What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Paul Colligan

Affiliate marketing is a new twist on an old concept – commission-based sales. At its simplest, it is a partnership between a merchant and a salesperson where the merchant rewards the salesperson, or affiliate, based on some measure of performance – usually a sale, but in some cases for leads or website traffic.

The first mainstream affiliate marketing system on the internet was launched by Amazon.com, offering Amazon "associates" the opportunity to receive a commission for each book they sold for the company. Since then, many thousands of companies have created their own affiliate programs, encouraging online publishers and salespeople to earn commissions through their partnerships.

There are many publishing and sales professionals who are successful affiliate marketers, but they are certainly not the only people participating in the industry. There are also many "amateur" affiliates – people who build a website, or create an online newsletter, or in some cases simply email their friends and recommend a product or service. In many instances, it's no different to recommending a particular brand or store – except that if somebody follows the affiliate's advice, they're rewarded for it.

Affiliate marketing may involve a number of different strategies and techniques, from building entire online storefronts offering the affiliate merchant's products, adding some form of advertisement to an existing website, to something as simple as making recommendations in an email and including a special affiliate link that ensures that the merchant credits them for the sale.

The growth of affiliate marketing is constantly increasing, as new merchants discover the value of increasing the size of their sales force by creating partnerships with online publishers. This is especially true of merchants whose products or services may appeal to a particular niche market. How better to become established within that niche than by working with companies and individuals who already know the market because they're part of it?

About The Author

Paul Colligan, the Affiliate Guy, can be found online at http://www.theaffiliateguy.com. His affiliate marketing megasite at http://www.affiliatemarketingworld.com is a popular destination to many.

Understanding Affiliate Programs.

Author: Sylvia White

Years ago before the internet was born, starting your own
business was like taking a leap into the unknown. It involved
MONEY, TIME, and lots of worry. If you were one of the lucky
ones your business was a success, but many were doomed to
failure.

Now the Internet has evolved, and though many businesses fail
possibly through lack of understanding! no one loses a fortune.


When someone begins the search for a business on which to make
money, it is almost always an affiliate program that catches
their eye, probably because most of them say Free To Join. Yes
they are free to join, but if you are looking to work and make
money it is almost certain that you will have to upgrade and
pay a monthly fee.



Understanding the program. Any good affiliate programs will
have a learning process and you will be told to read and read
again until you understand what is required of you. You should
also have a mentor, that is someone that is there to help you.
He or she will reply to you by email or by messenger, they will
help you through any problems to the best of their ability as
your success means success for them.



The main task of most affiliate programs is to refer others who
will sign up and create your down line. Only those that upgrade
will be of use to you. Once you begin to receive commission
your monthly payment should be taken out automatically thus
leaving you free to build up on your commissions.



How to refer others to your program! This is where many
affiliates fail, the ability to refer is not always easy. If
you can build your own website and work to get it on the
searches it is a great help as this is almost free advertising.
Another way is to traverse other websites and place your ads for
the program on them.



There are many free ad sites which you will find by placing
Free Ad Sites in the search box. Always use a different email
box for this project as you are sure to get lots of spam emails
back, you do not want to fill your usual inbox with spam.
Another way to refer is by using PPC, (pay per click) this can
work out expensive but it does work, you will need a certain
amount of paid sign ups to cover costs. Google is the most
expensive but you can find many cheaper search engines out
there, Overture is good and less expensive.



Once you start getting paid signups you yourself will have to
learn to be a mentor as they are almost certain to require help
of some kind. Do your home work and read up on your program in
between your other jobs, it is surprising how quickly you learn
and find yourself able to answer their questions confidently.



You should now be on the road to earning an adequate income,
you must give your self at least 12 months before expecting
high earnings, it is a slow road but a steady one, usually with
residual income that does come in very handy in your retirement.



About The Author: Sylvia White, Owner of
http://www.sylviawh.co.uk http://www.u-want-money.com
Make Money Online Opportunity Websites.

Things You Should Know About Becoming a "Super Affiliate".

by Janice Sharman

Online Affiliate Marketing is a sizzling topic right now. All this is fueled by the fact that the majority of successful online entrepreneurs earn most of their money from Affiliate Marketing. It stands to reason therefore, that finding a super affiliate or several super affiliates is like finding the mother lode in a gold mine. It is the dream of every affiliate merchant. Why? Because super affiliates can generate a significant percentage of an affiliate merchant's activity and account for more sales than hundreds or thousands of ordinary affiliates combined. With just three to five super affiliates an affiliate merchant’s business will grow exponentially.

