Affiliate Marketing - How To Choose An Affiliate Program

What is an Affiliate program?


The beauty of an Affiliate program is that you can start the day you join. It is an extremely simple way to earn money online. It is, by no means, without any effort. But it offers the best chance at fast income with the least amount of headaches involved.

An affiliate program involves sending someone to a product website to buy something or sign up for something, and you are paid a commission when they make a purchase.

An affiliate program is basically a revenue sharing arrangement set up by a company that handles the product distribution and commission payments to "publishers" (website owners who advertise the products - in other words, people like you), and send the remainder off to the product owner (the product owner's profit).

All you have to do is promote the website. You do not have to worry about building a website, maintaining the website, creating a product, paying for website hosting, hiring people to help you with the things you are not able to do on the site, keeping up with domain names, handling support issues, taking orders, or shipping orders. The Affiliate Program does all of that, you just send people to the sales page. You just concentrate on marketing. The headaches belong to the product owner and the Affiliate Program owner.

How can I increase my income from an Affiliate program?

Make sure you send more people to the product page, and make an effort to entice more of them to purchase by making the product seem more appealing, and you will increase your income. Affiliate marketing is pretty much a "numbers game" in a way. How? If you send 100 visitors to the website, and 1% buys, you have sold one item. If, however, you send 1000 visitors to a site and 5% buy, you have sold 50 items. Increase your traffic to the site, and you increase sales that result in income.

Now, before we get into which Affiliate Programs to join, let me say this just once, so listen up!

Start with just one affiliate program and learn all you can about it; how it works, how to use it properly, what the restrictions are to get paid, and how you are allowed to promote the products they offer.

Do not join half-a-dozen Affiliate Programs and spread yourself too thin. It takes time and effort to promote just one, and trying to promote multiple programs, especially if you are just starting out, will actually cost you some income.

I speak from experience because I made that mistake myself in my early years (over 20 years ago now), and it drastically reduced my income potential. Had I just focused on one or two to start with, I would have been making a seven figure income by now.

A Word About Income:

Many of the so-called "Gurus" online state their income before expenses, which greatly inflates their numbers. Many of them, after taking out expenses, make far less than they state in their promotions. Some of their advertising expenses can be in the thousands of dollars per day. Never take those numbers they state in their promotions as pure profit. To do so will only serve to make you feel inadequate, when, in fact, you are doing better than you think.

I will never do that. I will never give anyone the idea that they will become millionaires over night like some do. You CAN, however, make a very impressive income that will replace, and, in most cases, surpass what you make on your current J.O.B (which translate to "Just Over Broke").

Not All Affiliate Programs are Created Equal

How do I choose the Best Affiliate Programs?

When choosing an Affiliate Program, look at the products they offer for you to promote. Are they a good product? The best way to know for sure is to purchase the item yourself to see if it delivers what the sales page states. Barring that, you may want to do a search for the name of the product and read the forum reviews you find. Be careful, if the item is not listed on a forum, you may have found a niche site set up to look like a "product review" when it is mainly a site that wants you to buy the product. Of course, such a site will praise the product no matter what it really offers. That is why I said "Forum reviews".

Do not jump on a product that has just come out thinking it will sell. You could end up losing credibility if the product does not deliver what is promised on the sales page. Your reputation online is extremely important. Don't lose out by promoting bad products. If you do purchase the product, first, try asking a question in their support links. I have had the sad lesson of posting a question to support in a program that stated they answered all support questions within 48 hours. At last count, it was a month and a half with no answer. At that point, I quit promoting the product. My reputation online is too important to me to have this kind of product problems attached to it.

Be sure you find products that you have some area of expertise in. Don't promote products about how to fix cars if you know nothing about them. If you like to go camping, promote a product about that. It gives you a better ability to create better promotions for the product if you know something about the subject. Your promotions will sound much more credible.

Remember, the people searching for that product has some knowledge of it in the first place. If you come across as lacking knowledge of the subject, they will not trust you and they will go elsewhere to buy.

Be Sure It Is Worth Your Time and Effort

Join programs that offer at least 45% to 75% commissions or better, unless the item sells for a high dollar amount. Promote the products that will give you a commission of at least $25 or more for it to be worth your time and effort. Marketing takes time and/or money, and you need to concentrate your efforts where you will gain the highest return on what you are investing in it. Just remember, it takes the same amount of time and effort to promote a $10 product as it does to promote a $100 product. Yes, you will get a higher number of sales from the cheaper product, but not enough to make up the percentage of sales per visitor or the income you could have made with the higher dollar product. Again, just be sure the product is worth the dollar amount, or you will not sell a single thing. If you promote a product for three months and get less than 2% sales, drop it and move on.

