Affiliate Marketing is not a new phenomenon, far from it, many hundreds if not thousands of people from all walks of life have done extremely well at it. That, of course, only tells half the story, however. Those in the know will tell you that only 5% of people that get in to Internet Marketing, ever make any money at it. That suggests that 95% fail.
This begs the question, "So Is Affiliate Marketing Really Tried And Tested?". This is the question that I will be pondering in this article.
So What Is Affiliate Marketing?
In order to answer the Title Question, one must first full understand exactly what Affiliate Marketing is. In essence, it's selling other people's products for a cut of the Sale. This can be anything from Computer Games to an eBook on How To Raise Twins ! It's fair to say that the array of things that can be sold in this manner is ever expanding.
As an Affiliate Marketer, you effectively become the 'middle man', you help people online, to find products that they are looking for, so if its done properly, I guess you could call it 'Targeted Online Supply And Demand' OK, So How Do I Become An Affiliate Marketer?
In the world of online marketing, their are two clear winners, in terms of providing a mechanism for becoming an Affiliate Marketer. These are Commission Junction and Clickbank. The former being concerned with 'real world' products such as sport equipment, computers and pretty much anything in between. The latter, specializes in online products such as ebooks (usually formatted as a PDF). These ebook can cover everything from "A Sure Bet Horse Racing System" to "How To Bake The Perfect Pie".
The ClickBank products pay a much higher commission, as you can download their products, they have very little overhead. It's typical to get upwards of 80% of the total sale for the Affiliate Marketer. On signing up with these companies, you get an Affiliate ID, and this gets associated with the product that is sold, and the commission is passed on to you, usually once or twice monthly. To simplify things a little, when you are an Affiliate Marketer, you are basically the middle man in, you provide the Supply to the Internet based Demand. Back To The Point!
Ok, so to get back to the point of this Article, is Article Tried and Tested? Well, in my mind, Tried and Tested means being able to consistently sell products online, without losing your shirt! My experience shows that it is indeed Tried and Tested, as I have personally been successful in marketing products of differing types online, and made a tidy profit. The problem here though, is that most people fail, due in the main to a number of key pitfalls, that are commonly faced when attempting business of this nature.
I will outline some of these below, to try and give you a feel for what's involved.
1) Focus & Expectations
A VERY common problem for the 95% of Internet Marketers that fail, is Focus. They do some basic reading up, but then get sidelined by the plethora of emails that hit their inbox each day. If you are serious about making money online, you need to FOCUS on the task at hand, and don't move on until you achieve what you set out to do. Also, far too many people seem to believe the hype surrounding *ALL* Internet and Affiliate Marketing programs, that money will drop out of the sky by pressing three buttons and waltzing off to bed. GET REAL, ANY business worth it's while, will need hard work and dedication, and will take time to develop into something substantial. There are no OVERNIGHT millionaire programs. Understand, and except that, and you won't go too far wrong.
2) The Product
This never ceases to amaze me when I see some Affiliate Marketers pick a random product, setup their link, and chuck some money at the generating traffic without paying an attention to the actual product itself. Ask yourself this question, would you buy this product? What do you know about it? If you are serious about planning a long term future for yourself from home, you're customers are not going to thank you for you promoting a product that sucks. There are various ways to investigate the quality of any given product. The most effective of these is to actually buy it yourself. Now how's that for a crazy idea ! Of course, this only works for relatively low cost items, if you are going to sell a Plasma Television, Google it online and read some reviews, pickup a magazine and read up about it. It's not rocket science, and it's not time consuming !
3) Research
Come on, be real, how long does it take to find out how often a particular item is being searched for online. The answer, no time at all. There are many Free tools, and well as paid tools, that give you this information, so there is no excuse. The other part of this, of course, is knowing how much competition you are likely to have. Lets be honest, it you are trying to sell Viagra online, you're going to have to compete with millions of others doing the same thing (a quick check of your spam filter will tell you that!). You can still make money, but it's that much harder to achieve. Leave that to the big dogs, and find something with less competition. It really isn't hard to do.
