Affiliate Marketing Programs: Join The Ranks Of The Super Affiliates

Affiliate programs are the perfect way to optimise your website and to subsidise any income. Depending on the amount of work that you are willing to do to maximise your personal sites visitor count, the awards for being an affiliate are boundless. Through advertisements, emotive language and word of mouth you can create real interest in a website and if that site also carries affiliate advertisements, you could be in line for some substantial financial rewards. Even if you do not fancy investing time into advertising and marketing there is still the opportunity to earn money as an affiliate. Companies do not discriminate over, which sites are more worthy and, which should be dropped. Affiliates pay nothing for the advertising space until they have generated customers through a site. So it is a risk free environment in which all parties are given the opportunity to earn money without the pressure of paying up front.

Some affiliate programs pay you a one off figure for attracting a customer, which is all right for a casual earner. However for the more business minded, regular incomes are also available from affiliate sites. Take online poker sites, this is an industry that is going from strength to strength and growing everyday. Tapping into this hugely lucrative market can give even the smallest affiliate a percentage of the profits. The poker sites usually offer an affiliate a percentage of a poker players lifetime value, taken from games and account top ups. If the player is a high user, in so far as he or she spends a lot of time and money in the poker halls, even just one player can earn a fairly regular income for an affiliate. But imagine for a moment the potential of attracting dozens or hundreds of players through your site, with an affiliate earning 30% of the overall money generated. An affiliate can build an empire running into hundreds of dollars a month if not more.

The opportunities are only limited by an affiliates own work output. By making their personal site popular and attracting hundreds of hits each day, the chances of attracting people to the advertising banners is hugely increased. Therefore promotion of the personal site and the affiliate sites is essential to make the visitors first come to your site, and secondly to make them want to follow your links and sign up. Emotive language and relevant text are usually the most popular ways to attract a new guest. Whilst there is no sure fire guarantee affiliates can certainly improve their odds by first marketing their site and then secondly persuading visitors to follow the banners and join the site. The incentives are there to be taken, all that is required is the will and a little effort to make an affiliate business a success.

When it comes to a successful marketing plan, there is no greater tool for converting potential prospects into long term clients than developing a relationship with each of your prospects. You may be able to offer potential business prospects the best quality products and service, but unless they see you as something other than an impersonal web page or catalog, there is little else to keep them loyal when another clever advertising campaign comes along.

Does this mean you have to become best friends with every new prospect you meet? of course not. If you tried, you'd not only come off as insincere, you'd never have time to get any real business done. The point here is to try to convey to your prospects that you see them as real people, and not just merely another cha-ching in your cash register. Everyone likes to feel that they matter, and this is what you will try to establish by developing a relationship with each of your prospects.

Here are some helpful tips for developing a relationship with each of your prospects based positive approaches, both online and off.

Present Yourself At Your Personal Best Both In Person And On The Web

No matter how rough of a work week you've had, when it's time to meet with a prospective client, don't skimp on the hygiene. Be sure you are perfectly groomed, and that your clothes are business-like, clean and pressed. Likewise for your vehicle. Be sure it is clean and looks well cared for. Remember, first impressions are the most important of all. You need to impress a potential client that the company you are representing is completely on the ball. Even though you will most likely be working out of your home, you never know who might stop by or who you might run into. Look successful!

Does your website look professional? You don't need green and hot pink flashing lettering to get a prospect's attention. Your website should instill a friendly one-on-one tone. Make sure your website is clean, easy to navigate for even the newest web browsers and really spells out what you're selling. Invite a dialogue with prospects and answer them in a friendly, positive tone as promptly as possible. Inspiring confidence is the first step to developing a relationship with each of your prospects.

Establish Common Ground

Resist the urge to jump right into the hard sale, it's a turn off and will hamper developing a relationship with each of your prospects. When you first meet a potential new client, don't be afraid to make some small talk to draw them out a little.

This doesn't mean that you should go into the week's weather report detail by detail. Again, you would come off as insincere. But if you happen to notice a family photo on your prospect's desk or mantel, don't be afraid to ask some polite questions about how the children are, and share a little relative info on your own children if you have them. Don't fabricate facts, honesty is always the best policy. Ask a few lightweight questions about anything your prospect brings up that actually interest you. This way you won't have to strain to have an actual conversation that is about more than just what you'd like to sell him.

Selling on the web is little harder, you don't have a physical presence. Most of your correspondence will be through e-mails and the occasional phone call. Words mean things, make yours count. Once again, be friendly in your responses, make them remember you. Answer any questions or concerns they might have about joining your affiliate program and then throw in something a little more personal. It can be that you were watching one foot of snow fall while you answered this e-mail, you just got back from a vacation or you're about to take one to XYZ place (if the prospect has been there, they'll let you know- people love to share travel stories), or just drop in a tidbit of your day and tell them you've had one of those "Calgon take me away kind of days!". Everyone can relate to a stressful day.