So, how does one become a super affiliate? How does one become rich marketing affiliate products and services? The ads you read on websites and splash pages as you surf the web make it all sound so easy. They make it seem like all you need to do is sign up for an affiliate program, post a few banners, send a few classifieds and watch the money come rolling in. Well, it is not that simple, especially if you are new to online marketing and haven't anything else to go on but those online ads and the instructions given by most affiliate merchants. Making it big in affiliate marketing is not impossible nor is it that difficult. It does requires a good education, research, work effort, and persistence!

There are a two vital things you should learn before jumping with both feet into the online marketing arena.

1. Have your own presence on the Web: I recently came across this quote which although somewhat dated, makes a significant point: "By the year 2001, there will be two kinds of business - those with web sites and those out of business." If you plan to succeed as an affiliate, you need your own website. The affiliates who make it big - the super affiliates – all have their own website where they can collect email addresses for their opt-in list. Don't ever forget that the really BIG money is still in the list. The bigger your list the more money you will make, period.

2. Control the traffic generated as a result of your advertisement: Never send your prospects straight from your advertisement to your affiliate webpage. Your advertisement should send them to your website where you offer your website visitors a valuable free gift, like an e-book, a free newsletter or free report as a way of earning their trust. If they trust you, or are interested enough in your newsletter or free gift, they'll join your list. Once they are subscribed to your newsletter, you can send them periodic updates to the products or services you sell, that you think might be of interest to them.

If you do not yet have your own website, newsletter or training course, you will not be successful in marketing affiliate products or opportunities.

The secret to becoming a "super affiliate" is to build trust by honestly recommending your products and opportunities in your newsletter, ebook or reports and, of course, on your website. The more your subscribers trust you, the more of your products and services they will buy from you and the more successful you will become.

Janice Sharman has helped lots of ordinary people start a profitable home business. Check below for FREE information on how you can join the thousands of successful home business Entrepreneurs. http://www.profits4sure.com/pips/index3.htm


About the Author

Janice Sharman, Basseterre, KN, St. Kitts
janmwar@yahoo.com
Learn more about affiliate marketing
Janice Sharman currently runs the Sure Profits Center. Get ALL the Home Business Internet Marketing Information and Resources You'll Ever Need to Profit on the Internet! Subscribe to her 'Secrets To Sure Profits' Newsletter at http://www.profits4sure.com

The 7 Principles of the Successful Affiliate Marketer.

by Jim Guinn

There are certain affiliate principles that are common to all extremely successful affiliates. These principles are not plainly stated by these successful affiliates; rather, they are found as characteristics in their work, writings and interviews.
I have synthesized these principles into a list I call The 7 Principles of the Successful Affiliate. It important to note that each successful affiliate closely and meticulously adheres to each one of these affiliate principles.

Some of these principles may seem ridiculously obvious, but you would be amazed at how many affiliate marketers either...

-don't know these principles (failure to read and study)

-skip or skimp on them (take the easy or cheap route)

-or, ignore them altogether ("I'm going to do it my way.")

...resulting in their own failure or greatly diminished profits. If you are involved in affiliate program marketing and want to greatly improve your results, you must learn and follow these affiliate principles.

1. Successful Affiliate Program Marketing requires work. You must treat it as a job. It is not a pastime. It is not a hobby. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It is not a "do nothing, make money" proposition. It requires hard work on your part. The harder you work, the more sales you will make.

2. Successful Affiliate Program Marketing requires financial investments. You must be willing to spend money to make money. You need to spend money on professional training resources, affiliate products for "first hand knowledge", a well-planned and executed website, and solid advertising and marketing strategies. If done properly, your investments will make you huge profits.

3. Successful Affiliate Program Marketing requires education and preparation. You must tap into professional training resources. You need to read and study the proven models. With knowledge of these, you can replicate the success of others and increase your sales.

4. Successful Affiliate Program Marketing requires knowledge of the best affiliate products and merchants. You must closely examine the pros and cons of each you consider. You need to determine which ones will benefit you the most. Quality increases quantity of your sales.

5. Successful Affiliate Program Marketing requires a well-planned and executed website. You must satisfy your viewers and the search engines. You need to gain high rankings and presell your viewers with content-rich information. If you do this properly sales will increase.

6. Successful Affiliate Program Marketing requires constant traffic interested in your message and effective tracking methods. You must attract huge numbers that stay on your website to read your message. You need to know what methods work well and which are wasting your advertising dollar. Happy viewers from reliable sources bring you more sales.

