all about affiliation

0 comments | samedi 31 mars 2007

Affiliate Programs That Make You Money

by: Ratliff J

This information may be helpful for everyone, regardless of how long you have been in the affiliate business, or even if you are just getting started.

First, a good affiliate program can be hard to come by. It needs to offer decent commissions, accurately track sales, and most importantly, pay their affiliates in a timely manner.

Many webmasters and internet gurus are doing very well with only a handful of affiliate programs. Once you find a good one, you kind of seem to get stuck on it until you are positive you are making every penny possible.

Before spending a lot of time and money marketing an affiliate program, always check it out first. There are a number of ways to do this.

1. Search through the hundreds of affiliate directories online and look for comments about it.

2. Ask them how many affiliate they have, and what the top earners are making, as well as the average affiliate.

3. Give the program a trial run - just enough to make a few sales that will allow you to recieve a payment from them. This will ensure they pay as offered.

4. Keep records.

posted by myway

at 09:29 Permalink

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Affiliate Program Mastery: Learning How To Build Internet Ca

by: Isaiah Hull

You may use this article for reprint, as long as it remains unaltered and the resource box and author information are included. - Isaiah Hull

Affiliate Program Mastery: Learning How To Build Internet Capital Goods for Free

As I mention in almost all of my articles, 97% of Internet marketers never make a cent online. I mention
this simple fact because it has a lot of power--it has the power to completely discourage people who are not succeeding, and it also has the power to encourage those same people who are failing to learn, so that they can
succeed.

In this article, I will teach you exactly what it means to build Internet capital goods--and how it relates to
entering that top 3%. When you finish reading this, you will have complete faith that you can succeed and you will
understand exactly what it will take to do so.

So what are capital goods? You know that regular businesses purchase capital goods to increase production. You know
that industrial businesses operate some of these capital goods to produce goods that they can then resell for profit. You know that capital goods can be land. They can be factories. They can be machinery. They can be people. . .

So how does this relate to marketing your affiliate program? It's quite simple--in order to succeed, you
must build a large pile of Internet capital goods and then use them to pull in customers and retain them.

Most affiliates do not understand this concept. They start out with a boilerplate gateway webpage--that
everyone else who sells the same product also uses--and then they use that page in conjunction with paid advertisement and hope for success. In almost every
single case, they never make more than a couple sales, give up after 3 months at the absolute most, and then move on to the next opportunity.

If you do a simple analysis of successful affiliate program marketers (which, for practical reasons, will
be easiest if you do it through websites), you will find that they either a) have purchased Internet capital goods and advertisement with a lot of money or b) have an enormous amount of Internet capital goods. (You can test this yourself by checking the top listings in search engines for any keyword combination).

What does this mean for you? It means that you either a) are already rich and can purchase that land, factory, machinery, and workers immediately (website, product rights, advertisement, etc) or b) you need to start building these Internet capital goods or you are definitely going to fail within 3 months.

So how do you know what is and isn't an Internet capital good? An Internet capital good is an item that, once you build or purchase it, will constantly add or create value for your business. This includes links, content, dynamic scripts, free tools that your targeted
audience can use, and mailing lists that you can consistently offer your products to.

If you are not making an effort to build these Internet capital goods, you are the Internet equivalent of real life business that purchases frozen pizzas from the supermarket next door, heats them up in a microwave, and then tries to sell them. On top of that, your
store has no napkins or condiments or tables or chairs or pizza boxes. Everyone must sit on and eat off of
the floor.

Would you want to purchase pizza there? No, you would get it at the supermarket frozen at a cheaper price, or you would go next door, where they make it and then bake it in an oven, where you could sit down at a table in a chair.

Take the time to understand this point: If you want to succeed, you absolutely must either have money to buy your land, store, table, chairs, and oven--or you must build them yourself.

Fortunately for Internet marketers, you have a huge advantage over regular businesses--you can build all of these Internet capital goods; you do not need to pay for any of them.

You can build every Internet capital good I have mentioned above for no cost at all. And you will if you want to
succeed on a limited budget. So setup your links. Make quotas; reach those quotas every week. Build content. Find
legally reusable expert articles and add them to your website. Build pages that offer free tools to your customers. Use free advertising methods advertise this
page as a useful stand-alone (which happens to be linked to your related website). Setup a free content ezine or
marketing list that is related to your website. Register with free directories to get customers.

All of these Internet capital goods will not only draw customers to your business through a multitude of sources,
but they will also retain customers that come to your website through free or paid advertisement by giving them the option to get free information or use free products.

As every marketing study has indicated, multiple impressions of a product increase a person's chance of buying it--and multiple contacts with a
salesperson increases the conversion rate. By retaining customers you will both increase the impression of your
product and expose them to your sale copy, which will dramatically increase your conversion rates.