The key to developing an actual relationship with each of your prospects is to find some common ground that will help establish an immediate rapport between the two of you.

Soft Selling and Listening

As mentioned before, a hard sell will turn off many potential prospects. Far better to begin your sales pitch by inquiring about your prospect's needs. Give him a chance to tell you his own thoughts about what questions he has about your affiliate marketing program. People like to feel that someone is willing to listen to them. Businesses don't listen, people do.

This technique will actually help you to pinpoint the items you should be presenting first, and is indispensable to developing a relationship with each of your prospects. Your potential customer will become more relaxed with you when he realizes you are not ready to pounce from the word go.

Follow Up After The Sale

If you're fortunate enough to have made a good first impression and made the initial sale, your follow up is crucial. If you don't want to leave your new client feeling like a bride left at the alter, then within one week, send him a personal note of thanks for the opportunity to do business with him, and reiterate that you are always available to answer his questions or concerns. Then be available if he does happen to call or e-mail. If you're not in the office, then return his message immediately. This lets your new client know you still care about him after he has joined your affiliate marketing network.

Developing a relationship with each of your prospects is impossible without this kind of personal care after the sale. You are trying to establish yourself in your client's eyes as not merely a sales person with a great affiliate marketing program, but a real person, and a darn nice one to boot.

Side Benefits For You

There are other benefits to developing a relationship with each of your prospects. Sometimes something goes wrong and it's out of your hands to bring a quick resolution to your client's problem. Perhaps there is an unavoidable delay in shipping, or a computer glitch is making everything run late. If you've established a friendly trust between the two of you, your client is far more likely to stand by you during the difficulty if you've been there for him all along.

You'll also find that it's actually far more pleasant doing business with someone you've come to know a little. Developing a relationship with each of your prospects will do that for you, and you'll come to love your job that much more.

In a world full of impersonal online business transactions, there really is no substitute for developing a relationship with each of your prospects if you want to win and maintain their customer loyalty with your affiliate marketing program.

There are no secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines because effective search engine optimizations are now immense. What is search engine optimization? Before we discuss that thing, you have to understand first how search engines work and a bit of know-how.

Search engines are into providing their users with the most relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term that was used. They are sophisticated pieces of technology which allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if the information doesn’t relate to the search term, or if the results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh information that is useful to them.

Updating your website everyday and adding some materials will help you get noticed by the search engines. So, if you are going to sell any type of product or service online, you have to optimize your website for the search engines, in order to boost traffic and sales. It is because over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. And for that reason, it is absolutely important to optimize your site for search engines for you to have the greatest deals in the entire world.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which webmasters or online business owners utilize strategic copy to augment their website’s status. It is certain that the internet has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the best search engine position has created an enormous market. Therefore, better understanding the fundamental elements of Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business’ success.

Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of your website. There are many tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most effective method is to provide high quality content consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting, well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the coming days. So, if you can set your website apart from those boring, lifeless sites then do it. You’ll surely have a step closer to achieving high page rank through search engine optimization.

The next significant factor for an effective search engine optimization is to include keywords and phrases within your content. To make sure that you are properly targeting your market, you have to make sure that the keywords and phrases you have on your site are the keywords and phrase that your site is actually optimized for. The more keywords you use in your content, the more likely it is that online visitors will find your site when they do some research with those words. If you are unfailing with these techniques, then your overall search engine optimization will increase, boosting your page rank.

You should also have to develop a linking strategy as a part of your search engine optimization. Not only does this provide free advertising for your site, but it makes the impression that your site is imperative because of its affiliated links. For each link that you have pointing back to you, that is another chance for your potential customer to find you. The more inbound links that you have pointing to your site, the higher you will be ranked in the search engines.

Another is to develop a content stratagem. People who get to search from the internet are looking for information. The more information you provide for them and the more helpful it is, the more likely you will make the sale. Writing articles is the most effective way to build up content for your site. When writing articles to post on your site, make sure that you develop a clear means of arranging their content. You can do this by simply adding a new page to your site. This will allow room for extra articles to be added as you write them, and will allow you to build up an archive of articles which will maintain to draw online visitors. Make sure also that you have included your archived articles in a directory that is next to the root web of your site so that the search engines will catalog your online articles.

Always keep in mind that search engine optimization methods are important in developing your site’s status. With that thing in mind, make sure that you write high-quality, keyword rich content and link your site to and from a deliberate family of other sites. These things will help improve your site’s popularity and coerce increased business through your online business.

