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Affiliate Marketing: 11 Different Types Of Affiliate Programs |
Affiliate marketing programs has never been as popular before as it is today. Why? There can be a number of reasons. The most probable reason, however, could be the fact that the benefits of affiliate marketing have become clearer to a lot of people now than they were before.
Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them. The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost. The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.
Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has shifted into greater heights, so has the people's outlook about it changed. No longer is affiliate marketing considered today as an alternative method for the merchant to advertise his products, or as a source of additional income for the affiliates. For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a main source of profits and revenues.
So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? Are all affiliate marketing programs the same? Are the benefits the same? Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?
There are actually different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one will classify them. The most basic affiliate marketing programs, however, falls under two categories: pay-per-click (PPC), and pay-per-performance (PPP).
• Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small websites, and probably the easiest way for them to earn money. In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant's banner or text ads. The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant's site. However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click.
• Pay Per Performance (PPP)
PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action—that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant's site or when the visitor becomes a lead. This means a lot of savings for the merchant. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.
Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).
o Pay Per Sale (PPS)
In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant's site actually buys something from the merchant's site. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.
o Pay Per Lead (PPL)
The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant's site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.
Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant's site.
• Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing
These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made. In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. All the previously mentioned affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS< PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier classification.
• In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant's site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation. Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.
• Residual Income Affiliate Marketing
In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant's site. Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product. Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.
The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits. Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? It is not really for me to tell. Rather, it is for you to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit your needs and characteristics best.
Affiliate marketing on the internet seems to be everywhere. There are so many sites that a person can sign up to receive bonuses from referring other people to the site that it seems that everyone is involved. This can lead to a lot of websites having more links to other sites than actual content, just to earn money from their affiliate marketing.
However, the idea of an affiliate is not a new one, and is by no means reserved just for the internet. There have long been associations between two or more people or companies. Quite often, being an affiliate of a prestigious organisation was seen as a benefit, and was often very hard sought after. Dental practitioners would want to be affiliated with the national dental organisation, for example. This affiliating with a recognised governing body would add extra credibility to the practice.
On the other hand, celebrities would often be affiliated with a certain product or service for advertising purposes. It is still the case that many people aspire to own the same items that their favourite movie stars or pop singer use.
The majority of internet affiliates do not have the same status as other affiliates, as there are no special requirements for affiliation. Almost anyone can have hundreds of affiliate links on their site, and most of these are not of any real benefit to the credibility of the site itself. In fact, as they are purely ways to attract visitors to another site, the impact of these affiliate inks can often be negative.
Many people are so used to seeing lots of affiliate links that they are almost immune to them. The time has come for the true nature of the affiliate to be restored and applied to the internet affiliate schemes. Having an affiliation should be a sign that the site performs a valuable service, or has reached recognised standards of quality and service, and not simply a way to earn a few extra cents whenever a person clicks on the link. In reality, the amount of money that a site owner actually earns from these affiliate links is so small compared to the negative impact that having the link on their site has, that it would be in their best interests to remove them.
You are probably leaving a lot of money on the table while promoting you affiliate program and don’t know it. Any big time affiliate marketing program owner who sees this article will be screaming, “No!” at the top of their lungs. You on the other hand will be cheering, “Yes!”
When you use and affiliate page or link, you are sending traffic to the owner of the program’s site. On the surface, that seems great. You send people to look at the product, opt-in, buy it, and get paid.
What could possibly be any better?
This is what could be a lot better. You could be the one getting what you just gave away, to market other products in the future or even now. What is it? It’s the name and email address of the person. That’s right, the information that you just gave away, is the most valuable thing you could have and you probably don’t know it.
That name and email address is worth everything to you. This is why. You could use it to send your promotional mailings to that person about anything you offer. If you don’t have it, you have no way to contact that person. However, the owner of the program you’re promoting does. You can bet that they will use it to send their offers out to people on the nice shinny list that you just helped them build. They are thanking you and, at the same time, laughing at you hysterically.
This is just one way solve the problem. Build a landing page that offers the program or service with your own opt-in box. If you don’t know how, learn how, because you’re loosing a fortune. Then you just take the affiliate link and place it in the section of the code that would go to your thank you page. So, after the visitor signs up to be on YOUR list, you are automatically sending that person to your affiliate page. Then you are getting the best of both worlds.