If you get nothing else out of this article, please remember this fact: the only way to successfully build and expand an Internet business is by building Internet capital goods and staying around until you have enough
to constantly draw and retain customers. If you do not have the money to purchase these capital goods, start building them today for free or you will probably be
ready to give up in about 3 months.

posted by myway

at 09:27 Permalink

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Affiliate Program Scams To Watch Out For

by: Chet Brzezinski

Affiliate programs are a great way to earn extra money or even a good living if you do things right. But unfortunately, there are alot of people out there that know this and will do everything they can to swindle you into selling their products while not having to pay you a dime. There are some merchants that view affiliates as a source of free traffic and free marketing.

Here are a few things that should draw up a red flag when you come accross an affiliate program:

No Contact Information
If they don't post their contact information on their site then you should not bother with them. To me this tells me they are trying to hide something.

Commission To High
Yes, it is great when we find affiliate programs that pay high commissions. But you also have to be careful that they are not just trying to draw you into their affiliate program by using big numbers. It wouldn't be good to earn alot of money just to get scammed. If it is to good to be true then most likely it is. A merchant will never pay more on a commission then they would get for the sale. It is just not business smart.

No Replies To Your Emails
If they do have their email address on their site and you send them an email but they never reply then you should drop them like a hot rock. If you can't trust them to take one minute to give you a reply then you shouldn't trust them to spend a few more minutes cutting and mailing you a check.

Returned Affiliate Payment Checks
If they do send you a check and your bank returns it then this would be another reason to draw up the red flag of being scammed. Of course you should always contact the merchant to try to resolve the issue, it could be an honest mistake. But if it happens in conjuction with no email replies and lousy affiliate support then I wouldn't waste anymore of my time with them.

The bottom line is that you should always use your gut feeling when dealing with affiliate programs. If you are not sure about an affiliate program then search the search engines for the merchants name. If they are known for scamming affiliates you are sure to find it in the search engines and affiliate forums.

posted by myway

at 09:25 Permalink

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Affiliate Program Basics

by: Albert Hallado

Affiliate Program is a ground floor opportunity. All you have to do is send visitors to your affiliate web site by placing a textlink or banner on your website and receive a commission on each sale, without the complication and expense of selling anything yourself.

Instead, you earn a commission for producing a ransaction. Affiliate programs, also known as Referral Programs, Associate Programs, Profit Sharing Programs or Reseller programs, give affiliates the ability to create an online business selling thousands products and services.

One of the first affiliate programs was run by the mega- bookstore, Amazon.com. They still have the largest base of affiliates on the net although they may not be the best affiliate program for many! with over 600,000 web sites being affiliated.

Affiliate programs are generally offered by sites selling goods or services, although some affiliate programs reward other types of transaction such as getting a visitor to sign up for a free newsletter, or a download.

Some affiliate programs pay per lead rather than per sale, in other words, you bring them a prospective customer and they pay a fixed "finder's fee" for the chance to market to that customer.

This is a typical arrangement for affiliate programs in the insurance, real estate and credit card industries, for example:

Types of Affiliate Programs

Pay per sale: If you refer a visitor to the online merchant's site and if visitor makes a purchase you get a percentage of the sale as commission.

Pay per lead: You get paid a one-time fee for generating a lead for the merchant. Usually you get paid $2-$5 if the visitor you referred fills out an application.

Pay per click: You get paid for every visitor you send to the online merchant regardless of any sale or purchase. Usually companies pay $0.05 - $0.15 per click.

Two-Tier: You get commission on direct sales you generate and also you get commission on sales generated by affiliates you recruited. Usually companies pay 25% commission for direct sales and 5% for sales generated by your affiliates.

Bounty: You get a one-time finder's fee payment for the visitor you referred. You will not get commission on any future purchases that customer makes.

When you join an affiliate program, you will be given a specially formatted URL (Links) that you should use to link to the affiliate provider's site.

This will enable the affiliate provider to monitor traffic to your site and pay according to the type of affiliate program.

The Benefit of an Affiliate Program

Is that you just need to drive traffic to your affiliate site. Write a few articles and provide a few links.

You don't need to find or deal with brokers, wholesalers, inventory, process orders, shipping & handling, customer service, tech support, handle returns, warranties, employees, etc-

An affiliate doesn't even have to be present, your site will keep earning money while you're sick, on vacation, or just doing something else.

Another advantage of being an affiliate, is that you do it from almost anywhere in the world..

How The System Works?

Many affiliate programs pay a commission based on a percentage of the revenue generated by purchases made by visitors coming from your website.

For example; if you're participating in an affiliate program that offers a 25% commission and you

send a visitor who purchases US$100 worth of products, you've just earned US$25 in commissions.

The commission rate itself can vary from 20% up- to 50%+ in the case of intangible products such as eBooks or website subscriptions.

Affiliate programs vary widely in terms of overall quality, reliability, commission , statistics, the amount of help that the merchant site offers in marketing the products or services it sells, and so on.

By thoroughly understanding an affiliate program, you'll minimize the risk of not getting paid - and maximize your potential earnings.

posted by myway

at 09:24 Permalink

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12 Tips For A Successful Affiliate Program

by: Ken Hill

1. Look around at other competing businesses that offer affiliate programs, and think of ways that you can make your
affiliate program more attractive.

