One thing you have to decide in this step is do you want a two tier or one tier model? From a distance or in theory, it really looks like two tier is better because there’s a bit of a viral effect there.
However, there are instant challenges to two tier. The first is from the standpoint of the software. And the second is from the payment-processing standpoint. You need to always ask yourself: Is that the business model you want? Is that the kind of lifestyle you want? So you must go back to the foundations of your business.
If you are using Paypal as a Payment processor, don’t go two tier. Of course, you have to notify Paypal. Now they don’t assign an account manager until you do about 10 to 15 thousand. So, if you’re just starting out, you have nothing to worry about, but you’ll grow out of that point and experience the hassles then.
You have lots of options. You can do pay per click, pay per sale, pay per action or pay per lead. Another thing to decide is which software, system or script you are going to use. These are also very important as you form your affiliate force.
Another thing to consider in an affiliate program is how are you going to keep you people or your affiliates excited or continually promoting your product. You can have special affiliate promotions, contests, special deals.
Having your own affiliate program really brings in pool of benefits for you that being an affiliate for other businesses will not give you. The fact that you manage to monopolize your earnings because it is you who call the shots is a major benefit in itself.
When you do have your own affiliate force, there will be adjustments to make with regard to how you do your business. You will take sole responsibility for how your business turns out.
Over time, you will find steady earnings that will really propel you some in your internet marketing business. While your situation becomes more favorable, you must continue to aim for expansion and be excellent in what you have chosen to undertake as an affiliate.
But the best thing is really having your own affiliate program or joint venture program. This is not about being an affiliate for somebody else. This is now having your own affiliate force.
The good thing about having an affiliate program is that it’s virtually risk free because it’s a pay per sale or pay per performance. You only pay for results. No sale and it won’t cost you anything. There are lots of sales and commissions paid out. The more commissions you pay, the more income you get.
One thing you have to decide in this step is do you want a two tier or one tier model? From a distance or in theory, it really looks like two tier is better because there’s a bit of a viral effect there.
However, there are instant challenges to two tier. The first is from the standpoint of the software. And the second is from the payment-processing standpoint. You need to always ask yourself: Is that the business model you want? Is that the kind of lifestyle you want? So you must go back to the foundations of your business.
If you are using Paypal as a Payment processor, don’t go two tier. Of course, you have to notify Paypal. Now they don’t assign an account manager until you do about 10 to 15 thousand. So, if you’re just starting out, you have nothing to worry about, but you’ll grow out of that point and experience the hassles then.
You have lots of options. You can do pay per click, pay per sale, pay per action or pay per lead. Another thing to decide is which software, system or script you are going to use. These are also very important as you form your affiliate force.
Another thing to consider in an affiliate program is how are you going to keep you people or your affiliates excited or continually promoting your product. You can have special affiliate promotions, contests, special deals.
Having your own affiliate program really brings in pool of benefits for you that being an affiliate for other businesses will not give you. The fact that you manage to monopolize your earnings because it is you who call the shots is a major benefit in itself.
When you do have your own affiliate force, there will be adjustments to make with regard to how you do your business. You will take sole responsibility for how your business turns out.
@Reseller Program Or Affiliate Program? Which Is Better?
When it comes time to expand your business there are two ways you can hire a work force without having to pay them out of pocket. You can start an affiliate program, which is a simple way to hire a motivated sales force and pay them based on their production. But one often overlooked method of expanding the online business is with a reseller program.
The difference between a reseller program and an affiliate program is that resellers usually buy your product or service from you at the price that you set then turn around and sell the product or service to their customers for a profit. There are advantages and disadvantages to both kinds of programs. I prefer affiliate programs, but there are businesses that can benefit from a reseller program.
If you sell products or services below market value then you can set up a reseller program with not much risk. One industry that is rife with resellers is the web hosting business. Many large web hosts have a reseller program where they sell a huge amount of web space for a low price. Their resellers then sell the hosting services for a profit. There are literally thousands of resellers out there for the various hosting companies online.
Almost any product or service can benefit from a reseller program. But most will benefit from an affiliate program too. With a reseller program you don’t have to spend as much time and energy creating helpful materials. It’s almost obligatory for an affiliate program. In fact, it is recommended if you want your affiliate program to succeed. Resellers tend to be a more independent lot and many like to add their own services to the products and services they purchase from you.
When it comes to deciding between a reseller program or an affiliate program, think long term. It is easier for a reseller to get out than for an affiliate. Affiliates tend to market heavily and may have ads, newsletters, websites, and other online marketing collateral built just around your products and services. And the personalities of resellers vs. affiliates must be considered as well. A reseller may demand more service from you whereas your affiliates will follow your lead more. Something else for you to consider.
So should you have an affiliate program or a reseller program. They both benefits and drawbacks. It just depends on your goals.
The difference between a reseller program and an affiliate program is that resellers usually buy your product or service from you at the price that you set then turn around and sell the product or service to their customers for a profit. There are advantages and disadvantages to both kinds of programs. I prefer affiliate programs, but there are businesses that can benefit from a reseller program.
If you sell products or services below market value then you can set up a reseller program with not much risk. One industry that is rife with resellers is the web hosting business. Many large web hosts have a reseller program where they sell a huge amount of web space for a low price. Their resellers then sell the hosting services for a profit. There are literally thousands of resellers out there for the various hosting companies online.
Almost any product or service can benefit from a reseller program. But most will benefit from an affiliate program too. With a reseller program you don’t have to spend as much time and energy creating helpful materials. It’s almost obligatory for an affiliate program. In fact, it is recommended if you want your affiliate program to succeed. Resellers tend to be a more independent lot and many like to add their own services to the products and services they purchase from you.
When it comes to deciding between a reseller program or an affiliate program, think long term. It is easier for a reseller to get out than for an affiliate. Affiliates tend to market heavily and may have ads, newsletters, websites, and other online marketing collateral built just around your products and services. And the personalities of resellers vs. affiliates must be considered as well. A reseller may demand more service from you whereas your affiliates will follow your lead more. Something else for you to consider.
So should you have an affiliate program or a reseller program. They both benefits and drawbacks. It just depends on your goals.
@7 Ways To Protect Your Affiliate Program From Affiliate-Scammers
In an affiliate program, one or more less popular companies join together and help one another in marketing their products and services. The program works as the affiliates are paid commission whenever something is brought to the parent site through the attempts of the affiliates including website visitors, purchases made at the affiliate site, clicks on the advertisements or new registrations at the site. Recruiting affiliates helps in spreading the brand awareness of the company, attract more traffic to the site and increase the sales of the company, therefore it becomes extremely essential to choose an affiliate who is well-versed with the technicalities of marketing and who is able to attract more traffic to your website. It is a wonderful idea to have some one to work for you and send traffic to your website and all you have to do is to sit and wait for the visitors logging on to your site.
In order to attract affiliates to your website, you need to place ads on the relevant websites that are attractive enough to draw people who are interested to become affiliates. But… Among a lot of good affiliates, there are a huge number of affiliate scammers on the net who are lying around and waiting to trap you when you start looking for a real affiliate to do deal with. Believe it or not, there is an entire niche industry of these scammers. So, in order to avoid being trapped by these affiliate scammers, you need to follow these simple steps while recruiting an affiliate:
1.First of all, you must make sure that the affiliates recruited by you have your web links on their website. May be you will have to remind them a few times through monthly newsletters and monthly progress reports.