4) Support
So you have taken my advice, and Focused on the Job at Hand, you have done your due diligence on the product and spent an hour or so researching the niche, but you are still going to need help, everyone has differing experience levels, and differing skills. Pretty much every 'Newbie' is going to need some help at some point, the problem is, most don't ever get it. They sign up willy nilly for this Affiliate Program, and that Affiliate Program, but hardly ever make a sale. You need Support. There are some programs out their that offer this, some promise the world, others baffle you with Videos and MP3 files about this and that, but they still don't ever answer your questions. Sometimes these questions are incredibly simple, but oftentimes, these simple issues can mark the fine line between success and failure.
Summary
A lot of what you need to succeed in Affiliate Marketing is down to you, work hard, do the research, allot the time, but you also need assistance, and if you don't get the right assistance, you will find it very hard to succeed. One program that has a fairly decent product set of reliable Affiliate programs, but an exceptional support team, is the Plug In Profits one. This system works, but like all systems, it takes a little time to completely understand, and the support you get is second to none. You can find out more by going to http://www.megahomeprofits.com/main
James Rowe is chief content contributor at megahomeprofits.com and writes on a variety of subjects. To learn more about this topic James recommends you visit: megahomeprofits.com ut this topic James recommends you visit: megahomeprofits.com
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
All About Clickbank Affiliate Marketing
If you don't know much about ClickBank™ affiliate marketing, you should know that it is one of the best affiliate programs on the Web. There are scores of affiliate products in several niches and markets that you can promote.
Ask yourself why you should become a member of Clickbank and try to figure out what are the benefits of being an affiliate. Clickbank is in fact the affiliate marketer's best choice. During the early days, if you wanted to market one of your products on the Internet, you had to set up your own credit card processing and merchant account.
As far as newcomers were concerned, this was very difficult to accomplish without credit history. People rarely got credit for dealing greater than $1,000 in sales in a given month until they built up a name as an esteemed business. The cause for this was that credit card people were scared of refunds for fresher businesses, if their services or products were not up to par. This made it extremely difficult for the newbies on the Web to get anyplace and Clickbank came to save them.
With Clickbank, it's very simple to market your info products that can be sent over the Web and carry no stock list. By making use of Clickbank, you can forthwith leverage over several ClickBank members to get buyers for your products and manifold your benefits.
Vendors use the service of Clickbank to process their orders. But you are now going to their site for a different purpose. Just visit their site to search the different products that are being marketed thru Clickbank. There are thousands of diverse products on Clickbank, so you can presume that it is a great representation of products available in the Internet market. Being a Clickbank member is very fast and free and you can start selling products straight away. When you sign up you will select a nickname and be provided with a password. This nickname will automatically be added to all the product links you obtain so that you get credited with the deal. Safely keep the nickname and password for future usage. Every time you sell something, the commission will be credited to your Clickbank account and you will be sent a cheque for your remuneration.
Clickbank is the ruler of the affiliate marketplace. By posting your product on Clickbank, you will be benefited with tens of thousands of affiliates to assist you promote it. This is the crucial aspect of dealing with Clickbank. Another good feature is that you don't need to spend money for payment of affiliates. Clickbank does everything for your benefit. So that's a very big relaxation for you. Visit the Clickbank Marketplace and select a suitable info product to deal with. After finding one, get your affiliate link and enter it contextually into your web page's content. For instance, you can spotlight a specially significant keyword and link the same to your affiliate link. Contextual links work better than banner links since you are not actually selling, but advocating in a ‘stealthy' manner.
Clickbank is a very reputed digital product marketplace, which enables marketers to easily find out and promote hot selling eBooks from all around the globe in several hundred niches. It's a wonderful system for each and every Internet marketer and many are minting thousands of dollars every day simply by promoting other people's products. With the emergence of affiliate marketing programs like Clickbank, learning schemes have developed that are drew up with extreme care and focus, to generate real hearty educational platforms. For exploiting the astounding possibilities, you'll have to understand how Internet Marketing functions and how to handle the marketing of a Clickbank affiliate marketing product. Train yourself; let yourself be learned from the very commencement of your journey. Never give up midway. The gains of being the controller of your own fate are simply fantastic.