Can you think of one good reason to give your list of potential customers and profits away? Internet marketing gurus have big enough lists. Makes sure that you are building yours first. You wouldn’t leave $1,000,000 on a table in a city bar. At least I hope you wouldn’t!
There are so many benefits to affiliate marketing and creating a strong affiliate program. Doing this means you pay for results, rather than advertising that may or may not target your market. When you include an affiliate marketing program as part of your advertising plan you are sure to receive directed advertising that works, and if it does not work then you don’t pay for it. That is what affiliate advertising is all about, paying for effective advertising. The great thing also is that you decide what type of advertising is effective and reaches your market and what does not. You can choose between an email lead, actual sale, a new subscriber to your newsletter, or even a download of a particular product. All of these are measurable ways to determine how your affiliate plan is working and what type of advertising is resulting as a consequence. You only pay your affiliates for advertising that is measurable and successful.
Paying your affiliates is up to you as well, or at least how you pay them. You might choose to pay your affiliates a percentage of the sale or a fee for finding a new client, the way you pay your affiliates is up to you and should work. Remember, however, your affiliates are working for results and do not get paid unless they obtain the results you are looking for. Because of this your affiliates will work harder to make their commissions! Also, you don’t mind paying your affiliates for their hard work when you are receiving truly direct advertising with results so the affiliate marketing program is the best way to advertise because it is successful and you only pay for what works not to mention as your affiliates grow you receive more advertising and increased sales.
With an affiliate marketing program you also develop a network of individuals working solely to promote your product. This network grows and grows and becomes larger and more powerful each day. Each new affiliate adds a link to your website, which simply increases your target market . So, each new affiliate allows your targeted market to grow larger in an exponential manner and reach unlimited amounts of individuals all over the web and the globe. Also, with each new link your website will rank higher in search engines so you not only increase your market, but you also increase your search engine results. The amount of websites linking to your site as a result of your affiliates means exposure and the more exposure you have the more results your targeted marketing and advertising plan will receive. An affiliate program truly is the perfect answer to your advertising needs and is affordable as well.
Nobody wants to pay for a service or product they are not receiving, even when advertising is concerned. You would not expect to go to the grocery store and pay for food items you did not receive and as such you should not use advertising that does not deliver results. For too long advertisers have sold their services without providing true results to clients, however with an affiliate marketing program you will not have this problem. Affiliate marketing has changed the world of advertising and it makes sense. You pay for the advertising your receive, and if you don’t receive any advertising then you don’t pay anything at all. It really is as simple as that and because of this affiliate marketing programs are cropping up all over the Internet because people want to pay for results, and affiliates want to get results in order to get paid, so everybody wins! Finally, the affiliate marketing program provides the right answer for web advertising needs.
Another great benefit as well is that with the affiliate marketing programs you don’t receive results just one time, but potentially forever. The reason for this is because affiliates provide your link on their website in order to send traffic your way and to make money. As a direct result of this your affiliates will keep your link on their site in order to make as much money through referrals as possible. The only way an affiliate will remove your link from their site is if they decide to close their site down for whatever reason. Consequently, you receive long term marketing and exposure from every affiliate and when they send traffic that results in a measurable sale, you pay your affiliate and the process continues. It requires little effort on the part of the affiliate with big returns, so you can rest assured your affiliates will keep advertising for you indefinitely.
The relationships you build with your affiliates results in several benefits for your marketing campaign that include only paying for measurable results and fostering advertising relationships that have no definite end. So, each day and every new affiliate simply results in a larger audience being exposed to your products and services. This does not decrease because your affiliates will stay with you in order to earn their commissions and you will pay the commissions for all the actual results of the marketing campaign. There is no reason to focus all of your efforts advertising other ways when you can start an affiliate program and grow exponentially. The best way to advertise is through an affiliate marketing program, so get yours started today. There are plenty of directions and tips to get started on the Internet that will help you get your affiliate marketing program moving and start increasing your sales and improving your search rankings almost immediately.