Promote Once - Get Recurring Commissions!

A program that offers a recurring income as well as a one time income per sale is probably the better choice. Why? Simple. Do the math. If you promote a product once, you get paid once. If you promote a product that has a recurring membership fee, for instance, you will be paid monthly for the one time effort of gaining the sign-up. Not bad! If you earn just $5 per month from the recurring fee, that is $60 per year. Now, multiply that by just 100 customers, and you get the idea! That is $6,000 income for the year. That can make your car payment, or more, right?

One Tier or More - How Important Is It?

Don't worry about whether you can build a "downline" in an affiliate program. Chances are, (and I speak from experience) your downline most likely will not work as hard as you do to promote the program. Go into the program with the attitude that you will earn the lion's share of income from your own efforts. Any downline that does earn you some bonuses is just "gravy" that is a pleasant surprise. One tier Affiliate Programs are as good, or better than those with two or multiple tiers.

Repeat After Me This Mantra:

"I depend on 3 people for my online income - Me, Myself, and I"

What are the Best Methods of Getting Traffic?

Creating Niche Sites that are topic based can grab free traffic from the search engines. In other words, the pages will have search terms throughout that reflect relevant information about the product itself, or similar products, with a link to the item you are trying to promote. This kind of niche site does two extremely important things. 1. Helps rank high in the search engines, which, in turn,  increases traffic. 2. The product can be sold right on the page using a text link, or redirect to the product sales page.


Important Guidelines That Increase Traffic:


These methods work best if you have the ability to create your own websites. Affiliate programs, as such, by their very nature do not require your own website, but these methods will increase free traffic to your promotions. After all, Free is "gravy" because it doesn't cost you in time or money. If you don't have your own site, you can still make a considerable amount of money online. At least it is a start. The best way to get started with "niche" marketing with your own website without having to know anything about html or other website building skills, there is a program that I have used extensively with a great deal of success. There are tutorials every step of the way. To give this a serious look, go to ProfitMart. You will have niche sites connected to many products from ClickBank, Amazon, and more with very little effort compared to starting all on your own. My only word of warning here is - If you hate cPanel, do not use ProfitMart. They changed from a wysiwyg editor to cPanel and you had better know how to use it. Their tutorials are lacking I feel.


1. Your own domain names to promote your affiliate programs

This method works extremely well if your domain name includes one or more of the terms in your product name. The search engines love it and you can get a lot of free traffic to your site this way.


2. Web hosting that doesn't use 3rd party ads - keep your credibility!

Most free web hosting companies put third party ads on the site in one or more places to help pay for the bandwidth used by your site. For that reason, it is best to find hosting that doesn't use third party ads. This usually means finding paid hosting. More expensive hosting does not necessarily mean better features. Do your research.

 3. Use Banners at the top of your site.

Banners are an additional method of advertising, but statistics show that they are not a major source of commissions. Still, you can get some income from them on occasion and it is not hard to set up just once and let it rotate.

4. Personal recommendations of products with a text link

This method has been proven to be one of the best ways to get income from your own website. If the content of the page has relevant information, or innumerate the features and benefits of the product in a clear, appealing way, and you finish with text links within the content, you are more likely to get a sale than with any other method.
 5. Classified ads

Placing text that looks like a classified ad on your site for a similar product, along with a text link to that product can increase your sales by promoting a second, related product.

6. eZine ad or special offer

A highlighted special offer or eZine promotional ad on your website can help in many ways. One that immediately comes to mind is to offer an eZine subscription with a free gift. How does this help? You can use an autoresponder lead capture form here and you now have built a "List" for yourself of eZine subscribers. Just be sure you do have an eZine that is relevant to the subject, and that it offers more than just ads or your subscribers will very quickly "unsubscribe".

Do I Really Need an Autoresponder to Succeed in Internet Marketing?