2.Always track your affiliates – where do they get the traffic from – websites, search engines, pay per click campaigns, etc. Check if the affiliates are placing your ads on some of the most popular sites.
3.Check if they are submitting articles or any content about your products to some of the most reputed article directories.
4.In order to get away from the affiliate scammers, do a lot of research of the affiliates when they join your affiliate program. Track where do they get their traffic from, track if that traffic converts. You should definitely check for fraud that affiliates might bring. E.g. if an affiliate joins and starts making a lot of sales in a very short period of time, you should better check where does he/she gets the traffic from, if it’s a legit traffic, etc.
5.Join some good web-master forums and read their posts and threads. Try to search for posts about affiliate’s scamming. This way you will definitely find some user experiences and tips on how to avoid such affiliates.
6.Once an affiliate signs up on your program and starts making sales, you should definitely contact him/her. Why? This way you could develop a relationship with your partner, ask if he/she needs anything more to promote. This way you could also check out if your affiliate responds to your messages.
7.You need to have a good affiliate management system like Click2Sell.EU (http://www.click2sell.eu) in order to completely track all your own and your affiliates sales, track your affiliate’s performance and if you find the bad ones – you can easily ban them. This way you can keep a record of your sales drawn through the affiliate’s efforts and develop a good partnership with your affiliates.
If you have started your own affiliate program and want to recruit some affiliates for your program then the above mentioned tips can provide you with the best possible affiliates in the market and also avoid you from getting involved in undesirable affiliate scammers.
In order to attract affiliates to your website, you need to place ads on the relevant websites that are attractive enough to draw people who are interested to become affiliates. But… Among a lot of good affiliates, there are a huge number of affiliate scammers on the net who are lying around and waiting to trap you when you start looking for a real affiliate to do deal with. Believe it or not, there is an entire niche industry of these scammers. So, in order to avoid being trapped by these affiliate scammers, you need to follow these simple steps while recruiting an affiliate:
1.First of all, you must make sure that the affiliates recruited by you have your web links on their website. May be you will have to remind them a few times through monthly newsletters and monthly progress reports.
2.Always track your affiliates – where do they get the traffic from – websites, search engines, pay per click campaigns, etc. Check if the affiliates are placing your ads on some of the most popular sites.
3.Check if they are submitting articles or any content about your products to some of the most reputed article directories.
4.In order to get away from the affiliate scammers, do a lot of research of the affiliates when they join your affiliate program. Track where do they get their traffic from, track if that traffic converts. You should definitely check for fraud that affiliates might bring. E.g. if an affiliate joins and starts making a lot of sales in a very short period of time, you should better check where does he/she gets the traffic from, if it’s a legit traffic, etc.
5.Join some good web-master forums and read their posts and threads. Try to search for posts about affiliate’s scamming. This way you will definitely find some user experiences and tips on how to avoid such affiliates.
6.Once an affiliate signs up on your program and starts making sales, you should definitely contact him/her. Why? This way you could develop a relationship with your partner, ask if he/she needs anything more to promote. This way you could also check out if your affiliate responds to your messages.
7.You need to have a good affiliate management system like Click2Sell.EU (http://www.click2sell.eu) in order to completely track all your own and your affiliates sales, track your affiliate’s performance and if you find the bad ones – you can easily ban them. This way you can keep a record of your sales drawn through the affiliate’s efforts and develop a good partnership with your affiliates.
If you have started your own affiliate program and want to recruit some affiliates for your program then the above mentioned tips can provide you with the best possible affiliates in the market and also avoid you from getting involved in undesirable affiliate scammers.
8/09/2009
@What Are The Best Affiliate Products To Promote?
The Internet is growing constantly with no signs of stopping or slowing down any time soon so if you’ve made the decision to get into Affiliate Marketing you have made a good decision. Affiliate marketing is going to be around for along time. As a new affiliate marketer you want to sell in a program that is sold through a billing environment that is totally secure. One constantly asked question in Affiliate marketing is “Where to find the absolute best affiliate products to sell?”
When selecting a product there are some things you should look for, the price of the product as well as the percentage on commissions, this is very important because everybody is looking for a great return on there time and investment. Some sites make it harder to earn a good profit because the price they charge for there product is very cheap for e.g. sites like Amazon sell there product so cheap that the percentage pay out on that site would be very low, Compare $16.95 hard-cover books to a 49.99 e-book – if you got 50% commission on both which would you choose to promote?
A good program to start is an Affiliate Clickbank Program by selling products from Click bank. They have thousands of products to promote with very high percentage payouts and most importantly they pay you your commission on time, they pay you directly not like a lot of other affiliate programs that pay late or sometimes not at all. They have products to sell in nearly any niche market plus commissions range can form 50-75% with products with a high price tag.
As an affiliate marketer you might want to try different affiliate systems to see which one works best for you. One of the good things with Affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to limit yourself to promoting only one site, you can promote as much as you want and increase your profit potential. Other good sites to consider are Commission Junction, LinkShare, PayDotCome, Success University and PIPS all these are just as good as Click bank.
Combining different affiliate programs allow you to make money from different sites, at first you might just use one affiliate site but as your skills improve you might decide to promote more than one or just specialize in a particular niche. One site that combines six affiliates is the Plug in Profits site, this site consists of - Adminder, SFI Marketing, Success University, Leisure Audio Books Empowerism, and Host4Profit.
When making a choice may it be an affiliate Clickbank program or any other, you need to be very careful because the first thing you want to do is build an opt-in list and start building a relationship with your subscribers, you want to offer your subscribers the best possible products and not stain your reputation by offering bad affiliate products. Most of these big affiliate sites have training material and free software to help you promote you site so make sure and look for it; this can help you make tons of money. To learn more about Affiliate Clickbank Program check out the attached link.
When selecting a product there are some things you should look for, the price of the product as well as the percentage on commissions, this is very important because everybody is looking for a great return on there time and investment. Some sites make it harder to earn a good profit because the price they charge for there product is very cheap for e.g. sites like Amazon sell there product so cheap that the percentage pay out on that site would be very low, Compare $16.95 hard-cover books to a 49.99 e-book – if you got 50% commission on both which would you choose to promote?
A good program to start is an Affiliate Clickbank Program by selling products from Click bank. They have thousands of products to promote with very high percentage payouts and most importantly they pay you your commission on time, they pay you directly not like a lot of other affiliate programs that pay late or sometimes not at all. They have products to sell in nearly any niche market plus commissions range can form 50-75% with products with a high price tag.
As an affiliate marketer you might want to try different affiliate systems to see which one works best for you. One of the good things with Affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to limit yourself to promoting only one site, you can promote as much as you want and increase your profit potential. Other good sites to consider are Commission Junction, LinkShare, PayDotCome, Success University and PIPS all these are just as good as Click bank.
Combining different affiliate programs allow you to make money from different sites, at first you might just use one affiliate site but as your skills improve you might decide to promote more than one or just specialize in a particular niche. One site that combines six affiliates is the Plug in Profits site, this site consists of - Adminder, SFI Marketing, Success University, Leisure Audio Books Empowerism, and Host4Profit.
