1,2,3…. Now You’re An Affiliate Marketer
Posted on 23. Apr, 2009 by forest_parks in Affiliate Marketing Tips, CPA-Network Reviews
- Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr
Affiliate Marketing on a basic level is very easy.
Basically you just need to become the bridge between a potential client/customer and the business. You become the middleman and earn a little cash in the meantime.
If you know how to display a link and an image on your blog then you are ready to start promoting affiliate products and tapping into a little extra income for very little extra work.
In this post I am going to talk about the basics of using your existing commodities to get a few commission sales and actually add value to your content. If someone is looking to purchase something and you honestly direct them to a link then you are giving them excellent value for their search.
Pay Per Click Marketing is also a great way to earn money from Affiliate Marketing but I am still in the learning stages here and will not be talking about that yet here…. In fact I have just signed up to and am in Month One of PPC Coach, so far it’s great and my learning curve has been rising up very steadily…. I’ll bring you guys a full review very soon.
So let’s find a way for you to get your first affiliate commision, or find ways to increase your current earnings.
First off it’s best to assess your websites. Look for specific posts that are attracting good organic traffic and especially things that are in niche subjects or talk about specific products. If you can’t find much then brainstorm a few subjects that you can honestly and truthfully talk about. Reviews and opinions can make the affiliate commisions fly through the door and if you are honest then many of the people who purchased through your links will come back for more.
Look at your mailing lists… Have a think about what these people may be interested in. Think of things that will be of value to them and prepare to send them some honest promotions. Recommend something that will help them and they will be forever grateful. Just don’t spam them!
Now you should have some subjects, products and ideas of what you can promote. So the next thing is to sign up to some networks so that you can find the right links for your products…. Here are some brief overviews of some of the networks I use and recommend that you join. Be creative if you don’t have exact products or services to promote.
Pepperjam are a great network to start with. Number one, they have Ebay where you can get a percentage of a sale or $25 for a new ebay signup. You can promote thousands upon thousands of products through Ebay and I prefer using Pepperjam rather than Ebays direct affiliate program. Pepperjam also have tons of other quality advertisers such as Jimi Hendrix clothing and Seasame Street.
(edit. Damian mentioned in the comments that Ebay are now manually reviewing all publishers so he has been waiting to hear back about approval for over two months…. Hopefully Ebay will resolve this soon….. But Pepperjam are still more than worth joinging.).
Neverblue Media, Amped Media, Motive Interactive and Advaliant
These 4 networks all have excellent interfaces, friendly and highly helpful affiliate managers to look after you and a great range of easy to convert offers. I have had luck promoting offers like Zwinky, Vistaprint and Grocery Coupon sites. They are also a great source for diet and fitness related products and services.
I find Amazon a bit clunky but they give you the opportunity to promote every product on their site and earn a commision. The possibilities are endless.
Honestly…. Clickbank is full of crap. However wade through the rubbish and you can find some excellent programs, ebooks and products to promote. I have had luck promiting things like Micro Niche Finder and various niche ebooks. It’s a good idea to buy any ebook before promoting it…. I strongly advise you provide honest value to your visitors. A quick note about Clickbank. They will hold payment on your account until you have sold products with 5 different credit card transactions just for their security but 5 sales can be acheived quickly!
There are tons of networks out there but these are ones that I have personally had great results with and recommend. It pays not to sign up to too many to start. Just get your footing and find your groove. Then you can move forward.
….Now you have your posts or mailing list ready, you have signed up to your networks and been accepted and found the offers you want to promote. Next step is to get them in your posts. Add the affiliate link to places text that mentions the product in your post. Add nice friendly links on calls to action (eg: Buy The New Kindle From Amazon Here, etc etc). Also maybe add a nice friendly banner at the beggining or end of your post.
If you have nice organic traffic I would not be too suprised to see some click and maybe sales straight away. Failing that it’s time to promote the posts via social media and work to get some links back to it to boost it’s place in Google. Maybe also consider changing the post title to something that is more highly searched or easier to rank with in Google.
There really isn’t much more to getting started with affiliate marketing…. See easy as 1,2,3. Some things work well, some don’t. But if you make a consious efforts to ethically promote your links where you can then you will find that over time your blog will have lots of offers and opportunities for people to bridge to their purchase or signup via you. I find sales coming through from posts that are nearly 2 years old. It’s always nice to gain residual income in this way.