2. Pay your affiliates well for their efforts.

If you're thinking about offering a 10% commission for sales of your product and a competing business is paying a 50%
commission for referrals, you'll lose affiliates to your competitor.

3. Make your affiliate program more lucrative by offering residual commissions.

This is an excellent choice if you offer a product that is paid for on a residual basis such as webhosting or access to your membership site.

4. Offer lifetime commissions.

Your affiliates will see the power of lifetime commissions, and work hard to promote your business and send you more
sales.

5. Make your affiliate program two-tier.

Reward your affiliates by giving them a commission on the sales of people they refer to your affiliate program.

6. Don't leave your affiliates out in the cold.

Provide your affiliates with lots of sales items that they can use to successfully promote your products.

Some items you could offer your affiliates:

- e-zine ads (sponsor ads, classified ads, 2 liners)
- signature file ads
- sales letters/solo ads
- brandable ebooks
- sample recommendations
- email courses
- your articles that they can reprint with their affiliate URLs in your resource box.

7. Be quick to respond to your affiliates' emails.

An easy way to lose your affiliates is to not respond to their questions in a timely manner, or to not respond to their e-mails at all.

It shows that you don't value them, and since their are tons of other affiliate programs, you would be losing potentially
very good affiliates to other businesses.

8. Provide your own tips and advice.

Follow up with your affiliates with tips and strategies that they can use to increase their commissions.

9. Reward your top affiliates with higher commissions and bonuses.

You'll be able to achieve more sales over the long term because your top affiliates won't jump to another affiliate program where their efforts are more appreciated.

10. Publish an affiliate's newsletter.

Your affiliate's newsletter will help you to share your tips with your affiliates, and keep them going in the right direction.

You could also use your newsletter to keep your top affiliates excited about your program.

Some effective ways to do this are:

- Share what your top affiliates do to earn big commission checks.
- Showcase their sites and tell why their sites sell.
- List your 5 or 10 highest earning affiliates for the month.

11. Track your affiliates' sales accurately.

Your affiliates will find out if they send you customers and you don't credit them with their commissions.

Your affiliate program will lose credibility and you'll end up losing your affiliates as word gets around.

12. Participate in affiliate marketing forums.

Share your valuable advice and expertise with the members of the forums you participate in.

Include your signature file that promotes your affiliate program, and always follow the rules of the forums you join.

posted by myway

at 09:21 Permalink

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7 Rules To Success Through Affiliate Programs

by: Chris Stirling

Thousands of people have quit their JOBS and started earning money exclusively online. There are a lot of ways you can do it on the Internet... such as creating your own products, offering a service, licensing products, etc.

Many people have done it without having ANY products of their own. This is done through affiliate income or selling other people's products for a commission.

Here's how it can be done.

1. Don't sell anything you don't own.

This rule is listed first for a good reason. You should never sell anything that you don't own yourself. If you don't have enough faith in it's results to buy it yourself, then you have no reason to sell it to others.

Think about this for a moment - if you don't own it and are unwilling to purchase it how can you endorse the product? How can you honestly answer questions about the product? The answer is you can't.

Too often people are willing to jump on the bandwagon and promote whatever the hyped product of the week is... without stopping to think of the value of the product itself. No matter how many other people are recommending it, you shouldn't if you haven't bought it yourself.

2. Only offer complementary products and services.

If your web site is about sports products, then you definitely shouldn't be offering cigarettes in another program. It doesn't make any sense at all, and these products defiantly do not compliment each other. You are unlikely to sell both products to the same customer.

A good example of selling complementary products would be, if you sell golf products, then you could sell golf vacations, golf clubs, golf subscriptions, golf training products, etc. All these products would entice the same consumer. Meaning once you get the person interested in golf to your site you increase your chances of selling them more than one item. This would not be the case if you sold golf clubs and gardening books.

Make sure everything you offer goes together. You should earn multiple streams of income, but they must all be related on the same subject.

3. Build an opt-in email list.

I can not stress enough how vital this is to your online success.

Ask any top business person what their most valuable asset. It isn't their products. It isn't their location. It isn't even their employees.

The most valuable asset to any business is their customer list. The most valuable asset to any Internet business is the opt-in email list. Your email list IS your Internet business.

If you don't have an email list, you don't have an Internet business.

Offer an affiliate product...and you earn money once. Offer a subscription to your opt-in email list and you earn money forever (from hundreds of offers you can make to that list).

4. Concentrate on your brand.

Use your opt-in email list to build a relationship with your subscribers. When they first subscribe, they may not know you from Peter. So tell them about yourself. Express your opinions.

On your first 2-3 contacts do not sell them anything. Tell them about yourself, your experiences, stick your neck out and tell them what you think. Let your customers get to know you. You have to give people a reason to know, like, and trust you.

You don't have to be the best writer on the planet. You don't have to be just like your favorite guru. Just write some things that are exclusively you in your emails.

Sure, some of them will get mad. Some will ask to be removed. Some will cuss you out. Deal with it. The way I see these people are by removing themselves from my list I do not have to waist time on trying to sell to them. I just move on to the people who are interested and I have a greater chance of making money off.