An affiliate program is a relationship with an on-line merchant where the affiliate earns a commission for referring potential customers to the merchant’s site, which subsequently results in a sale.
Over recent years the number of Affiliate marketing programs has increased dramatically. This is due to several reasons. Firstly an increase in the number of people seeking a work-from-home, low start-up cost business. Secondly the attraction to the merchants of having an army of salespeople selling their products has meant that more and more merchants are offering such schemes. Thirdly the increase is partly due to the ease with which it is now possible for most people to have a web presence. Some affiliate marketing schemes even provide completed web pages that only require simple personalization and the site can be up and running almost immediately. Sadly, another factor having its influence is the false impression created by some marketers that the Internet provides the means to get rich quickly and easily with minimum of effort. Some skilled affiliate marketers earn thousands of dollars a month. Some of the reasons why you should consider such a scheme are
No experience required
No stock to purchase
Low set-up cost
No premises to rent or buy
Can be operated from home
No sales experience needed
No goods to ship
Potentially good income
Addressing a world marketplace
Operates 24x7
So what factors do you need to take into account if you are just starting out as a newbie affiliate?
What commission does the affiliate scheme pay?
Commission rates vary considerably depending upon the type of product chosen. These can range from, say, 5% on a range of garden products to 50% and over on ranges of ebooks. Initially you should consider the high paying rates usually to be found on books and software.
How frequently are the commissions paid?
The frequency of commission payment varies from company to company. Determine whether your selected affiliate schemes pay weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly. Some companies require a minimum accumulated amount of commission before making a payment.
What form of tracking cookies does the company operate?
Tracking cookies, which have a set like, are used by the marketing company so that they can trace a customer back to you as an affiliate. Often purchases are not impulse buys, consequently the longer the life of the cookie, the greater chance you have of earning commission. The life of a cookie can range from several days to several years.
Does the affiliate scheme cater for second purchases and beyond?
Some schemes pay commission only on the product that you are promoting. Better schemes credit you with commission on any future products that the customer you introduced subsequently makes. If you can, therefore, opt for this latter group, and check that this applies if the customer, in future goes directly to the merchants site.
Does the merchant supply attractive promotional material?
What marketing materials are available on the merchant’s site? As nearly all affiliate programs are free to join you can easily gain access to the resource pages of your intended merchants. Examine the quality of the material. Do they provide free gifts for you to offer? Do they offer any means of branding ebooks so that you can stamp you affiliate identity on them?
Do they respond to emails?
A future relationship between you as an affiliate, your customer and a merchant of your choice, can be partly dependant upon the ease with which you, can communicate. Send the merchant an email with a question about their affiliate scheme and look at how you are treated. Discount the affiliate if there is a delayed reply, or worse still, no reply at all.
How popular is the merchant’s website?
Alexa at www.alexa.com carries out a continuous process of site ranking. And will tell you how your merchant’s site ranks in popularity against all of the other sites on the web. Ranking somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 might be considered ideal. A word of caution here, however. If the ranking is below 100,000 there may already be too many affiliates associated with that merchant. If the ranking is greater than 500,000 it could just be that you have come across a new product where you have chance to make money as one of the first affiliates. Always examine the product in detail, and do a Google search to find any adverse postings. Join the forum at www.warriorforum.com and post a topic asking the members if they have any experience of the merchant. Again a word of caution. Be aware that any glowing report may be coming from an existing affiliate.
AUTHOR: Jorge M. Vega
COPYRIGHT: ©2006 by Jorge M. Vega - All rights reserved
WORD COUNT: 1085
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To the average netpreneur, with no product of their own, without an opt-in list, and with little or no sales experience, Affiliate Marketing can easily represent the chance of a lifetime, a gift from Heaven, if you will. It's a viable way to circumvent all the usual requirements that go hand in hand with starting a home based business.
For one thing, you stand to save thousands by not needing to develop and test a product of your own; you just use someone else's already proven winner as your own. Also, you can skip worrying about designing your own website; here again, use what is supplied for you by the merchant, and run with it. This saves a lot of headaches, time, and, you guessed it -- money.
You'll also have the enviable last word on whether or not to continue promoting anyone's product based on its performance. If it doesn't sell, give it up. You're your own boss.
