Being an affiliate consists of selling a merchant’s product for a set commission. This is a popular and high paying business on the internet today. These programs are free to join. You simply promote the products until you make a sale. You receive a percentage of the selling price. It is recommended to not work for less than a twenty percent commission, anything less than this is a waste of your time and hard work.
The practice of affiliate marketing is also referred to as revenue sharing. Merchants who have many products to sell have found that having affiliates sell for them is the best way for them to make more sales. Look at sites on the web with products you are interested it. See if they have a link which will let you join as an affiliate with them.
You need to work hard to get traffic to your website or blog. Always strive to make the site interesting and memorable so you visitors will want to come back and buy from you. Affiliates, merchants, and affiliate networks combined need to learn all the secrets possible to make the most from their business. Make your website or blog pay off, submit it to traffic directories, search engines and try to use good keywords in your articles.
Affiliates need to find ways to increase their income. Learn all you can about the business. Manage it right and it will grow and take care of you in the years to come. It takes hard work and dedication but it will be well worth the pay off in the future.
You will need to advertise the products on your website, by placing links or banners on it and writing about the product, using text links. You can also create free eBooks to tell potential customers about your product. Be sure to put your links in it and show your willingness to help if anyone has a problem.
Online forums and chat rooms are also a good way to advertise your business. Most forums will allow you to use a link in your signature which will show up in all your posts. Join forums on the subject of your product and discuss it in your posts whenever possible. Be careful not to spam. Try to build a good reputation anywhere you present yourself on the internet.
Do it right and learn from your mistakes. You can earn a lot of money with affiliate marketing. It is one of the best ways to earn on the internet, so stick with it and reap the rewards.
33 Comments
Fabian Tan
September 19, 2008Hey Reed,
How true..it’s all about adding fuel to the fire from all angles to make maximum affiliate profits 🙂
Fabian
http://twitter.com/FabianTan
Paul
September 19, 2008Hi Reed,
More great info. I hope there are more reading your blog lately, as they will all benefit from your insight.
It does take work, but it really isn’t all that hard, compared to some jobs out there!
All the different angles will come together to help anyone in affiliate marketing. I agree as well…do not be afraid to make mistakes, as they can help with some valuable lessons.
Paul
admin
September 19, 2008@Fabian thanks
@Paul thanks, we have quite a few reading but many don’t comment.
Ricardo Weatherly
September 19, 2008Hey Reed,
Great article and excellent use of technology, all articles should have a voice option included.
Ricardo
Larry
September 19, 2008Hi Reed,
Great advice, I guess I haven’t hit the right combination yet. But have not give up either.
Thanks,
Larry Mitchell
TrudyVan
September 19, 2008Hi there Reed, TrudyVan here,
Great article as always.
regards
TrudyVan
Thomas
September 19, 2008Hey Reed Thomas here, getting started real good with this conferance thing plus your whole realm of marketing is growing at a rapid pace. Perhaps you can find other ways to market your blogs for more traffic? Enjoy your weekend Reed, Happy Marketing!!
Holly
September 19, 2008Hi Reed, thanks so much for all the info you send and for your blog. I am new to all of this and aq bit overwhelmed but learning and appreicate all you do. Just wanted to let you know!
Holly
Kenny Ritchie
September 19, 2008Nailed it again Reed.
There are some affiliate programmes that don’t pay much at all that are worth using as an aside to your main offerings.
Amazon tend to be a bit tight with their commisions but I wouldn’t recommend against promoting them.
Just not as a frontline product.
Added autopilotcashstreams to my blogroll thanks for the wise words.
Kenny Ritchies last blog post..5 ways to profit from PLR
Bryan Hee
September 19, 2008Great information for newbie! I like your audio recording! Hope that in next post, you will show us step-by-step how you record your audio? What software are you using? cost?
Thanks
To Your Success
Bryan Hee
William Beck
September 19, 2008Hi Reed,
This article pretty much nails affiliate marketing down really
well (Its Takes A Lot Of Work).
Thanks
Willy B
http://www.my-family-money.com
Delords
September 19, 2008Thanks reed again,
Some affiliate programs are really not worth the try as they tend to go back on their promises to affiliates,i have also been an affiliate with a site and have earned and they claimed they sent out 2 check payment to me but am yet to get them and yet i still have more commissions on the site.so make good researches before joining an affiliate network.
