I get a lot of legal questions from affiliates about a ton of different issues.

A lot of them are really good questions that should be addressed. – But not by me

So I talked to the legal council of the biggest affiliate companies in the world and asked if they would take your questions. They agreed.

So fire away!

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

Ask Your Affilate Legal Questions

Today I’d like to conclude my mini series of posts on how to make money with the Amazon Associates Program. In case you’ve missed them – the first two parts are at:

• 11 Lessons I Learned Earning $119,725.45 from Amazon Associates Program
• 10 More Amazon Associate Program Lessons I Learned on My Way to Six Figure Earnings

In this last post I’d like to share 10 more general and overarching tips and principles that I’ve found can help with making money with Amazon’s Affiliate program. I hope you find that together with the more practical tips from yesterday that you’ll find them helpful!

1. Time is a Major Factor

As I mentioned in my first post on the topic – the $119,000+ that I’ve earned from Amazon has only come over 6 years. While this last 12 months has seen me earn over $50,000 of this it took 5 years of building to get it to that level.

That was partly due to traffic but it was also partly due to my regular inclusion of affiliate links in my posts over time. I don’t promote Amazon in every post I write but in an average week I’d say that I’ve linked to Amazon in at least 5 posts. That adds up to 250 or so posts per year and around 1500 posts over 6 years.

These posts are each a doorway into the Amazon site and over time as their number have grown and as my blogs have begun to rank higher in Google and my loyal reader numbers have grown the number of people going through these ‘doorways’ into Amazon has grown – hence the escalation in earnings.

2. Start Early

As a result I do recommend that bloggers start to use Amazon’s Associate Program early. In doing so you’ll be populating your blog with links into the store that may not convert brilliantly early on before you have readers – but which can potentially convert for years to come as your blog grows in popularity.

The other good thing about starting early is that you’ll learn a lot about affiliate marketing. Most of the lessons and tips that I’ve shared in this series of posts have come directly from my own experimenting with Amazon’s Affiliate program.

In the early days of using it I knew so little and made a lot of mistakes – but each time I messed up I learned another lesson that has helped me to grow my Amazon earnings into a more significant part of my own business.

3. Experiment with Widgets and aStore

I’ve mentioned in my previous posts that I largely rely upon Contextual links to promote Amazon. I find that these convert best – however I do know of a few bloggers who’ve successfully incorporated a variety of the widgets that Amazon gives their Associates to use into their sites.

Similarly – I know some readers who do pretty well with aStore which is a tool whereby you create your own little online store using Amazon’s technology.

I’ve tried a couple of times to use this and have had a little success with my photography one and my ProBlogger Bookstore but know I need to do more with it to take it to the next level.

I guess it comes down to experimenting with the tools and seeing what works best with your audience. If you’ve used some of these widgets I’d love to see examples of where you’ve had them work for you – please share links in comments below so we can all learn!

4. Transparency with Readers

There is always debate about the topic of transparency when the topic of affiliate marketing comes up. Should you disclose that your links are affiliate links or should you not? Each blogger has their own stance on this and with a lot of talk about laws changing in some parts of the world it seems that some bloggers are now being forced to make such disclosures.

I personally don’t disclose every link on my blog in a direct way but do have disclaimer/disclosure pages on my blogs. I also have written numerous times on DPS about how the links to Amazon earn us money and help the site to keep growing and be free.

I was nervous the first time I mentioned this to readers and expected a backlash – however what I found was that most readers not only accepted it but encouraged us to do it. In fact a few of our readers tell me that if they’re going to make some kind of purchase at Amazon that they always come to DPS to click on one of our links to do so! Transparency isn’t as scary as you might think (although this might depend upon your audience a little).

5. Don’t Hype – Put Your Readers First

Whatever you do – always keep your readers best interests at heart when you engage in any affiliate marketing.

I’ve been critiqued for taking this stance lately by a group of bloggers who take a different stance and seem to put the priority on ‘making money at all costs’ – but while you certainly can make money without a focus upon quality content or building community on a blog and by hyping up the things that you promote – my approach has always been to put the reader first.

I do this because I want to build a solid reputation and a loyal readership who trust me rather than simply making money at all costs. I’d rather make less money and still have a reader than make lots of money and never see the reader again. For me this comes not only from my ethics but my belief that in the long term building a good profile and reputation leads to other opportunities for profit.