For all the reasons touched upon above, as well as for a few others not yet discussed for the sake of brevity, affiliate marketing has evolved into one of the most effective ways to start an online business. And, for anyone with a decent website, it's also one of the easiest ways to start seeing a profit online.
WHAT'S AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant (owner of the product), and a website owner (the promoter). The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant's products by linking to the merchant's website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate.
Every time someone clicks on the link in the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. Obviously, a commission is earned by the affiliate only when a customer makes a purchase.
Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation, for both the merchant and the affiliate, because of the pay-for-performance scheme. And, as you'll see, both the merchant and the affiliate do enjoy specific benefits in this arrangement.
HOW THE MERCHANT BENEFITS
There are many benefits on the merchant's side. It gives the merchant a wider customer base to advertise their product or service to. Affiliate marketing gives the product or service the maximum exposure that it could possibly get, as compared to any other traditional advertising technique.
It goes without saying, the more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, and the higher the chances of converting visitors into sales.
Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who do all the promoting, and only get paid a commission if a customer purchases. If their efforts fail to make a sale, the merchant isn't out of pocket one thin dime. The burden of performance is, thus, squarely on the shoulders of the affiliate.
It's a "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?" kind of scenario.
HOW THE AFFILIATE BENEFITS
As described, an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, so the affiliate also enjoys many benefits.
Foremost among these, is the easy chance to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link leading to the merchant's website, which prospective customers will hopefully click.
As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate's site, they're redirected to the merchant's website, and if they make a purchase, the affiliate earns a commission. The more prospects being referred, the more profit potential for the affiliate.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money from home. There are no product production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant. All you have to do to is find as many prospects as you can who will visit the merchant's web site.
There are countless, capable affiliates who have mastered the art of convincing prospects to visit the websites they promote. This elite group of marketers earns big chunks of money from their grateful merchants.
In affiliate marketing, start up costs are minimal, if any at all. In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience required. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer with the least cost and the most support.
You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the comfort of your own home, which is what most affiliates do. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, or product shipping. These, along with customer service, are the duties of the merchant.
Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the freedom you enjoy. If the product you're advertising isn't making money, you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not profitable. As an affiliate marketer, you have the last word about what you promote.
This kind of freedom is something you'll never see in the offline world if you're in sales. For instance, if you're shoe salesman, and your company's buyer blew it this season and bought nothing but alligators, it's very unlikely that you'll turn your back on your career as a result, and start selling home owner's insurance, or kids' bicycles. Chances are, you'll have to stick it out, and hope for something better next year - or, for a different doggone buyer!
By far, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is an unparalleled opportunity to increase your income; and, you can make good money even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business.
Indeed, as you've seen, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities available online today, or anywhere else, for that matter.
The Good Old Days
Remember the good old days? You'd purchase a domain name, set up your site (with a few swear words here and there), and place some banner ads (while crossing your fingers for the best banner ad click-through results). This all worked great--for a while; until people managed to avoid our banner ads like the plague. Life got more complex. What were us internet marketers to do? We had to become more savvy. Fortunately for us, the affiliate model was introduced.
Ah, the affiliate marketing model. It never hurts to get a little help from your friends, right? Affiliate marketing networks offer a wide range of advantages to businesses. In short: it's a booming business with dollar signs all around it. Sure, affiliate marketing can be a profitable business, but it can also be very aggravating, time consuming, and antisocial. So here’s the big question: Why the heck do we keep putting ourselves through all of this pain? The answer, although seemingly complex, is quite simple: easy money.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The average person thinks of affiliate marketing as a “get rich quick” scheme for geeks and nerds. Actually, it’s the farthest thing from the truth. Nowadays, you’re just as likely to find a High School dropout behind an affiliate marketing operation; as you are to find a computer science major.
Despite the revenue advantages, many successful affiliate managers are weary of transparent affiliates. After all, there's a lot of trickery out there. You have to be on the lookout for the ‘Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.’ That’s right folk, if you're the good guy, beware of the bad and the ugly affiliates. They're out there right now placing infectious adware on an unsuspecting consumer’s computer.