When making a choice may it be an affiliate Clickbank program or any other, you need to be very careful because the first thing you want to do is build an opt-in list and start building a relationship with your subscribers, you want to offer your subscribers the best possible products and not stain your reputation by offering bad affiliate products. Most of these big affiliate sites have training material and free software to help you promote you site so make sure and look for it; this can help you make tons of money. To learn more about Affiliate Clickbank Program check out the attached link.
@How To Choose The Best Affiliate Program For You?
Choosing a good affiliate program is an important step to start your affiliate business, especially if you're a newbie. Choosing a wrong program will ruin your business. Many of my students ask me, "how to generate traffic and sales for my website?" When I see their niche, it's always about "money making". Oh gosh, that's the must-avoid niche for newbie.
Find affiliate programs that are free to join. There are hundreds of choices, so don't waste your money to join a paid affiliate program. Select an affiliate program that suited with your payment time. Different affiliate program have different schedule to pay commission checks.
Another thing to analyze is hit per sale ratio. Hit per sale ratio is the average number of hits takes to generate a sale. Find an affiliate program that has a high traffic ratio. Most newbie failed because they promote a product that has low sales from affiliate statistics.
Find out how long your affiliate cookie remains in the system. Make sure the program can track you as the person who refers those people. Search for a program that has a longer period of time. Most visitors don't buy the product at the first time.
Some affiliate programs also pay for impression and hits. This could be a benefit if the programs have low sales. Some of the programs also pay commissions for 2 tier. That means you will get commission for each sales from your affiliates you refer. So you will get double commissions.
Lastly, the most important thing that cannot be missed is how much the commission paid. You can find affiliate programs that give commissions up to 75% in clickbank. Don't waste your time to promote a program that only give you commissions lower than 50%.
Make sure you analyze the product before start to make a website and promoting it. These are only a few aspects that you need to analyze first.
Everybody knows that affiliate marketing is an easy way to earn money online. Unfortunately, everyone knows it and everyone doing it. The competition is getting high and you need to stand out of the crowd to be succeeded in this business.
There are always new challenges every day, as people began to develop new kinds of strategy and tactics to promote their affiliate programs. That’s why you must always think out of the box so your affiliate program will work effectively and getting more earnings.
Today I will show you the most powerful promotion tool that will increase your sales greatly, streaming videos. Show them in video forms, what are the capabilities of your offered product. They will be interested on how they will able to do it too. Most importantly, they will believe that you are offering them a good product.
How to create a streaming screen captured video? I recommend Camtasia software. It is the best screen capturing software that I ever found. It is very easy to create a video and everyone can do it at the first time. You can record the process on how to use the program you are promoting, or show them your online bank account and the program is really making your bank account explode.
With Camtasia, you can record anything that happens on your monitor. It recorded directly and you can convert them into web pages instantly. After that, just upload the pages and people can see your video in streaming mode.
When people see your video, those who are skeptics will believe what you’ve show them. It will also reduce refunds, because you have showed them how to use the programs. You can use the video to be promoted on social networking site like myspace or friendster. When you write your affiliate website, they will come to your site if they think that they need more information. Don’t forget to put your website in your video.
Based on the survey, a promotion that includes images will increase sales by 400%. It will be higher if it were videos. You can also minimize the communication with your customers. You have showed them how to do it on the videos, and if any of them can understand, so does the others.
You can use video for entertainment and fun purposes with Camtasia. It can also become a viral marketing strategy to make people pass your video to their friends.
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed (yesterday) my brand new guide to affiliate marketing success, 'Internet Marketing Success'.
Find affiliate programs that are free to join. There are hundreds of choices, so don't waste your money to join a paid affiliate program. Select an affiliate program that suited with your payment time. Different affiliate program have different schedule to pay commission checks.
Another thing to analyze is hit per sale ratio. Hit per sale ratio is the average number of hits takes to generate a sale. Find an affiliate program that has a high traffic ratio. Most newbie failed because they promote a product that has low sales from affiliate statistics.
Find out how long your affiliate cookie remains in the system. Make sure the program can track you as the person who refers those people. Search for a program that has a longer period of time. Most visitors don't buy the product at the first time.
Some affiliate programs also pay for impression and hits. This could be a benefit if the programs have low sales. Some of the programs also pay commissions for 2 tier. That means you will get commission for each sales from your affiliates you refer. So you will get double commissions.
Lastly, the most important thing that cannot be missed is how much the commission paid. You can find affiliate programs that give commissions up to 75% in clickbank. Don't waste your time to promote a program that only give you commissions lower than 50%.
Make sure you analyze the product before start to make a website and promoting it. These are only a few aspects that you need to analyze first.
Everybody knows that affiliate marketing is an easy way to earn money online. Unfortunately, everyone knows it and everyone doing it. The competition is getting high and you need to stand out of the crowd to be succeeded in this business.
There are always new challenges every day, as people began to develop new kinds of strategy and tactics to promote their affiliate programs. That’s why you must always think out of the box so your affiliate program will work effectively and getting more earnings.
Today I will show you the most powerful promotion tool that will increase your sales greatly, streaming videos. Show them in video forms, what are the capabilities of your offered product. They will be interested on how they will able to do it too. Most importantly, they will believe that you are offering them a good product.
How to create a streaming screen captured video? I recommend Camtasia software. It is the best screen capturing software that I ever found. It is very easy to create a video and everyone can do it at the first time. You can record the process on how to use the program you are promoting, or show them your online bank account and the program is really making your bank account explode.
With Camtasia, you can record anything that happens on your monitor. It recorded directly and you can convert them into web pages instantly. After that, just upload the pages and people can see your video in streaming mode.
When people see your video, those who are skeptics will believe what you’ve show them. It will also reduce refunds, because you have showed them how to use the programs. You can use the video to be promoted on social networking site like myspace or friendster. When you write your affiliate website, they will come to your site if they think that they need more information. Don’t forget to put your website in your video.
Based on the survey, a promotion that includes images will increase sales by 400%. It will be higher if it were videos. You can also minimize the communication with your customers. You have showed them how to do it on the videos, and if any of them can understand, so does the others.
You can use video for entertainment and fun purposes with Camtasia. It can also become a viral marketing strategy to make people pass your video to their friends.
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed (yesterday) my brand new guide to affiliate marketing success, 'Internet Marketing Success'.
@Affiliate Marketing: Characteristics Of A Good Affiliate Program
Affiliate Marketing has developed into an Internet marketing specialty. Not everyone can do it effectively. It’s not real hard, but it is tedious work and requires some attention to detail. The best affiliate marketing programs all have certain characteristics that make them successful. Here are a few of the most important characteristics of an affiliate marketing program:
Pays monthly - This is a big one. If you don’t pay often enough you’ll lose affiliates and you can’t grow without affiliates.
Pays generously - This is perhaps the most important determinant of whether an affiliate marketing program will succeed. Pay your affiliates well and they will stick with you. Don’t, and they will leave.
Two-tiered structure - Two-tiered affiliate programs are under rated, but the best affiliate marketing programs pay people for recruiting other affiliates. The second tier doesn’t have to be much. It can be about 10% or even 5% of the affiliate commission (which I highly recommend be about 50% for most products), but at 5% of the affiliate commission your affiliates will recruit others to join their sales team and you will succeed all the more.