7. Successful Affiliate Program Marketing requires ongoing familiarity with the latest strategies and techniques. You must keep up to date on the cutting edge in the industry. You need to never rest in your quest to be the best. Knowledge is power; power brings you more money.

These are The 7 Principles of the Successful Affiliate. If you are not prepared to implement them to the best of your ability, you are wasting your time as an affiliate. Do something else! If you are ready to be successful, make a copy of these affiliate principles and affix it to the wall right next to your computer. It will serve as inspiration and a reminder of what you want to accomplish.


About the Author

Jim Guinn,
Admin@TwoPercentClub.com
Learn more about affiliate marketing
Jim Guinn is a Home Based Business Consultant and owner of Morpheus Marketing Associates, LLC. Jim has been helping home based business owners establish, maintain and grow since 2003 and has just recently launched a new site devoted solely to training affiliate program marketers. (www.TwoPercentClub.com). You can write to Jim at Admin@TwoPercentClub.com.

Selecting The Right Affiliate Program.

By: Mal Keenan


Choosing the right affiliate program is vital for your success. We don't want to end up with lemons, right? It is not advisable to invest time and effort into something that will not yield the best return for the energy expended.

In this lesson, we're going to learn how to distinguish an excellent affiliate program from a rather mediocre one. Yes, indeed. Not all affiliate programs are created equal. Some are simply better than others. Here are some things you need to think about if you are considering entering the affiliate marketing arena:
How much is the commission rate being offered by the affiliate program? Ideally, you would want a high commission rate. Who wouldn't, right? But don't let this mislead you into thinking that a high commission rate is equal to a good home based business opportunity. An affiliate program that offers 80% commission per successful sale, for example, may also ask you to pre-sell products that aren't really sellable. What good is an 80% commission then when you won't have any sales to speak of? So this leads us to our next consideration…
How sellable is the product? You could always ask for statistics from the affiliate program. Don't forget that. You could demand to see the sales chart for the past few months, so that you'd know that there are people who are actually willing to purchase the product. We can safely say that an affiliate programs offering high commission rates for very sellable products is an excellent opportunity.
How credible is the affiliate program? There are many things that should be factored into this consideration. Determine how long the program has been operating. If they have been in existence for a long time with nary a complaint that can be seen, then they must be doing something right! Do a search on Google or online forums to check out other affiliates opinions of your prospective business partner.
How will you get paid? This may be a little too prospective a thought, but you have to ensure the utmost viability of any money making opportunity. What payment method can you accommodate? Will the affiliate program be able to oblige to such method? If the affiliate program pays its affiliates through PayPal exclusively, for example, and you're living in a non-PayPal territory, then you might encounter some problems. Ask the affiliate merchant if he could make some considerations for your case. More often than not, he will try to accommodate your request. If he can't, then your time would be better spent with an affiliate program whose payment you would actually receive.

If the above considerations are all favorable for you, then grab the said opportunity as quickly as you can. Start earning money right away, for time is gold in this business!

In the next article, we're going to discuss the proper steps you should take in starting out with this type of home based business opportunity.


Article Tags:
Home Business, Work At Home, Affiliate Programs, Success, Affiliate Marketing

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PayDotCom.com: An Affiliate Marketing Alternative to Clickbank

by David Cooper


PayDotCom.com is very similar to ClickBank in that it is an alternative 'MarketPlace' approach to an Affiliate Network. PayDotCom offers a number of enhancements and unique approaches to affiliate marketing. In particular, vendors can offer an unlimited number of products for sale for a lifetime membership of only $29.00. Vendors only pay a commission once a product is sold.

PayDotCom also offers:
• one-tier or two-tier affiliate programs
• monthly billing
• ability to sell digital or physical products
• pays instant commissions
• Tracks hits and stats live

PayDotCom will ensure that you see an immediate increase in the sales of your products! Not only that; but setting yourself up as a vendor is going to be totally hassle free.

With PayDotCom, you will not have to deal with any waiting for any product approval, because you can take advantage of, simple and easy, cut and paste HTML purchase buttons, awesome affiliate program set-up with your own customizable affiliate page, and NO mandatory 90 day money back guarantee. One the best things about using PayDotCom is that you don't have to keep dishing out $50 every time you want to set-up a new product.

In fact, your first product is actually FREE! You can get your money deposited immediately into your PayPal or StormPay accounts (which makes life a great deal easier than waiting constantly for checks to come by mail.)

