Helpful Articles for the Entrepenuer
Making Money With Affiliate Marketing Programs
From Wikipedia... According to one report, total sales generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was 2.16 billion in the UK alone. MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned $6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing and forms of lead generation other than contextual ad networks such as Google AdSense.
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An entire industry has grown around online affiliate marketing and it is getting bigger all the time. Smart internet entrepenuers are making money promoting other people's products..
By: Art Sprague (Art Sprague Consulting)
First of all, What is Affiliate Marketing?
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is an arrangement between you and an online merchant in which you earn a commission for generating sales, leads, or perhaps traffic on their site.
For example, many credit card or financially related companies will pay you for each visitor that you send to their site who completes a credit card application, and even more if those applications are approved.
Depending upon the selling price of the item you can make pretty good money on even a 10% commission. 10% of a $500 is a lot more attractive than 10% of a $50 item. However, don't forget the fact that a lot more people will spend $5 than $50. The bottom line is how much you will earn will depend upon the products you choose to sell.
When looking at products to offer look at the offer they want you to present and then compare prices elsewhere. Too often I have seen a product offered to me to sell which can be bought for less money from many other online retailers.
Not all affiliate marketing programs are not created equal.
Here are some of my suggestions on how to get into this growth industry.
- First of all, don't confure affiliate programs with multi-level marketing programs. Most, but not all, affiliate programs do not require you to spend money to join. Most multi-level marketing programs require you to purchase their product and recruit others to spend money to join the program. These are not affiliate programs.
- When shopping for an affiliate program look for products that are consistent with your websites niche. For example, if you have a photography website you would want to look for affiliate programs that are photography related.
- Many programs will have two pay-out tiers.
The first one pays you for referals and product purchases. Even this simple approach has some variance. Some sites will place cookies on a viewers computer so that if they come back at a later time you still get credit. The life of these cookies will vary from program to program. The best programs have two tiers. The first tier is where you get paid for sales that you refer people to.
The second tier will pay you if someone signs up as an affiliate under you and they generate sales. A good example of this is that if I sell a book for someone at a commission of 50% I of course get the 50% commission. If someone signs up as an affiliate through my site Iand sells the same book I may receive an 8% commision.
- It is very important to always read the fine print on a program before you join it.
- Another thing to look for is affiliate sup[port. The successful programs have marketing tools such as pre-written advertising, free website content, e-books for distribution, and ad designs. .
- When possible, and affordable, buy one of the products and evaluate it yourself before recommending it to others. A crappy product will reflect upon your site too.
- Once you have created your links go back and double check them. Relationships and agreements change and you may be directing traffic away from your site with no return income.
Affiliate Book Recommendation:
I strongly recommend you check out a book by Rosalind Gardner. It tells the story of a woman, with no previous business experience who earns $500,000+ per year ... selling other people's product on the internet! What is especially exciting about this product is you have a money back garuntee. You can view the book risk free!
Here is an excerpt from a personal message from Rosalind Gardner. You will learn more by visiting her website.
"Dear Aspiring Netpreneur,
I am appalled by the sheer volume of hype put forth by online scammers who promise to teach you 'how to earn HUGE money online' ...and you should be as well.
They'll try to sell you some expensive 'Internet Mall' or money-making scheme (that stopped working 7 years ago) and that won't help you make 2 red cents, let alone a comfortable living.
The fact is that most of these hucksters' never earned a dime online selling real products - they just promote bogus business opportunities!
If you're tired of the B.S. and want the truth about working as an Affiliate marketer"
Even Wal-Mart has an affiliate marketing program! Visit Rosalind's site to see a list of companies you know that offer affiliate markting opportunities.
Learn more about Affiliate Marketing using her Step-by-Step Plan at her website.
Not convinced? Read on...
Here is a partial outline of everything you will receive as part of the course.
- You get 233 information-packed pages of practical tips and examples of WORKING affiliate sites (Note: After reading the Super Affiliate Handbook, the Affiliate Manager at Match.com decided to recommend the Handbook to her other affiliates.)
- "How To" strategies to save you money, time, and effort while building your affiliate marketing business.
- An easy-to-understand 5-step overview of the business-building process.
- The top 25 mistakes that 'normal' affiliates make, and how to AVOID them.
- How to keeps visitors coming back for more.
- Avoid the 'flea market' approach to Internet marketing.
- How to assess a market for profitabilty.
- Discover which products sell.
- Learn which programs to avoid
- Which 6 factors you MUST consider when choosing a domain name.
- How to Promote Associate Programs and Products with a Newsletter.
- How to use Signature Files to Gain MORE Visitors.
- How Forums can bring you more traffic.
- How to build a 1,000-page site in mere seconds!
- The best alternative to selling products on your site.
- Learn which methods bring traffic to your site FAST.
- 9 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Site for FREE.
- The TRUTH about reciprocal linking.
- How writing a simple ezine article can bring more traffic to your site for FREE.
- How to Get MORE sales from YOUR site even though you are selling the same product as thousands of other affiliates.
- Learn EXACTLY what Super Affiliates do that other affiliates don't do.
- The 20 questions that You MUST get answers to BEFORE you join an affiliate program.
- My favorite places to advertise.
- Which software finds profitable niche topics and saves HOURS, even DAYS of manual labor.
- How to write compelling product endorsement.
- Why you don't want to use the marketing material provided by some affiliate programs.
- 6 Essential Components that EVERY successful web site has in place.
Do yourself a favor and visit Rosalind's website. You'll learn even more about her book and see her special pricing.
Yes, I want to learn more.
Testimonial from Art Sprague
I own this book and have really found it to be a great product. The authors no nonsense approach to providing information and cander about this business opportunity is a refresing break from all the hype presented by other authors in this field. After reading her book I changed my web design business focus and moved more into informational websites like this one.
Art Sprague - Art Sprague Consulting