Provides support materials - Banners, sales pages, other resources. Whatever will help your affiliates be better affiliates, that’s what you need to do. Support them and they’ll support you.
Communicates with affiliates on a regular basis - Really. Don’t leave your sales team hanging. Either write a blog just for your affiliates, start an e-zine just for them, or both. But you have to communicate with them on a regular basis so that they don’t feel abandoned.
Offers specials - Every now and then you need to run a special, or a contest. This is motivational. It gets people excited and motivated, excited affiliates work harder to sell your products.
If you want your affiliates to be successful, you’ve got to give them the tools to do so. Otherwise, they will abandon you like a sinking ship and you’ll be left selling your own cold, stale products.
Pays monthly - This is a big one. If you don’t pay often enough you’ll lose affiliates and you can’t grow without affiliates.
Pays generously - This is perhaps the most important determinant of whether an affiliate marketing program will succeed. Pay your affiliates well and they will stick with you. Don’t, and they will leave.
Two-tiered structure - Two-tiered affiliate programs are under rated, but the best affiliate marketing programs pay people for recruiting other affiliates. The second tier doesn’t have to be much. It can be about 10% or even 5% of the affiliate commission (which I highly recommend be about 50% for most products), but at 5% of the affiliate commission your affiliates will recruit others to join their sales team and you will succeed all the more.
Provides support materials - Banners, sales pages, other resources. Whatever will help your affiliates be better affiliates, that’s what you need to do. Support them and they’ll support you.
Communicates with affiliates on a regular basis - Really. Don’t leave your sales team hanging. Either write a blog just for your affiliates, start an e-zine just for them, or both. But you have to communicate with them on a regular basis so that they don’t feel abandoned.
Offers specials - Every now and then you need to run a special, or a contest. This is motivational. It gets people excited and motivated, excited affiliates work harder to sell your products.
If you want your affiliates to be successful, you’ve got to give them the tools to do so. Otherwise, they will abandon you like a sinking ship and you’ll be left selling your own cold, stale products.
@Review Of A New Promising Affiliate Program – Affiliate Junktion
I just enrolled into Affiliate Junktion as I find it looks promising as an affiliate program.
Here are the details:
Affiliate Junktion is now recruiting new affiliates to join the Affiliate Junktion Program. Affiliate Junktion, a global leader in providing internet marketing and affiliate marketing services online, is now recruiting new affiliates to join the Affiliate Junktion Program. It is completely Free to join, with 1-on-1 personal online support from your very own dedicated Affiliate Manager.
When you join the Affiliate Junktion Program you can expect quality results, superior personal support and an ongoing income online through our performance-based program. We set a high industry standard for program quality and provide the most sophisticated tools. Affiliate Junktion operates the only truly global affiliate marketing program where you are guaranteed to earn money.
The earning potential is great as well...take note of their guarantee of payment if you do not achieve daily income.
Here is a review of Gitte Dabek who joined the program a bit longer than me:
I have tested a new program for you. It is called Affiliate Junktion, and it is all about affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing, selling other people’s products is indeed a great way to make money online and the only way for a newcomer. But usually you have to sell a membership or a product to earn commissions. Affiliate Junktion offers another way: pay per lead. That is to say, you will earn commissions by convincing people to sign up for free. So this program is not sales-based, but performance-based and it is much easier to convince people to sign up for free than convincing them to open their wallet and buy something.
After signing up every new affiliate will get his own affiliate website customized with his affiliate link and will be able to start right away. If he signs up for hosting, buys anything you don’t have to care about – you will be paid just because your referral signed up fro free.
And that’s the deal Michael Davies,the CEO of Affiliate Junktion is proposing: “You will start earning within 5 days or we will pay you $50 in cash for each day you are on our program”.
Okay that sounds a bit like the everyday hype you find on the Internet, but if you check the Terms and Conditions, you will see, that this promise will come true.
There is a simple reason, why you can expect some serious earnings with this Affiliate Marketing Program, even if you never made money online: You don’t have to sell a paid membership or hosting for making money with your referrals, all you have to do is to get them to sign up for free. So Affiliate Junktion is a pay per lead system, paying you $1 to $3 for every person signing up for free under you. Because the website converts well and signup is free, you can expect a very high conversion rate about up to 70%. Michael Davies tells about conversion rates of 70-85%. Well I would not go that high but I think the Average Joe really can reach a conversion rate of nearly 70% or more.
The program gives you a very easy to understand Fast Track Guide on the hand and lists some basic steps about how to start driving traffic to your affiliate site. The 1-on-1 personal support is a great help and your affiliate manager will be very friendly and helpful - I tested the system.
The only thing I am missing is more promotional tools. As this program is dedicated to newcomers and to people who never made money online, there could be some more professional designed material, some emails people could modify, keyword lists and ppc ads as a working base fort he inexperienced.
Putting all together and weighing it, I have to rate Affiliate Junktion as a great program. I can give my fully recommendation because:
* It is free to join,
* It is easy to work with,
* It needs no more work than 3-5 hours a week,
* It makes you easy money on a pay per lead base,
* You are guaranteed to earn money within just 5 days.
Here are the details:
Affiliate Junktion is now recruiting new affiliates to join the Affiliate Junktion Program. Affiliate Junktion, a global leader in providing internet marketing and affiliate marketing services online, is now recruiting new affiliates to join the Affiliate Junktion Program. It is completely Free to join, with 1-on-1 personal online support from your very own dedicated Affiliate Manager.
When you join the Affiliate Junktion Program you can expect quality results, superior personal support and an ongoing income online through our performance-based program. We set a high industry standard for program quality and provide the most sophisticated tools. Affiliate Junktion operates the only truly global affiliate marketing program where you are guaranteed to earn money.
The earning potential is great as well...take note of their guarantee of payment if you do not achieve daily income.
Here is a review of Gitte Dabek who joined the program a bit longer than me:
I have tested a new program for you. It is called Affiliate Junktion, and it is all about affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing, selling other people’s products is indeed a great way to make money online and the only way for a newcomer. But usually you have to sell a membership or a product to earn commissions. Affiliate Junktion offers another way: pay per lead. That is to say, you will earn commissions by convincing people to sign up for free. So this program is not sales-based, but performance-based and it is much easier to convince people to sign up for free than convincing them to open their wallet and buy something.
After signing up every new affiliate will get his own affiliate website customized with his affiliate link and will be able to start right away. If he signs up for hosting, buys anything you don’t have to care about – you will be paid just because your referral signed up fro free.
And that’s the deal Michael Davies,the CEO of Affiliate Junktion is proposing: “You will start earning within 5 days or we will pay you $50 in cash for each day you are on our program”.
Okay that sounds a bit like the everyday hype you find on the Internet, but if you check the Terms and Conditions, you will see, that this promise will come true.
There is a simple reason, why you can expect some serious earnings with this Affiliate Marketing Program, even if you never made money online: You don’t have to sell a paid membership or hosting for making money with your referrals, all you have to do is to get them to sign up for free. So Affiliate Junktion is a pay per lead system, paying you $1 to $3 for every person signing up for free under you. Because the website converts well and signup is free, you can expect a very high conversion rate about up to 70%. Michael Davies tells about conversion rates of 70-85%. Well I would not go that high but I think the Average Joe really can reach a conversion rate of nearly 70% or more.
