Affiliate Marketing - The Basics

Author: Kathleen Gagne

Imagine that you could earn commissions on a popular brand-name product just by placing a link on your website or in your email. That, my friends, is "Affiliate Marketing"!

OK... So it's not quite that simple, but it doesn't have to be much more complicated either.

Let's start with a few definitions. An advertiser, or merchant, is the company who is selling a product. An affiliate, sometimes referred to as a publisher or partner, is another person or company who assists in the promotion of the product and earns a commission for doing so. (That could be you!) In between is the account management service that partners the advertisers with the affiliates and keeps track of the sales and commissions.

If you want to become an affiliate, you first need to choose either a product you want to sell, or an account management service. You will end up with both, but the choice of one will determine the choice for the other. If you choose the product first, the advertiser will direct you to the account management service that they already work with. If you choose the account management service first, they will provide you with a list of merchants that they do business with.

To see if your favorite product or company offers an affiliate program, go to their website and check the menu bar or the bottom of the screen. Look around for the word "affiliate". Click on that link, read about their program and requirements, and fill out their application. Some companies require specific types of websites to place their links on. They will email you all you need to know to get started.

If you don't know what specific product you would like to promote, or if you want to promote several, I recommend browsing the participating merchants on the account management service's website.

Try to stick to products or ideas that you are familiar with and passionate about. It will be much easier to market to your visitors if you can add value to the link you want them to click on. Personal recommendations or stories will get way better results than just a banner or solo text link. Give them a reason to "click here".

Welcome to the world of Affiliate Marketing! Good luck with your new venture!

Affiliate Marketing - How Do I Get Started?

Author: Hans Hasselfors

When you think about affiliate marketing, what do you think of first? Which aspects of affiliate marketing are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

Affiliate marketing is defined as a widespread method of promotion in which an affiliate (or associate) is rewarded for every view, sale, and/or registration produced through the affiliate's effort.

It's similar to collecting a finder's-fee or the commissions typical of retail store clerks. The more one sells... the more one gets paid.

Compensation calculations vary and could be based on any of the following:

PPC (pay-per-click) a specific amount is paid for each visit

PPL (pay-per-lead) where registration or sign-up counts

PPS (pay-per-sale) a specific commission per sale is paid

If your goal is to generate your total income online, you can drive traffic from your subscriber lists to affiliate links just as easily as to your own product links.

What About Product Sales and Marketing?

You'll want to watch for great products and services with the potential to benefit your niche and your mailing lists. To build trust and income, it's best to recommend only those products that will be of specific interest to them. It's a win-win situation for everyone that way.

When an affiliate is marketing any product, the cost of advertising the product is absorbed by the affiliate. It's important to keep this cost in mind when promoting products. The higher the percentage of affiliate income possible from any quality product, the more that product is worth promoting.

When a product is sold through the affiliate's link, depending on the service used, the total sale is divided up among the vendor or service, the affiliate, the taxing authority, the shipper (if any), and the payment processor.
It is common and expected that all affiliate details be spelled out in the affiliate sign-up process. However, you needn't be afraid to contact any vendor to clarify their affiliate program if you have questions. Often you can telephone or email for a fast reply.

Is a Digital Lifestyle for Me?

Many standard retailers offer very small rewards for affiliate sales while most internet marketers offer around 50%. This is why being an affiliate of digital products can be very lucrative in a relatively short period of time.

Although the number of affiliate programs for tangible goods and off-line services is rising, a completely digital lifestyle can be developed solely from digital or downloadable affiliate products that may never take physical form.

You may not consider everything you just read to be crucial information about affiliate marketing. But don't be surprised if you find yourself recalling and using this very information in the next few days.

Of course it's important to note that as an affiliate of any tangible product, you generally never do more than promote a link to the product online. So in that sense it's the same as a digital product.

One of the best places to find digital products to affiliate with is ClickBank.com. They have an automatic affiliate 'hoplink' program built into their payment processing service so that affiliate payments are not left up to the product owner to process.

