Posts Tagged ‘Affiliate Program’

Five Approaches to Affiliate Marketing

As a new affiliate, one of the first things you’ll want to know where and how to promote your affiliate link. Today we’ll cover several options and discuss the merits of each method.

1. Direct Links via PPC Advertising

 If you use PPC advertising, you can embed your affiliate to the ad and send the prospect directly to the merchant’s site. This is a **really** lazy thing to do though. You might make a few sales, but it’s far better to approach the process as outlined in tactic #2.

2. Linking to Your ‘Affiliate Enhanced’ page via PPC’s

 Place ads for your target keywords and direct the prospects to your capture page created with our AffiliateEnhancer software – Greet them with an invitation to subscribe to your newsletter or to download a special report. This is vital because once you’ve collected a prospect’s email address, they are yours to market to on a repeat basis.

3. Build Content Focused Sites

 This approach aims for long term traffic through search engine optimization. You’ll need to publish content related to the type of product you’re trying to sell. Searchers will be drawn in by informative articles. You’re affiliate links will be sprinkled discreetly across the site.

4. Advertise in E-Zines

 This is a good method to use if you can find targeted lists for your product. Ezine ads can be purchased in most cases, and in other cases you can snatch them up for free by bartering with the list owner. Remember, rather than link directly to the affiliate site use your Affiliate Enhanced page to capture subscribers and build your list. Not only will this allow you to follow up and convert more sale (for fr^ee) but it will also enable you to sheild your affiliate link.

5. Purchase text link or banner advertising on high traffic sites This type of advertising isn’t quite as popular as it used to be. It is most effective when you can find high traffic sites for smaller niche subjects. These sites tend to focus heavily on content and run only a handful of ads on site. Space is limited and rates are likely to be at a premium.

Tips before Start an Affiliate Program

Affiliate program is the starting place for a big majority of home entrepreneurs and beginners in Internet Marketing, because of the small amount of work involved. There are some elements that you must absolutely look for before you start promoting an affiliate product…

Tip #1. Promote a unique product to get better results.

Promoting a product which is already being sold by hundreds or affiliates will not give you the same results as if you have a unique proposition. A different product that only some affiliates distribute. That kind of program is a little bit difficult to find because it is not in the interest of the merchant to do so in the short term.

Tip #2. Powerful and effective affiliates tools.

When you are ready to promote, you may be lost if you are new to affiliates marketing. Actually, most of the beginners take months to make their first sale, because the merchant doesn’t help them in their hard work. So be sure to find a powerful and clear affiliates resource section. That will skyrocket your chances of success. Also, a good communication with the merchant is hard to find, but it is a must.

Try to find these resources, or some of them.

Tip #3. Example of effective resources:

* Brandable ebooks to give away or sell at a little price with your own affiliate ID links to generate leads… and sales.

* Sales letters provided.

* Templates of the emails to send to your list(s), pre-written email or even better.

* Free promotional tips provided, to make money without spending thousands in the beginning (a must for beginners)

* Advices and tips for paid promotional techniques (don’t loose all your money in something that doesn’t bring results).

* Redirect links through your own website. For example: www.yoursite.com/theaffiliatesite/

* Banners

Tip #4. Good Tracking software.

It is a very important part. You must be able to monitor almost everything in your resources section:

You must be able to track your sales, how many visitors came to your site and to the merchant site, by which page they enter to the merchant site (here is the importance of the redirect links).

You must be able to view your payment history, and also how many people signed up underneath you if it is a two tiers affiliate program.

Tip #5. Cookies plus IP addresses.

Today, it is a common practice by Internet users to clear their cookies daily or weekly. So if you spend money on PPC or any other paid advertising to get a customer, you do not want to see another affiliate get the commission you should have received. So try to choose an affiliate program with tracking software which takes also the IP address of your future customer. By the way, recurring commissions are a must.

Last but not least, try to find associate programs with generous compensation plan, and give a preference to the two tiers affiliates programs because you will be paid on two levels. Good promotion, and enjoy your affiliate life.