Wednesday, September 26, 2007
7 Tips to Choosing a Successful Affiliate Program
When selecting an affiliate program to join you need to know how to choose a successful affiliate program.Look in the wrong place and you might find a dud but look in the right place and you might be on to a winner.
Here are 7 tips to help you choose a successful affiliate program to join:
1. Look at associateprograms.com This is the ‘affiliate central' of affiliate programs. You can virtually guarantee to find a successful program here and you can choose from tons of subject areas.
2. Look at clickbank.com Nearly every product they have for sale has an affiliate program. Many of them are extremely good and most pay very high commissions. (some over 50%)
3. Affiliate resource sites usually offer their best affiliate programs. As affiliate resources sites are specialists in affiliate programs you can be pretty sure of choosing a
successful affiliate program from them.
4. Look for affiliate programs that are offered through any ezines you receive. Chances are the ezine owner has an
affiliate program and if they have a good ezine they probably will have a good affiliate program.
5. Think of things that ALWAYS sell. Like web site design, ebooks, music and travel. Stick to proven online sellers and the affiliate program will have a much greater chance of being successful.
6. Seek out articles on affiliate programs. There are many good writers out there who have been successful with affiliate programs. Try to find articles they have written to see what
has worked for them.
7. Take courses. Many sites offer free online email courses for affiliates. Take some of these courses to learn more about what it takes to be a successful affiliate.
Affiliate programs are a great way to make money but one of the secrets to affiliate success is to choose the right program in the first place. Use these 7 tips to help you succeed.
Labels: Affiliate Success
Post by ProBlogger at 6:14 PM
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Affiliate Program Scams To Watch Out For
Affiliate programs are a great way to earn extra money or even a good living if you do things right. But unfortunately, there are alot of people out there that know this and will do everything they can to swindle you into selling their products while not having to pay you a dime. There are some merchants that view affiliates as a source of free traffic and free marketing.Here are a few things that should draw up a red flag when you come accross an affiliate program:
No Contact Information
If they don't post their contact information on their site then you should not bother with them. To me this tells me they are trying to hide something.
Commission To High
Yes, it is great when we find affiliate programs that pay high commissions. But you also have to be careful that they are not just trying to draw you into their affiliate program by using big numbers. It wouldn't be good to earn alot of money just to get scammed. If it is to good to be true then most likely it is. A merchant will never pay more on a commission then they would get for the sale. It is just not business smart.
No Replies To Your Emails
If they do have their email address on their site and you send them an email but they never reply then you should drop them like a hot rock. If you can't trust them to take one minute to give you a reply then you shouldn't trust them to spend a few more minutes cutting and mailing you a check.
Returned Affiliate Payment Checks
If they do send you a check and your bank returns it then this would be another reason to draw up the red flag of being scammed. Of course you should always contact the merchant to try to resolve the issue, it could be an honest mistake. But if it happens in conjuction with no email replies and lousy affiliate support then I wouldn't waste anymore of my time with them.
The bottom line is that you should always use your gut feeling when dealing with affiliate programs. If you are not sure about an affiliate program then search the search engines for the merchants name. If they are known for scamming affiliates you are sure to find it in the search engines and affiliate forums.
Labels: Affiliate Scams
Post by ProBlogger at 12:10 AM
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Sunday, September 23, 2007
5 Tips To Choosing The Right Affiliate Program
Affiliate programs can be a great way to make money online. You don't have to spend time developing your own product, worry about taking orders, or take care of customer service.If you already have a high traffic website or run an e-zine you can stand to earn a steady flow of commissions every month without a lot of extra work on your part.
To help you get started promoting affiliate programs, I've provided the following 5 tips to help you choose the affiliate programs that are right for you.
1. Choose affiliate programs that match the content of your site. If your site targets a niche market than choose affiliate programs that offer products to that niche market.
2. Choose affiliate programs that pay a high commission. For example 30%-50% on your direct sales.
3. Join affiliate programs that pay two-tier commissions. This enables you to not only earn commissions on your own sales but also on the sales of people who you introduce to your affiliate
program.
4. Join affiliate programs that offer a line of products so that you can earn commissions when your referrals come back and purchase other services or products.
5. Join affiliate programs that offer their affiliates great marketing support. Many affiliate programs offer their affiliates pre-written ads to use or get ideas from, sales letters, marketing courses, and articles to use in promoting their services.
Remember, the best affiliate programs will see their affiliate program as a partnership with you and combine high commissions with excellent support so that you can start earning money
promoting their products as quickly as possible.
Labels: Affiliate Basics
Post by ProBlogger at 8:16 PM
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5 Magical Steps For Creating A Profitably Potent Affiliate Program!
There are a few reasons why your affiliate program isn't bringing in the traffic and profits you've always hoped for. And below, I've outlined 5 quick ways to change that so you can get more traffic and profits using the power of "super" affiliates.
1) Make Sure Your Sales Letter Converts -- Nothing puts a damper on an affiliate program quicker than having affiliates sending you tons of traffic but not giving them anything in return.