Four other good affiliate programs to check into are:

PowerClickAds.com http://www.powerclickads.com

Amazon.com http://www.amzon.com/gp/browse.html/102-3525955-0485737?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=3435371 (not an affiliate link)

LinkShare.com http://www.linkshare.com

CommissionJunction.com http://www.cj.com/solutions/online_marketing.jsp

Staying with reputable, well-known internet vendors makes a great deal of sense because you know you will get paid, when to expect a check or bank deposit, and you can see your account details online at any time.

How Do I Get Started?

There are many ways to approach affiliate marketing, but a basic starting point is to have a web site with text or image affiliate links to products you want to promote. Generally you want to stay focused within a niche or interest group to increase your sales potential.

If you have used the products, your promotional efforts could include a product review based on your own experience along with images and other supporting information. Developing an email opt-in list is helpful in affiliate marketing as it gives the promoter an opportunity to find the products with the most potential benefit for a group of like-minded individuals.

When providing a service such as this, most affiliate marketers are able to reach enough potential customers to produce some affiliate income. When a lot of products are promoted to several targeted niche markets, it is possible to create an income of substance over time. Especially when the affiliate marketer is only promoting quality products with a real potential to benefit customers within the niche.

In summary, affiliate marketing is a great way to build an income without having a product of your own, and without having to do much more than get interested people to view product information through your affiliate links. It's very easy to get started and can eventually put a lot of money in your pocket.

Those who only know one or two facts about affiliate marketing can be confused by misleading information. The best way to help those who are misled is to gently correct them with the truths you're learning here.

6 Steps to Affiliate Marketing Success

Author: Daniel Russo

The beauty of Affiliate Marketing resides in its ability for anyone to make incredible profits with minimal starting capital, without much work, and in the shortest timeframe.

Affiliate marketing is the most suitable starting point for an Internet marketing novice. Anybody can start from scratch and make quick money online, without first having to create his/her own products, services, or commodity distribution chains.

Unlike traditional marketing practice, affiliate marketing doesn't involve going through time-consuming, expensive preparatory procedures. There are only six easy steps you have to fulfill and your affiliate success is guaranteed.

Step #1: Identify Your Target Audience

If you are going to target your affiliated business on potentially massive profits, first of all determine individuals and/or groups whose problems you are going to solve.

Many beginners in affiliate marketing underestimate this important issue. Offering the wrong product to the wrong people they cut the roots of their newly born business.

For instance, how many sales do you think you'll make if you promoted apparel products to an audience interested only in IP telephony services? Very few, if any. You need to pinpoint your target audience to maximize your commission occurrences.

Step #2: Choose Respectable Affiliate Merchants

Study the affiliate merchant's website and sales copy before even sending any traffic over. Enquire about its conversion rates and visitor values.

A good test is to ask yourself if you would buy the product. It will be a terrible waste of resources if you would pay for advertising to a merchant's site, only to discover he or she has poor sales copy which does not sell. Think about it in advance.

Step #3: Promote Veracious Information Only

One more mistake many affiliates stumble on is in promoting a product that does not deliver on its promises.It is always advisable to test the product or service first before recommending it.

Not only will this increase your credibility and sales, it helps you promote better as you can then provide personal testimonials on the product.

Step #4: Elaborate The Most Effective Sales Message

Most affiliate programs will provide their affiliates with tools to market with. Simply put, the more tools provided, the more chances of you making the sale.This is because you can then save time by simply editing the provided materials to your own taste instead of creating an ad from scratch.

You can focus instead on the marketing. Similarly, having more tools also equate to more opportunities to get the sales message through effectively.

Step #5: Select The Most Profitable Affiliate Programs

The next essential factor you must pay attention to is how much you will be paid, in relation to your promotional efforts. A higher commission percentage can be a huge motivation to place higher focus on a particular product in your total portfolio.

Alternatively seek out products with a higher end pricing or those that offer residual income. You would want to profit exponentially from any effort placed.

