Archive for March, 2010
Learning Affiliate Marketing From EBooks
Learning affiliate marketing with ebooks is always a controversial topic. If you go to any affiliate marketing forum, you’ll see a vocal group of people who think that all ebooks are a rip-off and that no one should buy them. You’ll also find those who have purchased almost every book on the market. What you won’t find in most cases, though, is a sane middle ground.
It’s definitely true that most people who buy an ebook will fail to make money based on what they’ve read. You’ll also find, though, that most people who have taken Algebra at some point will fail to be able to do much more than basic Algebra as an adult. That doesn’t mean that Algebra is a scam, or that it doesn’t work - it just means that some people like it more, some people are more motivated than others, and some people will just decide that it’s not right for them. And of course, some people won’t be good enough to succeed at it. That is true of basically anything.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t study Algebra, or that you shouldn’t buy ebooks. Take a balanced, rational approach to things and only buy those books which seem very likely to help you. And remember, also, that most ebooks have a 60-day guarantee. If you’re terribly dissatisfied with one, you can always ask for your money back.
In short, don’t let the naysayers deter you from buying ebooks to learn affiliate marketing, but don’t become overly addicted, either. There’s a time to study and a time to put plans into action, and it’s important that you do both if you want to succeed.
Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
As a dedicated entrepreneur, you may be experiencing some frustration with the online job market. It’s never easy to get a solid foothold in a new, unfamiliar marketplace, but the task can be simplified greatly with a bit of quality marketing. In order to get the word out about your online business, you might want to consider joining forces with an affiliate or undertaking some affiliate marketing training.
Affiliate marketing basically uses the higher profile of one Web site to drive up traffic on another site through extensive linking. The financial benefits of this practice are self-evident, and it could truly be called a genuine money making system. Most affiliate programs in existence today operate under a revenue sharing system. In other words, the affiliate receives a cut of every sale made on a partner’s site.
Learn Affiliate Marketing From Your Competitors
When people are trying to learn affiliate marketing, they often look to expensive courses and end up spending thousands and thousands of dollars trying to get started. This a huge mistake.
Don’t get me wrong - affiliate marketing courses can be tremendously helpful when you’re just getting started. A good course can lay the foundation for everything you will learn as you progress. Once you have the basics down, though, you need to step away from the courses unless there is a very good reason to purchase another (such as learning about an entirely new discipline within the field). What a lot of people don’t realize is that they can save thousands of dollars by using their competitors to learn affiliate marketing.
Regardless of what kind of affiliate marketing you want to do, there’s a way to spy on your competitors.
- If you want to learn more about email marketing that works, sign up for newsletters in the niches you hope to promote.
- If you want to do SEO, search the phrases you want to rank for, then use Yahoo! Site Explorer to see the backlinks of the people who are already ranking for those phrases.
- If you want to do PPC, search the phrases you want to bid on and see who is bidding on them and what kind of landing page they’re using.
- If you want to do PPV marketing, install popular toolbars on your computer and check out what the other marketers are doing.
Keen observation goes a long way. The next time you’re thinking about purchasing an expensive course, ask yourself if you could learn much of the same simply by observing your peers. If the answer is no, then by all means, buy the course. If it’s yes, see what you can dig up before you pull out your wallet.
The Smart Affiliate: Online Marketing for the Long Haul
To the average affiliate, online marketing is not necessarily a long-term endeavor. For those who haven’t yet found success, the focus is entirely on getting something - anything - to make a little money. The problem with that approach is that it’s desperate. Desperation, while useful as a motivator, can be a terrible thing when it comes to your business decisions. When you’re desperate, you tend to focus on the short-term, and on getting immediate results. That’s no way to build a long-term business.
If you turn your focus to a steady, logical plan for affiliate marketing, you’ll not only increase your chances of success, you’ll be building a real business. Far too many affiliates (even many of the “successful” affiliate bloggers that you see all the time) have built their businesses on one short-lived method. They quit their jobs, only to find out 6 months later that their method no longer works and they now have no income.
So how do you build a real, lasting affiliate business?
- Stay on the up-and-up - If something feels shady, it probably is. Don’t let yourself get sucked into things that could be considered illegal or unethical, as they’re not likely to last. That’s especially true now, as the FTC is getting more and more involved in the affiliate marketing industry.
- Diversify - Although you need focus when you’re first getting started, you should make efforts to diversify quickly after you start making money. That way, even if one source of income dries up, you’re still making money.
