Affiliate Marketing – And the Learning Curve

Affiliate Marketing – And the Learning Curve

When you put up your first website – you have to admit that you are pretty green to the ways of the Internet World.  You think that once your website is up, and you have put  your links in place, you will be in the money.  I, and I am sure many, would love that to be true.  Just think how many Super Affiliates we would have.  I will give you a small sampling of what to truly expect. 

The Begin of the Begin

You will be excited at first, and you will have a sense of pride in your accomplishment.  Granted, it is no small feat to getting a website up and online.  But this is just the beginning of your Internet Marketing experience.

Once you have your website up, you should be asking yourself -- where do I begin, or, what do I do now?  If you are short of cash, which, in most cases people in the beginning are -- you can begin by:

1. Writing articles

2. Optimizing your site for the search engines

3. Putting Adsense on your site

All this takes time and work.  But, when you first begin, you do have time to optimize, to write articles, and to put adsense ads on your site.  Why?  It has been said that for the next six months or nine months, Google, and possibly, the other search engines, may put you in the Sandbox.  Some say the Sandbox exists, some says it does not.  Whatever it is called, you will see a degree of dormancy in your site.

My own thinking is that there may be a pre-set time of six months before you see a rise in your unique clicks – I know I did. I feel that there may be several reasons for this:

1. It’s a great way to protect the Internet community against unscrupulous sites – I figure that these sites have a lifespan of six months before people give them the boot.  It only takes one person to feel the blunt of a scam, before talk in the online forums begins.

2. Websites go up and go down daily.  The search engines are looking at saving themselves time and money.  If you are still on line after six months or nine months, you’re paying your dues, and they may figure you are serious about maintaining a business online.

What Do I Do During That Six or Nine Month Period

First, and foremost – since I have supplied you with this information – do not get frustrated and throw in the towel.  Granted, at first the only clicks you may see is your own, but that will change. 

Second, start positioning yourself, so when your dormancy with the search engines ends, you have the quality content, and the quality products to begin to fly.  That means, writing articles, getting your name out to the masses, and learning to utilize Adsense.  

And when you have spare change, try your hand at advertising on Adwords.

In the beginning your learning curve is just out of the starting gate – take this time to read, buy appropriate ebooks, experiment and research.  All are important to moving your learning curve to the expert level. 

To conclude, a website is just a small part, but an important part, of becoming an Affiliate Marketer.  The other important elements, is persistence, hard work, and marketing. And finally,  if you still have the passion after the initial exhilaration of becoming an online entrepreneur wanes – then you’ll make it.

The amount of false information available about e-mail marketing on the net is staggering. If you are advertising your affiliate program through e-mail campaigns, make sure you know what your responsibilities are.

The lawless days of spam e-mail are over, at least for U.S.A. based advertisers. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) sets forth specific requirements for advertising via e-mail. The law has been tested numerous times since being passed and fines have been levied, property seized, people have even been sentenced to prison. 

As an affiliate marketer obviously you don't want to be on the wrong side of this law. Luckily, complying with the provisions in the law is fairly simple. Here is what it requires:

No misleading or fake header information. This includes the "From:" and "To" fields. 

No deceptive subject lines. You want your customer to know what you're selling anyway, so this should be no problem.

Messages must be labeled as advertising. Again, the moral is: no sneaky stuff.

An "internet-based" opt-out method must be provided. You have 10 days to stop e-mailing a person once you have received their remove request.

Messages must include your business (or home) physical address. This provides accountability and a way for the customer to verify that your business is real.

Breaking any of these rules could lead to a fine of up to $11,000 per violation! Honesty is now truly the best policy. You may be thinking: if this is such a big deal, why is my inbox flooded with spam every day? 

It's not a perfect world, and the short answer is that many of those advertisers are breaking the law. Commonly they are outside the United States in areas where prosecution may be unrealistic. You, on the other hand, would probably be quite easy to catch.

Be sure to read the detailed requirements for yourself. You can find more information at the Federal Trade Commission's website, http://www.ftc.gov/spam

Have you ever wondered just what it is about affiliate marketing.  I mean it is boasted you can make an ultimate winner income of about $100,000 a year from affiliate marketing.  Or are the 90% of internet marketers correct that are not making money saying your wallet is just swiss cheese with your money just floating through it.  I am not sure myself, but here in the last month I have signed up more than 550 total between three affiliate down lines, and 1000 people in my email list.  

Swiss cheese wallets seem to be the 90% that are not making money with affiliate programs.  People are just watching money drain from their wallets with no results what so ever.  People pay for pay – per - click advertising with Google Adsense, and purchase expensive email leads, and have no success what so ever.  Some Adwords pay – per - clicks can get very expensive.  Good leads can be very expensive depending on who you buy your leads from.  Just to have no luck in making sales, and building down lines.  So is it worth the trouble involved?  Yah, I will be the first to say residual income from an affiliate program down lines is great, who wouldn’t say it isn’t.  But, the expense you have to pay is absolutely, outrageous.  How do the ultimate winners do it.