If you're just like everyone else, then why should anyone choose to buy from you?

5. Write your own endorsements and reviews.

Every affiliate program has solo ads, endorsement ads, and classified ads available. You can use them sometimes, but they should never become your only marketing pieces.

But on top of every ad you should have your OWN opinion of the product. You should tell your customers in your own words why they should buy this or that. Then use the ad copy you were given UNDER your own statements.

The same thing goes for online newsletters. You can use content and articles from other people, but every single email you ever send out should have something written from you...in your own words...at the top of it if nowhere else. It could be just a short 'what's going on' section or an editorial.

You don't have to be professional writer. You just have to have opinions and be willing to stick your neck out giving them.

6. Offer extra specials.

You don't have to do this every single time, but you should be making special offers for your list. Why should they buy a product from you instead of one of 1,000 other affiliates offering it?

Give them something extra they can't get from other affiliates!

You can tell them that if they buy affiliate product A from you...you'll give them this special report.

All they have to do is buy the product and then email you the receipt. You'll send them their extra bonus report right over.

It could also be an eBook, an email consultation, a phone consultation, an ad in your newsletter, a link on your special links page, etc. Give them something extra special with some of your offers and watch your checks soar. Make sure the items you give for free are related to your product.

7. Ask for the sale.

You have to ask for the sale. If you don't ask you will never get. The worst they can say is "no" and all that means is you are no worse off than you are right now. But if you ask and they say yes you are in a much better place.

You can't be wimpy or shy. You can't just give away a lot of content hoping someone will click on your little link somewhere and magically decide to buy your product. You have to tell your prospects and customers why they want and need your product. You have to tell them what they get when they buy.

If some subscribers get mad when you send them an offer, help them remove themselves from your list. It's funny, but most profitable promotions have also get the most complaints and removes.

I've had people email me saying, "If you're just trying to sell something online, then I don't even want your newsletter." Guess what? Remove them. That is the end purpose of your newsletter, any content you provide, or anything you do online.

Remember why you started on online business - to make money not to give out free gifts and content.

posted by myway

at 09:19 Permalink

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7 Reasons Why You Should Start with Affiliate Program

by: David McKenzie

There are thousands of business opportunities online. Most of them require some capital to start with. Not affiliate programs!

Here are 7 reasons why you should consider joining an affiliate
program as your home based business.

1. Joining an affiliate program requires no outlay of capital. That's right, none! You can join an affiliate program for free and start promoting the product immediately.

2. The internet marketing tools are already provided for you. A 'top' affiliate program will supply you with lots of affiliate marketing tools that are 'ready to go'. You just copy and paste and put your affiliate code in. Then you start selling.

3. You do not need a product. It takes a LOT of time to develop your own product to sell online. With affiliate programs, the product is already there. Someone else spent all the time
developing it so you do not have to.

4. Affiliate statistics are already provided as part of joining an affiliate program. You do not have to go out and buy expensive software to track your sales because the product owner is doing that for you. You don't even have to pay for it,it's free!

5. You do not have any 'time lag'. With most businesses it takes a certain amount of time in the 'start up' phase. With affiliate programs there is no such thing. Once you join you can start selling.

6. You do not have to worry about sales administration and technical support. The product owner takes care of the sales process and all the after sales service. All you have to worry about is receiving your affiliate check!

7. You do not have to worry about direct contact with the customer. In an affiliate program you are a re-seller so if the customer has a complaint they contact the product owner,
not you.

Affiliate programs are simple to join, easy to start promoting and best of all they have no downside. If one affiliate programdoes not work out, you can leave and join a different one.

posted by myway

at 09:17 Permalink

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6 THINGS YOU MUST KNOW BEFORE YOU CHOSE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM

by: Oluwafisayo Akinlolu

So you want to choose an affiliate program or are you already involved in one?

These are six tips you must understand deeply. But first, understand that affiliate programs work just like network marketing. I said it works like it because it involves down-lines.

Now to get started. Once you understand these tips and use them wisely, you would make a real success out of the affiliate program you choose.

1.Choose the Right Affiliate Program.

Before you pick an Affiliate program, make double sure it is the right one. Check the company's profile. You cannot be in a moving vehicle and remain stagnant. If your affiliate program is one that makes steady progress, you also make progress. If it is stagnant, you inevitably will be stagnant. Check for the company's age. Companies in their first two years pay high, but they face the risk of quitting all too soon. They are but infants. Companies in their first seven years are more likely to be stable. Older companies are reliable. Very reliable. They have a track record which you can easily check out and have good organisation built from years of existence.

2.What are the Companies' Products.

Please be very careful. Only a thin line separates Multi-level Marketing (MLM) or affiliate programs from illegality. You are however safe if the company has a product it sells. Never join a pyramid scheme. I am not an expert at that but I suppose pyramid schemes are scams. If the company does not offer a product or service, you might as well forget it.

3.Check the Compensation Plan.

Your primary reason for joining an affiliate program is to make money! Should I say that again? To make money! So please, check the compensation plan. Make sure it suits you. When dose the company pay? At what rate? How does the company pay? If it doesn't go down well with you, just forget it and find yourself another affiliate program with which you feel comfortable.