The program gives you a very easy to understand Fast Track Guide on the hand and lists some basic steps about how to start driving traffic to your affiliate site. The 1-on-1 personal support is a great help and your affiliate manager will be very friendly and helpful - I tested the system.
The only thing I am missing is more promotional tools. As this program is dedicated to newcomers and to people who never made money online, there could be some more professional designed material, some emails people could modify, keyword lists and ppc ads as a working base fort he inexperienced.
Putting all together and weighing it, I have to rate Affiliate Junktion as a great program. I can give my fully recommendation because:
* It is free to join,
* It is easy to work with,
* It needs no more work than 3-5 hours a week,
* It makes you easy money on a pay per lead base,
* You are guaranteed to earn money within just 5 days.
@Why It Is Good To Offer An Affiliate Program On Your Site And What Is Affiliate Software
To have an affiliate program on your site is a great idea for those people who get a good amount of traffic. When web surfers find a site that they like and they can find the products they want they will keep coming back. Chances are they will also recommend the site to their friends. Affiliate programs that are used recently saw an 81 percent use the revenue share or Cost per sale as their compensation method. The other 19 percent use Cost per action. Only about 1 percent uses the Pay per Click or Pay per Impression.
There are positive reasons as to why you should use an affiliate program on your site. Merchants actually really like the affiliate programs because they use the pay per performance. The merchant does not have to worry about any set up expenses unless the conclusions are realized. There are thousands and thousands of websites that are making a lot of money via affiliate programs. Some companies use their own affiliate programs called In House and others use the common Third Party method.
Affiliate Software is software that you can get online and even download for free. This software allows the user to monitor the affiliate programs that are doing well. Affiliate software lets you choose your method of payments. You can choose Cost per Impressions, Pay per Sale, Pay per Click and you can choose multi tier commissions up to 10 tiers.
Most software has the feature of a tracking system using Flash Cookies for the best reliability. Some of the best software is Post Affiliate Pro and it works with PayPal, World Pay, Cart Manager, Zen Cart, Pay Systems and Yahoo! Store. Most affiliate software (http://www.affiliateseeking.com/affiliate-software/1.html) has real time reporting, no set up charges, technical support and you can customize it any way you choose.
If you are going to have any ads on your site at all then you should use affiliate programs. They pay the best and they are more compatible to your site content than some of the contextual ads out there. There are some affiliate programs and networks that will be perfect for you. In some instances unless you know where to look they can be a bit hard to find. Once you sign up and establish the programs, make sure you place them on your site where visitors can find them, it is very important.
There are positive reasons as to why you should use an affiliate program on your site. Merchants actually really like the affiliate programs because they use the pay per performance. The merchant does not have to worry about any set up expenses unless the conclusions are realized. There are thousands and thousands of websites that are making a lot of money via affiliate programs. Some companies use their own affiliate programs called In House and others use the common Third Party method.
Affiliate Software is software that you can get online and even download for free. This software allows the user to monitor the affiliate programs that are doing well. Affiliate software lets you choose your method of payments. You can choose Cost per Impressions, Pay per Sale, Pay per Click and you can choose multi tier commissions up to 10 tiers.
Most software has the feature of a tracking system using Flash Cookies for the best reliability. Some of the best software is Post Affiliate Pro and it works with PayPal, World Pay, Cart Manager, Zen Cart, Pay Systems and Yahoo! Store. Most affiliate software (http://www.affiliateseeking.com/affiliate-software/1.html) has real time reporting, no set up charges, technical support and you can customize it any way you choose.
If you are going to have any ads on your site at all then you should use affiliate programs. They pay the best and they are more compatible to your site content than some of the contextual ads out there. There are some affiliate programs and networks that will be perfect for you. In some instances unless you know where to look they can be a bit hard to find. Once you sign up and establish the programs, make sure you place them on your site where visitors can find them, it is very important.
8/07/2009
@7 Ways To Tell If Your Affiliate Program Stinks
Question: Why aren’t my affiliates promoting my affiliate program? And, how do I get more to sign up?
Dear Affiliate Manager:
I can tell you in a heartbeat whether or not your affiliate program is attracting loyal, motivated affiliates. It’s easy. Just put yourself in your affiliate’s shoes. If you’re not creating loyalty in your affiliates, they’re going to look for a better program to promote, and you’ll be left in the dust.
Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s go through some key components of making your affiliate program attractive to affiliates, so they don’t start shopping around.
1. Reputations are on the Line.
Of course, number one is quality. Do you have quality products and customer service? An affiliate’s reputation is on the line every time we consider promoting a product or service. If your products are junk or you’re making our referrals upset in any way – we’ll drop you faster than something *really* hot.
2. Lay the Money on the Table.
It’s not just about the percentage commission. That won’t motivate and make loyal affiliates, but, it is a start. Are you talking 5%? Then, unless you offer millions of products at great prices and have a solid reputation, you’re not going to be getting a whole lot of affiliates.
3. Who’s getting credit?
Show your affiliates that you value them by setting long cookies and they’ll keep sending you traffic. How long are your cookies? The longer the better.
4. Closing the Deal.
If your affiliates are sending you traffic, I hope you have a newsletter (or ecourse) on that sales page for two reasons. 1. It means you’re smart and know how internet marketing works, and 2. It means that the affiliates get more than one chance to close the deal, because you’re going to be following up with the lead and closing the sale for us. This shows us that you take your business seriously – a very important indicator.
5. Like Frosting on the Cake.
Assuming all things are equal, if your program is two-tier or residual, you’ll have affiliates lined up to promote you.
6. Are you even trying?
There is nothing more frustrating than joining an affiliate program that you’re really excited about, logging in and seeing … nothing but a couple of links. No content, no ebooks, no videos. Zip. This is especially disappointing if you know the author or owner is sending out a weekly newsletter. Share your articles with your affiliates, allow them to be rebranded, and I guarantee you’ll get loyalty.
7. That’s just Rude.
Almost more insulting than not providing any content is providing ‘leaky’ articles. Yes, I have seen affiliate programs that so “generously” provide articles for their affiliates. But, the articles had plugs for their other programs in the body of the article. Now, I’m not naming names, but I do feel that’s pretty cheap to be stealing from your own affiliates.
Those are just a few ways to tell if your affiliate program stinks.
I hope you read and reread this advice. Treat your affiliates like partners and they’ll plaster your link all over the web. You’ll have affiliates lined up to promote every new product you offer, and they’ll sing your praises every chance they get.
Dear Affiliate Manager:
I can tell you in a heartbeat whether or not your affiliate program is attracting loyal, motivated affiliates. It’s easy. Just put yourself in your affiliate’s shoes. If you’re not creating loyalty in your affiliates, they’re going to look for a better program to promote, and you’ll be left in the dust.
Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s go through some key components of making your affiliate program attractive to affiliates, so they don’t start shopping around.