CB Scroller is an affiliate marketing software created for Clickbank affiliates. Be sure to visit author’s website at: http://www.cbscroller.com
Ask yourself why you should become a member of Clickbank and try to figure out what are the benefits of being an affiliate. Clickbank is in fact the affiliate marketer's best choice. During the early days, if you wanted to market one of your products on the Internet, you had to set up your own credit card processing and merchant account.
As far as newcomers were concerned, this was very difficult to accomplish without credit history. People rarely got credit for dealing greater than $1,000 in sales in a given month until they built up a name as an esteemed business. The cause for this was that credit card people were scared of refunds for fresher businesses, if their services or products were not up to par. This made it extremely difficult for the newbies on the Web to get anyplace and Clickbank came to save them.
With Clickbank, it's very simple to market your info products that can be sent over the Web and carry no stock list. By making use of Clickbank, you can forthwith leverage over several ClickBank members to get buyers for your products and manifold your benefits.
Vendors use the service of Clickbank to process their orders. But you are now going to their site for a different purpose. Just visit their site to search the different products that are being marketed thru Clickbank. There are thousands of diverse products on Clickbank, so you can presume that it is a great representation of products available in the Internet market. Being a Clickbank member is very fast and free and you can start selling products straight away. When you sign up you will select a nickname and be provided with a password. This nickname will automatically be added to all the product links you obtain so that you get credited with the deal. Safely keep the nickname and password for future usage. Every time you sell something, the commission will be credited to your Clickbank account and you will be sent a cheque for your remuneration.
Clickbank is the ruler of the affiliate marketplace. By posting your product on Clickbank, you will be benefited with tens of thousands of affiliates to assist you promote it. This is the crucial aspect of dealing with Clickbank. Another good feature is that you don't need to spend money for payment of affiliates. Clickbank does everything for your benefit. So that's a very big relaxation for you. Visit the Clickbank Marketplace and select a suitable info product to deal with. After finding one, get your affiliate link and enter it contextually into your web page's content. For instance, you can spotlight a specially significant keyword and link the same to your affiliate link. Contextual links work better than banner links since you are not actually selling, but advocating in a ‘stealthy' manner.
Clickbank is a very reputed digital product marketplace, which enables marketers to easily find out and promote hot selling eBooks from all around the globe in several hundred niches. It's a wonderful system for each and every Internet marketer and many are minting thousands of dollars every day simply by promoting other people's products. With the emergence of affiliate marketing programs like Clickbank, learning schemes have developed that are drew up with extreme care and focus, to generate real hearty educational platforms. For exploiting the astounding possibilities, you'll have to understand how Internet Marketing functions and how to handle the marketing of a Clickbank affiliate marketing product. Train yourself; let yourself be learned from the very commencement of your journey. Never give up midway. The gains of being the controller of your own fate are simply fantastic.
CB Scroller is an affiliate marketing software created for Clickbank affiliates. Be sure to visit author’s website at: http://www.cbscroller.com
Thursday, January 24, 2008
What To Look Out For When You Join An Affiliate Marketing Program
So you have built your website, and now you are interested in the high income potential of affiliate marketing and are wondering which of the many programs to join.
Well, first and foremost try to become an affiliate with a reputable company; it will provide you a great learning experience in the field of internet entrepreneurship. It sounds obvious, but joining the first company that comes your way does not serve any purpose.
You have already created a website, which means you have great research capabilities. So utilize those skills when you research the company whose product you are thinking about promoting. Many online businesses prefer to market their goods through an affiliate network management company; it makes the technical and administrative procedures related to affiliate transactions easier.
Now an affiliate network company coordinates the relationship between a business and its affiliates. The merchants belonging to different fields of business are the clients of these affiliate network management companies. The networks recruit and place affiliates in the different affiliate programs.
What it means to you is that you often have a choice of applying for affiliate participation in two different ways. Either you join the program through the affiliate network, or you go directly through the affiliate opportunity link on the merchant's web site. It is here you will find the instructions about how to apply for participation in the affiliate program of that company. There will be an application form that you will need to fill out.
Now you are provided with an agreement which you have to read carefully to learn about the rules and terms of the business and about how and when you can expect to get paid commission on any sales you make. There are certain issues you should take good care of. Do some research to ascertain the credibility and contact details of the business. A quick method is to run a search of the business on Google.