The Answer is a resounding "YES!"
The reasons are quite easy to understand. If you really want to succeed and earn some serious income from your Internet Marketing efforts (and who doesn't) you must absorb and understand the following:

An Internet marketer, in the truest sense of the word, is basically a one-person advertising company. As such, the ability to follow-up with those who have already purchased from you, as well as contacting new, potential leads, is a critical factor in growing your business.
The main problem with being an Internet marketer is that you must single-handedly consistantly keep a steady flow of new leads and purchasers coming into your realm of influence. The bigest problem with this is the amount of time required to follow-up with each and every contact you have gathered. You need to be spending more time generating more cash flow into your business, not spending all day sending out follow-up emails to all of your leads and purchasers.

The dilema then, is how to keep up with all the necessary communications with new leads, as well as with your past purchasers, and still have the lion's share of your time and attention focused on generating more sales and a constant flow of new leads. The easiest answer to this is simply to use a good autoresponder that can be set up to automatically follow-up with everyone according to a pre-set schedule with pre-determined and specifically timed emails. The best part about autoresponders is that, if set up correctly, everything is completely controlled by you, but maintained automatically by the autoresponder!

You simply could not ever hope to manually handle a task of that magnitude one email at a time by yourself, it would be virtually impossible. Be a wise marketer, and set up an autoresponder to automate the task for you. The best part of this scenario is that, once the system is set up correctly, the whole process will continue on auto-pilot! There are hundreds of eBooks offered on the Internet offering the "Secret" of running your marketing on auto-pilot. They will charge anywhere from $9.99 to $49.95 just to inform you that you need an autoresponder and a way to monetize your own website. Then they leave you hanging at that point to fend for yourself. If you don't understand how to proceed, you just wasted your money.

If you have been trying to market online for any length of time, you have heard about autoresponders, but may not have used one for any number of reasons. These reasons may include, but are not necessarily limited to:

Price - which normally runs anywhere from $14.95/Month to $34.95/Month for some of the more well known online products; Fear - Which comes from lack of understanding of how to set one up and use it; Ignorance - brought on by not understanding the importance of having a list of your own to market to (usually because your "up-line sponsor" did not tell you how important it is). Or you may be unwilling to use the Free versions of most autoresponders that would pass ads into every email you send out.

Q: Exactly what is an autoresponder?

A: Put in the simplest terms, an autoresponder is software that allows you to send email messages to people who have opted-in to your list.

This, by definition, is not spam or unsolicited mail on any level. The people whose names and email addresses are in the autoresponder have given you permission to send them emails. That is how they got there - they had to fill out a form and click a "submit" button to be added to the autoresponder "list", and they understood that before they hit the "submit" button on that form. They usually filled out a form like that to get a free ezine, newsletter, eBook, or other desirable offering from you. The autoresponder sends out an automatic email in response to the subscriber who clicks the "submit" button on the opt-in form of your site. Depending on how you have set up the autoresponder, the subscriber will receive either one message, or a series of follow-up messages that go out at certain intervals that you have chosen. The best thing about this is that YOU get to choose how many messages and how often they are sent out. (This does NOT mean that you can send daily emails and not expect people to "Unsubscribe". It is best to keep your emails to one per week unless it is a free eCourse you promised that they were told would be send every day for a certain number of days. After that has finished, send no more than one per week or you could have angry opt-outs.)

The people whose names are in the autoresponder system also were given a chance to change their mind by not clicking a link in a "confirmation" email that was sent to their email inbox. If they clicked the link within that confirmation email, they agreed to receive emails from you. There is also a link included at the bottom of each email they receive from you that allows them to "opt-out" of your list (by clicking that link, they are saying that they no longer want emails from you). Because that link is at the bottom, they can not consider your autoresponder emails as spam.

The messages that go out must be written and the autoresponder doesn't do that for you. You must write them. Yes, this takes some time, but once it is set up, it will not have to be done again, unless you want to change the messages. After it is set up, your autoresponder will send out everthing to every subscriber on a set schedule - on auto-pilot!

Here, I want to make a point about the autoresponder program you choose for yourself. There are quite a few out there that will offer an autoresponder for "Free", but they will include ads of their own or someone else who has paid for advertising. Remember that these will go out at the TOP of your autoresponder emails. This is bad because these messages detract and distract the receiver from the message YOU want them to respond to.

Q: Ok, now I know what it is and its most basic opperation, but how can I use it in my daily routine for my business?