As a marketer, it's your responsibility to investigate your affiliates use of adware. Don't turn your head and look the other way. It's OUR consumers that may receive unwanted and/or destructive ads. Can you blame them for becoming angry at the marketer who (perhaps inadvertently) funds adware infections? Of course not. Destructive ads shouldn’t even be considered a marketing strategy. It’s completely unethical.
The New Guy
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is a great starting point. If you experience success--run with the ball. Explore additional performance compensation structures. But before you even consider jumping into the game, you should ask yourself the following questions (to avoid business pitfalls):
1). Will affiliate marketing assist you in reaching all of your business targets?
2). Will affiliate marketing have advantages over other types of online marketing?
3). Do you have the time and commitment to run a developing affiliate operation (which will require time to flourish and succeed?
4). How flexible is your budget for affiliate marketing?
Here's some background information for the 'new guy': Time and commitment are essential to your success. While running a network of affiliates doesn't require a college degree, it does require your attention for details. Perhaps this is why merchants find outsourced providers offer a very appealing solution. In addition, the new guy should realize:
• Not everyone will make five figures a month with affiliate marketing. There's a lot of marketers out there. You're the new guy, remember? Find some successful companies that use affiliate marketing. Research them. What did they do to become such a success? Can you duplicate that plan?
• You're not going to make any money eating potato chips in front of the television. If it were that easy--I'd be doing that instead of writing this article on affiliate marketing. Be prepared to devote a lot of time to your business and your affiliate relations.
• Don't take blind referrals from anyone! You'll discover the best affiliate opportunities through your own research.
The Future
In just the last few years, affiliate marketing has become a very powerful force on ecommerce. Every day thousands, if not millions, of merchants rely on affiliate marketing to drive their businesses. But is affiliate marketing all just a big hype? What ever happened to customer service? What strange times we live in; as the value of business is no longer placed on the customer--but on the relationship with whoever facilitated the connection.
This just goes to prove that affiliate marketing is only as good as the people who run it. Remember, there are ways to get your affiliate program noticed; just make sure that you get it noticed for the right reasons. If you value internet based businesses and you'd like more job leads, educational information, and tools to aid your internet entrepreunership, than visit: http://www.ebyro.com (a Vertical Portal for Internet Entrepreneurs).
With more than 15 million Americans now running Home Based Businesses, what are the benefits, if any, to choosing an Affiliate Marketing Program as a part-time Internet Business!
Affiliate Marketing Programs are a great way for anybody to start a home-based Internet business. They offer a wide range of products and services that can, once you have mastered the skills of “driving traffic” to your website, make you good money.
Due to its almost unlimited potential, it is now one of the most sought after ways to make extra income quickly. The most common reason that so many people get started in Affiliate Marketing is because by selling other peoples products you save yourself a lot of the headaches that normally go with starting a business.
The number one benefit for most people is there's no need for you to invent, produce or stock anything. No need for staff or customer service. All these burdens are taken off your hands by the product or service provider. All you do is promote their products and services on your website. Your only real concern is how to increase your income.
Number two on my list of benefits for Affiliate Marketing is the great variety of products and services at your disposal. To help you with your Affiliate Marketing, there are lots of training materials that will help you enhance your Affiliate Marketing capabilities.
Due to the large number of products and services that are out there in the market place, it is advisable to choose products and services that interest you. This will help you to effectively advertise and promote these products or services. Do not select products that you do not know or are not familiar with. The main reason I say this is because your interest and passion for a product or services will prompt you to be creative.
The most popular benefit of Affiliate Marketing is the small matter of being able to earn money while you do other things like go shopping or while you are sleeping. We all like the idea of making money from “doing nothing”.
Is it really that easy? Well the answer to that question is Yes and NO. For you to earn a lot of money, you MUST drive traffic from your website to the providers and this is easier said than done. The most common reason for failure is putting up a website with nothing but Affiliate Links. Let’s think about this. Why would anyone come to your website? How would they find your website? The most popular sites on the Internet are those with content, things people can read. What do we really use the Internet for “Research”. On the Internet today, CONTENT IS KING and with so many subjects to talk about, it should be easy to fill your website with content that people will want to read.