YOU NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THOSE LOST COMMISSION SALES BECAUSE SOMEONE HIGH-JACKED YOUR XXXX I.D. AND REPLACED IT WITH THEIRS.

With the amount of services that you get, PayDotCom gives you every reason to choose them. At PayDotCom, you can rest assured that they are as interested in watching you make money as you are. You can earn sales commissions of up to 85% by linking your customers to any of the products and services that are available in their marketplace. Sign Up is FREE too.

With PayDotCom you can earn a great deal of income by promoting their product links to your customers or by placing links on your website. You can also use the Marketplace to find products and services that will be of interest to people who visit your site.

Under each product or service in the marketplace you'll see a description of the affiliate program. This way you can be sure that the programs meet your own requirements. All you have to is click on the description to promote that product or service.

PayDotCom also provides you with all of the links and the promotional tools from the Vendor's affiliate tools when you select the product. You can then keep better track of all of your statistics when you go through PayDotCom.

As you can see, there are just so many benefits to using PayDotCom. I realize that some people will take a look at PayDotCom and still prefer to use Clickbank. Some individuals will find it preferable to use PayDotCom! It is my hope that many of you will use both of them! In the end, it is all about the commissions and in that regard, both PayDotCom and Clickbank have a lot to offer.



Webmasters and Ezine Publishers:

Free Content for your newsletter or your website!

You are invited to use this article in your newsletter or website. The only requirement is the inclusion of the following, after the article:

David Cooper is the editor of the Affiliate Marketing Articles Newsletter. David specializes in helping people with their affiliate marketing efforts by offering real world tips and strategies. Subscribe to his FREE newsletter at: http://www.affiliatemarketingarticles.com

Internet Marketing Affiliate Program

By: Jeremiah Patton

When you go surfing the Internet, you probably have noticed that every website that you visit contains several advertisements and some external links directing to other sites. You will also notice that these advertisements are just attractive enough (for instance, an online advertisement containing heads of Osama bin Laden and George Bush in a girl's body and asking you to choose who is sexier between them) to convince you to click these advertisements and links and see what is beyond that attractive ad and link.

Once you have clicked ads and links posted to a site, its owner is already making money out of your generous clicks. They are now among the thousands of individuals who are called the great affiliate marketers.

The name of their game is Internet affiliate marketing program, and they are making tens to hundreds of dollars per month. Moreover, there are affiliate marketers who are making a full-time living out of Internet marketing and they are generating a 5-figure income every month.

Such figure is quite unbelievable, but it is the reality of affiliate program. You have the power of earning thousands of dollars each month even if you do not have your own products to sell. All you have to do is to promote the products or services of other affiliates. You are dictating the flow of money that you want and at the same time freeing yourself of worries about customer's issues, refunds, shipping, and other sales-related aspects. Just attract potential buyers to your website and redirect them to the affiliate link. Once they have purchased the products or services you have endorsed, you will be able to receive commissions from every sale that you have made. You will get paid depending on the percentage agreed upon on the affiliate contract. Basically, the commission that you will receive varies from 10 to 75 percent.

For instance, you are selling a certain product that is worth $67 and the affiliate commission is set at 60 percent. It means that you will get paid $40.20 for every sale that you made from that product. Remember that it is just on a single product alone.

Earning money through affiliate programs is quite simple, considering the fact that you do not have to create the best-selling product, compose the best sales letter to potential buyers, provide after-sales support to customers, handle concerns and problems, and others.

When you sign up for an affiliate program, you will be provided with a special affiliate link with a unique code that will identify if the click on the link actually comes from your affiliate link. You will just copy and paste the code to your web pages, and the promotion will depend on you whether you will promote it through sending email newsletters, online forums, and on your website.

However, despite of the simplicity in earning through Internet affiliate marketing program, the main concern here is how to be successful in your chosen affiliate program. What you need here is real people real people who will patronize the affiliate products or services you are endorsing. Once you have failed to draw more people to the assigned affiliate link, your dream of earning a huge 5-figure income in affiliate program will remain to be a dream forever.

To succeed in affiliate programs, you must be aware with the use of affiliate marketing tools. There are several tools you can use and some affiliate companies you are working with will offer some of these tools. You may use attractive webpage banners or online advertisements. These tools will help you achieve success in joining affiliate programs, so do not ever forget them in your priorities.