One of the most important things you can do as an Affiliate is communicate with your Affiliate Management team. Get to know the individual that you’ll be working with. In my opinion, it’s just as important as the relationship between a boss and employee!

Now granted you are self employeed and your Affiliate Manager isn’t your boss, but who signs your Affiliate commission check? Who can provide you the creative ads or make suggestions about their target market and customer demographics?

Now I’m not saying you need to email your Affiliate Manager every day, but it’s a good idea when you first sign up for an Affiliate program to shoot a quick email to the Manager. Just say “Hi” and briefly let them know that your lokking forward to working with them.

Then follow up once every 1 or 2 weeks. Let them know how you’re doing, if you have any questions or if you’re not doing so well, be sure to ask them how you can improve! These guys and gals are there to work for you! If you don’t make money - they feel it!

In the long run it WILL lead to higher commissions than the other affiliates and overall better performance for your Affiliate Marketing efforts!

Here’s a cool little site that’s growing rapidly… AffAIMList.com - it’s very basic, but it’s a great concept!

The idea is to give Affiliate Managers and their Affiliates a place where they can interact with one another. It uses AOL Instant Messenger’s “Buddy Groups” and tells you if your Affiliate Manager is online or off.

You’ll need AOL Instant Messenger to use it. If you don’t have it already, you can find the link at the bottom of AffAIMList.com

This is a really great idea. It's long overdue in the Affiliate Marketing industry.

So you have a website but its only displaying your information you created at the moment, which could be on anything and any subject. So you think I need to do more than just my business on this website and then you open up a whole realm of possibilities.

You have to think about a real world shop for example your paper shop that you may go to in the morning will be mainly selling papers but will also probably have adverts in the window. So from this example you can see that although he is doing his main business from selling papers he is also renting out advertising space.

You need to view your website in the same manner either you are selling something yourself you may also want to put other ads that complement your website and bring in extra income from this.

The main thing to decide is how you are going to go about doing this there are two main methods there are providing context based ads from people like Google, Yahoo, and MSN there are general affiliates that you have to look for.

There is already a lot of information about contextual based advertising and I can recommend that if you are website owner that looking at Michael Cheney’s videos are probably the best source of information.

As for affiliate marketing the two main players are commission junction and click bank and you can go to their respective websites and get an account and before delving into just whacking up ads anywhere, sit down plan your web page.

Look at Google’s hot spot in there help file for advertisement placement you need a google account to access this but it s not that hard to get one.

Both click bank and commission junction have extensive help to get you started on the road to affiliate marketing and I know that it is well worth the time in planning and maybe doing a dummy run just to see how the ads and affiliates work and getting an understanding of the programs involved.

This is not a get rich quick system it’s more of a steady method of generating extra income from your website without putting a great deal of effort in.

When entering this market also remember there are some major players in this field who generate large sums of income from these methods but they don’t do this by trial and error. The main thing to remember is that when you have a method that works stick to it as long as possible.

The affiliate marketing game or business is very fast changing field of opportunities and you may be lucky to hit a particular niche to be very successful you have to look at new trends and do a lot of research on a wide range of subjects.

I have been in the affiliate marketing business around three years now and I’m still surprised by the speed of changes to what is hot and where did the traffic come from. You need to arm yourselves with the best tools available but it’s not easy to get advice on what will suit your needs.

Keep up-to-date with the newsletters provided by commission junction and click bank and you can’t go too far wrong. I wish you success in the fields of Internet marketing.

Affiliate marketing has several descriptions, however each have the same significance. Affiliate marketing is a large business enterprise piece on the Internet. It's a combined endeavour between merchants and an affiliate’s website. Since several years now, affiliate marketing has demonstrated to be a efficient, important formula of delivering long-tern solutions. It's become renowned for internet sites who are trying to earn both extra or additional income for their site. Day-after-day, people get involved in affiliate marketing and need to make money out of it. But in numerous cases, these recently affiliates don't fully understand the affiliate world and make high-priced errors. Put differently, affiliate marketing has oftentimes been misinterpreted.

Among the more common misconceptions that are being associated around affiliate marketing is “selling”, although selling makes up an significant activity of affiliate marketing and the key function of a business operation. Some other is that affiliate marketing is generally associated with “advertising”. Although the importance from advertising in marketing a certain product is not to be underestimated, the truth of the matter is, advertising same as selling, is merely a part of the several works of marketing.

In affiliate marketing, an affiliate is paid for every visitor, subscriber and/or purchaser offered through his attempts. The said compensation can be made based upon a certain value for each visit. The most appealing aspect of affiliate marketing from the merchant’s vantage point is that no payment is owed to an affiliate until effects are appreciated.