Lynda Mekalick
September 19, 2008Hey Reed,
Good advice from you as usual.The very toughest thing about affiliate marketing is getting your affiliate link out there.That means HEAPS of advertising – EVERY DAY!!I recommend the site mentioned here (and yes, I’m an affiliate for this product).Put together by Stuart Stirling,it comprises 43 pages of absolutely 100% excellent advice for the new affiliate marketer – well,even for some of the not so new marketers.I’m NOT trying to “push” Stuart’s product here – I do really believe that everyone should have a copy of this to help them on their way.It costs under $10 – in so far as I’m concerned,it’s contents and advice are worth thousands of dollars.In onselling Stuart’s product,it saves me having to put pen to paper and repeat everything he says.
Cheers
Lynda
Lynda Mekalick
September 19, 2008Hey Reed,
That website address for Stuart’s super excellent advice is http://www.newbieaffiliatesecrets.com/?e=lynross@xtra.co.nz
Chris Imamshah
September 19, 2008Hi Reed,
Great post again. The key from what you’re saying I think is to NEVER give up. It takes time to build your affiliate business but the results will eventually come with persistence.
Take care,
Chris
http://www.fastinternetmarketingtips.com
John Bandy
September 19, 2008Hey again Reed,
I am getting a lot from your blog articles. Wish I had started with affilate marketing. I will soon. Seems to be the best way to start. Thanks for all the great info and keep it coming.
John
serangin
September 20, 2008Hi again,
Really useful info for people who do not know what affiliate is. Traffic is another very important aspect. No traffic no money. Not many people want to reveal secret to traffic. If you want a free report about how to get more traffic, there are about 247 tactics lay out for you in the free report. Get it just by clicking my name above. Get it before 31st September 2008.
Have a nice day!
David Braybrooke
September 20, 2008Great scot Reed, you are a busy lad, and, Yes, I agree with you about the whole affiliate marketing game and for people to ‘stick with’ it ’til they can make it stick!
‘However’, (there always is one isn’t there!?), affiliate marketing can be excrutiatingly tedious and frustrating in the hands of the uninitiated!
What do I mean by this!? Thanks for asking, I shall explain further: Firstly, one needs to have a certain panache for writing good adcopy on their websites in order to turn a mere visitor in to a cash paying customer! It is all well and good to set up a site, or blog, loaded with affiliate products, links and banners yet no-one will take the bait and place an order unless you know how to effectively entice!
If you just don’t have that salesmanship knack then consider selling affiliate products that have an established sale’s history; you can find the ‘best’ ones to sell, for example, on Clickbank, by searching for products that have high popularity to them (or high ‘gravity’)! I know that there is a Clickbank related ebook on Clickbank that has a gravity of over 700 – jump on ones such as this straight away but remember that the higher the gravity score, the more affiliates are selling so there will be more competition to make that all important sale!
If you just can’t cut it in the advertising stakes, then study closely the ad copy on the merchant’s selling page and closely mirror the language that you read here! To be on the safe side, it’s a good idea not to plagiarize the creative on the sale’s page, instead copy and paste a good portion of the merchant’s rhetoric in to Microsoft word (or equivalent), grab a good Thesauraus, and get to work.
What you want to do is look for words that have the same meaning as those on the product selling page; change the sentence structures too and even shuffle paragraphs around to promote uniqueness with your affiliate ads.
If you do a good job with this you’ll have a fresh, well-worded advertisement that just might inspire your visitor to click through to the next stage; the next stage being the merchant’s actual site! Now, if you did as I suggested and chose an affiliate product with high gravity, you will have a selling page with ad language of the very highest standard! You see, if the product is selling like crazy it usually indicates that somebody connected to it (the merchant and their team) knows a thing or two about effective advertising techniques!
It is a bit like going to the races really; you are much better off putting your money on a winner and then will likely reap a greater reward!
When selling affiliate products off a website or blog, I notice that many people write good content but then throw up a few scattered affiliate banners and text links that may have very little to do with the actual article/posting subjects displayed. I have found that writing an original sale’s pitch, coupled with matching banners and text links for that same product, yields the best results! It will promote a greater uniformity on your site and will boost the aesthetics of your page.
If I had one piece of advice for beginning affiliate marketers (or could I say ‘Newbies’!?) it would be this: make your first stop Clickbank.net and study this site in great detail before setting up your first affiliate ads. Especially be sure to become savvy with the creation of ‘hoplinks’ and examine as many relevant pitch pages as you can to learn something about good advertising wording!
If you do not like Clickbank for some reason, then might I suggest you have a look at Commission Junction, Linkshare or even Amazon affiliates to get a feel for the whole affiliate marketing game.