Remember that your main target here is to drive heavy web traffic towards to your site that will click on the affiliate link provided in your web pages. Promotional tools such as free article directories and writing weblogs are just a few of the latest additions in promoting affiliate sites. Provide initial yet useful information about the products or services you are endorsing for sale, and use the power of words to attract them to visit your affiliate link. In this way, you will be able to attract more potential buyers to your site and possibly give you the commission you are longing for.

Be one of thousands of affiliate marketers who have earned more than what you can expect by maximizing your ability and using effective strategies in your Internet affiliate marketing program.


Article Tags:
Internet Marketing Affiliate Program

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Internet Marketing - The Answer For Your Business

By: Lee Smith

Advertising and marketing should be a top priority for any business and with the age of the internet comes the best ever way of marketing and attracting new clients, customers and internet traffic, based on targeted online marketing. Using an internet marketing agency or SEO consultants for your campaign is both cost-effective and fully-measurable via online statistics software so you can track every aspect of your marketing campaign

Pay per click (PPC) is a popular method of advertising for mostly larger businesses and involves bidding on keywords to attract users to your web site. These "sponsored links" are then displayed at the top positions of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.

PPC can and does work for many businesses, but unless you have a dedicated, sustainable budget, this is probably not the most cost-effective of routes. Click fraud has been a buzz word for a while now and it needs to be taken seriously before starting any campaign as this could prove costly to your business.

The preferred option of internet marketing for most businesses and for the majority of search engine users, is the "organic" or natural listings which are essentially free, but rely on the algorithms of the search engines to determine which pages and sites appear at the top of the list.

It is not rocket science to get a top ten search engine ranking, but if your business is in a competitive industry, it can be costly and you may have to wait up to three months before results are seen.

To get new business with a top ten ranking on Google, Yahoo and MSN you will need to have an SEO consultancy that takes into account Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and a linking campaign to put a trust factor into your web site.

Once you get a top ten search engine ranking through an internet marketing agency or seo constultancy, you will start to receive enquiries, phone calls and sales only if your site has undergone a usability and an accessibility test, without this all your hard work and investment may be for nothing. You could have a top ten search engine ranking, but if you have a poor website that does not make it easy for visitors to take the action you want them to, you have made a mistake and you will have to edit your website or get your SEO consultants or your internet marketing agency to do it for you.

With a well planned internet marketing strategy, your website will benefit immensely and your web traffic will dramatically increase as a result.

Search engine optimisation is not a mystery, more of a strategic implementation of good search engine policies and practices to ensure your online business fulfils it's potential.

How to SkyRocket your Affiliate Marketing Revenue in 30 days or less.

by Michael Turner

Starting up your internet business as a member of an affiliate program is an exciting thing due to all of the possibilities and potential this industry has. By becoming an affiliate marketer, you can finally gain complete control of your financial destiny. However, in order to create an income from affiliate marketing programs, you must learn how these programs work, discover how to generate traffic, and ultimately how you will use these products to make you money. Now, if you have not joined an affiliate program as of yet then now is the best time to learn. If you are already part of an affiliate marketing program, you now simply need to learn how to increase your sales and revenue. Consider these following tips and how they can work for you.

Tip #1 - Email Autoresponders

Email autoresponders are great because they send e-mails and updates automatically to people who have visited your site and displayed some form of interest in your products. The majority of people that visit your site will simply leave never to return again. They might forget your address, what they were looking for, or any number of other things. However, if you use an autoresponder to gently remind them every couple of weeks about different products and services, you will convert those lost potential customers to actual customers. Of course, everyone won't buy from you, but you will increase the ratio significantly. However, be sure to only include individuals in your autoresponder who have opted to receive e-mails from you.

Tip #2 - Information

You need to make sure that you provide visitors with enough information regarding your products that they feel comfortable making a purchase. If customers have any questions that are not answered on your website, they will not buy until they do have those answers or will simply forget about it and move on. Don't let this happen to you. Instead, make sure you provide information about all of your products. Give your visitors a good overview that answers all frequently asked questions, provide excellent photos, and allow the product to sell itself. If you provide enough information you will also save yourself a lot of time answering e-mails.

Tip #3 - Increase Traffic

Another thing you must do to increase your revenue quickly is to get more links on the Internet that point to your website. The reason this is important is because the more links you have, the higher your web page will be returned in the rankings, and the more traffic you will receive because of it. Also, when you have links scattered about the Internet, more people will run across your link and pay your website a visit. You can have your link included on other websites, in forums, blogs, ezine articles, and basically in any part of the web you can think of where another website will post it.