Affiliate marketing is normally being operated by affiliate networks and this affiliate networks are compiled from two working bodies, the group affiliates and the group merchants. For each one has their particular function and purpose when it comes to affiliate marketing. The affiliate network plays a third company between the merchant and the associated affiliates. The network offers the technology to deliver the merchant’s campaigns and offers. The affiliate network as well takes in commission fees from the merchant and then pays the affiliates which are part of the program.

The merchant is some web site proprietor that wants to take advantage from performance based marketing. The profits to the merchant are numerous. First of all, the merchant maintains and operates the affiliate program. Whenever it would be extracted, the merchant needs to do their part by searching interested affiliate websites to guarantee that they are a better fit for that particular website. Finding a match for their merchandise would be the significant to several generated profit. The merchant has access to markets and purchasers without him spending valued time searching out. Banner ads on affiliate sites are not distracting to the site user. It could bring on interest for that product and drive the consumer to the merchants’ website. They are as well the merchant who determines how much he is willing to pay for each sale that results by a visitor sent from an affiliate.

The affiliate or the affiliate marketer as well sees several benefits. The affiliate is a web site owner that promotes one or more merchants and their affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing can give a full-time revenue for the affiliate. Merely this isn't an easy project to reach. The affiliate needs to experience a better agreement with the merchant on what the commission will be, expected payment method and time called for in the contract. The affiliate has as well the obligation to represent the merchandise their user based would be most interested in. For instance, if the site has a user base of primarily homebody mothers, then on-line job openings such surveys would be a better match for them. This group would likewise appreciate direct links to children’s products and informational sites. Merchandisers frequently provide aimed, best-seller details and personal support to their affiliate. They oftentimes offer sales event* promotions that will benefit the merchandiser as well as the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is a expectant situation for both the marketer and the affiliate. Whenever they would work together, they can be an reward to both. Plus the reality that it appears to make good sense, it's easy and affordable way to begin, and you can be up and operating within a few days. But there's one matter to consider, it's how to acquire traffic and make your offering unlike all others.

In my search for a presence on the internet, I searched many avenues, but was finding more scams and dead ends than I would care to speak about.

It was one last scam and six months of my presence on the internet that I realized that the only way I could possibly make a living on the internet -- and gain any amount of satisfaction --was to work for myself. Duh! But how? Affiliate Marketing seemed to be the answer.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the promotion of another person's or company's product, in which you get a percentage of the profit if a sale is made. That doesn't sound so hard, does it? Well -- it's doeable if you have the information you need to get you started in this field -- and it is work. So let me begin the enlightenment.

First and foremost, you need passion?

What is Passion?

Passion is a feeling that you have -- a feeling that is so strong that it is your driving force in doing it.

As you can see, passion is needed in any venture if you want to succeed. With passion, it will drive you forward through the hard times, the bad times, and the good times when developing your business.

This passion thing, I must admit, was my first stumbling block. I believed I didn't have a passion for anything -- and feared that maybe, just maybe, the corporate world and it 70 hour work weeks may have consumed my passion.

However, I was not willing to give up. Not yet. I searched out sites, read articles, examined web sites -- in search of my passion. Then one day, in the

middle of my research, I heard myself asking probing questions of -- Why?

Where? When? How? My passion was found.

Research, curiosity and learning -- my strengths and my driving assets. My creation -- "My Affiliate Place", was born. It would be a place where an affiliate marketer or a want-to-be affiliate marketer could find information, articles, and free tools.

So, I say to you, if I can find my hidden passion, you can too.

Onward and upward --with my passion defined, I needed a web site.

Web site! Do I need one?

Many people say you can do affiliate marketing without a web site -- however, with a website you can promote more than one product and reach a greater number of people with the same interests. And last but not least, marketing is the act of connecting with people -- and on the internet -- a web site is your vehicle.

Web Site Is Built. Now What!

Now that your web site is built, you will need to begin the promotion process.

There are many avenues in which you can venture. To name a few:

1. safelists

2. ezines

3. classified ads

4. writing articles

5. Off-line advertising -- brochures, flyers

6. Search engine optimization -- To get help in this area, go to my web site at: www.myaffiliateplace.biz/affiliate_info -- to begin your optimization process.

As you can see, advertising is only limited by your own imagination.

To conclude, affiliate marketing is a viable way to begin your journey on the

internet and to your own business. But as you know, with anything that is worth having, you must work diligiently and passionately, and continue to grow and learn -- if success is to be yours.

To your success.

The affiliate has a choice. They can either work with multiple merchants, or they can work with an affiliate network. So why should a marketer want to work with an Affiliate Network?