A: There are many ways to use an autoresponder in your daily routine for your online business dealings - for example:

You can use the opt-in form on a squeeze page to sign people up for your free ezine and the autoresponder will immediately send out an email with a confirmation link that they must click on. Once they "confirm" that they want your ezine, your autoresponder will send out a "welcome" email. If you would like to, you can send out another email with a free report and a link to receive a sample of your ezine (if it is monthly and the current one is not being sent out yet) with a notification of which day of the month to expect their ezine so that they will know approximately when it will arrive.

You may also want to send out an email asking what they find most challenging. Explain that you will try to cover the subject in detail in an upcoming ezine. That will accomplish two things.

1. You will have them scouring every ezine for the "answer" to their needs, and:

2. It will give you a good idea about what your subscribers Want to read about. This way, you have a real purpose to fill with your ezine, and it will make you seem more "one-on-one" with your subscribers. They love that!

Another good use of an autoresponder, is to have one set up for customers who purchase your products! When someone buys one of your products, have an autoresponder message ready to go out immediately that thanks them for their purchase and have a link to a free eBook or "bonus". Then, follow up in a couple of days asking how they are getting along with your product. This gives you "feed-back" for your product and may help you improve it for a later distribution. If they click a link saying that they like it, You can ask them to give a testimonial. These are always a welcome resource you can use to add credibility to your offerings.

Have your autoresponder send an email with a link to a Free Bonus for their response to your questions. These only are the "tip of the iceburg" as there are many more uses of an autoresponder. You can use the autoresponder to send out eCourses as well, and add a short two or three sentence ad at the bottom with a link to a related product. These are what I refer to as "ghost sales" since I am not actually spending money to advertise these links. I get about 15% of my sales this way! Autoresponders can do a lot of good to marketers who use their creative imaginations.

Q: I understand some of the uses of autoresponders now, but are there any tips on how to optimize my success using them?

A: The most important "success secrets" are as follows:

No matter how many people are on your list in the autoresponder, let "YOU" shine through! Make your messages personal by allowing your personality to come through in your messages. Encourage people to send feed-back, and make sure you ask them to take action in your messages. If you are offering them a product, let them see why they need it, and why they should get it NOW!

A word about "Cookie Cutter" Ads

I absolutely hate opening my email inbox and seeing the same heading five or six times on one page! These people are just taking a "Cut & Paste" ad of the most recent "Gotta Join" opportunity and sending it out! These "cookie cutter" ads just make me go down the line and delete all but one!

Do something original for heaven's sake! If you want to advertise a product, use the basic language that describes the features and benefits of the product, but put it in your own words. Don't copy verbatum! It is so obvious when people do that, and I pity those that do such things since they are losing money and ad credits that will get deleted over and over without being read. They need to join "Your Biz Success!" and learn to write as if they are writing to One person - the person receiving the email ad. This is critical when creating autoresponder ads for your ezines, or for follow-up messages. They must feel as if you intended that message for them! If it looks like it is aimed at everyone, it smacks of despiration. If you are using proper marketing techniques, you are not desperate for their purchase. You would like it if they made a purchase, of course, but it doesn't look as if you are financially in a pinch.

How you write your autoresponder messages says a lot about you. Make sure your language and approach are personal and not just "Cut & Paste". Experienced marketers will "unsubscribe" from your list so fast it will make your head spin if they see nothing but pre-written copy supplied by the product's creator. I know I did about a year or so ago!

I had joined an eZine and the "owner" sent nothing but "cookie cutter" ads to me with no articles, tips or information. I hit "unsubscribe" within two weeks. As soon as I did, a page popped up asking me "Why" I wanted to leave the list. My reply was short and sweet: "The eZine had no useful content at all, only "copy & paste" ads supplied by each product's creator. If you want to do this kind of advertising, join a safelist and be done with it. Do not insult "subscribers" expecting a real ezine! I hope the guy learned something that day.

The bottom line is: Don't use an autoresponder to abuse the power and freedom it offers. Use it wisely and with respect for your subscribers and you will gain a reputation to be proud of. I rely on my autoresponders to follow up with my customers, subscribers to my ezines and to my various lists. It would be impossible to follow-up with all of them individually without them. Staying in contact helps you retain these valued members without the loss of that valuable relationship you have cultivated. Those who do reply to those messages are now my friends as well.

MLM Training is NOT Relevant Online!

At one time, I was like a lot of people who fell for the promise of great wealth offered by MLM companies. They taught two common and widely accepted concepts:

SW-SW-SW-N, and the 80-20 rule.

The first is the abreviated form of: Some will, Some Won't, So What? - Next!