Now from this day on whenever you create a new post or talk about a service or product. Work out if it’s viable to provide affiliate links and make sure that you naturally place them throughout your posts.
Let me know how this works out for you.
PS: I recommend cloaking your affiliate links. I wrote a post that gives some reasons and shows you how here: How To Cloak Affiliate Links.
Any questions, as always, fire away…..
Thanks for reading 
Related posts:
- 1,2,3…. Now You're An Affiliate Marketer
- Things To Know About Affiliate Marketing
- PepperJam Network – Blog Monetization Unleashed
- How To Cloak Affiliate Links
- The Triple.Com Affiliate Program
forest_parks
Big Ben Patton
JK Swopes
Nathaniel
used tires
jewelry supplies
Chetan
book buyback
EmmaB
Thanks for the kind words (aka props) about Pepperjam!
We appreciate your support!
Kris Jones
CEO,
Pepperjam Network
No problem Kris…. It’s always a pleasure to have you come by.
If you want to sign up to pepperjam for ebay affiliate membership you maybe ought to think again! I applied 2 months ago and they are still yet to accept or decline it. Not what id call efficient.
Apparently when i contacted them they said ebay are reviewing every application manually. Im not expecting anything in the near future! Ive stopped even going back to check regularly as its pointless – the application is just sat there.
Hey Damian,
I forgot about the issue with Ebay taking their time! I guess they have enough money already and don’t need anymore!!
I guess the next best thing is to use Amazon Associates for a similar variety as ebay.
Give us some more info about your program here…. it may be just the thig some of my readers are looking for.
Kris is da bomb.
Wow, I just really dated myself, didn’t I?
Clickbank is so weird. They tell you that you have to have credit card transactions from 5 different credit cards (I kid you not, if you read their payment info, they tell you that you have to have a Visa, a Mastercard, etc), but then they sent me my commission off of a single sale, well below the pay threshold.
And then, they take all kinds of fees out of your commission before sending you a check, including a fee for sending the check! Absolutely bizarre, and yet, I can’t think of any better source for marketing e-books.
Now there’s a business to get into! If someone else could become the next ClickBank, but do it in a nice, straight forward way like Pepperjam does products, they could make a killing.
Yeah Clickbank could really be bettered. They run a pretty shabby ship…but if you use it right there is high commissions and lots of cash to be made.
Chris is da bomb… there I dated myself too
I am expecting a payment of £55.00 with 11 websites I have this month is it possible to follow above rules?
Great stuff. Definitely, follow some of my tips and try and maximize your earnings.
Its good to earn in meantime by creating a potential as the middleman and all depends on way of affiliate marketer.
Yep exactly… The good thing about online affiliate marketing is that you never have to handle stock. You can make a full business from a wireless connection in a cafe and a laptop.
I personally dont cloak my links on my niche sites. The average joe searcher has no clue what a hop link is nor do they care they want what theyre searching for (usually the best price on something or another)
Cloaking links isn’t just about hiding them. If you cloaked every link that said “Buy Your Chinese Language Course Here” then the would all go through to one file…. So if you found a better affiliate product you just need to change the link in one file.
great work , cloaking links is a very useful strategy for affiliating marketing
Thanks for the compliment.
Excellent advice. A lot of people will appreciate the step by step process!
Thanks Olga, great to have you stopping by.
Really very good idea.Excellent advice.i think for affiliate marketing,you have to make more links…
Ok…. You already posted this one…. How many ready made responses do you have?
I have a website and I need to make money. Promoting other’s products seems like a good idea, however I have no idea how to get started. I have bought several scams and they did not work or I simply did not understand them.
you are absolutely right about ClickBank, I found a piece of software to promote and I am pretty happy with the results so far
Awesome…. I have just picked up an excellent report that goes hand in hand with clickbank and will definitely be giving a full review in a few weeks.
If you have a good teacher, affiliate marketing is an excellent way to make money online. Selling eBooks is only one small aspect of affiliate marketing, and I agree that most of them are junk.
Agreed… you can learn yourself but it can take a long long while.