One final piece of advice, if you are planning to sell affiliate products on Traffic Exchanges, then be aware that traditionally, these types of items usually have a poor track record for sales. On average, the typical T.E. surfer will view your page, and thousands of others, for less than 20 seconds and will rarely take the time to actually scroll down the page to read all the type; they will probably will not even get to the point of sale even.
So, make an effort to become adept at creating good quality, attractive splash pages in order to capture the short attention times of your market.
As Reed stated in his article, it’s not a good idea to accept anything less than 20% for commissions paid, yet I have learned that sometimes you can fill empty spaces on your website with attractive ‘shop-front’ affiliate banners. Sites such as clixGalore, although perhaps not being a #1 pick for many, have a large selection of very attractive banners and buttons that one can put on their site. Commissions paid are not huge but it is possible to select images that fit in with your site’s color scheme and add to the overall attractiveness of its ‘look’.
In closing, if you decide to advertise affiliate products with P.P.C. (Pay Per Click), such as Google Adwords etc, then be very careful that you don’t ‘direct link’ from your ad to the merchant’s page! Google do not approve of more than one campaign being displayed in this manner – that means that only one person will get a bite at the cherry, so to speak. What you are better off doing is setting up your own original landing/lead capture pages that then clicks through to the merchant’s site.
On a lead capture page, you could see up an autoresponder that promises a free bonus, internet course, or some other worthwhile incentive in order to persuade people to leave their contact details; even if you do not make a sale with this visitor, you may now have their name and email address that you can use repetively in the future to pitch other products to, hopefully making many sales for years to come!
Sorry that this is a bit long winded and good luck with your affiliate marketing efforts!
Yours truly,
David I. Braybrooke.
http://fatherspirit-mydailybread.blogspot.com/
David Braybrookes last blog post..Join Trafficera.com for FREE Today!!
Julia Earle
September 20, 2008Hiya, Reed! 🙂
Saw you from across the room today at the Super Conference, but haven’t crossed paths with you to say hi. Hope to deliver my greetings in person tomorrow!
In the meantime, I have listened to and read your posting, which I find helpfully informative. I especially like the clue about 20% commission. Thanks very much for taking the time to share your experience and wisdom.
Julia, Duchess of Earle 🙂
http://duchessofearle.com/blog
Julia Earles last blog post..Great Goodness, Miss Sally – It’s a Mini-AdPacs Rally!
Dora
September 20, 2008Hi Reed.
Very informative for newbies especially. Wish this email of yours flew inside my inbox six months ago.
admin
September 20, 2008@Ricardo thanks I agree with you on the voice thing should be on all articles
@Larry keep coming back to this site and you’ll continue to learn
@TrudyVan thanks glad you liked it
@Thomas if you have any blogging ideas/suggestions feel free to let me know.
@Holly thank you, I’m glad you like it.
@Kenny thanks for the feedback and putting that site into your blogroll. I look forward to helping you make income on autopilot
@Bryan it’s free and it’s automated a computer system does it http://www.odiogo.com/
@William thank you
@Delords that’s a very good point, if I were to start over I’d focus more on promoting programs that pay me immediately and companies like ClickBank where I haven’t had a problem getting paid.
@Lynda thanks. For me the best way to get my links out there is to have a list. This product that my dad and I did can help you with that http://www.map4cash.com/
@Chris, @John @serenagin thank you
@David thank you, shoot me an email reedfloren AT gmail.com
@Julia thank you, it’s nice to see you at the seminar
@Dora glad to help
Paul Molero
September 20, 2008Hi all,
Very useful info in this post,
It is important to choose the appropriate affiliate program, once done get targeted traffic is more complicated for me, although I found that promoting these affiliate programs through your own blog is one of the best ways to get results (if You do not want to spend money with PPC), although it is important to take practice making sale’s original pitch.
Also I have found interesting some programs as pay per lead programs.
You can find one of my affiliate pay per lead programs here: http://www.affiliatemakemoney.net/signup
With this program I get an average of $30-40 per 100 visitors. I will continue working the traffic to this site since the pay per lead affiliate programs as this have good conversion rate.
Paul,
Paul Moleros last blog post..Easy Offline Riches Review
Fidelis Ugboma
September 21, 2008Hi Reed,
Thank you very much for this highly informative article. Your recommendation of 20% is well noted.
