Affiliate marketing means that you are promoting someone else’s product online and the owner of that product pays you a commission for each product sold to a buyer you sent to the product’s web page. Note that the commission is only paid when the prospect actually buys the product.

Once you join an affiliate program, the product owner will give you a special link called an affiliate link that identifies you as the salesman that sent the buyer to the product page. So when a prospective customer clicks on your affiliate link, they are taken to the product sales page. If they make a purchase, you will get the commission for that sale.

 

Choosing an Affiliate Program

 There are at least a million affiliate programs available online. So how do you choose a good one to join? Look for these features:

  • High payout – the standard rate is 50%. It is usually lower on physical products and higher on electronic products. That means that if you sell a product that costs $50, you will receive $25 for the sale.
  • Tiered commissions – a tiered commission structure allows you to recruit your own sales team and get a small override commission on each of their sales as well.
  • Recurring commissions – in this case you can get a commission for every purchase a customer you referred makes in the future. Usually these programs sell products that have recurring fees like paid membership sites or web hosting services. Typically the commission rates are low but keep in mind that you may collect that monthly amount for years.
  • Support – make sure the product owner provides sales materials, contact information and some form of email or online helpdesk support for affiliates.

 

OK, I’ve Joined an Affiliate Program. Now What?

You now need to drive traffic to the product’s sales page. The three most effective ways to send traffic to your affiliate pages are:

  • Ezines - an ezine is an electronic newsletter that is posted online. Ezines allow you to advertise to a highly targeted market. The more focused the ezine content the higher the probability of reader interest. For example if you are promoting a dog grooming product, an ezine about dogs is a good place to advertise. The best thing is that there is an ezine for almost every conceivable topic in the world.  The cost of the ads will be determined on the type of ad and the size of the subscriber list. There are three kinds of ezine ad:
    1. Classified ads – standard 5 line text ad
    2. Top Sponsor Ads – 10-20 lines with your affiliate link located near the top of the page
    3. Solo ads – this ad is sent to the ezine’s entire subscriber list in an email
  • Opt-in List – this is a list of subscribers that you have built through advertising or some other form of promotion. Examples are joint ventures where you give away something such as an ebook, software program and ecourse to get people to join your list. The major advantage of having your own list is that you now have a targeted group to send information about items that probably will be of interest to them for their consideration. Best of all, it’s virtually free advertising.
  • PPC advertising – this is search engine keyword advertising where you bid on specific keywords and if you bid high enough, your classified ad will appear on the first page of the search engine’s results. All of the major search engines offer PPC advertising. You are only charged a fee if someone clicks on your ad and visits the product sales page. If they purchase the product, you will receive your affiliate commission.

 

Advantages of Affiliate Marketing

  • Simplicity – all you have to do is join a program, advertise the product and collect commissions.
  • No Bookkeeping – the product owner has software that keeps track of all of your sales and it provides you with statistical data so you can see how well you are doing.
  • Customer Service – the product owner takes care of all of the customer service
  • Products – you don’t have to create a product to sell. All you have to do is promote an existing product.
  • Lag Time – since the product already exists, there is no startup period or costs. You can start earning money almost immediately.

 

Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing 

  • Poorly run affiliate programs – since it is such a lucrative system, there are many poorly run programs, dishonest merchants that steal commissions, product owners who provide poor or no customer support, who don’t provide any sales materials and don’t have a professional looking website.
  • Need to sell multiple products – to actually make a living as an affiliate, you will need to promote several products that you have researched thoroughly because your reputation is at stake.
  • Keeping track of your sales – the more products you promote the harder it is to keep track of the commissions you earn
  • Advertising costs – unless properly structured, advertising multiple products can be both time consuming and expensive.

 

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is an easy way for someone to start earning money online. However to use it to make a full time income will require you to learn how to effectively run advertising campaigns for each product you promote and keep costs low enough so that you are making a profit.

Subscribe Below To Get More Tips!


 
Name:
Email:
 

You Might Also Be Interested In Reading:

  1. Affiliate Marketing
  2. How to Set Up An Affiliate Program
  3. Affiliate Marketing a Win-Win Deal!
  4. PPC Marketing 101

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!