If your sales letter really works hard to turn prospects into customers, then you're going to make your affiliates (and yourself) very happy.
So, spend some time getting your sales letter converting well. Study how to write better copy, or hire a professional to write you a hard-selling letter.
2) Offer Affiliate Tools -- This is so important. Most affiliates will promote your program if you give them the tools to do it.
Hire someone to design some strong banners. Create a weekly "affiliate tips" newsletter to share new ideas. Create sales letters and graphics affiliates can use that will work to get the word out on your product fast.
3) Start An Affiliate Contest -- And give away prizes for top sellers and those most improved. Or, make an offer that an affiliate making 10 sales through their link gets your product free. It doesn't cost much to run a contest of this type, and the return is great.
4) Define Your Perks And Tell Potential Affiliates Why They Should Promote Your Program -- If your sales letter converts visitors like crazy, tell them. If you split profits down the middle and share 50% of each sale with the referring affiliate, let them know.
Tell them about contests you run and tools you offer to make it easy. Put your offer into focus for potential affiliates. If you have a high-priced product, you could say something like, "This sales letter converts 1 out of every 50 visits. And with the product going for $297, and you getting half of that for each sale, 100 visitors sent from your site can put an easy $297 in your pocket."
5) Get The Word Out -- Place a link on your sales page that sends those clicking to a full-page sales letter detailing all the benefits of offering your product to their visitors.
Promote your affiliate program instead of the product. There are hundreds of ezines in existence that cater to those promoting affiliate programs. Take out an ad and tell them why they want to be an affiliate for you.
Check out keywords online that target your audience and get in touch with the webmasters. Tell them about your programs benefits and give them the opportunity to sign up.
Affiliate programs, once in place, can bring you automatic, low cost traffic for years to come. Take the time to set yours up right, and reap the rewards for years to come.
Labels: Affiliate for your Product
Post by ProBlogger at 8:14 PM
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3 Keys To Success With Your Affiliate Program
Affiliate programs (also called Referral Programs or Partnership Programs) are essentially commission-based sales schemes.
Joining an affiliate program is a neat way to make money from your users. But just as you can join someone else's affiliate program, so you can set up your own program and invite webmasters to sign up. Here are my top 3 tips to succeed with your own affiliate program.
1. How to attract affiliates
One of the biggest fears new Affiliate managers have is in finding new affiliates. This fear is a stumbling block that stops many site owners from getting started with affiliate marketing. Interestingly, with a proper marketing strategy, getting affiliates may not be very difficult. Given below are some tips that may help in attracting new affiliates.
Find complimentary sites - "Complementary" sites are sites that sell products or services that compliment your offers. If you sell "gardening tools", a site that sells books on "gardening tips" would be a perfect affiliate.
Find content sites - There are many sites that do not sell any kind of product or service but are mainly content oriented sites. Such sites promote an idea, concept, study or belief. Content sites that are used as a resource for your target market are ideal affiliates.
Finally, there are several sites on the Internet dedicated to listing affiliate Programs. Get your program listed in these directories.
2. Classifying Affiliates for Better Management
The hardest part of administrating an Affiliate Program is deciding what your affiliates need to help make the sale. But, by carefully categorizing your affiliates, you can easily determine what their needs are and how to accurately meet them.
The first step is to pick at least three types of affiliate. Take a look at your affiliates and try to determine one outstanding characteristic that can easily be compared across the board and choose at least three types of the characteristic.
The Second Step is to determine the needs of each type. Each of your affiliate types will have different needs; some of their needs will overlap, but you should find a distinct difference in many of their needs. If you find that all of them have the same needs, go back to step one and re-think your types.
The Third Step involves the process of creating and compiling linking methods for each group of affiliates. Based on the needs you identified in Step two, create and compile linking methods for each type.
3. Safe Guarding Against Spam
Any time you run a program where your affiliates rely on other signups to generate profits, you will eventually have a problem with spam. One of your affiliates will inevitably get it into their head to blitz the Web with unwanted garbage.
When this happens you need to be ready to take action otherwise it will cost you! Your Internet company can boot you off your server and you can find yourself blacklisted. Not good for business. If you get an email from someone claiming they received spam with your URL, then take it as an early warning.
I am not advising you to immediately terminate the affiliate's account, but be sure to contact them to follow up on the complaint. Let your affiliate know you received a complaint and advise them to remove this person from their list.
If you only get one or two complaints, it's probably not spam, the complainants might simply have signed up for an email list and forgotten all about it. You will know when one of your affiliates is spamming, because you will get anywhere from 10 to 100 complaints in the same day all regarding the same URL.
The best thing to do in this case is to immediately terminate or disable the account of the affiliate URL that was spammed.
Running your own affiliate program can become an extrememly profitable venture for your business. You can recruit a HUGE sales force promoting your products for you, and ONLY pay them when you make a sale!
Labels: Affiliate Success
Post by ProBlogger at 7:39 PM