I remember a friend told me a story awhile back. He had built a small website and had signed up to become an affiliate at a stack of different affiliate programs related to the topic of that site. A few weeks after he had set up the site including links and banners from multiple affiliate programs, he turned his attention to other business interests and lost interest in the site.

A few months later, he noticed that a few checks had started arriving from the affiliate programs he had joined up with. Not large checks, but amounts for a few dollars here and there. That was his first problem – as he was living outside of the USA, lots of small amounts result in lots of bank charges. (Which makes me ask - Why can’t all countries allow affiliates to bank checks at NO CHARGE?)

Nevertheless,

the checks continued to come in, and although some of them were posted on his wall as they were so small he couldn't bank them, he wasn't complaining as he was making money he hadn't expected. It turned out that his site had ranked high up on specific keywords in a major search engine, and he was receiving a fair amount of targeted traffic for free. A few months after that he decided to log into all the affiliate accounts he had registered with, and noticed that some of them had not paid him as the amounts were too small, some of them hadn't paid although they should have, and some even showed that they had sent him amounts that he didn't recall receiving checks or EFT or paypal or any other payments for!

So how does working with an affiliate network prevent this from happening, and is this the only reason to work with an affiliate network?

A good affiliate network has a number of different offers which the affiliates can promote, and nearly all the affiliate networks consolidate the amounts the affiliates earn from the various campaigns. This means that the affiliates receive a CONSOLIDATED payment rather than many smaller ones.

It also makes reconciling the payments easier, as you simply log into one affiliate network, and can see a summary of each of the campaigns you have promoted, how much you have earned from them, a summary of how much you have earned overall, and how much the affiliate network has paid you to date.

Also, once you work with one campaign in an affiliate network, the other campaigns work in a similar if not identical way – the tracking is the same method, the place you pull the creatives from is the same, the way you check your stats is the same – and nearly always, all of this can be achieved by logging into one backend site rather than many different sites.

So now you are working with one log-in, where you can really get to understand the system.

However, even with the best of affiliate networks, things go wrong – but with an affiliate network, you would be allocated an affiliate manager, who will help you sort out any issues you encounter. Not 50 different affiliate managers – one for each campaign you are running, as would be the case if each merchant was a standalone merchant with their own affiliate program – but one affiliate manager for all the campaigns. And by building up a relationship with your affiliate manager, when you do need answers, you have one person to turn to.

Of course, once you become a professional super whaling affiliate (the type that lies on the beach while the money pours in – HAS ANYONE REALLY ACHIEVED THIS? Watch this space for a future story about the affiliate beach goers!), you'll need specific campaigns to promote, and that is why, even the best of affiliates belong to multiple affiliate programs and affiliate networks. But this presents even more problems.

So my advice when starting out is to choose one or 2 affiliate networks, become familiar with their system, build up a relationship with the affiliate manager, test out the different campaigns they have, and let them help you achieve the success and results you want to achieve.

If you are an affiliate looking for a niche market, here’s an important piece of information to make note of:

In 2005 there were over 2 million personal bankruptcy filings in the United States.

Many of these individuals will be looking to rebuild their credit and financial future. This spells opportunity for you as an affiliate. You see, here are just a few products and services that an individual with past bankruptcy will need in order to rebuild their credit and financial future:

1) Credit repair

2) Loans

3) Credit cards

Let’s take a look at each one in more detail, and how you can help as an affiliate:

1) Credit repair

One of the first things someone with a discharged bankruptcy on their credit report will want to do is clean up their credit report and increase their credit score. The problem is that many people simply don’t know how.

As an affiliate, you can help by connecting them with various “credit repair” related resources. By the way, when referring to “credit repair” I mean the removal of any inaccurate or obsolete negative information from an individual’s credit report - not accurate, non-obsolete negative information.

So what type of credit repair resources can you refer them to? Credit repair books, services, and software programs are an example – but as an affiliate you only want to represent solid, reputable companies.

You don’t have to limit yourself to just one avenue when it comes to credit repair resources – for example, some of your visitors may want to take the “do it yourself” route and prefer a credit repair book. Others may want to do less work and opt for credit repair software. Finally, others may want to hire a

service to help them. Why not include affiliate links to all of these options?

If you can find services, with an affiliate program, that specialize in credit repair advice for those with a bankruptcy that’s even better. The same with books, for those visitors that want to take the "do it yourself" route to rebuild their credit. For example, my ebook “After Bankruptcy Credit Solutions” has such an affiliate program.

2) Loans

For a number of people, being able to qualify for a loan after bankruptcy is critical. Fortunately, there are a lot of lenders out there who work with individuals that have had a bankruptcy. Even better, many of these lenders have an affiliate program.