- Save and re-invest - Don’t make the mistake of spending all your profits or expecting to maintain a steady ROI. Things can change quickly, and you need to have a cushion.
Affiliate / Internet Marketing Certification
The affiliate community has been abuzz lately with the advent of a new business - Affilicert, providing affiliate internet marketing certification. The idea is that Affilicert checks out affiliates (who pay) and then certifies those who are legitimate and serious. Although some people have positive opinions, the overwhelming majority of responses have been highly negative. But why? At first glance, the problem with this system may not be obvious.
The issue today is not that affiliate networks don’t have enough affiliates. In fact, many of them have more than they can handle. With affiliate marketing, as with most things, the 80/20 rule is in effect. 80% of results come from a mere 20% of total affiliates. The rest either don’t do much at all, or they consume more resources than they produce. Networks aren’t looking for raw numbers - they’re looking for producers.
The other issue is that getting accepted by networks isn’t usually a problem for serious affiliates. It’s definitely getting harder, but if a newbie is willing to put in a bit of effort, they can usually get accepted by at least one good affiliate network where they can get started. They may not get accepted at a top-tier networks like Azoogle or Clickbooth, but they should have no trouble getting on at a smaller network if they are honest and forthcoming about their intentions.
What do you think about the idea behind Affilicert? Good idea? Crazy? Would you pay to be evaluated by a company like Affilicert, if you thought it could help you get approved at networks?
Affiliate Marketing: System for Finding Competitors’ Landing Pages
When it comes to affiliate marketing, system is key. Whether it’s a system for sitting down to work, or a system for cranking out new campaigns, you need to have one - probably more than one. What I’m going to talk about now, though, is a solid system for finding your competitors so you can do solid research on what’s currently working for competitors.
- Define your niche. Pick an offer so we know what we’re looking for.
- Pick keywords. Use a free tool like Google’s External Keyword Tool to find related keywords.
- Search Google. Look at both free and paid competitors. Pay especially close attention to which relevant keywords have fewer competitors - these may be hidden opportunities, but it could also be a sign that the keyword isn’t profitable. Either way, it’s probably worth testing if there isn’t much competition.
- Search EZineArticles.com. Look for articles that optimize for your keywords, along with AdSense ads on the page. If you see a lot of articles on a topic, there’s a good chance that it’s a winner for affiliates. Check the article bylines to see what pages the articles point to. This may give you some insight about how to build your landing page.
- Check popular social media sites like Squidoo and Twitter. Do you see affiliates pushing the product(s) you’re interested in?
- Check PPV traffic if applicable. If you have a computer you don’t use, you can install popular browser toolbars that serve popup ads, then visit related sites and see if other affiliates have ads popping up.
With a little practice, you’ll have no trouble differentiating the affiliate pages from portal sites, authority pages, or merchants. Once you reach that point, you’ll be steps ahead of many other affiliates in figuring out what’s working for other people and how you could fit yourself into a crowded market.
What is Affiliate Marketing With Incentives?
A lot of new affiliates join networks and wonder, “What is affiliate marketing with incentives?” They see the option listed by an offer (most often as a no-no), and they want to know what it involves, and why it would be banned.
Incentive marketing simply means that the affiliate is offering something to the customer in exchange for their lead or sale. The free iPod sites that were popular in years past are a key example. Users completed a number of offers and referred a certain number of friends, and in exchange, they received a free iPod. Other sites offer free downloads, cash payouts, or other prizes in exchange for filling out affiliate offers.
Although this method can work well for affiliates, advertisers don’t always approve. When someone is signing up for a product because they are getting a reward, they don’t always turn into good customers. This is especially problematic for lead-based offers, where customers give up nothing but their time to help the affiliate earn the commission.
Penalties for using incentives when not allowed are steep. At the bare minimum, your commissions will be reversed. Sometimes, you’ll be blacklisted from your network and even some others when your name gets out (remember, advertisers often work with more than one network). You should also note that many offers allow prize incentives, but not cash. These details are important.
It’s easy and tempting to use incentives, but you have to make sure that you know an advertiser or networks policies before you do it. Ignorance is never a good argument when you get busted doing something the advertiser doesn’t condone.