You can also join forums related to your field of business and ask questions about the company you are interested in. Active forums usually supply a lot of feedback, especially if somebody has had a problem with that particular company! Remember, though, that every opinion you hear may be biased. A company is not necessarily a "scam" because an anonymous forum writer with a grudge says it is! As a member of the Affiliate Program, you will be provided with special link codes, banner ads and so forth to link the business website.
As you promote the program or the website the specially coded links are there to take care of the technical aspects of tracking, reporting and commission calculations. So as an affiliate you have to make sure that these links are supplied to you in a proper manner because your referral will be credited only when they will reach the merchant's website through these specially formatted links. It would be a wise decision on your part if you keep a track on your progress through affiliate network reports. Keep in mind that the more you learn about an affiliate company's products and practices the better informed you will become and the more confident you will be when you promote the company. If the affiliate program also allows you to recruit a sales team, your knowledge will be an invaluable recruiting resource and will provide your growing team with the help, encouragement and inspiration they will need to succeed.
David Hurley writes articles on Internet marketing strategies. Get his free Internet marketing tips newsletter at: Grasp-The-Nettle.com.
Well, first and foremost try to become an affiliate with a reputable company; it will provide you a great learning experience in the field of internet entrepreneurship. It sounds obvious, but joining the first company that comes your way does not serve any purpose.
You have already created a website, which means you have great research capabilities. So utilize those skills when you research the company whose product you are thinking about promoting. Many online businesses prefer to market their goods through an affiliate network management company; it makes the technical and administrative procedures related to affiliate transactions easier.
Now an affiliate network company coordinates the relationship between a business and its affiliates. The merchants belonging to different fields of business are the clients of these affiliate network management companies. The networks recruit and place affiliates in the different affiliate programs.
What it means to you is that you often have a choice of applying for affiliate participation in two different ways. Either you join the program through the affiliate network, or you go directly through the affiliate opportunity link on the merchant's web site. It is here you will find the instructions about how to apply for participation in the affiliate program of that company. There will be an application form that you will need to fill out.
Now you are provided with an agreement which you have to read carefully to learn about the rules and terms of the business and about how and when you can expect to get paid commission on any sales you make. There are certain issues you should take good care of. Do some research to ascertain the credibility and contact details of the business. A quick method is to run a search of the business on Google.
You can also join forums related to your field of business and ask questions about the company you are interested in. Active forums usually supply a lot of feedback, especially if somebody has had a problem with that particular company! Remember, though, that every opinion you hear may be biased. A company is not necessarily a "scam" because an anonymous forum writer with a grudge says it is! As a member of the Affiliate Program, you will be provided with special link codes, banner ads and so forth to link the business website.
As you promote the program or the website the specially coded links are there to take care of the technical aspects of tracking, reporting and commission calculations. So as an affiliate you have to make sure that these links are supplied to you in a proper manner because your referral will be credited only when they will reach the merchant's website through these specially formatted links. It would be a wise decision on your part if you keep a track on your progress through affiliate network reports. Keep in mind that the more you learn about an affiliate company's products and practices the better informed you will become and the more confident you will be when you promote the company. If the affiliate program also allows you to recruit a sales team, your knowledge will be an invaluable recruiting resource and will provide your growing team with the help, encouragement and inspiration they will need to succeed.
David Hurley writes articles on Internet marketing strategies. Get his free Internet marketing tips newsletter at: Grasp-The-Nettle.com.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Building An Affiliate Marketing Network Via The Classifieds
Most everyone who discusses the merits of an affiliate marketing network likely focuses on the pay-per-click versus pay-for-performance aspects of this advertising tool, and rightfully so!
Online these two programs alone have shown themselves to be the work horses of a successful and diversified affiliate marketing network while at the same time not demanding an undue strain on a company's promotions budget. Thus, start up companies in general and home based small business entrepreneurs in particular gravitate to this form of self-promotion like bugs to a strong light source in the dark of night. Yet just like the bugs, many of the smaller businesses get burned not because the product was unsuccessful or the presentation less than professional but instead because the interest simply could not be generated by the participants in the affiliate marketing network who chose to sign up.
In general, those signing up to post links and banners or search boxes onto their sites are looking for the heavy hitters which will lend credibility to the webmaster and her or his site, while smaller merchants are usually avoided because they simply do not offer that air of mainstream acceptance to a site.
