Dear Friend,
I started my online marketing career with affiliate marketing. It was the easiest and fastest means for me to have an online presence and begin making money. But over the years I have found many pitfalls with affiliate marketing. I would like to present to you a discussion of some of the things that I have learned about affilate marketing so if you are thinking about becoming an affiliate marketer you will not make the mistakes that I did along the way.
Affiliate marketing is simply signing up to sell someone's product or service. Once you've signed up with a company's affiliate product, you go online to promote and advertise that product/service thus generating sales. Making sales for the affiliate program earns you affiliate commissions and income. Just that simple.
How do you make this simple concept work for you on the internet? The affiliate program gives you a unique affiliate link that identifies you as the seller when you make a sales. When someone clicks on your affiliate link, which you have placed on your website, they are taken to your affiliate page where the product/service is being sold. If that person then buys the product, you receive a commission. An example of this is a small ad that I run on my homepage:
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Clicking on one of the links in the above ad will take you to the sales page for the product which is a step-by-step video on how to start and online auction business. If you were to buy this video, I would earn a commission check.
When you scroll to the bottom of that sales website, you will find a link called "become an affiliate". This is the link to sign up as an affiliate marketer for that product. Every company that offers affiliate programs has a link on their website where you can sign up and begin selling their product through your website or by advertising it through exchange and linking sites online. Signing up is usually free.
Some affiliate programs will set you up with your own website. These programs are the easiest and fastest to start with if you don't already have your own website and host. With these programs, your affiliate link leads your customer to that site. (some make you pay a monthly fee to maintain that website but most are free) Other affiliate programs give you links to products you can sell and you must put these links on your website to make the sales. While other programs give you links to both.
Not all affiliate programs are equal. There are good ones and bad ones. Some are simply dishonest. The trick is to find an ethical, reliable, and profitable affiliate program to spend your time promoting.
The first consideration when choosing an affiliate program is the Pay-Out. This is the commission that you will receive and when the program will pay you. After all, you're in this to make money. Commissions vary widely. Usually from 5-75%. Obviously, if you are making 5% on a sale, you're going to have to make more sales to earn a good paycheck.
The price of the product enters into this too. Higher commissions are generally paid on higher priced items. These are usually higher quality items or ones with a high "perceived value". You don't have to sell as many products but the price often turns customers away. Lower priced items with low commission means that you have to sell quantity. Massive quantities to make a good living from these items.
Many affiliate programs will pay you only when you have reached a certain dollar amount of commissions. They may tell you that you will only get paid when you've reached $25, $50, or $100 in commissions. This means that if you are earning 5% on a low-dollar item, it may take all year to make a $25 minimum payout. There may be affiliate programs where you never see any money. Other affiliates pay-out monthly or quarterly regardless of how much you have earned.
When I started out in affiliate marketing I signed up for just about everything. I learned the hard way that I needed to be picky when choosing a program. Now days, I wouldnt even sign up for an affiliate program unless I make at least a 50% commission. My exception to this rule is if the produce is very expensive to purchase and a smaller commission will still make me good money.
A tier is just a level of commission. There are one-tier, two-tier, and multiple-tier affiliate programs. A one-tier program will pay out a flat commission on each sale. Two-tiered programs pay you a certain commission on each sale you make, but they will pay you another percentage on sales made through your sub-affiliates that you have referred to the program through your affiliate link. For example: You made a sale through your link to John. You get paid 45% commission. John also joins the affiliate program and then makes sales to Sally, Harry, and Jim. You now make 15% commission off of those three sales. Like a signing bonus.
Multiple tier programs just have more levels and go deeper than two-tiered programs. This type of affiliate program is known as Multi Level Marketing. Often they pay out over 10 or more levels with you making less for each level down that a product is being sold.
Don't be fooled by MLM programs! I have never made any money on these even though they often advertise that you can make $5,000-30,000 per month. I prefer to deal with two-tiered affiliate programs. I put my effort into getting the sales for the program but often earn a few extra bucks when someone I've referred to the affiliate program makes a sale.
I was lucky when I started marketing through affiliate programs The first affiliate program I ever signed up for was through the Internet Marketing Center. This company was one of the "first kids on the block" and has a time honored reputation for excellence. I just stumbled on this program through buying on of their software programs. It is a two-tier program and has one of the best tracking records for their affiliates. The Internet Marketing Center pays you monthly, no matter what you have made. No minimum commissions to receive a check. To this date, I've made more money marketing through their affiliate program than any other.
A single commission affiliate program pays you once for each sale. To earn more commissions, you must make more sales. But with recurring commission affiliate programs you may sell to John and then everytime John makes another purchase through that program, you make another commission. Often, recurring commissions are paid because the product/service sold is billed a monthly fee (like with subscriptions). You make a little each month off the initial sale because of this. One downside is that recurring commission programs usually pay less commission.
Affiliate marketing can be good and bad. The internet has been flooded with affiliate marketing programs. There are affiliate programs that are run poorly. These care more about selling their products and making themselves rich than tracking their affiliates and gaining a loyal sales force. Some are just shady con-man operations that simply steal commissions by not paying them or not paying on time. They place such a high pay-out minimum that it would take years for them to send a check.
Others drive customers away by not keeping their websites up-to-date or by looking unprofessional. They run bad customer support services and frustrate their consumers when problems are faced. These programs are quite noticable when you're looking for them. They rely on trapping "newbies" that don't know any better. You don't want to be one of those.
Be sure to thoroughly check out any programs that you are thinking of joining. Most reputable programs have contact information, privacy page links, and FAQs page links prominently displayed. They have terms written out clearly. They make sure you know what you're getting into. Like the Internet Marketing Center noted above, the reputable programs have training materials and assist you in achieving you online goals. A truely loyal affiliate is worth 10 or more disgruntled affiliates.
You can make a good amount of money by promoting affiliate programs, products, and services. But, don't rely on just one program. There's safety in numbers and that's the way it is with affiliate marketing. It's the old adage: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". I've found that I need to have a minimum of 5 affiliate programs that I'm promoting in order to keep the money coming in steadily. More than 10 at a time and it begins to become complicated. Keeping track of all of them becomes tricky. Just the username/passwords can be a nightmare.
The moral of this story is to be sensible. Don't just randomly start signing up to every affiliate site that comes your way. Try to keep your programs clustered around a certain niche. This way you can promote them efficiently on you website and not look like you're a 'scatter-brain', just out to make the fast buck any way you can.
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Here's some suggestions for reliable affiliate programs: (All are FREE to join) I've already told you about the very reliable Internet Marketing Center so if you want more information go to: Internet Marketing Center If you are interested in having products to sell online with reliable businesses that give you your own free websites check out:
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P.S. The next step is promoting and advertising your affiliate programs. Check out Advertise Your Website and Market Your Products for more information on this subject.