1. Reputations are on the Line.
Of course, number one is quality. Do you have quality products and customer service? An affiliate’s reputation is on the line every time we consider promoting a product or service. If your products are junk or you’re making our referrals upset in any way – we’ll drop you faster than something *really* hot.
2. Lay the Money on the Table.
It’s not just about the percentage commission. That won’t motivate and make loyal affiliates, but, it is a start. Are you talking 5%? Then, unless you offer millions of products at great prices and have a solid reputation, you’re not going to be getting a whole lot of affiliates.
3. Who’s getting credit?
Show your affiliates that you value them by setting long cookies and they’ll keep sending you traffic. How long are your cookies? The longer the better.
4. Closing the Deal.
If your affiliates are sending you traffic, I hope you have a newsletter (or ecourse) on that sales page for two reasons. 1. It means you’re smart and know how internet marketing works, and 2. It means that the affiliates get more than one chance to close the deal, because you’re going to be following up with the lead and closing the sale for us. This shows us that you take your business seriously – a very important indicator.
5. Like Frosting on the Cake.
Assuming all things are equal, if your program is two-tier or residual, you’ll have affiliates lined up to promote you.
6. Are you even trying?
There is nothing more frustrating than joining an affiliate program that you’re really excited about, logging in and seeing … nothing but a couple of links. No content, no ebooks, no videos. Zip. This is especially disappointing if you know the author or owner is sending out a weekly newsletter. Share your articles with your affiliates, allow them to be rebranded, and I guarantee you’ll get loyalty.
7. That’s just Rude.
Almost more insulting than not providing any content is providing ‘leaky’ articles. Yes, I have seen affiliate programs that so “generously” provide articles for their affiliates. But, the articles had plugs for their other programs in the body of the article. Now, I’m not naming names, but I do feel that’s pretty cheap to be stealing from your own affiliates.
Those are just a few ways to tell if your affiliate program stinks.
I hope you read and reread this advice. Treat your affiliates like partners and they’ll plaster your link all over the web. You’ll have affiliates lined up to promote every new product you offer, and they’ll sing your praises every chance they get.
@Why An Independent Program Is Better Than Joining The Affiliate Networks
If you have a shopping cart on your site and you are not involved in affiliate marketing than you are missing out on one of the strongest online marketing techniques available to you. Affiliate marketing is a proven success and it is responsible for millions of dollars in sales for a great many websites.
In fact, affiliate marketing is one tool that levels the playing field for smaller online retailers. A tiny site can work day to day and gain thousands of affiliates in a short period of time. A thousand affiliates in six months for someone working an hour or two a day, a few days a week, is very realistic.
A rough definition of an affiliate program is simply a program that allows webmasters to display your ads on their website and get a cut of the sales generated from the traffic that they send to your site. So, if webmaster Joe puts an ad on his website for your product and a hundred people click that ad and go to your site and three people end up buying your product, Joe will earn a percentage of the money you make from these sales. At the end of each month, you send Joe his check.
One great aspect of the affiliate marketing campaign is that you pay for the advertising only if it is effective and you pay the affiliates only after you have received payment for the sales made. You can’t beat that!
The up front cost is generally under a couple of hundred dollars. This is to buy the affiliate software and install it on your server. This is an inexpensive way to begin and it also has advantages over the other option of joining an affiliate network.
There are a few big affiliate program networks that charge five grand or more to join and will integrate your site in to their network and expose it to their base of thousands of potential affiliates. This is a tempting way to spend five grand and it seems to makes sense that the exposure to the affiliates will be worth the large set up fee. But unless your site is truly unique you will also encounter serious competition within the network. Because of this, every time you recruit a valuable affiliate they will join the network and be exposed to your competitor’s offers plus those of a thousand other affiliate programs. Very distracting and not exactly preferable.
This is the advantage of an independent program. The affiliates you recruit will be focused on your program alone. Why spend so much money and so much time bringing in affiliates who are immediately directed to other programs as soon as they join? This is a big negative for affiliate networks that makes a strong case for running an independent program.
Setting up an affiliate program is very easy. You need some good affiliate software installed on your server and you need the ads. For the software, iDev has a great program for only a hundred dollars. They will install it for you for an additional fifty. For a great affiliate program software package, check out iDev’s at: http://www.idevdirect.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=906
The ads you can create on your own. If you are uncomfortable creating your own ads, look for a good art forum and post with a request for help from a graphic artist. Usually you can find a good artist for an affordable amount.
Once your affiliate software is set up and you have loaded a few ads, you can begin to recruit affiliates. The first thing to do is to submit your program to affiliate program directories. Simply search “affiliate program directories” and you will find a nice list. The directory traffic will bring in some nice affiliates but your own efforts in recruiting will generate the best results.
To recruit affiliates is a simple procedure. Search the web the way you would expect your customers to and go to the sites that come up in the top of the search results. Check the site out and if it looks good send the webmaster an email or a letter, or both. The letter is mentioned because spam filters have begun to block a lot of legitimate email and letters have had fantastic response rates. Working the phone is always good too.
As your affiliate base builds so will your sales. Run weekly or monthly specials, create new ads consistently and communicate with your affiliate using a newsletter and/or a blog. Keep the communications professional and consistent and you will see your program grow every month.
For a small investment you buy a lot of potential. It’s not a get rich quick scheme and it does take a serious effort on your part but the nice thing about affiliate programs is that if you have a good product, and you put the effort forth, you can build an online sales force consisting of thousands of websites helping you sell your product. You only pay for results and only after you get the cash. Few marketing programs compare.
In fact, affiliate marketing is one tool that levels the playing field for smaller online retailers. A tiny site can work day to day and gain thousands of affiliates in a short period of time. A thousand affiliates in six months for someone working an hour or two a day, a few days a week, is very realistic.
A rough definition of an affiliate program is simply a program that allows webmasters to display your ads on their website and get a cut of the sales generated from the traffic that they send to your site. So, if webmaster Joe puts an ad on his website for your product and a hundred people click that ad and go to your site and three people end up buying your product, Joe will earn a percentage of the money you make from these sales. At the end of each month, you send Joe his check.
One great aspect of the affiliate marketing campaign is that you pay for the advertising only if it is effective and you pay the affiliates only after you have received payment for the sales made. You can’t beat that!
The up front cost is generally under a couple of hundred dollars. This is to buy the affiliate software and install it on your server. This is an inexpensive way to begin and it also has advantages over the other option of joining an affiliate network.
There are a few big affiliate program networks that charge five grand or more to join and will integrate your site in to their network and expose it to their base of thousands of potential affiliates. This is a tempting way to spend five grand and it seems to makes sense that the exposure to the affiliates will be worth the large set up fee. But unless your site is truly unique you will also encounter serious competition within the network. Because of this, every time you recruit a valuable affiliate they will join the network and be exposed to your competitor’s offers plus those of a thousand other affiliate programs. Very distracting and not exactly preferable.
This is the advantage of an independent program. The affiliates you recruit will be focused on your program alone. Why spend so much money and so much time bringing in affiliates who are immediately directed to other programs as soon as they join? This is a big negative for affiliate networks that makes a strong case for running an independent program.
