Clickbank Affiliates - Protect yourself! by Dylan Loh

11 12 2006

Do you know that affiliates are losing money daily because of Clickbank? Do you know that affiliate theft and link hijacking are the top reasons why most affiliates don’t make money? Luckily for affiliates, there are a few easy steps you can take to protect your affiliate profits…

Clickbank’s affiliate policy works on a “last in” rule. What this means is that affiliates that referred the buyer last would get the sale due to the cookie loaded into the buyer’s computer.

E.g. Amy sends Buyer to a sales page via her affiliate link. Buyer is very impressed and is about to buy but decides to get it only tomorrow when it’s his pay day. The next day, buyer receives his paycheck and proceeds to buy.

But this time, he conveniently and unwittingly clicks on Tim’s affiliate link directly to the same page. The new affiliate ‘kicks’ Amy’s cookie and Tim gets the sale.

What can you do about it?

Maintain a way to contact the traffic you send! The simplest way to do this is to create a separate pre-sell page that directs your traffic to the sales page only after they opted in and given their email address.

This way, you can be sure that YOU will be the contacting them over and over again about the product.

Let’s talk about link hijacking now. I’m sure you already know that Clickbank’s affiliate links look something like yournick.dylanloh.hop.clickbank.net.

So are you seriously going to advertise your link like that? One of the problems is that people will know that this is an affiliate link and will know that you are trying to sell them something. People love to buy; they just don’t like being sold to!

What can you do about it?

You should really cloak your affiliate links from yournick.dylanloh.hop.clickbank.net to something like www.yourdomain.com/affiliatelink OR you could go to TinyUrl.com to get a redirect page for free.

Alternatively, you could send them to your own pre-sell page which really disguises your real intent, to make money selling products to them…
About the Author

To read about the hardly known 6 short steps to Clickbank Success, click on the link below right now. Clickbank Success



Creating a Niche Website or Blog by Jane Saeman

7 12 2006

Deciding on a popular niche subject to base your website or blog about is crucial in determining whether you will make money or not off of your articles. This will give you a base to develop from and you can target a general audience with a set of keywords that they are most likely to be looking for on search engines.

You could take each of these keywords and use it for the basis of one article on each page with continuing dialogue. This way, even though you are aiming at one specific subject, you will be sure to attract interest from a wide assortment of people in that one niche. They may also find other pages that strike their interest, which will keep them logging back onto your site to learn new information about the subject you are presenting in that particular niche. One of the better ways to find keywords for your niche subject is to use a keyword software program, such as Wordtracker, and type in the word(s) that you are thinking will be the topic of your niche site or blog. This will produce a list of keywords or groups of keywords that contain your subject matter and will also show you roughly how many searches for each word or phrase are made which will give you an idea of whether that niche will be profitable or not.

Many software programs will also let you know how many sites there are that contend for each of these words or phrases. This will also help you decide if those sites are worth contending with for the number of searches out there.

You can then choose which of these would be most profitable by determining which have the least number of competitors, so that you have a realistic chance at making it to the first ten of search engine results and also have a large number of people looking for that keyword or phrase each day, week or month. These are the keywords and/or phrases that will be the basis of the pages of your niche site or blog.

If there are a number of subjects that you have an interest in, choose the one that you think would be the smartest to begin with and once that site is built and bringing in some money for you, you can begin working on another site or blog. The people who make the money in marketing websites or blogs are the ones who use their talent of finding niches and mix that with excellent site content and a number of affiliate links.

They usually have a fair amount and diversity of niche sites that they have started. One is never limited in what one can do with niche website marketing, unless you don’t have the persistence to make it happen. Otherwise, you are able to accomplish as much as you set your mind to!

About the Author

Jane Saeman runs a membership site which provides thirty articles each month in the ever growing and profitable niche of Dating and Relationships.



Diversity in Your Affiliate Portfolio by Donny Gamble

6 12 2006

As you already know, affiliate marketing is literally one of the greatest businesses in the world once you get it up and going. It has been made popular on the internet by companies such as Clickbank, Commission Junction, and Amazon.