Why a Good Affiliate Marketing Program is More Important Than Ever
A lot of affiliates don’t really understand the importance of a good affiliate marketing program, but recent events have shown that it’s more important now than ever. At 2010’s Affiliate Summit West, the running theme with a lot of networks is that they are no longer recruiting new affiliates. Although they’re certainly looking for new, high-performing affiliates, many networks are cutting back on the newbies who use up the time of affiliate managers or who never make a sale.
Whether you agree with this or not, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it’s going to be harder than ever to get approved with affiliate networks - and harder to keep your accounts once they’re open. They’re focusing on nurturing their top relationships and seeking out the best potential affiliates, rather than holding the hands of newbies and training people who may never make a sale. In early 2010, Hydra struck a nerve with affiliates by dumping a huge number of their accounts and instituting minimum activity requirements for new accounts. Other networks have implemented similar policies in a less public fashion.
So how is a new affiliate supposed to get started when networks are demanding thousands of dollars in revenue or avoiding new affiliates altogether? To put it simply, many will not get started. Smart newbies, however, will flock to the affiliate marketing training programs that have allied themselves with affiliate networks.
Some of the top industry training programs have vowed to affiliate networks that they will refer qualified students through their referral links. Because the networks can be assured that the training programs will be helping the students, they have less risk of getting unqualified and overly demanding affiliates. Affiliates looking for training will now be looking for more than just training; they’ll be looking for access to the most exclusive networks.
Affiliate marketing is changing rapidly right now, and those who don’t adapt are going to be left out in the cold. If you’re looking for additional training in affiliate marketing, keep this in mind as you shop around. As networks you’d like to join if they have course recommendations. Even if they don’t partner with any yet, they’ll be impressed that you’re actively investing in your future success.
2010 Brings Major Shifts in the Affiliate Marketing World
Affiliate marketing is known as an industry that has changed and evolved rapidly over recent years. After all, it’s a new industry centered around technology. 2010 has seen a particularly large number of industry-changing issues, though. Let’s talk for a moment about what has happened and how it will affect new affiliates.
State Tax Laws -
In quite a few states, legislators are rushing to pass laws that will require retailers to pay sales tax on states in which they have affiliates. For many affiliates, this will be disastrous. The majority of retailers will simply stop allowing out of state affiliates from the affected states, so some people will see these laws take out their businesses overnight. Affiliates can help prevent this by keeping up with local legislation and talking to their congressmen.
The Death of Rebills -
For the last few years, a huge number of affiliates have gotten rich pushing products with “free trials” that rebill the customers for large amounts after 10-14 days. Because the offers were often deceptive, and because customers often had difficulty stopping the re-bills, these offers (and their affiliates) have been targeted by the FTC. Networks are losing many of their high-performing re-bill offers, and affiliates are shifting to other kinds of offers to make up for it.
Increasing Regulation -
Too many affiliates have made their fortunes through unethical means. Fake reviews, false testimonials, and misrepresentation have been staples of many affiliates’ marketing methods for years, but the FTC is starting to crack down on this kind of behavior. Affiliates will have to start being much more careful and honest in their activities if they want to stay out of trouble.
Although these changes may seem earth shattering to some affiliates, they’re just a part of the natural ebb and flow of this crazy business. As long as you stay aware and stay ready to evolve, your business will likely survive.
Internet Marketing Training Tips
When you’re getting started with your internet marketing training, there’s an enormous amount of information and work to be done. To help you sort it all out and make sense of things, try these basic tips for organizing your work.
- Focus on one thing. Don’t make yourself crazy by trying to learn SEO, PPC, social media, PPV, and email all at once. You’ll slow down your progress and get very frustrated in the process.
- Make a list. Never sit down to work without a brief list of what you hope to accomplish. Unprepared work time is considerably less effective than time when you can focus and concentrate your efforts.
- Avoid crutch tasks. You don’t need to check your email 30 times daily. You also don’t need to read Twitter and Facebook every 5 minutes. Every 5-10 minutes, ask yourself if you’re really working and being productive, or if you’re just wasting time.
- Make sure your sources are reliable. Don’t fall into the trap of believing any random source you find online. If you’re reading a blog or ebook and it goes against everything else you’ve known to work, get another opinion.
- Limit your research and study time. Action is far more important than research.
Even though a lot of this seems intuitive, it’s much harder to do in practice. Giving real thought to your actions and work ethic will pay off, though. History has shown repeatedly that laser-targeted focus combined with action is what it takes to achieve real success.