Setting up an affiliate program is very easy. You need some good affiliate software installed on your server and you need the ads. For the software, iDev has a great program for only a hundred dollars. They will install it for you for an additional fifty. For a great affiliate program software package, check out iDev’s at: http://www.idevdirect.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=906
The ads you can create on your own. If you are uncomfortable creating your own ads, look for a good art forum and post with a request for help from a graphic artist. Usually you can find a good artist for an affordable amount.
Once your affiliate software is set up and you have loaded a few ads, you can begin to recruit affiliates. The first thing to do is to submit your program to affiliate program directories. Simply search “affiliate program directories” and you will find a nice list. The directory traffic will bring in some nice affiliates but your own efforts in recruiting will generate the best results.
To recruit affiliates is a simple procedure. Search the web the way you would expect your customers to and go to the sites that come up in the top of the search results. Check the site out and if it looks good send the webmaster an email or a letter, or both. The letter is mentioned because spam filters have begun to block a lot of legitimate email and letters have had fantastic response rates. Working the phone is always good too.
As your affiliate base builds so will your sales. Run weekly or monthly specials, create new ads consistently and communicate with your affiliate using a newsletter and/or a blog. Keep the communications professional and consistent and you will see your program grow every month.
For a small investment you buy a lot of potential. It’s not a get rich quick scheme and it does take a serious effort on your part but the nice thing about affiliate programs is that if you have a good product, and you put the effort forth, you can build an online sales force consisting of thousands of websites helping you sell your product. You only pay for results and only after you get the cash. Few marketing programs compare.
@ 5 Tips For Greater Affiliate Marketing Success
1) Follow The Leaders
Stay in affiliate marketing for long enough and a familiar pattern starts to appear. The first thing that you notice is that the same names keep cropping up on other affiliate programs that you might have an interest in. This pattern continues if you sign up to the various news letters that these names promote, but the most revealing secrets are in the emails that they send to you because they contain the news of what product they are about to promote and why you should also consider promoting the same product.
2) Your Commissions
A good affiliate program should pay you commission upwards of 40% depending on the price of the product or service in question, it should also have a two tier system in place. This means that you get a percentage of profits earned from all affiliates who have signed up under you in the same affiliate program.
3) Membership Websites
These type of websites have gained rapid popularity and for good reason, they offer you the chance to earn almost a regular monthly wage from all people who sign up under you. The secret of membership websites is in the quality of the products and services offered which you would normally find to expensive to purchase individually, you get full access to the website so long as you pay the monthly fee which can range from anything from $10 to $100 plus a month.
4) Check Cookies
An often over-looked but very important point regarding Internet marketing, how long does your affiliate cookie last? If your not sure what a cookie is, It is basically a harmless code embedded in your browser every time you visit a website. The cookie tells the website owner information about you and your surfing habits, but what's really interesting is the length of time attached to each cookie. You may be asking yourself "how does this effect me" Well let's say as an example that you decide to promote broomsticks as your affiliate product and the website gives cookies for a one month period only
Each new person that you send to the broomstick website would have to make a purchase within a month, but no later, for you to earn a commission which believe me is a hard thing to do even with a website with great ad copy. So what you need to look out for is affiliate programs that offer cookies for a minimum period of three months which will increase your chances of making a sale by at least 40%
5) Customer Care
The customer care that I'm talking about here concerns you as an affiliate marketer. Any website which you decide to promote should be willing to bend over backwards to help you succeed. There should be pre written solo ads, emails, videos, etc. Everything that you need to sell your product or service if you do not get this, then you are promoting the wrong affiliate program.
This is the end of the article and I hope you find the above five tips useful and profitable in the future. Just remember that great reward does not come without great effort on your part, no matter how much hype you hear about the easy money that can be made on the Internet. If you continue to work hard you will be rewarded.
Stay in affiliate marketing for long enough and a familiar pattern starts to appear. The first thing that you notice is that the same names keep cropping up on other affiliate programs that you might have an interest in. This pattern continues if you sign up to the various news letters that these names promote, but the most revealing secrets are in the emails that they send to you because they contain the news of what product they are about to promote and why you should also consider promoting the same product.
2) Your Commissions
A good affiliate program should pay you commission upwards of 40% depending on the price of the product or service in question, it should also have a two tier system in place. This means that you get a percentage of profits earned from all affiliates who have signed up under you in the same affiliate program.
3) Membership Websites
These type of websites have gained rapid popularity and for good reason, they offer you the chance to earn almost a regular monthly wage from all people who sign up under you. The secret of membership websites is in the quality of the products and services offered which you would normally find to expensive to purchase individually, you get full access to the website so long as you pay the monthly fee which can range from anything from $10 to $100 plus a month.
4) Check Cookies
An often over-looked but very important point regarding Internet marketing, how long does your affiliate cookie last? If your not sure what a cookie is, It is basically a harmless code embedded in your browser every time you visit a website. The cookie tells the website owner information about you and your surfing habits, but what's really interesting is the length of time attached to each cookie. You may be asking yourself "how does this effect me" Well let's say as an example that you decide to promote broomsticks as your affiliate product and the website gives cookies for a one month period only
Each new person that you send to the broomstick website would have to make a purchase within a month, but no later, for you to earn a commission which believe me is a hard thing to do even with a website with great ad copy. So what you need to look out for is affiliate programs that offer cookies for a minimum period of three months which will increase your chances of making a sale by at least 40%
5) Customer Care
The customer care that I'm talking about here concerns you as an affiliate marketer. Any website which you decide to promote should be willing to bend over backwards to help you succeed. There should be pre written solo ads, emails, videos, etc. Everything that you need to sell your product or service if you do not get this, then you are promoting the wrong affiliate program.
This is the end of the article and I hope you find the above five tips useful and profitable in the future. Just remember that great reward does not come without great effort on your part, no matter how much hype you hear about the easy money that can be made on the Internet. If you continue to work hard you will be rewarded.
@How To Avoid Embarrassing Mistakes When You Set Up Your First Program
My first affiliate program was up and running. Or so I thought. Instead, I found myself with a whole lot of egg on my face.
I’m glad to say that by now it’s all sorted out. I figured out what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how I could have avoided it even though technically it wasn’t really my fault. Yet it was. As you’ll see, there was one simple thing I could have done that would have prevented the whole problem.
And now that I’ve moved from being very embarrassed to appreciating the learning lesson, I decided to share it all with you so you won’t have to learn it the hard way.
Here’s what happened:
First of all, I decided to upgrade my shopping cart to the professional version. I had gone back and forth between whether I should do that or whether I should go with one of the programs that had the possibility for affiliate programs built in.
I decided to be optimistic: If I could recruit lots of affiliates and they really started selling lots of my ebooks, having my own program would be far cheaper.
Once I had upgraded, I found the affiliate program easy enough to set up. There were videos to guide me. All looked great. I set up a number of accounts for my friends online and off, looked up their affiliate links, and each one their links, ready for use. After all, customer service rules, right?
And now it was time for the pay-off. I eagerly waited for the sales to roll in.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Eventually, one of my new affiliates asked me why her link had expired. She wrote that when she clicked on it, she got an error message that told her that. So I clicked on her link, and sure enough: there was the error message. That wasn’t good at all.
It was late at night, so I had to wait till morning to really do anything about it. Meanwhile, I worried how many of my other new affiliates had actually sent their links to their lists and spent an hour sending out individual alerts.