Here is a just a sample of the types loans that individuals with a past bankruptcy may be looking for: Personal loans, home loans, auto loans, refinancing, etc. When researching a lenders affiliate program, see what type of loans they offer.

Just like credit repair, when it comes to loans, you can offer visitors a number of options: Links (with your affiliate ID#) to lenders, books on how to qualify for loans, and membership sites that provide a listing of “bad credit” lenders. Again, as an affiliate you have a lot of choices.

3) Credit Cards

There are a number of credit card affiliate programs out there –and many of the credit card programs target people with bad credit.

Your affiliate website could list a number of credit card programs for people with a past bankruptcy. Best of all, secured credit cards (those that require the customer to open a special savings account that acts as collateral for the line of credit) tend to have a high approval rate – which is good news for your visitors that have a bankruptcy on their credit report.

You’ll notice that I have been talking about giving your visitors options when it comes to each item we’ve covered – credit cards are no different. In addition to links to credit card issuers (with your affiliate ID#), you can also include affiliate links to related books and membership sites. As

mentioned before, research company and offer carefully before joining their affiliate program.

Okay, we’ve looked at the various products and services you can offer your visitors as an affiliate, but aren’t there a already lot of websites out there marketing to individuals with “bad credit”. Yes there are, but a lot fewer that specialize in marketing to those with a past bankruptcy – which means less

competition for you as an affiliate.

In this article we looked at the growing “after bankruptcy” niche market. Hopefully it has given you some ideas that you, as an affiliate, can use to build a new income stream - while helping those with a past bankruptcy in the process.

DISCLAIMER:

This information is designed to provide only a general overview of the subject matter herein.

This information is provided with the understanding that neither the publisher nor author is engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional advice. If legal or other expert assistance is required, the services of a professional should be sought.

Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss or damages, including but not limited to special, consequential, incidental or other damages, caused by the information contained herein.

If you are an affiliate, you will want to consider promoting programs catering to individuals with bad credit. Why? Because of the tremendous demand!

Millions of consumers have less than perfect credit. In addition, in 2004 nearly 1.6 million people in the United States filed for bankruptcy – and that number is expected to increase in 2005, due to the new bankruptcy legislation that recently went into effect. In short, this is a HUGE market!

Okay, so we know there’s a market – but what products or services are people with poor credit looking for?

Here are some popular categories: Auto loans, credit cards, home loans, refinancing, checking accounts, personal loans, and information products (e-books, membership sites, courses, etc).

If you look at the number of searches done for bad credit related loans and financing, you’ll find that a lot of people out there are looking for the “right” lender to help them. Many of them know their local bank would probably turn them down in a second if they applied for a loan.

They need a lender that specializes in working with individuals with poor credit… or information that they can use to increase their credit score so they can qualify for an auto loan, home loan, credit card, etc. with their local bank. That’s where you come in!

As an affiliate you can direct them to various lenders and information products – and get paid for it if the person signs up for the service, or purchases the information product, under your affiliate ID#!

So where do you find such services and information products to promote. There are a few ways:

1) Search Engines: Type “affiliate directories” into your favorite search engine. Next visit the websites you find and click on the finance, credit or related categories. If you want to promote real estate related services (i.e., home loans) for people with poor credit, you could see if they have “real estate” category.

2) ClickBank: Another ideal starting place is ClickBank.

Approximately 10,000 vendors sell their digital products and services through ClickBank. In addition, there are over 100,000 ClickBank affiliates.

Once you’ve signed up for their affiliate program, visit their Marketplace – you can go to the category “Money & Employment” and then click on the “Debt” link. It will provide you with a listing of all of the information products and services you can promote in the category.

3) Other Popular Affiliate Networks: In addition to ClickBank, other affiliate networks you will want to consider signing up with are Commission Junction and LinkShare. To find more affiliate networks, simply type “affiliate networks” into your favorite search engine.

4) Surfing the Net: Let’s say you come across a website offering a secured credit card which you’d like to promote. Look for a link (usually near the bottom or top of the website) that says “affiliates” or “make money”, or something similar. If there is none, email the site owner (they should have a “contact us” link) and ask if they have an affiliate program.

Hopefully this article has given you some ideas on how you, as an affiliate, can cash in on the consumer credit trend and provide a valuable service at the same time – matching individuals that have poor credit with the appropriate service or information product that will help them.

The company and product/service names referenced in this book are the trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. None of the owners have sponsored or endorsed this article.

DISCLAIMER:

This information is designed to provide only a general overview of the subject matter herein.

Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss or damages, including but not limited to special, consequential, incidental or other damages, caused by the information contained herein.