Step #6 : Expect Your Target Audience To Evolve

Use your best guess and expect your niche definition to evolve. One of the biggest errors I see small businesses make is the reluctance to define a niche because they're worried about missing potential revenue from prospects outside their niche.Inevitably, these affiliates are run ragged trying to be something to everyone.

They never develop areas of greatness that allow them to stand out from their competitors and become more profitable.If you desire to become a power affiliate and bank in huge checks consistently from affiliate programs, you must further educate yourself with the knowledge required for perpetual affiliate success!

You can use Affiliated-Business.com as your inexhaustible source of affiliate experience.

10 Biggest mistakes in Affiliate Marketing

Author: Bob Bastian

Though anyone can achieve success with affiliate programs, not everyone manages to do the same. The reason? Well, there are 10 of them, actually. These are the biggest mistakes that make success in affiliate marketing very elusive.

Study them well, and read up on how to avoid them. Hurdling through these mistakes can spell the difference between monumental profits and dismal performance in your affiliate marketing campaigns.

1. Believing that people would just click on their affiliate links.

Though an affiliate's job is merely limited to pre-selling, pre-selling involves more than just displaying the affiliate links.

It also entails encouraging people to click on them by enumerating the benefits that can be derived from the affiliate merchant's products, giving favorable recommendations about the use of the same, and providing an encouraging offer that would entice readers to check out the package.

2. Believing that there's such a thing as organic traffic.

Organic traffic, or traffic that is naturally generated by a website, is a myth. There is no such thing! If you're hosting your affiliate links in one website, you can't expect people to find it just like that. You have to make them find it. This can be done through effective SEO techniques and efficient marketing strategies.

3. Believing that employing one marketing strategy is enough.

Some people actually think that submitting one article to the article directories would give them the amount of traffic they need. This is a fatal mistake.

Limiting yourself to a single, or even a couple, of marketing tactics would be limiting the number of visitors you could generate for your website. Also, you'll fail to tap into other segments of your targeted market if your tactics aren't flexible enough to expand.

4. Failing to study your campaign's performance.

Most affiliates merely check on how much they have earned per day, and if such an amount remains at low levels, they fail to make corresponding adjustments because, well, they don't know which aspects of their campaigns need improving. It is important to study every facet of our marketing strategies.

How many visitors are we generating for our website?

How many of them are unique? How many are returning?

How much time do they spend in our pages? Where are they coming from?

To where are they exiting?

These are the questions that can be answered by an excellent visitor tracking software program, and these are the questions that could help us improve the performance of our marketing endeavors.

5. Failing to find an affiliate program which actually offers sellable products.

Some affiliate programs may offer as much as a 95% commission per sale. But if the products are impossible to sell, you'd never realize the profit the program promises.

6. Failing to find an affiliate program with a proven record of consumer satisfaction.

The credibility of an enterprise depends on how people view it. If the affiliate program has established great relationships with the members of its target market, then it has established a brand which is recognizable for its excellent service. You'd have an easier time pre-selling such an affiliate program's products.

7. Failing to keep abreast with the latest developments in the industry.

There will come a time when the marketing knowledge we know would become obsolete, more so in the field of internet marketing where everything transpires at a rapid pace. You have to constantly update yourself with the newest trends, techniques and news in this field to always keep your competitive edge.

8. Failing to invest on knowledge. Knowledge likewise evolves and you have to evolve with it.

Buy noteworthy eBooks, special reports and the likes... those which would teach you the latest tactics to help you conquer your field.

9. Resting on your laurels once a semblance of success is achieved.

Success is not eternal. You have to sustain it. If you leave your business alone once it shows the promise of success, you're just setting it up for failure.

10. Believing that affiliate marketing is a "get rich quick" scheme.

It is not. You have to invest a certain level of commitment, a lot of time, some financial resources on occasions, and a whole lot of effort if you want to truly realize the many wonderful things that this field does promise.