In the same vein, many of the webmaster who do sign up for the smaller business affiliate marketing network will most likely be startups themselves, thus in a way countermanding the business' efforts of reaching a large number of potential customers. Even though the money spent on this kind of advertising is low, it hardly merits the results that are being yielded.
Interestingly, a new trend is developing which is finding great acceptance with smaller businesses and which is proofing for be a money maker to such an extent that it threatens to leave the tried and true pay-per-click or pay-for-performance affiliate marketing network in the dust for home based entrepreneurs: classified ads.
Building an affiliate marketing network via the classifieds may sound odd but the more careful attention you pay to this trend, the more sense it makes.
With a few words you have the chance to advertise your network and generate a far-reaching interest in the business. While not each and every online or print publication will permit you to post your ads, in general you will find that you can start getting out the word about your network by posting in a few free, online publications.
Research the high traffic sites and post your ads in accordance with their submission guidelines – a much overlooked fact that may get your ad buried if not carefully observed! Use strong marketing words that require a response by the reader, such as "clicking" or "visiting" and rely on heavy hitters like "proven" or "guaranteed" – only if you can back up the claims, of course. Add a measurable and real benefit to the action, and the odds are good that you will have a visitor for your site. Turning the visitor into a qualified lead, of course, is up to the quality of your site and actual network.
Dock J. Murphy is owner of Plug in Profit http://Site.com and writes on a variety of subjects. To learn more about this topic Dock J. recommends you visit: Http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-17106 work at home business online opportunity
Online these two programs alone have shown themselves to be the work horses of a successful and diversified affiliate marketing network while at the same time not demanding an undue strain on a company's promotions budget. Thus, start up companies in general and home based small business entrepreneurs in particular gravitate to this form of self-promotion like bugs to a strong light source in the dark of night. Yet just like the bugs, many of the smaller businesses get burned not because the product was unsuccessful or the presentation less than professional but instead because the interest simply could not be generated by the participants in the affiliate marketing network who chose to sign up.
In general, those signing up to post links and banners or search boxes onto their sites are looking for the heavy hitters which will lend credibility to the webmaster and her or his site, while smaller merchants are usually avoided because they simply do not offer that air of mainstream acceptance to a site.
In the same vein, many of the webmaster who do sign up for the smaller business affiliate marketing network will most likely be startups themselves, thus in a way countermanding the business' efforts of reaching a large number of potential customers. Even though the money spent on this kind of advertising is low, it hardly merits the results that are being yielded.
Interestingly, a new trend is developing which is finding great acceptance with smaller businesses and which is proofing for be a money maker to such an extent that it threatens to leave the tried and true pay-per-click or pay-for-performance affiliate marketing network in the dust for home based entrepreneurs: classified ads.
Building an affiliate marketing network via the classifieds may sound odd but the more careful attention you pay to this trend, the more sense it makes.
With a few words you have the chance to advertise your network and generate a far-reaching interest in the business. While not each and every online or print publication will permit you to post your ads, in general you will find that you can start getting out the word about your network by posting in a few free, online publications.
Research the high traffic sites and post your ads in accordance with their submission guidelines – a much overlooked fact that may get your ad buried if not carefully observed! Use strong marketing words that require a response by the reader, such as "clicking" or "visiting" and rely on heavy hitters like "proven" or "guaranteed" – only if you can back up the claims, of course. Add a measurable and real benefit to the action, and the odds are good that you will have a visitor for your site. Turning the visitor into a qualified lead, of course, is up to the quality of your site and actual network.
Dock J. Murphy is owner of Plug in Profit http://Site.com and writes on a variety of subjects. To learn more about this topic Dock J. recommends you visit: Http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-17106 work at home business online opportunity
Monday, January 21, 2008
6 Great Real Making Money Online Ideas
By Steven Scott
The low down is that it is possible to make money online. This article will show you 6 great real making money online ideas that you need to know in order to be successful. One other thing you need to realize is that it's not a get quick rich scheme, with time and patience and a bit of hard work, you will make more than double you make now by working half the time.