One thing that all of the super affiliates I have spoken to have in common is that they all have a collection of products that they are thinking of promoting/ are promoting. They know which products are launching. Products that have launched, products that have been successful for others… these guys are very critical about product selection.

What it means to have a diverse portfolio is that you need to have a variety of different affiliate programs that you promote.

As an understanding, the vast majority of affiliate programs fit into 3 basic payment structures:

Single Commission- One Level: Here you’re paid just once from the purchase of the customer. If that customer joins the said program you don’t earn any more commissions on sales made by the clients.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Commission: Here you’re just one flat fee for the customer, not for his purchases.

Residual Commission- 2 Tiered and Above: You’re paid every time the referred customer makes a purchase and also a percentage of the commissions earned by referrals of that customer. You can therefore earn from your second, third, or fourth, etc. generation recruits even though it’s at a lower percentage normally.

Create an affiliate portfolio of different programs to sustain long term affiliate income. Smart affiliates know about selecting the right programs to promote, they’ve also focused on promoting just these few programs.

The key here is, you may want to balance your portfolio. This is so you can be generating income even if for some reason you’re not able to work.

This is exactly why residual and multi-tiered programs are absolutely necessary elements for a well balanced portfolio.

Therefore, plan and churn out your own in-house portfolio based on the product quality, sales conversions, commission percentage and availability of promotional tools.

Promoting your affiliate portfolio on a planned schedule will get you the best results. Build up this foundation and you will be on your way to affiliate success.

About the Author

Donny Gamble is a super affiliate marketer and is owner of www. affiliatemarketingjournal.com. To get the guide that helped Donny become a successful affiliate, please visit Secret Affiliate Weapon



Affiliate Marketing-An Introduction by Mark Justice

3 12 2006

Affiliate Marketing-An Introduction by Mark Justice

Simply put, Affiliate Marketing is one of the most common forms of making money on the internet. If you’re new to Affiliate Marketing and your finding everything that your learning is a little “mind blowing” but really want to start making money today then here is the quickest way to get results. Keep in mind the biggest failure in affiliate marketing is not collecting prospects’ email addresses, so remember to always use a Lead Capture Page to first get the customers name and email address before sending them to the sales page.

Since the key to affiliate marketing success for merchants is finding the right affiliates, Clickbank offers the best way for merchants to succeed, by bringing merchants and affiliates together. As the market leader in digital products, Clickbank offers many advantages for both merchants and affiliates. For those who didn’t know what it is, affiliate marketing is a cooperative effort between the merchants and online publishers or affiliates, whereby an affiliate is rewarded for every customer provided through his effort.

Now that you have an idea of what affiliate marketing is, now you need to know what are the things you need in this kind of business. As long as the top marketers in the 5% slab, continue to make their millions and the latter continue to make reasonable amounts of money and have the urge to emulate the top marketers, Affiliate Marketing will continue to draw the attention and be popular with Home Based Business Entrepreneurs. Having indicated the above reasons for the popularity of Affiliate Marketing, it has to be mentioned that statistics indicate that only 5% of the marketers do make big money.

These are the ultimate reasons why more and more people are succumbing to affiliate marketing, one of the many money-making systems that are conceived as a result of the popularity the internet has been generating since it came into being. This is the reason why affiliate marketing thrives as a result of the internet’s popularity. Internet home business owners are making millions each year due to the increasing popularity of affiliate marketing programs.

Out of all the possible approaches to affiliate marketing, lead capture and list building represents the smartest and most effective option. Rather than just making the sale today, use a lead capture page and an autoreponder to set up an ongoing campaign and market to the same prospect over and over again. The easiest sale is always to an existing customer..

The way affiliate marketing works is so simple one would have difficulty believing how such a scheme is able to generate cash. It really is very simple just launch your blog, post your articles and learn as you go along, how to maximize on blogs as marketing tools that will bring a huge difference to your affiliate marketing. Just don’t build it, but go out and educate yourself about what it really takes to make it with affiliate marketing.

Further, affiliate marketing allows you to make money online by earning commissions off sub-affiliates, people you have brought on to be affiliates of the parent company. Affiliate marketing is considered as one of the best ways to make money online. The simple scheme called affiliate marketing is more than enough for someone to be able to make a lot of money online.

