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

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.

Amazon Associates

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.

Clickbank

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

If you are like me you have seen the ad’s popping up all over the net, and even a few reviews at some of the better blogs in the appropriate niches. This being said someone actually used twitter to contact me which was awesome. The ability for representatives to use my social network to contact me instead of a boring plain ol’ email or even order form excites me and shows me that already they are willing to go further and faster than anyone else out there. I know I am getting everyone excited already, but when you run into businesses and professional and friendly folks it really is great to tell the world all about them.

First If you have already heard about MotiveNetwork I highly suggest you stick around for this review as I will not being using the system you are already familiar with. With this review I was given acess to the new version 2.0 of their ad network. I am excited to say things are even better than they had been before for those on the quest to make some money online.

First Things First

Customer Support and service. The customer being you the user. This above else means more to me than anything else when I am researching a network. If representatives are unavailable or information for my manager is not easily found you will be crippled for the rest of the ordeal if I even decide that I should participate in your cpa program. This being said The MotiveNetwork is on the level one of the first things you will see is a picture of your representative their business phone number and their AIM contact nick. For those of us who are completely lazy it even comes with a nice little click here to chat or email link wrapping up the OMG what did I just do please help me fix this so I can make some money package. If your cpa network does not like to be easily accesable you should put some thought into the why and then what if you need to… You will find that the representatives from the motivenetwork are easily accesable and happy to help you with anything from conversation to what is hot or setting up your first cpa campaign. This kind of service will help you make more money from your time even if the options for offers are limited, which happens to NOT be the case for this network. Next section!

The Interface

This part is a deal breaker for many cpa networks. The ineffective ways which people conjure into existence how I should be deploying my campaigns makes me wonder sometimes have they every A. Used their own system or B. Ever done any affiliate marketing in general. The more streamlined you can make it and using colors of high contrast will in the end pay off. It may not have as much of a “tacticool” look as some networks, but you know what after the first few times of trying to log in and make some money with some networks I put them on the shelf unless they happen to have some sort of merchandise or other related offers that no one else has. Tacticool is great for reviews and showing off to people who do not know any better, but for those of us interesting in making money as easily as possible and without going blind or having to read 30,000 pages of a manual and talking to 5 different support personnel, well this is folks, by far the easiest to use and understand interface I have used to date. I can think of a few ways to make it better, for instance offering an “advanced mode” for people who need some of the extra functionality that some of the other networks offer. This being said you have everything you need at your fingertips right here from joe to pro your going to be able to start deploying quality ad’s and offers as soon as you load in after being accepted.

It may be a bit hard to see and I apologize photoshop was being very upsetting today. You have a commission graph and a breakdown by offer types and yes they do much more than the old CPA, CPM. I will elaborate on that in the next section. The featured offers is top semi left and any pertinent system information is listed below for your own wisdom. The far left is a menu which lets you easily navigate between offers, your account, information and your home on the network.

The Offers

Now having said everything to this point that I have I want you to forget it all now. Any network that has all the best tools to help you deploy and the best staff anyone could ask for that speaks and understands clear english well the bus does not let you off here. You need quality offers that are honest as far as the potential users of the offers are concerned. Besides that you need to be diverse, and lately I have seen this as a problem with many of the networks I already use. For instance I had a golf site I was flipping and only one of the several networks I use had anything I could monetize with. Now while I understand every niche can not be competively covered by every network I still see giant holes in most of the industries offerings. Being the same is not being differnt and being differnt is not the same. Simple as that I want to show you what this network offers and how they are NOT the same as any of the others you may be using right now.

You will find the normal garden variety cpa’s these are usually the easiest to start out making money with and generally pay fairly well for very little work on anyone involved. You will also find CPS which is a click per sale and in addition to that you will find CPS% which is a %$ of sales made. CPL’s are another great way to make money easily. Simply by collecting leads for the sponsoring network you will be earning $x.xx to xxx.xx per lead. When you put these all on the table you have a diversified way to make money using your own online outlets.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line comes down to how motivated you are. If you are looking to add another tool to your box or looking for the next best thing in the way of networks I would highly suggest you stop by and take a look at the motive network. They offer an easy to use interface with wonderful customer support and to boot some really great broad ranging interest offers that are sure to help anyone make a few bucks. If your motivated then the motivenetwork will work for you and help you take a few more steps towards your online money making goals. I give this network 2 thumbs up.