Note however that even if the commission schedule is small but sure, the work you do can help you blow it all up. Think of $1 in 1000 places ($1000). It can be achieved weekly. You can realise that with almost all affiliate programs.

The bottom line, choose a program that suits you.

4.Join Free Programs But....
A lot of affiliate programs allow you to join for free. I suggest you join the free ones. My reason is; you can easily leave without much loss. I feel sorry for people who have tried several programs and paid heavily just to realise it is not the right one. But if you think you can afford it, then the choice is yours.

Once you've made a choice, remember these last two tips!

5.Build Your Team of Affiliates.

This can be the most excruciating part of it all, but once you have a team of down-lines who are active, it is well worth it.

Always remember, "for every twelve, there is always a Judas." There will always be bad apples in a barrel. Find the good ones, train them, help them and you have simply helped yourself.

How do you know the good ones? Simple; watch out for those that ask questions, contact you and fulfil all requirements in short periods of time. Go for them and you are building a money spinning business.

6.Put Yourself in the Shoes of Those you Want to Recruit.

Make things easy for them. Put together all the information and deliver it to them. I know it took you sometime getting the information. Help them get it in a shorter time. Probably in few hours. Contact them always. Answer their questions. Give them all the help you can. Show them what to do and help them do it right.

Remember, you help them; you simply help yourself. Put yourself in their shoes and do exactly what you would have loved if you were in their shoes.

posted by myway

at 09:12 Permalink

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6 Must Read Reasons to Join Online Affiliate Programs

by: Hamad Kadmany

Are you looking for a very cost effective way to make an extra income? Let me show you why online affiliate programs are a great answer to your needs...

You must have been exposed to the online hype, and the fact is starting an online business is a great way to make an extra income. There are many ways to make money online, one of them, is joining online affiliate programs...

Here are six great reasons (only) why this could be exactly what you are looking for. I respect your time, so I’ll keep each point brief. Here we go...

1. Your Products

Many people don’t have their own products to market online, and even if they do, they would have to handle the shipment of the products to every corner of the world, or they would narrow their market to specific areas only.

Online affiliate programs provide a wide variety of quality products, which meet every customer’s needs, and you can market those products world wide without worrying about their shipment. All you need is to refer people to your affiliate websites. Any orders taken from that website are automatically handled by the company on your behalf.

2. Your Income Potential

Besides the commission you can earn from direct products selling, there’s another powerful way to make a great income online - residual income, and this is by referring other people to join the opportunity. This way you can build a network of people where you make a commission for each sale they make...

Some companies limit you to one level of sponsored affiliates, which mean, you only get commission for the sales of the first level of people you refer, however, MANY other great companies do NOT limit your income potential, actually, it’s infinite deep network where you can enjoy passive income.

3. Your Investment

The great news is – you are NOT required to put any money down in order to join an online affiliate opportunity, you can join for FREE! Some of them might claim that you must buy their products (you should avoid those...), even though I believe in the concept of buying from your own store, real opportunities should not force you to perform nor limit your potential, so it is all up to you.

Of course, any kind of business requires some kind of investment, generally speaking it’s a trade off between time and money, the more you are willing to invest, the less time you need to build a solid business, and vise-versa. So it is all up to you.

4. Your Business Training

Some of the great online business will train you for FREE. Do NOT take this lightly, if you are serious about making real income, you will need proper training to build your business effectively, this will save you time AND money!

The information I have learned is priceless! I learned how to master the science of marketing, and it was easy for people like me (I’m a computer software engineer who knew NOTHING about marketing!) to build a successful business. As I already mentioned, this training is available to you for FREE even before they see a penny from you!

5. Your Business Needs

This is extremely important. To have a successful online business, you must have the proper tools like tracking software, websites, follow-up manager and more. Without those tools, you are shooting in the dark and you’ll waste your time and money.

The serious online affiliate opportunities will provide you with those must have tools, and will guide you exactly how to use them in your favor. Again, FREE of charge!

6. Your Bottom Line

I’m well aware to the fact that the bottom line of any business, including online business, is making money. However, there are issues beyond that, those are the issues behind your desire to make money, either to spend more time with your family, get out of debt, own your own home or you name it...

Affiliate programs can be a great way to achieve whatever reasons you might have that triggered you to search for ways to make an extra income. Just make sure you join a great opportunity that is willing to invest in your success, because your success means also theirs!

Allow me to close with a quote by Robert Kiosaki, the author of the book titled "Rich Dad Poor Dad". Mr. Kiosaki, a self made millionaire who also works in network marketing and who opened my eyes through his astonishing books, said the following:

"Is your business or the company you work for going to do well in a depression? If not, start a part time business. Our businesses are designed to do well in a good economy and do even better in a depression. A part-time business that will do well in a down economy is a network marketing business. During a depression, many more people will be very receptive to joining a network marketing company".