The problem with hype is that you set readers up with expectations that are beyond what the product you’re recommending can deliver. This might lead to a sale but it also leads to disappointment and anger – the loss of readers – damaged reputation etc.

6. Pick Quality Products

This relates to the last point but is worth stating on its own. The success and failure of your Amazon Associates Program promotions hinges upon choosing good quality products.

When you promote quality it is much easier to be both genuine in your reviews and recommendations and get conversions that lead to commission.

Wherever you can test the products you recommend to ensure their quality (or find someone who can do it for you).

7. Be Bold

It has been interesting to read the comments on the previous posts in this series and to see that one of the recurring themes from readers is that they worry about using Amazon links too much. Won’t readers push back?

I’ve always shared this concern – but as you’ve probably picked up by now the reader push back has been almost non-existent.

Perhaps this is because I choose the products carefully or because I often promote these links in posts based upon reader feedback – but I can think of less than 5 occasions when I’ve had people on my photography site question the links. In fact, as I said above, I’ve had more people give positive feedback about them than anything.

I guess there would come a point where too much promotion would get a negative reaction so you do want to be at least a little subtle about it – but in general I think readers can handle more than we might think they can.

Note: I think the line where readers will push back probably will vary from blog to blog depending upon their readership. For example here on ProBlogger I get a little more negative feedback from readers on affiliate promotions – I guess ProBlogger readers are a little more tuned into the issue and suspicious of some of the affiliate marketing that goes on around the web.

8. Localized Audiences? Try Local Amazons

Another comment that has come up a number of times in previous posts on this topic is that Amazon.com doesn’t work brilliantly for blogs and sites with traffic from countries outside the USA.

A couple of reflections on this:

Firstly – it’s not completely true. I have previously had a blog with almost completely Australian traffic that did convert reasonably well with Amazon. Amazon does ship some products to Australia and other countries (books, CDs etc) so if you’re promoting those products it can work. Of course I always missed out on the bigger ticket items that didn’t ship outside the USA – this was part of the reason that I moved my efforts to starting Digital Photography School which has a more global audience.

Secondly – if your traffic is very localized to a country with its own Amazon store join the affiliate program for that store and promote it. I know of one UK photography site that does very well from promoting the UK version of Amazon. I also know one blog that adds two links to every post he does – one with the US and one with the UK store. I’ve also heard that some people use geo-targeting tools to look at where a reader is from and serving them a localized link for them.

9. Topics Convert Differently

In one forum that I came across discussing my previous articles a number of people reported that Amazon didn’t work on their sites (doubting whether I was telling the truth about my earnings). When I delved a little deeper and looked at their sites the reason for their lack of success with Amazon became apparent – their topics.

Some topics will naturally fit with Amazon better than others. In the end a lot of it comes down to the fact that Amazon is a product related affiliate program – it only works when people buy stuff. If your blog is on a topic that doesn’t have any natural connection to people buying stuff it is going to be an uphill battle.

In my experience it’s product related blogs that tend to do best with Amazon. Most blogs probably have at least some possibilities (for example here on ProBlogger I occasionally link to a book that relates or a computer or electronic tool that I think might be useful to bloggers) but the reality is that this blog will never convert as well on Amazon as my photography site.

Keep an Eye on Amazon

My last tip in this series is to keep an eye on what Amazon is doing. I mean this in two main ways:

1. Learn from Them – be a regular user of Amazon. You don’t have to be an active buyer – but regularly surf the site and pay particular attention to the way that THEY are promoting products on their site.

Amazon have spent years perfecting the art of online selling – they constantly test different ways of promoting products and have evolved their site quite a lot over the years. See what widgets they use to promote related products, watch how they use reader reviews, see the way that they describe products. You’ll learn a lot about online marketing by observing how they do it and you’ll also be in a better position to pre-sell the products you recommend if you look at the page you’re sending people to before you do it.

2. Watch for Opportunities – I mentioned earlier in this series that Amazon run a variety of promotions on their site that you can tap into. Some of these they promote directly to their Associates – for example they send out emails to associates semi-regularly promoting their latest promotions) and also have a blog where they do likewise. If you read the blog and get the emails you’ll see promotions where they are offering discounts to readers but also where they’re giving bonus commissions for some items or categories of products. Not all of them will relate to your niche but over time some will.