Dear Affiliate,

I have bad news for you: You are probably losing money and you didn't pay attention to it! Let me explain...

When you joined affiliate programs you probably considered the following factors:

- The commission

- The conversion rate

The profit formula looks like a child play: Commission x Conversion Rate = Your Profit

In fact there are three big pitfalls here and if you don't manage them properly, your profit is at risk. Let consider them:

- Price: A high price means a higher affiliate commission for every sale but it may result also in a lower conversion rate… If the product is too expensive, nobody will buy. You shouldn't be blinded by the promise of a very high commission. You should keep in mind that the best price is not the one that gives you the highest commission but the one that makes the highest profit. An optimized pricing that makes satisfied customers and satisfied affiliates is what you should look for.

- Refund Rate: Refunds can kill your marketing efforts! What are worth the sales you see in your account if customers request their money back? A lot of sales mean nothing unless you keep the money!

This is the whole responsibility of the merchant to keep refunds as low as possible. A site that sells well is good. A site that also keeps refunds very low is much better! There is only one way to keep refunds very low: To deliver very high quality services meeting customers' expectations or going beyond what they could expect!

- Product Quality: Quality is king! Quality makes superior conversion rates! Quality enables higher prices and better commissions! Quality keeps refunds as low as possible! In a word: Quality should be your compass. Don't associate your business with low quality products or services. On the top of your list, promote only the very best. It will also keep your profit on top.

How much money are you losing today?

The money you earn and lose is significantly determined by the quality of the affiliate program you have selected as your top pick.

The question is: How do you measure what is more qualitative and what is less?

There is an objective criterion to use for answering this question and for optimizing your profit: The refund rate of your top affiliate program!

A high refund rate express clearly that lots of customers are not satisfied with what they get and that affiliates lose money on their sales. On the contrary, a low refund rates indicates a high level of satisfaction among customers and safe earning for affiliates.

If you get many refunds with your top affiliate program, you should understand that the quality of this program isn't sufficient for keeping these customers satisfied and it doesn't do the necessary job for securing your profit… You are losing money!

What are good, medium and poor refund rates?

Refunds can't be totally avoided. There will always be customers that are not satisfied even for the most qualitative product or service. So, expecting a zero refund rate on the long run is not realistic. You should wish a refund rate as low as possible in your industry. It's important to consider that there can be significant variations from one industry to another but as a rule of thumb you can use the following scale:

2% or less: Excellent

3% - 5%: Good

6% - 10%: Medium

11% - 15%: Poor

16% - 20%: Very Poor

21% or higher: Run away!

With a 5% or less refund rate you can be happy. Your affiliate program is reliable and your profit is secured. With a 6%-10% refund rate, you should monitor closely your merchant performance to ensure it doesn't get worst. It would be advised to scan the market for a better alternative if you can find one. With an 11%-20% (or higher) refund rate you should be very concerned with your profit. Whatever your industry is, you are bleeding and there is probably a better affiliate program to promote.

What is the refund rate of your top affiliate program?

There are two ways to find the refund rate of an affiliate program:

1) Look at the stats supplied by your affiliate program

Do your math as following: Refunds / Sales = Refund Rate

Let say you make 1000 sales per month, you get a $23.50 commission per sale and about 160 customers request their money back every month. Your refund rate is 160 / 1000 = 16%. In that case it means that you should have earned $23,500 for your sales but you will get only $19,740 because of the refunds. You lost here 16% of your profit or $3,760!

You can ask yourself: Is it only I or all affiliates for this program get similar numbers? If you use Clickbank to promote affiliate programs, you can get the big picture about the whole community of affiliates that promote an affiliate program.

2) Using Clickbank payout stats to calculate the average refund rate of an affiliate program

In its marketplace, Clickbank publishes payout stats for affiliate programs. The $Earned/Sale factor gives us exactly what we need to calculate the average refund rate of a program.

The $Earned/Sale is the average net amount earned per affiliate per referred sale. This number is mainly impacted by refunds and it reveals the real commission earned by affiliates. With this number, you can have an inner look at the real performance of affiliates programs.

The average refund rate of an affiliate program is:

(Commission - $Earned)/Commission = Average Refund Rate

What is the refund rate of popular affiliate programs at Clickbank?

As an example, we have looked at three affiliate programs selling paid surveys databases. We have found their refund rates very high! You will be surprised at discovering how much money affiliates can lose when promoting these programs:

- SurveyScout: 16.2% refund rate!

- Survey Platinum: 20.9% refund rate!

- My Consumer Survey: 35.2% refund rate!