Online affiliate companies are the new cutting edge network marketing companies, which makes the whole process much easier.

posted by myway

at 09:03 Permalink

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$27,817 Monthly With Affiliate Programs

by: John McLaren

I still remember thinking that promoting Affiliate Programs was a waste of time. Until I started making a small fortune.

At the end of 2004, I started some time exploring the concept of promoting affiliate programs through pay-per-click search engines. I knew of some Internet Marketing gurus who were claiming you could make thousands of dollars every month. But I was skeptical. I remember thinking, “I know what these guys are about. They just want to sell more books.”

But I decided that at least it was worth a look. The concept is quite simple. Choose a product – and one that has an affiliate program, of course. Set up an advertising campaign at a PPC search engine like Google and choose how much you want to pay per click. Write a three line advertisement and add your affiliate link. Whenever anyone clicks through your ad and buys the product, you earn a commission.

So I looked. And thought about it. And looked some more. I was still very uncertain about the whole concept, but I finally decided to test for myself whether it could really work. And since I knew I’d be spending quite a bit of money on advertising clicks, I felt it was well worth investing in a book so I could learn from more experienced marketers how to maximize the profitability of my campaigns.

As my business grew over several weeks I purchased and read several ebooks. By far the best I read was Chris Carpenter’s Google Cash ( http://tinyurl.com/6gdaq ). His approach is genuine, down-to-earth, and he explains very clearly how to build your own affiliate marketing business. And importantly, he makes a fortune doing what he explains in the book.

I started by testing 20-30 campaigns on various products. Most of them were unsuccessful, but I expected that from what I had been reading. I would test a product, and if it didn’t work, I would drop it quickly. The key with this business is identifying the affiliate products and campaigns that are successful. Once you find one that works, the money starts rolling in.

By February of 2005 I had identified several campaigns that were turning a profit. With one of these I was spending $0.08 per click to promote an affiliate product that pays me $18 commission on each sale. Approximately 1 visitor in 100 buys the product, so I make around $10 profit for every 100 visitors that I send.

What a formula! For every 1,000 visitors, that’s $180 in commissions. That might not seem like all that much, but remember once you have a successful campaign it keeps going all day, every day. If you send just 1,000 visitors to a program like this every day, then by the end of the month you will have earned $5,400 in commissions, of which $3,000 is profit.

Does it seem too simple? Well, if it was so easy everyone from your Aunt Mabel to the mailman would be doing it. In fact, while the concept is simple, getting your campaigns to run profitably does take some work. Since I can't possibly teach you all you need to know in one article, I'll give you a few tips here and recommend Google Cash for a detailed explanation:

Choose Your Product Wisely. The program should pay a commission of $15 or more, otherwise it won’t be worth paying for your clicks. And if the commission is very high, be careful. Some products like web hosting and satellite dish installations may pay commissions of $100, but you face intense competition from other affiliates, so the price you need to pay to get ad exposure and clicks will probably also be very high. Sometimes it is better to identify a niche product with less competition from other affiliates.
Track Your Campaigns Carefully. If you’re paying around 7 or 8 cents per click for a program that pays close to $20 commission, you need to make at least one sale for every 250 visitors. If you send 300 to 400 visitors with no sale, consider dropping it.
Days Of The Week Do Matter. When testing campaigns keep in mind the day of the week and even the time of day. Some products sell better on Mondays through Fridays, during business hours. Others, like entertainment products, sell better in the evenings and on weekends.

Getting back to my own experience, after identifying several campaigns that ‘worked’, I spent some time fine-tuning them using techniques I read about in Google Cash. By the end of February I had earned $27,817 in commissions for the month, all on products I had never even heard of at the end of 2004. My profit was a neat $10,795.

It’s incredible really. I made this money without a web site. From home. Working an average of just an hour or two a day.

I’m finally making the amount of money online that I dreamed about.

How about you? Would you also like to build an affiliate marketing business? Could you use some additional income? I encourage you to proceed, but be smart about it. There are risks involved and you should be aware of them. You should read Chris Carpenter’s book. That way you’ll be on a fast track to more profitable campaigns. And his book will save you hundreds of dollars, easily, as you avoid some common mistakes and pitfalls.

Good Marketing!

posted by myway

at 09:02 Permalink

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Affiliate Programs Worthless for 80% of Affiliate Market

by: Mike Banks Valentine

No doubt you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule – which states that 20 percent of affiliates generate 80% of affiliate income, and conversely, remaining 80 percent of affiliates generate only 20 percent of all income for most affiliate programs.

There are ten basics that will put your affiliate marketing in the top 20 percent of affiliate earnings. Ten suggestions that will transform your affiliate income from a trickling creek that barely covers your hosting fees, to a roaring river of extra disposable income.