The ultimate winners on the other hand boast of $1,000. ‘s of dollars per month from sales from affiliate programs.  But, how in the world are they doing it?  Are they using some so called new super Google Adwords program?  No.  Are the ultimate winners purchasing super leads from some secret source? No.  Than what is the difference?  Can anyone just lay it on the line, and tell us how to become ultimate winners!  Can anyone teach us how to prevent the swiss cheese wallet?    

The answers!  The questions to be answered are not elusive.  The internet is full of the answers to building down lines, and the six figure incomes.  The key to understanding the answers is who do you listen too, and study to build those massive down lines and six figure incomes.   Do the gurus have the answers?  Some of the gurus have been on the internet for 10 years, and have established down lines, and email list of 1,000’s of people.  Those same gurus have the credibility almost like Mother Teresa!  

So, than how has the big money earners done the same thing?  Earning millions of dollars with only 2 to 3 years on the internet.  These people have accomplished earning millions of dollars from affiliate programs.   Well, now if you just spend an evening surfing affiliate programs by the truly successful people you will discover they are all doing the same methods and tactics.   I have an idea, but you gotta get it from me; for free.  Yes for free!

An affiliate program is a form of internet advertising that rewards marketers for driving traffic to a company's website and producing sales. The company gives its affiliates a personalised tracking link that the marketer can use in their promotions. This link enables the company to track where traffic and sales are coming from and pay their affiliates accordingly. Simply put, affiliate programs are about paying commissions to people who help you to make sales. This is not quite as easy as it sounds.

Running an affiliate program has its ups and downs. It is very important to be armed with up to date information and technical know how if you are going to run such a program successfully and with the minimum stress. In this article we will look at the benefits of affiliate marketing as a tool for increasing your businesses profitability..

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Here are some of the reasons why you should consider affiliate marketing as an effective way of advertising your business and products.

1. Low cost

 Running an affiliate program is very cost effective as you only pay your affiliates for the results that they produce. The affiliate bears most of the cost of promoting your product, you provide them with the necessary tools, such as banners and other promotional material. Of course, this arrangement is mutually beneficial, you get low cost advertising; your affiliates get the opportunity to make money from a product that they haven't had to spend time and money developing.

2. Affiliate programs produce unlimited income through leverage

When you have a paid job, your monthly income mainly relies on whether you go to work or not. With affiliate marketing, your affiliates do all of the work in getting traffic to your site. Once you have provided them with your ad copy and links you don't to lift a finger, especially if your product is a digital one. Although not everyone earns limitless amounts of money, running an affiliate marketing program greatly increases your chances. 

4. Go worldwide

With affiliate marketing, you are dealing with a global market place. All you have to do is choose a niche product and prepare all the necessary tools for your affiliates to lead traffic from just about anywhere to your website.

5. Low risk

The main reason that so many internet companies rely on affiliate marketing is that the risks are relatively low. This is especially true for those with little money available to set aside for advertising. Affiliate marketing is just the way to do it.

6. No closing time

With affiliate marketing, your business works every single second of the day while targeting a worldwide market! What could be better than that?

Why are hundreds and thousands of entrepreneurs setting up online businesses? There are several reasons for this phenomenal trend. Foremost among the reasons is that the Internet opens up an easier access to a wider market. In fact, the whole world becomes the market of the online business. An online business physically located in one city, for example in New York, can sell its products to clients that live across the globe. Of course, there will arrangements regarding shipment, but such things become SOP or standard operating procedures.

Today, a major part of online businesses is the setting up of affiliate marketing programs. The existence of such programs has attracted not only entrepreneurs and businessmen, but ordinary people who are looking into having their own online business. Affiliate marketing has become the entry point of many new businessmen.

Essentially, affiliate marketing is a business relationship between the affiliate and the merchant, who is the owner of an online company which is selling the product.. Upon entering the affiliate marketing program, the merchant is actually reducing the cost of advertising his products. He need not advertise because the affiliates are going to do this part of the business.

On the other hand, the affiliates will be willing and eager to promote and advertise the products of the merchants, without the hassle of taking orders or the demand of delivering the products on time, or the pressure of keeping the customers happy. The affiliates have already specialized in one small aspect of the business, and yet can still become part of another online business.

The merchant need not worry about wages for the affiliates because he is not obligated to pay salaries. What he should pay for are the commissions of the affiliate that will be computed depending on the agreed compensation package.

One package is called pay-per-click in which the affiliate is paid when a visitors clicks on the banner of the merchant. Another package is pay-per-lead in which the visitor has subscribed and has provided names of potential clients. And the third package is the pay-per-sale, in which the visitor purchases a product.

The affiliate is not limited by a certain amount of income. There will be no minimum nor maximum sales for the affiliate. The absence of minimum income removes the pressure on the affiliate, especially the new ones. And the absence of maximum limit paves the way to huge income opportunities.