For those that are wondering about the referral bonus program it is an industry leading 5.5% lifetimes referral earnings. So stop standing  around and being left behind by everyone else and get signed up TODAY!

The MotiveNetwork

First of all just in case you do not know MarketLeverage offers the highest rewards of all the networks I use. This in itself means the time you spent monetizing your site is much better spent as your being paid more at the end of the day for using them. As if that alone is not enough this network is highly accessible from my own affiliate manager Eric , the Marketing Manager Dina, as well as the creative staff. They are more than happy to help you with any detail of the process along the way, and if your having difficulty turning conversions will also help you change that to a positive. No other network has done as much for me as an affiliate as MarketLeverage. Now lets dive into the details of it so you know the whole story.

It is a simple equation as a blogger. Use the most effective monetization techniques that are the least invasive to my reader. In my personal opinion MarketLeverage Crushes the competition completely on this front.  An excerpt from their own site plainly tells you:

It’s simple…MarketLeverage Publishers enjoy higher payouts on hundreds of different advertisements while getting the best customer service in the performance marketing industry. Our experienced team of Publisher managers are trained to help our Publishers earn more money from their website, search engine and email marketing efforts.

We create the best Publisher experience in the industry!

It is 100% absolutely true. The check I get every month since joining proves this point. My affiliate manager has always been their anytime I needed anything or had a question about anything. Even while still preparing for Affiliate Summit East I was looking for advice from him about things I should keep in mind and how to spend my time. While Eric was not much for what type of attire I should bring he did have his manager contact me and I was able to work out exactly what I needed to take with to be ready for every situation. To me that is going well above and beyond. I look for this type of stuff when doing business with anyone, as many can already attest to I look for more than just the best deal for my business dollar I am also looking for people to surround myself with that want me to succeed and in turn return the favor likewise. This is the differnce between the greats and the legendary best. If you are looking for this kind of support for your affiliate setup then look no further than MarketLeverage.

All this being said we have not even touched on their site, deployment, ad rotators, etc. So lets delve a bit deeper and reveal the diamond within. I know for most the platinum band that is their staff will be enough, but not telling the whole story would be a criminal injustice to this high performance cpa network.

I have to say of the networks I use that MarketLeverage has the highest inventory of ad’s available for deployment of the networks I use. I know your asking if they conquer the market with quantity alone, but alas they do not, they blow the doors off the competition with the quality. With the availability of MarketLeverage TV which will recap the top offers and new exclusive offers you can not miss with these guys. If your not much for the digital media effect when you first log in today’s top offers and this weeks top performers are listed for you. So far these have been dead on for me so someone is definitely doing the research to back this stuff up. People are hungry for information and ways to get things done. Why let someone else get paid to do it when you could be earning extra income or even emancipating yourself from the daily grind?

Another thing I love is the payment method. Don’t get me wrong pay-pal has its place, but a paper check delivered timely and regularly is by far my favorite. No fee’s, just take it to the bank and viola. On the 15th of every month a beautiful package from MarketLeverage sits on my door. What could it be? Of course it is my MarketLeverage affiliate check. Outstanding!

If you are determined enough to make more than $1000 a week MarketLeverage will allow you to receive weekly payments via request from your affiliate manager. This alone for the serious affiliate marketer is motivation to sell.

This along with MarketLeverage Publishers having the unique opportunity to earn (5%) five percent of the GROSS revenue generated by Publishers they refer to MarketLeverage. This is unheard of in any other network currently running as far as I know. So far you have no excuse in not signing up today.

Everything is easy with this network, and the amount of superior support you will recieve day in and day out with the added earning potential this network provides makes it a simple descion to use them and make a few dollars.

If you have not already I highly recommend you to sign up to be a MarketLeverage Affiliate.

Like with many other networks you will get the bells and whistles, unlike the others that promise to take care of you and advertise easy access to your managers this network goes above and beyond in making sure you are comfortable setting up your offers on your site and will also help you to understand which offers are best suited to your niche. I know you can remember when you first started and you thought to yourself about what you would like to see and that you wanted to fulfill that with all your readers in order to achieve the over all goal of superior site monetization.