About the Author

Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

Explode your Sales with an Affiliate Program.

By: Jim Pretin

If you have recently started an online business, you are no doubt facing the difficult task of trying to promote your website without sufficient capital to do much advertising. It is a catch-22; you need to spend a lot of money on advertising to launch an internet business so that you can make some money, but you need to make some money so that you actually have some dollars to spend on advertising.

To get money for advertising, you could take on a business partner who is willing to fund the company to get your marketing campaign going, or perhaps you could turn to venture capital to get started. However, unless you already have a lot of solid business contacts, raising money for an internet startup can be almost impossible.

So, what should you do? The solution to all your marketing problems might be an affiliate program. With an affiliate program, anyone who has a website can post an advertisement for your business on their website in the form of a banner or a text link. If someone clicks on that banner or text link and subsequently buys your product or service, you have to pay that affiliate a commission on the sale.

The reason why this is such an excellent marketing strategy is because an affiliate program costs you nothing. You do not have to pay to place your affiliate banner or text link on other websites because you are offering those other website owners a commission on every referral they make, but only if that referral produces a sale.

Not only does having an affiliate program give you an opportunity to make a tremendous amount of sales without spending money on advertising, but it also increases the number of inbound links to your website. The more links to your site, the higher your search engine ranking will be. So, a surge in your link popularity and an additional increase in sales resulting from an improved search engine ranking is a fabulous byproduct of having a popular affiliate program.

Now, you need to learn how to create an affiliate program and how to promote it. To create an affiliate program, you will either need to hire a web designer or programmer who has experience creating these sorts of programs, because they are not easy to set up. The job requires a lot of backend programming work, database creation, and payment tracking so that the referrals and sales that each affiliate produces can be tracked with a special code that is signed to each individual affiliate.

To promote your program, you will need to post ads for it on as many online affiliate directories as you can find. Some of these directories will charge you a small annual fee to be listed, others will allow you to list your program for free. There are literally hundreds or even thousands of different online directories where you can add your listing. The more listings you can create, the more affiliates you can potentially acquire.

I hope this information helps you get your online business off to a good start. The affiliates you recruit into your program are almost like your employees, they are doing your advertising work for you, and it does not cost you anything unless they make a sale. All those websites will be representing you, sort of like a commissioned salesperson. Just make sure you hire a competent web designer to do the programming work, because if there are any difficulties with tracking sales to your individual affiliates, you will have a huge mess on your hands.

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Basics of Affiliate Marketing

by Matt Bacak

Whether you realize it or not, if you've been on the Internet today, you have encountered affiliate marketing. If you have ever “clicked thru” one site to order something from another, the first site probably received a portion of the sale. For instance, independent booksellers have limited shelf space for books. But they can offer their customers an almost unlimited inventory of titles by affiliating with companies like Amazon or Powell's. The more orders, the bigger the affiliate percentage.

Visitors to your site are interested in lots of things that may or may not be related to your product. But when you know your customers well, it's simply a matter of affiliating yourself with sites that offer what they want. What you receive is just a small percentage of the sale, but it adds up, especially when you consider that all it costs you is a link on your web page. And usually, the more sales your affiliate makes from your “click thru” traffic, the bigger your percentage will be.

The key to success in affiliate marketing is being able to track referred customers. As an affiliate manager, you want a system that reliably tracks what you want, with minimal effort on your part, and without affecting the performance of your site or server. Over the last few years a variety of technologies and strategies have been developed in an attempt to improve accuracy, convenience, and flexibility.

There are at least half a dozen methods, but by far the most preferred method is Cookie Tracking. It's popular because it makes tracking affiliate-referred sales so convenient, without negatively impacting your site. This system writes a small text file, called a “cookie,” to a user's browser when they click on an affiliate link. When you are the referring affiliate, the cookie holds your ID, so that at the merchant's order page, you get credit for referring the sale. One drawback is that many computer users disable cookies, although most choose not to, since their favorite sites require them. One bonus is that the merchant can save the information, so that even if a customer buys long after clicking through your site, you still get credit for the sale.

Affiliate marketing, at its best, is a win-win scenario. It's an easy way to offer your customers more of what they want, while you benefit, both in terms of building goodwill and making money.

About The Author
Matt Bacak became "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com

Affiliate Programs, Ad Trackers, Link Popularity & YOU

by Russ Moore


When promoting affiliate programs, many people make the common mistake of linking directly to the url they are promoting. Yes, this can and will earn you commissions if your advertising and the site's sales copy are effective.