About the Author

To learn more about my automated marketing system, check out my new site at http://acsclick.com/go.php?7876/4252 or my blog at http://marksaffiliatecashsecrets.blogspot.com/ for more tips on affiliate marketing. Feel free to distribute this article in any form as long as you include this resource box.



3 Success Factors For Affiliate Internet Programs by Juhani Tontti

2 12 2006

Only simple things will work. In internet marketing generally, the product is always #1 as to the success factors. In Affiliate Internet Programs marketing relevant product information, good SEO capabilities and high quality product images are in key roles.

1. Relevant and useful product information. When you surf in the Net, there are very few Affiliates Internet Programs web sites, where the product information is clear and easily understandable. This is funny, because the major task of the site is to be attractive and the major promise to the visitor should be clear right away. All the information including design should be useful, not hype with overpromises, which then appear to be underdeliveries.

By the way the product includes the whole package, i.e. all services like support, training, links, articles etc. When we remember that decisions are made by feelings, the image of the site is extremely important. Not for a search engines but for a visitor.

One of the tasks of Affiliate Internet Programs is to pre sell the core idea of the offer. The best way to pre sell is to make an emotional impact with the look of the site. This is the good way and a visitor actually do not know why he is so fascinated with the site.

The Affiliates Internet Programs site must be easy to navigate, which is an important part of the quality.

2. Good SEO capabilities. SEO, search engine optimization, means that the site with content and the backlinks can get the pole position at major search engines search results. This is a key feature, because it means free, targeted and constant traffic to the site.

The SEO of Affiliates Internet Programs is a planning process, not an accident. Here the keywords act major roles. You either succeed or fail by choosing the keywords. So keyword research is a task to which you have to invest know how and time.

A lot of web site content must be planned according the chosen keywords. By keywords a marketer can reach the market. And the more good keywords the site uses, the more markets and people it can reach and the more business this will bring.

In Affiliates Internet Programs keyword picking the demand / supply ratio is the most important figure. If your site is new and operating in a small niche, pick keywords with Overture searches of around 1.000 per month to keep the competion moderate. The ideal situation would be that the supply figure, i.e. Google search results with that keyword, is under 1.000.

Normally this means that you have to use special keywords like, typos, misspellings or quotes, because the supply rarely is high. Very few Affiliates Internet Programs owners write on purpose their copy with typing errors.

3. High quality product images. The look of your Affiliates Internet Programs is important and the image of the quality depends a lot about the graphics used. When we remember that most of the decisions are made by feelings, we can understand the meaning of the product images.

High quality product images are one of the best ways to pre sell the core idea by making a visitor really want the product



AdWords Problems and Solutions by J.M.

1 12 2006

Are you weary of Adwords problems? You might be on the brink of running an Adwords campaign and it will be the first time you put $ on the table and you’re not entirely sure what to expect.

Here are several common mistakes that new AdWords marketers may make if they are not prepared.

Read the Google’s AdWords Guidelines thoroughly. If you’re an affiliate it is important to know what Google defines a ‘bridge page’ and how it may get you in a lot of trouble. Google’s AdWords guidelines defines one as ‘Ads for webpages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company.’ This can definitely become a serious issue if you don’t abide by Google’s rules.

Focus on high converting terms not popular terms. For example, if you were selling an eBook about dog training. You may choose to invest in the search phrase ‘dog training’ and suffer poor conversion rates. The alternative would be to focus on high converting phrases such as ‘dog biting’ or ‘dog barking’. The second set of keywords will be used by people a lot more desperate for the product you are marketing.

I can’t stress enough the importance of being prepared before you begin an AdWords campaign. Many people have made big and others have lost big. Please prepare yourself the best you can. The Wealthy Affiliates, Kyle and Carson have put together the definitive guide: Beating AdWords. I definitely recommend taking a look at it, if you don’t you might find yourself losing one of the easiest games on the internet.
About the Author

J.M. is an x-software engineer and affiliate marketer who has made much of his success from Gooogle’s AdWords.