To get into the details, on November 29th 2005 figures were as following:

SurveyScout

Affiliate Commission: $23.50

Average $Earned/Sale: $19.69

Refund Rate: (23.50 - 19.69) / 23.50 = 16.2%

Example: For 100 referred sales you should earn $2,350. In fact you will get only $1,969 because 16 customers out of 100 have requested their money back!

Survey Platinum

Affiliate Commission: $23.50

Average $Earned/Sale: $18.58

Refund Rate: (23.50 - 18.58) / 23.50 = 20.9%

Example: For 100 referred sales you should earn $2,350. In fact you will get only $1,858 because 21 customers out of 100 have requested their money back!

My Consumer Survey

Affiliate Commission: $40.84

Average $Earned/Sale: $26.43

Refund Rate: (40.84 - 26.43) / 40.84 = 35.2%

Example: For 100 referred sales you should earn $4,084. In fact you will get only $2,643 because 35 customers out of 100 have requested their money back!

Remark: My Consumer Survey has a poorly designed site and a high price for buyers. We estimate its conversion rate to be significantly lower than other paid surveys programs. Despite its high commission, affiliates will lose the most money with this program.

We learn three lessons about these paid surveys affiliate programs:

- A lot of customers are dissatisfied.

- Affiliates lose big money.

- The quality of these programs is very questionable.

What should you do to stop the bleeding?

You have no influence on the quality of the affiliate programs you promote. Your only real influence is on the quality of your recommendation!

Giving your top recommendation to a very professional affiliate program that delivers the utmost quality services to customers will keep your profit as high and as safe as possible.

In the field of paid surveys and mystery shopping jobs, the most professional program available today is MaximumPaidSurveys.com.

Maximum Paid Surveys is a premium database of paid surveys and mystery shopping jobs. It delivers a superior value to both registered users and affiliate partners due to its very high quality.

How to identify quality in affiliate programs?

Defining quality is a difficult job. In general, people can't define clearly what quality is but they recognize it when they see it. So what should you look at in affiliate programs?

The most qualitative affiliate programs find the right balance between the value they offer to customers and the value they generate to affiliates:

1. Value to customers – It includes:

- Rich content

- Good looking website

- State-of-the-art organization

- Friendly functionality

- Affordable Price for most visitors

- Detailed documentation

- Bonuses strengthening the main offer

- Timely Customer Support

2. Value to affiliates – It includes:

- High conversion rate

- High commission

- Low refund rate

- Commission paid on time

- Good affiliate support

Advertising and marketing has become one of the largest and most profitable careers around. Successful advertising gurus can command huge wages by working in the creative industry. Few people would choose to argue with earning money by the bucketful doing something as simple and enjoyable as creating advertising campaigns.

The invention of the Internet has blown apart the traditions and boundaries of many of the industries and business sectors, which have become established in the real world. One of these is that of advertising, the online market is vastly different to that of the standard tried and tested methods. In itself the advertising industry has been revolutionised and brought into the technological age. One of the products of this marketing revolution is the affiliate program.

The affiliate-marketing program runs along the same fundamental principles as that of the standard media marketing. However it does have some vastly different attributes to make it almost completely unique from the traditional associations of marketing. Apart from the obvious difference that it is an online campaign, affiliate marketing is a system based around commission and diversity.

The first major difference is the way in which advertisers are paid. Rather than forking out for a huge advertising campaign from the outset, the host website only pays an affiliate as and when they produce a new customer for them. This not only provides the website with a cost free outlay but also gives the affiliate the necessary incentive to go out and find new customers for the site. Without customers the affiliate doesn't get paid, so it stands to reason that most are going to be working hard to secure valuable custom.

The second main difference is the way in which the advertising campaign is mounted. Rather than running campaigns through an advertising agency and standard media such as television, billboard and event sponsorship, it is done through a network of websites. These subsidiary websites agree to host the banners and other advertising materials, in exchange for their commission. This form of free advertising means that a company can easily spread it's advertising to an unlimited number of people from countries all over the world, through it's sheer variety and breadth of websites.

Most successful industries utilise affiliate marketing, often in line with traditional forms of advertising. Competitive markets such as that of online sports betting have used the affiliate marketing program to generate exceptional growth in businesses throughout the sector. Offering their clients a percentage of the money generated by a player throughout their lifetime on the site gives the affiliate a huge potential to earn significant money in the sports betting industry. Not only has the sports betting industry taken off as a result of it's affiliate program, but so has that of it's subsidiary marketing partner. The sports betting affiliate industry is one of the most popular and profitable for affiliates everywhere. The growth in the advertising sector has helped, both the sports betting and affiliate industries develop into successful bi-products of each other.

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Affiliate Marketing Programs: Join The Ranks Of The Super Affiliates