This was designed to keep the "recruiter" from feeling bad about those who were not interested in their MLM opportunities. One needs some kind of mantra to help sooth the "sting" when someone who was once a good friend starts avoiding you for fear you will "start-up" with pitching your MLM again!

The second "rule" stated that you will need to spend: "80% of your effort on the 20% of "recruits" who do the most" This rule leaves out 80% of the people who signed up! They paid their way in, but they will receive little or no help from their sponsor under this guidline!

I for one, do not follow either concept. Anyone who joins any of my programs is equally given my time and effort if they show interest in learning. I will not go begging people to learn. That must come from within the person. I can plant a seed, and supply water. I can't control the weather. The person's attitude is the "weather" in this case. The harvest only comes when every factor, including the weather, co-operate as they should. Enough said...

An autoresponder is an ice-breaker that puts the message out to the subscriber. You are not pestering "friends and family" to join some opportunity, you are simply sending messages to people who have agreed to receive them. They may buy, or they may not buy. In any event, the worst that can happen is that they "unsubscribe." This will not happen unless you offer nothing at all useful to them. You come away with no hurt feelings or lost friendships, as well as a great way to follow-up with those who stay on your list, and sell products, and develope friendships that can last a life-time. I know that I have a number of friends online whom I met through my autoresponder messages! We exchange opinions, discuss opportunities and stay in contact by IM, email, and skype. In fact, one of them was the first member of "Your Biz Success!"

If you want to do anything worthwhile online, you need an autoresponder to help you market more efficiently. You can not even start to hope to be successful if you can't have a good system set up, and this is one of the key factors to ensure success!

The best kept "Secret" to success is to have certain tools that are essential to having a booming income from your Internet Marketing efforts. These tools include:

Autoresponder - for all the reasons stated above

Ad and Link Trackers - so you can see which ad campaigns work and which don't

Capture Page Creators - so you can attract people to your "list" with a free offer.

URL Rotators - so you can use one URL to advertise more than one website at once

And wouldn't it be lovely if you could have tutorials for all the above tools in one place? What if you could get it for under $10/Month?

I found and began using this site by a company that offered a similar tool assortment before. They always over-deliver.  This wonderful set of essential marketing tools costs under $10 per month and has tutorials every step of the way that shows how to set-up the autoresponder, capture pages, rotators and tracking tools. I couldn't believe this! I had seen one several years ago that cost $49.95 per month, and there were no tutorials - you were on your own! I jumped in with both feet. Smart marketers use all of these tools and this is the best I have seen! They even let you try it for 30 days free and do NOT require a credit card number. No surprises and no "Gotcha!" I love this program - and you will too! By the way, there is also an affiliate program, so you can earn while you make use of the tools. This one pays for itself fast!

Get Free Trial Here - No Credit Card Required!

The Truth About Internet Marketing - Surprise, You've Been Lied To...

When we first start to look for ways to make money online, we are enticed by promises of 'Easy Money' and hype that states "Make money without doing anything at all - we promote for you".

Thinking that marketing online must be a 'piece of cake', we eagerly jump on board with both feet! Then we keep checking those statistics that we were promised would grow with no effort on our part. After two or three months of this, (or sooner if we are smart...) we realize that something just is not right!

One of two things probably happened...

1. We failed to read the fine print that said they would not promote for us unless we were upgraded members of the opportunity (I Call That A Gotcha!).
   
2. We failed to read the part where they would promote only after we had taken some form of action that either cost us money, or took time and effort that negated the promise of "no work" on our part (another Gotcha!).

BIG SURPRISE! - They lied...

Fact #1: There are NO free rides in internet marketing!

Anyone expecting something for nothing is either extremely naive, or is living on another planet! We all need to understand something very basic here...no one is online to be charitable when it comes to marketing opportunities. Everyone wants to make money. They either make the money when you join, or, after you join for free, by sharing in commissions you make on your sales of products or membership upgrades.

Can you make money in a Free-To-Join opportunity?

Yes, and No...it depends on the opportunity, and how you look at it. I have joined lots (hundreds actually) of opportunities, and have upgraded in a few that actually work, and can make money. Marketing online has a learning curve to it, and everyone must learn certain things in order to be successful. That is why I have started this blog. I want beginning marketers to have a place to come for tips and reviews of opportunities so they don't waste time and money looking where their chances at financial success are slim to none.