However, by placing your ads (and your affiliate partner's url) all over the web, you are building link popularity ONLY for your partner. This, of course, does YOU absolutely no good at all beyond the potential sales.

If you've placed their url in 20 places, they now have 20 links pointing to THEM... and you have NONE pointing to you. It's just not fair. That's allot of work, and if they go out of business, or change their affiliate link format... your links are DEAD.

If you have a site of your own, you are far better off to create a folder and use a simple redirect to the affiliate url.

For example:

Instead of... http://www.somesite.com?affiliateid

Use... http://www.yoururl.com/somesite

The index.htm file in your "somesite" folder redirects to the affiliate url.

Now with the same effort, you have 20 links pointing to YOUR site, and only one link pointing to theirs (the one in your redirect file). Yet your promotion still functions the same. The link gets clicked, the promoted url gets a visit, and you get paid if the site makes the sale.

This is a much better option as it not only increases your own link popularity, but it gives you control. If your new partner goes belly up while your ads are still floating around, you can change your redirect and point it to a similar program with very little effort.

Now, being the intelligent marketer that you are, I'm sure you are tracking your links... right? Of course you are. How else would you measure your results? How would you know if the ads you are running are working, or they are just a waste of your valuable time?

Since you are tracking ads, your affiliate partner isn't gaining link popularity from your efforts. If you are using link tracking software hosted on your site, YOU get the link popularity.

BUT... many marketers use an online ad tracking service, and in this case the ad tracking service get the links. And once again, YOU get the headaches if they close their doors.

Fortunately the fix is nearly the same. Now you setup your redirect files to point to the ad tracker, which then links to the url you are promoting.

Keep in mind that by doing this you will also have to set it up so you can tell which ad sent the hit by creating multiple redirect files (one for each ad).

Now your ads point to:

http://www.yoururl.com/somesite/somepage.htm
http://www.yoururl.com/somesite/somepage4u.htm
http://www.yoururl.com/somesite/mysomepage.htm

You get the idea, right? Good.

You can either use a different tracking link for each one or add a key to the link in your redirect so the ad tracker can accurately measure the results of each campaign (read your ad tracker's instructions for ad key setup).

Yes, it does take a little time and effort, but it's worth it if/when the affiliate program owner OR your ad tracking service decides to pull the plug.

Total control = no wasted advertising.

This is even more important if your links are in viral ebooks and articles that can circulate for years to come.

Note: This also gives you the ability to go back and add a page to grab the visitor's contact info on the way to your partner's site. But that's another article.


About the Author

Russ Moore, Parkersburg, WV, USA
Learn more about ad tracking for affiliate marketing
As the internet's equivalent to the "Jack of all trades", Russ Moore is a net writer/publisher/techie with more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Pay him a visit for a cool, free ad tracker. http://www.WizKlix.com

Affiliate Programs – The Fast Track to Wealth

Copyright 2005 Peter Dobler

Remember the day when you made the ultimate decision to
change your life? Yes, it was the day when you decided to
start your own home business. Gosh, I remember the anxiety
when I uploaded my very first web site, waiting for
something to happen. It’s like going onto a stage and
performing in front of a large crowd.

Ok, what has this to do with affiliate programs and how to
make money with them? Not much other than this is the
primary reason why people spending money online. Emotions
are the number one selling factor, period. And newbie web
masters are loaded with emotions.

When you started your home business, did you have a product
to sell? Neither did I. That’s why affiliate programs are
perfect for startup home businesses. In a nutshell, an
affiliate sells products from somebody else and keeps a
commission from each sale. An affiliate id responsible for
all the advertising and only gets paid whenever there’s a
sale.

Take a break and think about this for a minute. Every day
there are thousands of people online, searching for
products and ideas to make money with. They know that
there’s big money to make and they are eager to get
started. When you started your home business it probably
never crossed your mind to sell your own products and to
run your own affiliate program.

If you’re in the online business for a while with mediocre
results it is time to switch sides. Why should you carry
most of the risk with your advertisement spending with less
than satisfactory sales results? Not to mention that you’re
at the mercy of somebody else’s reliability to send you
your hard earned money.

If you don’t have a product to sell, go out there and
search for products with master resale rights. This will
grant you the exclusive rights to sell the product and keep
100% of the profits. Selling the product through affiliates
doesn’t violate this, because you’re paying your affiliates
for the advertising efforts, the final sale is still made
by you.