TOP AFFILIATE MARKETERS DO MOST OF THESE TEN ITEMS

1.Top affiliate marketers cloak web site links

Cloaking affiliate links should not be necessary, but is. Oddly many site visitors refuse to visit your links if they see an affiliate code appended to the URL when they hover their mouse over a link on your web page. Sometimes they will type the
affiliate domain directly to the browser address bar while removing your affiliate ID from the URL. To short circuit this odd behavior, simply cloak the URL. How? Visit this Link Tool: http://WebpositionAdvisor.com/tools/link_cloaker.php

2.Top affiliate marketers write & distribute articles

Writing articles about your market niche is essential to gain reputation as an expert in your field. But the biggest benefit comes not just from writing those articles, but from having those articles published by other web site owners and ezine
publishers. Your article gains you both reputation and links from other web sites from the resource box appended to the end of each article. Here are major article distribution sites.
http://yahoogroups.com/group/free-content/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabusiness/
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com

3.Top affiliate marketers focus on a market niche

Filling a web site with content reflecting a narrowly focused product or service niche is a well known method of gaining web traffic in your area of specialty. An excellent resource that can help you determine relevant and focused areas to fill your site with is called NicheBot. They offer innovative tools to research and pinpoint market niches for your web site based on the WordTracker Database and Google.
http://www.nichebot.com

4.Top affiliate marketers use autoresponder series

Autoresponders are incredibly valuable tools that allow you to send a timed series of email messages to those that sign up for them. Most often those autoresponders are sent through a third party provider. Some of the top providers are Sendfree.com and aweber.com, for a tutorial covering autoresponder basics, visit:
http://website101.com/email_e-mail/email_autoresponder_basics.html

5.Top affiliate marketers create web pages to pre-sell

Creating either testimonial pages or review pages that discuss and pre-sell the product or service you are affiliated with is the best method of getting increased orders for your chosen affiliate programs. Many programs actually provide either an article or recommended text to sell their products for you and allow reproduction of those articles with your links embedded.

6.Top affiliate marketers gather email addresses

The best affiliates collect email addresses on their web site by offering free reports via the above mentioned autoresponders or by giving away ebooks or through newsletter signup forms. The best use all of these methods or more to build their list of email addresses. This also allows you to contact potential customers that would otherwise never see your site again after clicking away to the affiliate program web site.

7.Top affiliate marketers advertise SOMEWHERE

Depending on your market niche you should advertise using PPC and/or ezine advertising. Some categories of Pay-per-click can be prohibitively expensive, but advertising somewhere is all but mandatory to gain substantial additional traffic to your site. There are some great bargains in ezine advertising and some less popular PPC engines other than Yahoo’s Overture and Google’s Adwords. Try 7search, Kanoodle and FindWhat for lower Bids than the big boys of PPC.

8.Top affiliate marketers optimize for search engines

Search engine optimization is becoming more complex as more and more webmasters participate, but the basics applied to your site can increase visibility dramatically over time. The most critical of the many SEO techniques is to use title tags that reflect individual PAGE content. Many webmasters write a master title tag and apply that site-wide. This is the worst thing you could do for search engine ranking. Learn more SEO: http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/

9.Top affiliate marketers give away ebooks or freebies

Everyone knows by now that giving something away is a great traffic generator and allows you to gather email addresses to allow contact of potential customers at a later date. This strategy is employed by EVERY successful web-based company at
one time or another. Think of all the free things YOU have collected online over time. Screensavers, software, ebooks, discount codes, toolbars, white papers. They work!

10. Top Affiliate marketers have their own mailing lists

The best of affiliate marketers have their own newsletter or ezine and gather email addresses on their site to build their list of subscribers. Having this list allows regular contact with potential customers interested in your site, your product
and your market niche. If you don’t write your own material or think you can’t produce weekly content, there are hundreds of authors out there that will gladly product articles for you. The article distribution lists provide free content and ghost
Writers provide high quality content for a fee.

If you implement ALL the above techniques, you are guaranteed to become one of the top affiliate marketers on the web. Then you can create your own product telling everyone how YOU did it, create your own affiliate program and have hundreds of us selling for you.

posted by myway

at 08:55 Permalink

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3 Keys To Success With Your Affiliate Program

by: Andy Murray

Affiliate programs (also called Referral Programs or Partnership Programs) are essentially commission-based sales schemes.

Joining an affiliate program is a neat way to make money from your users. But just as you can join someone else's affiliate program, so you can set up your own program and invite webmasters to sign up. Here are my top 3 tips to succeed with your own affiliate program.

1. How to attract affiliates

One of the biggest fears new Affiliate managers have is in finding new affiliates. This fear is a stumbling block that stops many site owners from getting started with affiliate marketing. Interestingly, with a proper marketing strategy, getting affiliates may not be very difficult. Given below are some tips that may help in attracting new affiliates.

Find complimentary sites - "Complementary" sites are sites that sell products or services that compliment your offers. If you sell "gardening tools", a site that sells books on "gardening tips" would be a perfect affiliate.

Find content sites - There are many sites that do not sell any kind of product or service but are mainly content oriented sites. Such sites promote an idea, concept, study or belief. Content sites that are used as a resource for your target market are ideal affiliates.

Finally, there are several sites on the Internet dedicated to listing affiliate Programs. Get your program listed in these directories.

2. Classifying Affiliates for Better Management

The hardest part of administrating an Affiliate Program is deciding what your affiliates need to help make the sale. But, by carefully categorizing your affiliates, you can easily determine what their needs are and how to accurately meet them.