You also advised that one should work hard and make his/her website or blog very intereting or atractive to visitors. You spoke of the need for vigorously advertising your site, submiting articles to article directories and search engines and use very good keywords in adverts; create eBooks and join forums and chat rooms.
These are very solid and well-thought out recommendations to affiliate marketers, particularly for the newbies, while still being relevant as refreshers to the seasoned practitioners.
Various excellent comments were subscribed to this article. Particular mention is that off Mr.David Braybrooke. He advised newbie marketers to start with the Clickbank Market Place and look for products that rank very high, over 700 (high gravity products). To that extent, he advised that affiliate marketers should be savvy with the creation of “hoplinks” and learn as much as possible on good advertising wording. Apart from Clickbank, he also suggested forthe attention of affiliate marketers sites such as Commission Junction, Linkshare, or the Amazon affiliates. As regards the 20% commission proposed by Reed, David was however of the view that a site like clixGalore, though not paying very high commissions could be considered on account of the large selection of attractive banners and buttons that fit with the affiliates colour scheme and thus contribute to the overall attractiveness of the site.
He also advised on the development of excellent craftsmanship or penmanship skills to facilitate the creation of very good and saleable ad copy which will push the product in the market place. He suggested the use of banners properly positioned on the ad copy saying that the original sale’s pitch, coupled with marketing banners and text links for the same product often yielded the best results and additionally, will promote the uniqueness of the site.
To grab the attention of surfers at Traffic Exchanges, who usually do not have much time he spare, he advocated that the affiliate marketer must be adept at creating / crafting good quality and attractive splash pages so as to capture the short attention times of the market / surfers.
David also spoke on PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, while on lead capture pages, he advised on the use of autoresponder that promises free bonus, internet course and other incentives to persuade visitors to subscribe to the site saying that if they do not buy now offers could be made to them in the future once they have been captured inthe list, and they will buy.
One other thing that is common in the posts of Reed and David is to embrace the best of netiquettes. While Reed advised Affiliate Marketers to avoid spamming and “put up a good reputation anywhere you present yourself on the internet”, David affirmed that one should not plagiarize.
From the foregoing, it is obviously clear that the posts of these gentlemen are of the finesst quality and can appropriately be described as every advertiser’s delight! They have, in effect, beamed the searchlight to illuminate the paths of those of us who are still very new and learning the ropes in the industry.
Keep up the good work, Reed! David! and Congratulations!
Fidelis Ugboma
http://onlineglobalmarkets.com
admin
September 21, 2008@Paul what do you do to make your blog profitable? So far mine isn’t.
@Fidelis thank you, I like what you’re adding to the conversation. Keep it up I have a feeling you may be asked to guest blog here shortly.
Julia Earle
September 21, 2008Am sleepy and ready to head for my pillow, but wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying the commentary on this post. I intend to come back here when more awake to more thoroughly digest all that has been said. I look forward to putting at least some of these things into practice. Thanks, Reed and all!
Julia 🙂
Julia Earles last blog post..Jeff Mills’ Midwest Internet Marketing Superconference Airs Live
Rivers Corbett
September 22, 2008Reed…what I always enjoy about your blogs is the simplicity of the message so the masses can understand them..no hype..just a straight message of value!
Keep on happening!
Rivers
Founder
MyRewardsBiz.com
Jay
September 23, 2008Reed, I started out with an affiliate site and after letting it “languish” for many months, I finally gave it a little attention this weekend and wracked up a couple of nice sales. Makes me rethink trying it again–if for nothing else but to test some new products for resale on my own retail sites.
Jay
http://www.TheSmallBusinessNanny.blogspot.com
Katja Palmu
September 23, 2008Hey Reed,
Again a very valuable post with lots of important things. Good reputation and honesty are essential.
Katja Palmus last blog post..30 day challenge
admin
September 23, 2008@Julia it was nice seeing you again at the seminar.
@Rivers thank you, I’m glad you enjoy it.
@Jay congrats on your recent success, do keep us posted
@Katja thank you
Jussi Koiranen
September 24, 2008Good post again. I’m starting to enjoy more and more this voice feature.
admin
September 25, 2008@Jussi glad you enjoy it.
Georjina
October 1, 2008Hi Reed,
Wish I had found your blog 2 years ago when I started with affiliate marketing, I’d probably have stuck with it:)
All is not lost, I’m coming back and your blog is pointing the way.
Thanks for the map
Georjinas last blog post..Selling More With Less Stress Wanted – NOW!
admin
October 3, 2008@Georjina thanks I’m glad the blog helps you
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