How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing - It`s Not That Hard! by Christopher Jones

30 11 2006

How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

This is probably the quickest way to start making money online, and can be very rewarding if done correctly. To make money with affiliate marketing the first thing you should consider is the product you are going to promote, as a rule it is far better to promote a product that you have some interest in as oppose to something you know nothing about.

I think the main reason alot of people find it hard to make money as an affiliate, is because they are not promoting the product to the right audience. One of the quickest and most effective ways to promote affiliate products is through Google Adwords. This enables you to start making money with affiliate marketing in as littles as 15 minutes. That said Google Adwords does have quite a learning curve and I suggest you do some reading up first on how to write effective ads. As a rule to write an effective Google Adwords Ad make sure you make the first line a feature of the product and the second line a benefit.

Also there alot of people that claim to be making millions online through affiliate marketing, and will show you amazing screenshots of thousands of dollars being paid to them. What they don`t show you is the advertising costs! There are thousands of places you can make money with affiliate markeitng for free.

The best way to make money with affiliate marketing for free is through a blog which is a free website, if you find blogs where people are interested in the product you are promoting and then invite them back to your blog to leave a comment, you will soon find you get alot of people visiting your blog and quite a few sales of your affiliate product, as it is targeted traffic.

Another way to make money with affiliate products is through ezine ads, which is where an advert of your choice is sent out to many people that are targeted towards your product this can bring in huge amounts of cash if you get the right list.

The ways you promote your affiliate products are entirely up to you, but I would suggest using lots of different ways as the more exposure you get the more money you will make! One of the most popular websites to find affiliate products to promote is called Clickbank and you will find the majority of affiliate use this website.

If you really want to make good money as an affiliate then I suggest thinking about doing a JV with someone and creating your won product somewhere down the line. This enables you to make more money as you will have affiliate working for you that are promoting your product and once you get 100`s of affiliates you will be making some good money.

If you are just starting out with internet marketing and affiliate marketing I suggest you try the blogging idea above as it is free and you can get started earning your first commisions before you move on to paid advertising.

About the Author

Chris Jones Is An Experienced Affiliate And Works From His Home In The UK. He uses a combination of internet marketing techniques to make his money from home. For A Complete Guide And To Get Some Free Affiliate Marketing Techniques go to : http://www.ultimateaffiliateguide.com



What is a Super Affiliate? by Kathy Burns-Millyard

25 11 2006

Whether you’re new to affiliate marketing or you’ve gotten yourself started already, you may have come across the term “Super Affiliate” and wondered what exactly that is. Well I’ll tell you… A super affiliate is someone who kicks butt at affiliate marketing.

Super affiliates are usually the top earners in a given affiliate program. Some affiliate programs may have a top ten list - and all ten of those affiliate might be generating tens of thousands of dollars a month in sales. In cases like that, all ten of those affiliates would be considered “super”.

In general, super affiliates make up only one or two percent of all affiliate marketers. In fact, the bulk of affiliates struggle to get started. It takes them months sometimes just to generate their first affiliate check.

Then there are the middle of the road affiliates who generate anywhere from $200 to $2000 every month. They’re much farther ahead of the general affiliate crowd, and they probably only comprise of about 5% - 10% of all affiliate marketers online.

The super affiliates though. These are the ones who consistantly generate thousands - sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in commissions every single month. They have a system in place that ensures they continually generate sales for the affiliate programs they’re promoting.

Now, super affiliates are something of a rare breed, but anyone can become one with enough time and effort. Sometimes a new or struggling affiliate can have a brief windfall: Generating several thousand dollars in commissions for a small period of time, then going back to earning almost nothing fairly quickly. This doesn’t happen often though. Once an affiliate marketer of any skill level starts figuring out how to generate a lot of money quickly from their affiliate marketing efforts, usually all they have to do is repeat the process that was so successful. And if they repeat it well enough and often enough, they soon find themselves in the “super affiliate” category too.

If you’re new or struggling though, don’t be discouraged. Sometimes it can seem like a very long road to reach super affiliate status but you need to remember one very important point: Everyone started from the same place. So if other affiliate marketers were able to build up to thousands of dollars in commissions every month, you can too. Just take it one step at a time and you may find yourself there quicker than you thought.