Choosing subjects that interest you will help you keep the site interesting. You can always tell when someone has a real passion for the subject they are talking about. Not everyone will agree with your point of view and that’s OK too. Anything that keeps them coming to your website will help you make sales from the products and services you promote.
Have an opinion or a question you would like me to answer, then write me! http://www.CarlHampton.com
Affiliate programs can be a great way for you to earn money off of your website. However, you are not going to make a good income off of just any affiliate program, there are too many for that. The key to success is finding the affiliate business with the most potential. How do you go about finding the good versus the bad you may wonder?
There are thousands of affiliate programs on the internet with each one offering a different commission you can receive. If you can find the affiliate business that pays well you have a better chance to make a higher income. The commission structure is vital information that you should be aware of. You should also research how reliable the affiliate program is with paying their affiliates.
Try and find an affiliate program that is continuously growing and has potential. You don’t want to find an affiliate business that is brand new because of the risk that the business may fail. However, it is important that the business has not reached its peak. You should see your commission checks steadily rising the longer you are with the program.
When looking into the affiliate program think to yourself “is this a product that I would be interested in?” You want to think from the visitors’ perspective and find a business that has public interest. Obviously you want to find an affiliate program that is somewhat related with your website. If you can find a program that you are interested in, you will be much more inclined to promote it with enthusiasm.
Even if the product is enticing, take a look at the sales page and its general layout. The layout of the page can be a determinant of whether or not a person buys the product. Make sure that it is simple to place an order and easy to spot the order form. Also check to see if the page looks professional or cluttered. A page that gets the message across and sells the product without too much information is a well displayed sells page.
You want to join an affiliate program that makes your life easier. The program should provide you with the basic essentials to allow you to promote their business such as banners, pop-ups, image banners and more. This way you can place these tools on your website to promote their affiliate business with little effort whatsoever. If they provide you with the tools for success, this shows they care about their affiliates.
Finding the right affiliate program is crucial to your success and your outlook towards the affiliate marketing business. If you have a bad first experience, odds are you will want to quit. Finding a quality business will help provide you with success and hope for further accomplishments.
A sub-domain is an individual and separate web folder that can be created and attached to the main domain. This sub-domain can have its own FTP password. It can also have its own private CGI-Bin folders, and all other characteristics of an individual domain. But this sub-domain need not be registered as a separate domain and this means that the affiliate need not spend additional money for the setting up of the sub-domain.
How can a sub-domain help an entrepreneur achieve success in his affiliate marketing business? A sub-domain can help the affiliate in two ways. These are optimization in search engines and diversification of the affiliate’s website.
Optimization in Search Engines
Sub-domains are usually recognized by search engines as an individual online entity. And since it is a separate URL (as identified by search engines), it will be listed on its own and not be a part the main domain. In affiliate marketing, such a situation is advantageous. The affiliate can promote products in a dedicated website that will most probably be ranked high, provided that all other search engine optimization techniques are used.
Of course, there is a specification that the affiliate must comply with. That is, the sub-domain’s name must be attached to the main domain’s name using a dot. For example, the URL will be “subdomain.maindomain.com”. The affiliate should avoid using the hyphen, such as in http://subdomain.maindomain.com. The hyphenated name will need to be registered as a separate domain and this will demand additional expenses for the affiliate.
Diversification of the Affiliate’s Website
The contents of the website of an affiliate should be relevant to each other. This means that products that are extremely different from each other should not be located in one website. Otherwise, the affiliate runs the risk of discouraging and confusing the Internet visitor. But how will an affiliate promote products that are wholly unrelated to each other but are both interesting and financially feasible?
The affiliate can create sub-domains. One sub-domain will be dedicated to one product, while another will be focused on another product which is distinct from the first one. In this way, when the visitor opens the website, he will only find the products and information that he is looking for. He will not be distracted by the presence of another product banner that he has no interest in knowing about.
Of course, the creation of sub-domains may need to be consulted with the web host. Some web hosts offer free sub-domains while others demand a charge. The creation of sub-domains also involves work. But, after such work, the income of the affiliate will significantly increase.