Therefore, the situation created in affiliate marketing is a situation which is beneficial to both the merchant and the affiliate.

Copyright 2006 Tom Washington

"All Internet Businesses Are Not Created Equal!"

When building a successful Internet businesses to promote affiliate products and services, you must first have a solid understanding of market research and testing skills. All Internet business opportunities and affiliate programs aren't created equal. Affiliate programs, associate programs, referral programs or partnership programs are only as good as the businesses behind them.

Make it your goal to identify the very best affiliate programs available in your niche. Research and test until you discover which businesses have the products, services, and marketing systems in place to convert the traffic you send them into profit.

Free franchise anyone? Identifying the best affiliate programs is like finding successful small business franchises, except they are absolutely free. The types of business owners that are best to target will already have designed, tested and optimized a sales & marketing system that their affiliate sales force can easily plug into and profit from. Affiliates can then concentrate on referring as many qualified prospects to the company's web site as possible.

Affiliate Program Checklist:

Here's a great list of criteria to consider when evaluating affiliate programs to promote in your internet business:

• Make sure the web site's tracking software works properly. Some affiliate tracking software isn't as accurate as you would like, so be sure that your affiliate id is tracked accurately throughout the system all the way to payment.

• Look for an automated follow-up system promoting your affiliate links. Most sales conversions are made after several e-mail follow-ups are sent. Very rarely do customers buy on the first visit to a web site, so you need smart auto-responders with follow-up sales letters going out automatically to your referrals. This may be in the form of an e-mail course, an e-zine or a newsletter that contains sales messages promoting your affiliate links. If you can access and replace the links with your own tracking urls, that's ideal. For full control have smart auto-responders installed on your own web server and create your own series of e-mail follow-ups.

• Affiliate Marketing tools. Look for pre-tested ads and e-mail copy, affiliate banners, satisfied user testimonials that you can include in your own pre-sales copy, viral reports and e-books, etc. Wherever possible, personalize the affiliate programs' sales & marketing materials and add extra value to the offers. You will want to do this because, in many cases, you're competing with hundreds of other affiliates for sales.

• A strong affiliate management program is needed. This means a responsive owner or affiliate manager who is easy to contact and provides multiple forms of contact such as phone, an online support desk and e-mail. The main thing is that a quick helpful response is provided.

• Internet marketing training. If you're counting on earning income from the sales of Affiliates that you've referred to a program, take into consideration that many of these people will be new to the internet marketing business. In order to succeed, they will need a good training package.

• An accurate visitor and sales tracking software system you can access online. An affiliate's virtual office where the number of visitors, sales conversions, and statistics can be tracked to determine what traffic & advertising sources are profitable.

• Multiple forms of payment that can be accepted on a secure server. Some of the major payment forms are major Credit Cards like Visa & Mastercard, Debit Cards, eCheck, Paypal, eGold, etc. The more options offered the better. This includes you pay and not just customer payments

• Strong back-end products that you will profit from. Check that the program allows you to further profit from other products that your referral buys while at the affiliate web site. The program should give you a commission for every product bought not just the one you have referred a subscriber to. One sale should lead to another, each product creating a desire for more.

• Long-term credit for sales made after the first visit. Lifetime is best, a year is good, 6 months is a little bit too short and less than 30 days is too risky. Since most subscribers won't buy on the first visit, if they choose to buy it will be after receiving about 6 or 7 follow-up messages.

• Pay structure that's fair to you and to the company. How much will the merchant web site be willing to pay you? There are several ways to earn commissions such as earnings per click or payment for a visitor who follows the lead from your site to the merchant site. Or pay per lead, which requires a visitor to submit details on a lead form. You find this information by requesting it from the program manager. You should not consider programs that are under $.10 as they will not produce enough income.

• Quick payment schedule. Look to get paid as quickly as possible. Most programs pay once a month although there are several that pay bimonthly and there are even a few where you can get paid daily.

• Low commission pay out threshold. This is the amount of sales commission you must earn before being paid. It should not be too high. If you don't get paid for a month’s commissions because of the threshold, make sure that the payment gets rolled over to the next month.

• Residual income potential. You can leverage your time and effort by selling subscription based services like membership programs that bill monthly and pay residual commissions. This way you receive a monthly income from each referral as long as they stay members. You can also create residual income by promoting multi-tier affiliate programs that pay you for recruiting or referring other webmasters as affiliates.

• Fast automated product fulfillment. The quicker the customer receives a good product when they order, the better the chances of them purchasing more products in the future.

• Great customer service. Make sure that the merchant web site has a good customer service program available for your referrals should they have comments, questions or need further assistance.

• Good reputation. Does the merchant web site have a good reputation with both their customers and affiliates? This is one of the most important factors when dealing with a merchant site. To get an idea of the reputation of the merchant company, speak to other affiliates who are part of the program. They will tell you whether they are happy with the treatment they receive.

Many good programs don't fill all of these criteria. But, the more support they do have in place the better your chances of building a successful small business income marketing on the Internet."