The first step is to pick at least three types of affiliate. Take a look at your affiliates and try to determine one outstanding characteristic that can easily be compared across the board and choose at least three types of the characteristic.

The Second Step is to determine the needs of each type. Each of your affiliate types will have different needs; some of their needs will overlap, but you should find a distinct difference in many of their needs. If you find that all of them have the same needs, go back to step one and re-think your types.

The Third Step involves the process of creating and compiling linking methods for each group of affiliates. Based on the needs you identified in Step two, create and compile linking methods for each type.

3. Safe Guarding Against Spam

Any time you run a program where your affiliates rely on other signups to generate profits, you will eventually have a problem with spam. One of your affiliates will inevitably get it into their head to blitz the Web with unwanted garbage.

When this happens you need to be ready to take action otherwise it will cost you! Your Internet company can boot you off your server and you can find yourself blacklisted. Not good for business. If you get an email from someone claiming they received spam with your URL, then take it as an early warning.

I am not advising you to immediately terminate the affiliate's account, but be sure to contact them to follow up on the complaint. Let your affiliate know you received a complaint and advise them to remove this person from their list.

If you only get one or two complaints, it's probably not spam, the complainants might simply have signed up for an email list and forgotten all about it. You will know when one of your affiliates is spamming, because you will get anywhere from 10 to 100 complaints in the same day all regarding the same URL.

The best thing to do in this case is to immediately terminate or disable the account of the affiliate URL that was spammed.

Running your own affiliate program can become an extrememly profitable venture for your business. You can recruit a HUGE sales force promoting your products for you, and ONLY pay them when you make a sale!

posted by myway

at 08:52 Permalink

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5 Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing An Affiliate Program

by: Michael Turner

When people decide to join an affiliate program to make extra money, or to have a full time job, they often do so with illusions and no idea of how the affiliate program actually works. Read the following top 5 mistakes people make when it comes to choosing an affiliate program and avoid these mistakes at all costs. Then, you will be able to be more effective and make more money for your time, so it is definitely worthwhile to read these warnings and avoid them.

#1 Don’t Compete, Support
Too many affiliate programs compete against their competitors which wastes money and puts affiliates out of business. However, if you are part of an affiliate program the more affiliates the better for getting more information and more money. One of the worst things to do is choose an affiliate program that believes in competing against other affiliates. Instead, choose an affiliate program that agrees with supporting and growing other affiliates to have a larger network and access to more affiliates.

#2 Little Reward
Another mistake people frequently make when choosing affiliate programs is choosing a program that offers little reward for the individual’s hard work. Too many affiliate programs pay too little and as a result affiliates find it difficult to make the money they should be making. Look for an affiliate program that has a good pay rate for your work.

#3 Old Statistics, if Any
You want an affiliate program that offers good, solid, real time statistics, not old statistics or ones that are no longer valid. There are not many affiliate programs out there that provide the kind of statistics an affiliate manager needs, but do your best to find an affiliate program that offers the most.

#4 No Support
Too often affiliates find themselves waiting days for an answer to an e-mail and an important question for their business. You want an affiliate program that guarantees you support round the clock if possible or at least within 24 hours. If not, keep looking for an affiliate program that wants to help you help yourself.

#5 Fresh Ideas, Creatives
Many affiliate programs provide few ideas or creatives to their affiliates and so thousands of web pages end up with the same advertising. However, affiliate programs would have a better success rate if many different ads were made available so affiliates could alternate ads and place different ads on different sites, depending on the products sold.

Commit these five mistakes to memory so you know exactly what you are looking for in an affiliate program, as well as what to avoid. You will be much more successful and happier as well if you do not get caught in these traps!

posted by myway

at 08:50 Permalink

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5 Tips To Choosing The Right Affiliate Program

by: Ken Hill

Affiliate programs can be a great way to make money online. You don't have to spend time developing your own product, worry about taking orders, or take care of customer service.

If you already have a high traffic website or run an e-zine you can stand to earn a steady flow of commissions every month without a lot of extra work on your part.

To help you get started promoting affiliate programs, I've provided the following 5 tips to help you choose the affiliate programs that are right for you.

1. Choose affiliate programs that match the content of your site. If your site targets a niche market than choose affiliate programs that offer products to that niche market.

2. Choose affiliate programs that pay a high commission. For example 30%-50% on your direct sales.

3. Join affiliate programs that pay two-tier commissions. This enables you to not only earn commissions on your own sales but also on the sales of people who you introduce to your affiliate
program.

4. Join affiliate programs that offer a line of products so that you can earn commissions when your referrals come back and purchase other services or products.

5. Join affiliate programs that offer their affiliates great marketing support. Many affiliate programs offer their affiliates pre-written ads to use or get ideas from, sales letters, marketing courses, and articles to use in promoting their services.

Remember, the best affiliate programs will see their affiliate program as a partnership with you and combine high commissions with excellent support so that you can start earning money
promoting their products as quickly as possible.

posted by myway

at 08:47 Permalink

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