The way to making money online that I'm talking about is through internet affiliate advertising. It is the best way to making money online. Basically you become an affiliate of a product, and you refer people to their site through a unique url that they give you. When someone clicks on your url, and buys from the site, then you get a commission (upto 75%). Now for the 6 great real making money online ideas
Idea 1.
Research the consumers before the product. Go into forums and see what the consumers want. Just say you are investigating people that want to develop six pack abs. See what they want in a six pack abs product. What have they tried that didn't work? Find out their needs and find a product that answers this problem.
Idea 2.
Further on research of the consumers. Learn what words they use and how they talk. Then construct landing pages and articles on these words. If you use their words then they will be more likely to believe that you can empathise with them and know what they need.
Idea 3.
One of the easiest ways to get traffic to your site is through article marketing. Write an article giving the consumer some ideas on how to solve their problem and link to your unique link.
Idea 4.
Use long tail phrases to base your articles around. Make sure these phrases get at least 5 searches per day on google, and that there are not more than 5,000 search results in "exact phrase" for this term. Use this term in your article title, first paragraph, a few times throughout the article and in your author bio. This will just about guarantee you the first page of search results for this term.
Idea 5.
Create a landing page to presell your product. It is well known that creating a review style landing page (reviewing 3-7 products) telling the reader which product is clearly the best and telling why will give you more sales. It gives the reader confidence that it is the best product out there, and there are several other reasons that I won't go into here.
Idea 6.
This point reiterates the first idea about researching the consumer. This is the why of marketing and it is so important. Find out what the consumer wants and give it to them. This will make you so much more successful than anyone else now that you know this. It's simple but it's so often missed by newbies like yourself.
These 6 real making money online ideas are definitely a good start towards your financial future. As you start to get more involved in internet marketing, these principles will become much more apparent. It gets easier and clearer as you go on. Good luck to you.
Want to make over $100,000 per year only working a few hours each day? Then you need all the help you can get. For all the real making money online ideas you'll ever need and the support you need, check out The Wealthy Affiliate University
The low down is that it is possible to make money online. This article will show you 6 great real making money online ideas that you need to know in order to be successful. One other thing you need to realize is that it's not a get quick rich scheme, with time and patience and a bit of hard work, you will make more than double you make now by working half the time.
The way to making money online that I'm talking about is through internet affiliate advertising. It is the best way to making money online. Basically you become an affiliate of a product, and you refer people to their site through a unique url that they give you. When someone clicks on your url, and buys from the site, then you get a commission (upto 75%). Now for the 6 great real making money online ideas
Idea 1.
Research the consumers before the product. Go into forums and see what the consumers want. Just say you are investigating people that want to develop six pack abs. See what they want in a six pack abs product. What have they tried that didn't work? Find out their needs and find a product that answers this problem.
Idea 2.
Further on research of the consumers. Learn what words they use and how they talk. Then construct landing pages and articles on these words. If you use their words then they will be more likely to believe that you can empathise with them and know what they need.
Idea 3.
One of the easiest ways to get traffic to your site is through article marketing. Write an article giving the consumer some ideas on how to solve their problem and link to your unique link.
Idea 4.
Use long tail phrases to base your articles around. Make sure these phrases get at least 5 searches per day on google, and that there are not more than 5,000 search results in "exact phrase" for this term. Use this term in your article title, first paragraph, a few times throughout the article and in your author bio. This will just about guarantee you the first page of search results for this term.
Idea 5.
Create a landing page to presell your product. It is well known that creating a review style landing page (reviewing 3-7 products) telling the reader which product is clearly the best and telling why will give you more sales. It gives the reader confidence that it is the best product out there, and there are several other reasons that I won't go into here.
Idea 6.
This point reiterates the first idea about researching the consumer. This is the why of marketing and it is so important. Find out what the consumer wants and give it to them. This will make you so much more successful than anyone else now that you know this. It's simple but it's so often missed by newbies like yourself.
These 6 real making money online ideas are definitely a good start towards your financial future. As you start to get more involved in internet marketing, these principles will become much more apparent. It gets easier and clearer as you go on. Good luck to you.
Want to make over $100,000 per year only working a few hours each day? Then you need all the help you can get. For all the real making money online ideas you'll ever need and the support you need, check out The Wealthy Affiliate University