What does it take to become a successful Affiliate Marketer? What are the fundamentals of an affiliate marketing success story? Is there a shortcut to profits though Affiliate Marketing? All these questions preoccupy the minds of affiliate marketers who desire unlimited success in this business.
Even though affiliate marketing is touted as one of the easiest and most effective ways to generate income online, it is not as easy as it sounds. The smart affiliate marketer plans every undertaking and executes it the best way he can. He should also maximize the potential to earn by utilizing the appropriate tools essential for a successful Affiliate Marketing business. We have consulted some of the most successful affiliate marketers in the business and following are the top three essential tools for a successful affiliate marketing venture.
Essential tool #1: Your Own Website
The most important and indispensable tool in Affiliate Marketing is your own website. The first move in any successful affiliate marketing business is to create a good, credible and professional-looking website. Your website is the starting point of all your marketing efforts. Thus, you must first build a user-friendly website, which will appeal to your prospects. Such a site will encourage them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting, and hopefully make a purchase. Therefore, you must first focus your efforts on building a website that will provide what your visitors need.
The most important consideration is that practically all users of the Internet go online to search for information, not necessarily to buy something. Above all else, fill your website with original, pertinent and worthwhile content. People will appreciate articles that are appealing and useful. Remember that, on the internet, content is still king and good quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking. By posting relevant and helpful articles, you establish yourself as a credible expert in the field, making you a more trustworthy endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good reputation is a good move in building up a loyal customer base.
Important tool #2:Incentives
Competition is extremely intense on the internet. You must constantly be one step ahead of your rivals to ensure that you grab a significant share ofyour target market. Therefore, you must use every available means to encourage people not only to visit your site but also to click links and proceed to the websites of the products and services you are promoting. Building an opt-in email list is one of the best ways to gather prospects. Offer a newsletter or an e-zine. Better yet, offer incentives to your site visitors to encourage them to subscribe to your newsletters. You can present free software or ebooks, access to exclusive services
and other freebies that will be helpful to your visitors.
Important tool #3: Link Popularity
The importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be emphasized enough. This is at the top of the list of the most important elements in the internet world. Attracting people to your site should be the first step you carry out. Do everything to achieve a high search engine ranking. Link Popularity is one of the main factors that search engines use to determine search engine rankings. Therefore, to enhance your link popularity, you must launch an aggressive reciprocal link campaign. This is accomplished by contacting the owners of other websites, usually related to the topic of your site, and agreeing to post links to each other's sites. There are also a number of software programs available to help automate the process.
Even better than reciprocal links are one-way links. These are links back to your site, for which you do not have a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to do this - at no cost at all - is by submitting articles, with your website's link in the resource box, to e-zines
and free article sites. You will not only gain exposure, you will also have the opportunity to advertise for free, just by including a link back to your site. The more sites you submit your articles to, the better your link popularity will be. Make your articles original, relevant and useful so that more websites will pick them up and post them.
These are but three of the many tools that an affiliate marketer can use to maximize earning potential. The possibilities are endless and are limited only by your imagination, creativity, resourcefulness and determination. You can also explore other ideas and
adapt other strategies, which you think might help you become a thriving affiliate marketer.
As an affiliate, it is risky to focus on promoting a single product. You need to promote multiple products or services and generate multiple streams of affiliate income instead. Here are a few ways on how you can do it:
1. Sell Offline Products
You don’t necessarily need to endorse the online products to people. There are products or services offline that can be really lucrative for your affiliate business. For example, the Sattelite TV subscription, promoting the membership to a certain fitness club and much more.
2. Sell Classified Ads
Have you ever read the classified ads on a newspaper? It’s almost the same but you get to sell them in your newsletter. Usually, classified ads are rather short, maybe 3-5 sentences of words and are promoted together with the other ads in the newsletter.
3. Sell Solo Ads
Another way to generate a profit from your newsletter is by selling solo ads. Solo ads in short, are much longer ads than classified ads and they are sent individually in an email. This way, the ad will get more attention from its readers and will be much more effective and responsive.
4. Sell Ad-Spaces On Website
If you have a website which pulls in decent number of visitors, you can start selling ad-spaces on your website. People do this by either putting the advertiser’s banner, ad or any other visible graphics and texts somewhere on the website to promote what the advertiser wants.