Having said that you will actually be able to talk directly to the staff at PepperJam network. After all they take a hands on approach to helping you succeed. What is good for you is good for them, so remember that when and if your having any trouble.

Site navigation is above and beyond the other networks that I use hands down. While a little overwhelming the first time out of the box, the manner in which you will setup and deploy your monetization efforts is very powerful and allows you to cruise the offers in many different manners. This adds up to less time spent on monetization and more time spent on content, or promotion of your site. As you can tell, that can mean the difference between success and mediocrity.

In the way of offers, PepperJam Network has the largest selection across the board from % of merchandise sales that practically sell themselves, all the way offer to the now famous CPA offers. If you are looking for a larger variety of ways to monetize your blog then you should sign up for PepperJam Network today.

Really I think for most niches out there this network will be the easiest to use effectively. The ability to cross all generes in terms of monetization is a really powerful tool. I would highly recommend that you stop by today and sign up to see whats going on at this ad network. I promise their is something for every type of blog or website out there.

Just in case your new to the “lingo” here let me explain exactly what’s going on before I lose your attention. RevResponse is essentially a CPA program (Cost Per Action, sometimes known as Pay Per Action – PPA), that pays you a minimum of $1.50, and up to $20 every time you complete an “action”. If you are familiar with Adsense, and I am sure you are. This program allows you to create customizable widgets in the same manner to display your ad’s as content.

This is advantageous to both you the publisher and your consumer of information as you can offer items or products or even information in context to what you are doing and be paid for it. The potential for effectively monetizing any kind of site and not just a blog is endless. This can bring your niche sites to new income levels with well thought out deployment of proper offers. Their are only a few networks I would even consider recommending at this point and adsense is not one of them. One of the great things about revresponse is that you are able to keep that professional look to your post, site, blog whatever and still make a couple of dimes in the process. Adsense these days is generally blocked via browser plugins or just mentally blocked by the visitor. They are plain and ugly and now everyone knows what they are and resist clicking them. With revresponse this is not even an issue as you are picking what is being advertised to your readers and thus you have a greater chance of success in your monetization efforts.

Setting up Revresponse was the straight forward part for me. When I decided to write this review, I definitely wanted to register and check it out. I headed over to http://www.revresponse.com, and found the huge “Sign Up Now!” link. I followed the procedure, and when I was done, I got a message telling me to check my email. The message said that “I am currently reviewing your application and will contact you within 48 hours with instructions for using RevResponse. Of course I was greeted with an email thanking me for joining along with my password. At this point I hurried back to the RevResponse website to login. Straight forward and easy enough.

The first thing I noticed while browsing throughout this site is the intuitiveness of its layout and design. Everything you could ever ask of or need is right on your logged in landing page. This along with a really great forum design make life for the newbie to CPA much much easier.

Now to the steak and potato’s of it. This network is by far the most Technology friendly of any that I have used to date. If your adsense is not turning you any profit, then I highly recommend you to check this out as every offer I viewed ( Over 250 ) was outstanding. The information enclosed and CPA approach to doing business is by far superior than the other cpa networks I have used on technology focused websites, especially if webmasters are visiting your sites. You know they have adsense blocked either literally or atleast in their mind. These offers should cause most any technology nut to salvate at the mere site of them.

Combo all the above with the fact that they actually give you a wizard that is useful in creating an ad campaign for your specific site, and I have to ask what exactly are you waiting for. No other network that I have used to date has offered what this CPA network has. Do not get left behind hurry up and get your but over to the RevResponse website and sign up now.

This is an example of a flash deployment I made using the wizard based off the interests of this blog. Every single aspect is customizable, but not in an overly harsh way. Easy to setup and deploy for the newbiest of newbies. But also powerful enough to make you the cash you set out to while monetizing your site.

Being able to offer valuable yet free content to my readers in many different niches seems like a very good idea. You are being paid and your readers are finding information they may have otherwise had to pay for or search the web relentlessly to find. Good deal huh? I thought so too.

At the very least I recommend signing up and taking a look at what they have to offer. You could have possibly just discovered the next best way to monetize your site. Win/Win situation I’d say!

Sign up for RevResponse.com!