In the morning, I called the help desk. It turned out that my shopping cart service had somehow forgotten to turn on a switch. The affiliate program looked great to me, but it wasn’t set up to work all the way through. Well, they fixed it right then.
So it seemed like it wasn’t my fault. But it was, at least in part. And there was a big lesson in it for me:
What could I have done to avoid this snafu? I’m really embarrassed I didn’t think of it earlier. I could have taken some of my friends’ affiliate links, copied them into a browser window and hit return. If I had done that, preferably before mailing them out, I would have discovered the problem immediately.
So then I had to set up my affiliate auto-responder in a big hurry (which should have been in place before I mailed out that first link, come to think of it), and broadcast apologies and updates.
Well... everything is working now. And to be safe and be instantly alerted to any possible troubles, I set myself up as my own affiliate and plugged a couple of banner ads with my link into my own blog. You better believe I will click on them regularly, and I’ll double-check any link I’ll send to my affiliates in the future.
I’m glad to say that by now it’s all sorted out. I figured out what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how I could have avoided it even though technically it wasn’t really my fault. Yet it was. As you’ll see, there was one simple thing I could have done that would have prevented the whole problem.
And now that I’ve moved from being very embarrassed to appreciating the learning lesson, I decided to share it all with you so you won’t have to learn it the hard way.
Here’s what happened:
First of all, I decided to upgrade my shopping cart to the professional version. I had gone back and forth between whether I should do that or whether I should go with one of the programs that had the possibility for affiliate programs built in.
I decided to be optimistic: If I could recruit lots of affiliates and they really started selling lots of my ebooks, having my own program would be far cheaper.
Once I had upgraded, I found the affiliate program easy enough to set up. There were videos to guide me. All looked great. I set up a number of accounts for my friends online and off, looked up their affiliate links, and each one their links, ready for use. After all, customer service rules, right?
And now it was time for the pay-off. I eagerly waited for the sales to roll in.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Eventually, one of my new affiliates asked me why her link had expired. She wrote that when she clicked on it, she got an error message that told her that. So I clicked on her link, and sure enough: there was the error message. That wasn’t good at all.
It was late at night, so I had to wait till morning to really do anything about it. Meanwhile, I worried how many of my other new affiliates had actually sent their links to their lists and spent an hour sending out individual alerts.
In the morning, I called the help desk. It turned out that my shopping cart service had somehow forgotten to turn on a switch. The affiliate program looked great to me, but it wasn’t set up to work all the way through. Well, they fixed it right then.
So it seemed like it wasn’t my fault. But it was, at least in part. And there was a big lesson in it for me:
What could I have done to avoid this snafu? I’m really embarrassed I didn’t think of it earlier. I could have taken some of my friends’ affiliate links, copied them into a browser window and hit return. If I had done that, preferably before mailing them out, I would have discovered the problem immediately.
So then I had to set up my affiliate auto-responder in a big hurry (which should have been in place before I mailed out that first link, come to think of it), and broadcast apologies and updates.
Well... everything is working now. And to be safe and be instantly alerted to any possible troubles, I set myself up as my own affiliate and plugged a couple of banner ads with my link into my own blog. You better believe I will click on them regularly, and I’ll double-check any link I’ll send to my affiliates in the future.
@Essential Key To Affiliate Program Success
Business online is the sanctuary of increasing competitions that is why traders should strive for the most effective resources that will produce an advantage towards successful rivalries. Consulting professional online e-commerce marketing can lift your sales online with knowledgeable and energetic affiliate program management forces. For several years being on the top of business battles, you will be able to know what the objectives of affiliate programs are. Dedication or determination to the online clients and the confidence of affiliate program management back-ups are the requirement in this kind of system. Affiliate Manager will do everything to make your online business satisfactory by utilizing energized affiliate business sales force.
If you think that you are not prepared to hire an Affiliate Manager to manage your affiliate program management needed by the specific area of your business like incentives, program familiarization and marketing, you have the option to contact various company’s offering the type of the program that can discuss and cater your needs.
If you desired a worthy sales force online, you need the help of dedicated affiliate program management. Stop worrying about the growth of your competitors. Halt watching their glorious rise, you have to leap advance out of the business battle and let them struggle of finding out the reasons for your success.
There are so many agencies or companies that offers introduction to those who are new to affiliate program management. They have their own marketing consultants that can work hand in hand with you and be your affiliate advisors. They know what you want and aid you in choosing the best method in making your business successful.
You may ask how this affiliate program management software can make your online business successful. No man is an island. That means that no single mechanism can make your business triumph. Winning integration of well determined affiliate program management systems can be your greatest tool. In addition, it must be combined with intelligent and power-driven affiliate business marketing force. Integrity and honesty are significant elements for never-ending success, so that affiliate industries can operate pure programs for you. This is your guidance against the confusing networks of intercommunications to make sure that your affiliate program management is implemented correctly even from the very start. As the owner of the online business, you have also to establish a clean program, based on your honesty so you may be able to obtain the respect of your affiliate provider.
Trusted performance of affiliate program management can secure many business affiliates, take care their needs, establish confidence and equip opportunity to address the problems in a timely behavior. You need to know that affiliate program management is not a part time association if your objective is to become one among the most useful business tycoon of today’s generation. Yes, you have invested a lot of money in your business and who doesn’t want any profit out of it. Any affiliate teams can help you whether you’re the oldest merchant in the field of online business proposing to have a new affiliate program management or even if you own the existing one. They will always aid you to escape the costly expenditures from your wrong jumpstart.
If you think that you are not prepared to hire an Affiliate Manager to manage your affiliate program management needed by the specific area of your business like incentives, program familiarization and marketing, you have the option to contact various company’s offering the type of the program that can discuss and cater your needs.
If you desired a worthy sales force online, you need the help of dedicated affiliate program management. Stop worrying about the growth of your competitors. Halt watching their glorious rise, you have to leap advance out of the business battle and let them struggle of finding out the reasons for your success.
There are so many agencies or companies that offers introduction to those who are new to affiliate program management. They have their own marketing consultants that can work hand in hand with you and be your affiliate advisors. They know what you want and aid you in choosing the best method in making your business successful.
You may ask how this affiliate program management software can make your online business successful. No man is an island. That means that no single mechanism can make your business triumph. Winning integration of well determined affiliate program management systems can be your greatest tool. In addition, it must be combined with intelligent and power-driven affiliate business marketing force. Integrity and honesty are significant elements for never-ending success, so that affiliate industries can operate pure programs for you. This is your guidance against the confusing networks of intercommunications to make sure that your affiliate program management is implemented correctly even from the very start. As the owner of the online business, you have also to establish a clean program, based on your honesty so you may be able to obtain the respect of your affiliate provider.
Trusted performance of affiliate program management can secure many business affiliates, take care their needs, establish confidence and equip opportunity to address the problems in a timely behavior. You need to know that affiliate program management is not a part time association if your objective is to become one among the most useful business tycoon of today’s generation. Yes, you have invested a lot of money in your business and who doesn’t want any profit out of it. Any affiliate teams can help you whether you’re the oldest merchant in the field of online business proposing to have a new affiliate program management or even if you own the existing one. They will always aid you to escape the costly expenditures from your wrong jumpstart.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)