5. JV Brokering
This includes joint venturing with another list owner on selling an affiliate program with 2-tier commissions. You request the list owners to sign up under you as a 2nd tier affiliate and give them a good offer why they should sell the affiliated product.
Usually, you will need to prepare the tools, offer a bonus product to the joint ventured list owner so they can promote the affiliated with the bonus to their subscribers.
6. Create Multiple Websites
If you’re focusing on selling online, jump on another product after you have successfully endorsed the previous one. Don’t get stuck in only one product as it can lose its popularity or favor. Keep moving on and on, replicate the process of endorsing a product and make sure they are all personally tested, useful and good products.
7. Pay-Per-Lead
You can earn a commission by directing your subscribers to a website which pays you for it. This can be a survey held by big companies like Coca-Cola, PEPSI and so on. This is a really great way of earning commissions as directing a lead to a website is very easy.
8. Pay-Per-Click
Have you heard about Google Adsense, Chitika or Yahoo Publishers Network? When you sign up for these services and put a script on your website, there will be ads shown on it. You will earn a small commission every time a visitor clicks on it, a fairly lucrative way of earning affiliate commissions.
By creating more occasions to earn money, you can make sure that your income will continue to develop daily instead of having a fall. The rest, take action today.
One of the most important aspects of affiliate marketing is testing. This allows you to know what works best for your particular website and gives you the warning signs that you are possibly going down the wrong route. Testing gives you the ability to build the optimal website on which every space is filled in the most profitable way.
It is vital that you have access to Real Time stats if you want to be able to test out your ideas. Most affiliate networks offer this feature for free, and there are plenty software packages on the market which will track this for you. In this way, you will be able to see straight away if the change you have made has had any benefit to your online business. Sometimes the crucial make break changes, do not immediately track a huge turn around of your business, but often there will be some hint which gives you the hope that you are moving in the right direction.
What exactly is testing? It can be as small as moving a banner from the top right hand corner to the top left. It can be as huge as rethinking your whole model of how you will get traffic to your site. It could simply mean you need to replace the campaigns you are currently running. Whether your goal is to get visitors to your site, give your visitors a wonderful time or it is to make money from every visitor that enters your site, testing will give you the tools to spot what is working and what needs to be rethought.
Let us look at an example. Trevor is running a website on Disney World. He joins an affiliate network and picks 3 offers which he will run on his Disney World website. They include an email submit campaign, a zip code campaign and a shopping site where his visitors can purchase Disney goods. He also puts a bit of adsense on the top and left hand side of his website. The rest of the site is filled with content and pictures. At these early stages of the website, Trevor already needs to start testing.
The first and most important goal for Trevor is to get traffic to his site. Without traffic, this website is as good as your personal hand written diary. Traffic encourages an excitement about your website and will ultimately make you money. There are hundreds if not thousands of different ways to get traffic to your site. Each feature you add or remove from your site, could change your daily ratio from 10 to 1 visitor or just as easily, from 10 to 10000 visitors. The beauty about testing is it never ends.
Once Trevor has sufficient traffic visiting and revisiting his site, he needs to work a way that encourages the visitors to stay and browse. Through informative articles or interesting campaigns, Trevor is now able to test what works for his visitors and what does not work. As Trevor gains knowledge in the power of testing, he will look for the hidden, less obvious changes to test. A good example of this, is the difference it can make whether the name of the website is displayed at the top middle, top left or top right of the page. The importance of this decision can have a significant impact on the amount of type–in-traffic Trevor will receive to his site.
One of the most important parts of affiliate marketing is testing. This allows the affiliates to know the impact of each new idea and determine whether every change made will benefit or improve their site. Testing hints or spells out exactly what works and what needs to be rethought. Thus, if you are interested in affiliate marketing, make it a goal to be interested in testing.
Testing is not restricted to websites. It is just as effective if you want to improve your mailers or blogs as well. Don’t hold back on testing, it is one of the most powerful tools for success, and vital if you want to succeed. From the moment you decide to build a website, start a mailing list or write a blog, testing each step can only be of benefit to you and help you succeed.
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