About the Author

Kathy Burns-Millyard. Want to learn more about affiliate marketing now? Check out these excellent affiliate marketing resources at EasySideMoney.com



Affiliate Marketing - The Ultimate Online Business! by Vinnie Gallagher

20 11 2006

Affiliate Marketing is The Ultimate Home Business opportunity. Today, affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet. It is a wonderful way for new Internet Marketer to start making money. At its best, affiliate marketing is a win-win scenario for everyone involved. Affiliate marketing is truly a professional business, and a very profitable one at that and learning Affiliate Marketing is extremely easy.

You don’t need a large amount of capital to start up with. Because of the minimal start up costs, affiliate marketing is fast becoming one of the easiest and most popular ways to begin making an income online from home. It is exciting, it is highly rewarding, it needs no technical knowledge or experience to start up and you can bet that it is here to stay.

When starting an Affiliate Marketing business, you first need to nail down a need, and then nail down the affiliate marketing programs with great products that you will be proud to represent. Then write down your goals and your plan of action to accomplish your goals. When talking about a plan of action, we are describing the step by step procedure we are going to take to achieve our goals. This does not have to be a comprehensive business plan for starting a multinational corporation. Just write down a simple plan, one that will give you a map to follow to achieve your business goals.

Then you need to take ACTION! You can have the best goals in the world but if you fail to take action they are no more than simple dreams. It has been said that a Goal is a Dream with a Deadline! Of course, you need to work really hard to achieve your goals, which is ultimately to gain more profit out of your affiliate marketing business and this hard work will in return give you a lifetime of wonderful benefits.

For the most part the only investment you really need to make in Affiliate Marketing is time. But, if you are truly serious about becoming a successful affiliate marketer, you will need to have your own affiliate marketing website. As in any venture, you need the right tools and you need to know what you’re doing. So take the time to research and learn the proper way to conduct your business.

All it takes is patience, education, a little capital, and of course a decision. Many people are scared to start a home based business because of the usual capital required to start. That is not the case with Affiliate Marketing because you don’t need to make a large capital investment to start. Affiliate Programs allow you to earn money online with a very low capital investment.

Affiliate Marketing is a true home business opportunity and a brilliant way to begin earning on the Internet, for those who haven’t as yet got their own products. It is truly the opportunity of the decade. The amount of money you can make with affiliate marketing is virtually limitless.

About the Author

Vinnie Gallagher is the author, webmaster of http://www.AffiliateMarketingInsight.com a great resource website with Affiliate related articles, tips, advice and so much more.



Tips For Using Adwords To Promote Foreign Affiliate Sales by Max

20 11 2006

When advertising a product for an affiliate program via Adwords, such as nutritional supplements, then make sure you are targeting your campaign correctly. For the purpose of this example you would need to know that different countries have different legal issues with respect to supplement importation. There is no point spending your money advertising to people in countries that won’t be able to place an order.

Another issue to consider is shipping. Some companies offer absolutely horrid shipping terms to foreign customers. If you spend your Adwords dollars promoting such affiliate programs you’ll find the conversion ratio is almost non-existant. This is because even if you did find an interested party, they’d get frustrated by the shipping costs or terms, and abandon their purchase during the checkout process.

Personally, what I have noticed is that if I target my advertising worldwide I’ll get a lot of foreign clicks, but those clicks are very unproductive. I generally target my Adwords campaigns at US consumers only unless I have a specific reason to expand my reach. Until you develop some expertise you’d be wise to do the same yourself. If foreign consumers can easily buy the product or service you promote then you may find you can advertise to them at a cheaper price. However, do keep in mind that consumers in some less developed countries will simply be unable to afford the products you selling.

To summarize, before spending money to advertise outside of your country you must first consider various issues. These include legal issues, shipping particulars, and the basic disposable income level of your prospective customers. If you have considered these and other applicable issues, such as language, then you may find it profitable to do business on a wider scale. Start small and expand your efforts if you find that they are successful.

About the Author

Max is a contributor at iBlog uBlog. Drop by and read commentary, product reviews and perhaps personal notes.