Of course there are a million products with master resale
rights available. Choose your product wisely. You don’t
want to start an affiliate program with products that are
already over marketed and maybe available for free or as
part of a bonus package. This takes some time and research,
but it is well worth the effort.

One source is to research the public domain sector and
compile your own information product. There are numerous
publications available on this topic. Another source is to
join a membership program that sells master resale rights
products. Make sure that they offer unique products and
check their rules. Many offer a trial membership, take
advantage of this.

Once you have your product start your affiliate program.
Don’t join one of the many services that offer affiliate
program services for a monthly fee. Here’s why. Having
thousands of affiliates advertising your product is a great
thing. Having thousands of free links to your web site is
priceless.

Create as many advertising samples for your affiliates as
possible. Have these samples point to different entry
points to your web site. Banners are the worst advertising
tools, but newbie web masters love them. They are easy to
implement. What do you care, you got your free link to your
website. Make sure that you use search engine friendly
affiliate links. Affiliate links with a “?” are recognized
as such. Better are the affiliate links that look like a
directory structure. The easy way to implement this is to
use PHP as your language of choice.

Guess what will happen after a few months running your own
affiliate program from your website? Your own web site will
skyrocket in rankings on any search engine, because you got
so many links to your web site without having a link farm
on your own. This is every web masters dream. Now you have
a choice. You either aggressively promote your affiliate
program or you promote your products. Either way you win.

If you’re still skeptical, go to Google or Yahoo and search
for links pointing to your favorite affiliate program.
Simply type ‘links:’ and your affiliate program’s domain
name into the search field. Make sure you don’t have any
blanks. This will return all the websites that are linking
back to this affiliate program. Check out the number on the
right upper corner where it says ‘Results 1 – 10 of about
x’. x stands for the total number of links. Now do the same
for your website. Hmm, you got nothing? Well, that’s the
difference. I hope you see the power of this by now.

Before you go out there and slab together your own
affiliate program. Do your homework and research as much as
possible. You want to get it right the first time.

Good luck to you all,
Peter Dobler
© 2005

Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He
is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet
business owner.
Learn more about wealth building methods at
http://www.thefasttracktowealth.com


<< ------------- End of Free Reprint Article ----------- >>

Affiliate Marketing: Make Money without Having Your Own Product.

by David Cooper


Many of us have powerful marketing skills and would love to find a great way to put them to use online. We are natural salespeople, have a great feel for finding and delivering customers, and are able to craft great marketing strategies.

Even though we have a great deal of potential sizzle at our disposal, we don't have a steak to go with it. We need products to sell. That's where affiliate marketing comes in to bridge the gap between product production and product sales.

It is a simple process. You sign up as an affiliate to a product producer. You deliver customers and collect a commission on every sale recorded. To make matters even more attractive, commissions are often set at percentage marks that would make traditional brick and mortar sales people stare in disbelief. Commissions in excess of 50% are not uncommon.

Your job as an affiliate is to find customers, pre-sell them and deliver them to a sales page where they can make their purchase. The program is set up in a way that every sale is instantly recorded. Commissions can be paid in a variety of intervals depending upon the affiliate program in question.

Being an affiliate marketer requires an ability to seek out and find sellable products and to use any number of potential techniques to find buyers. Those with a track record in affiliate marketing will often develop a huge list of prequalified past buyers they can access readily when they have discovered a great new product to promote.

The income possibilities are nearly limitless. There are so many different products out there and the commissions are so generous that one can experience massive financial success. Successful affiliate marketers are among some of the net's most well-paid entrepreneurs.

Is it easy? Not necessarily. There is always competition and there is always more to learn about sales and marketing. But it is rewarding and it gives those who have a seemingly natural feel for sales and promotion a great way to be their own bosses.

One could decide to operate a cradle-to-grave operation instead of becoming an affiliate. They could design and perfect a product all on their own and sell it themselves, keeping all of the revenue. That might be a good solution for some, but many skilled internet marketers have found that the constantly-improving assortment of products and service to promote, combined with a fair commission structure, allows them a superior opportunity to make a healthy income without having to deal with the hassles of initial market research, product creation and other tasks.

If you want to sell, affiliate marketing is the way to go. It allows you to generate profits while selling products you weren't forced to create. It's a business without an income cap that allows skilled salespeople and marketers a chance at online business success.

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David Cooper is the editor of the Affiliate Marketing Articles Newsletter. David specializes in helping affiliate marketers make money without having their own product. Subscribe to his FREE newsletter at: http://www.affiliatemarketingarticles.com