However there are other opportunities that they don’t promote to us as affiliates but which you can still tap into. For example – today I was surfing on Amazon and this popped up at the top of the screen:

It’s an internal promotion that Amazon are currently running for a series of new cameras that Canon released this week. It seems to appear to anyone surfing through the camera section on Amazon. The promotion links to this page (I’m not sure how long it’ll be up so here’s a screenshot – click to enlarge).

The page is a sales page specifically designed to hook in people looking to pre-order newly announced cameras. Amazon are heavily promoting this page – they wouldn’t do so if it didn’t convert – so I’m jumping on board created an affiliate link to the page (you can create an affiliate link to ANY page within Amazon including these kinds of pages, search results, category pages etc) and I’m promoting it to my readers.

They more you keep an eye on how Amazon are promoting products to their readers the better informed you’ll be about how YOU can do the same thing.

Share Your Amazon Associate Program Tips

This brings to an end my mini series of posts on this topic. I’ve shared everything that I’ve tried – what about you? Got any tips to add?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

10 Last Tips on Making Money from the Amazon Affiliates Program

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At Affiliate Summit there were at least 150 Affiliate Networks. Not all had booths some were just sharks in the crowd. The one thing you will always notice is every affiliate you meet is a “Super Affiliate”, making millions a month ballin out of control, and every Affiliate Network you talk to has the best offers, highest paying offers, fastest payments, etc, etc…

So how do you sort through the bullshit? Being I am not a network I don’t really care. Someone who comes up and tells me they are a super affiliate making millions a month I give the same amount of respect to as someone who comes up and tells me they are living out of their car trying to learn how this business works.

The Affiliate Network side though has a bigger impact on our business so I try to cut through the BS with them and in the last 6 years I have come up with a pretty good system.

If you were at the Affiliate Summit I am sure at some point you were approached and the conversation went something like the following:

Affiliate Network: Hey John, what do you do?

John: I am an affiliate!

Affiliate Network: What do you promote?

John: Weightloss, grants, dating, ringtones, whatever.

Affiliate Network: You should run with us we have the highest payouts, super fast payments, and best converting offers.

Now most people are not sure where to go from here. I know I didn’t when I first started. I remember back in 2005 when we were slingin ringtones for 15$ a lead and out of the blue an Affiliate Network offered us $25 a lead. We jumped all over that but soon realized it was junk when we made 20% less per click.

And that’s what its all about – EPC (Earnings Per Click).

So Here is how my conversation goes now:

Affiliate Network: Hey Jeremy, what do you do?

Me: I am an affiliate!

Affiliate Network: What do you promote?

Me: Weightloss, grants, dating, ringtones, whatever.

Affiliate Network: We have the greatest ringtone offer ever you should run it with us!!!.

Me: Listen don’t waste my time. I am currently making $1.50 EPC how much can you beat that by? Are you confident you can beat our current payout.

Affiliate Network: absolutely we can beat that epc. Like I said we have THE BEST PAYING OFFERS

Me: How much EPC do you think we could make with your offer?

Affiliate Network: 1.80 at least.

Me: Ok lets do this. I will send you over a contract that guarantees us a min 1.80 EPC and lets test it for a week.

Now its time for them to shit or get off the pot. I have had many networks take me up on this and sometimes it does work out (usually to my amazement). Some might only want to do a 24 hour test. Its up to you what you want to accept… personally I don’t like going through all the crap of getting in a new network and switching out links just to find out it does not work (which happens most of the time). If you are going to waste my time I want to atleast get paid for it

So what tips do you have for cutting through the Affiliate Network pitch BS ?

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

Cutting Through The Affiliate Network Bullshit

Back in June, I posted a Tatto Media review – about a newer affiliate marketing network branched off of one of the biggest ad networks online. If you haven’t read the review and you’re looking for additional affiliate networks to add to your arsenal, I suggest you check it out. Tatto has good offers and payouts and hosts a fast and easy-to-use interface that makes running your campaigns easier.

Tatto Media is working hard to improve its network and quickly gain more advertisers and publishers. In this sponsored followup review, I’ll outline some of the improvements that they’ve made in the past couple of months (since my review).

• New design for reporting and statistics, which is supposedly faster and more efficient than before. Data view pages can easily be searched and sorted.
• Addition of conversion tracking report, which provides specific lead and sale information including sub id, tracking info, transaction id, ip address, and payout -  allows you to quickly run sub id reports.
• Updated tracking links that are easy to understand. Sub id tracking has been updated and source name has been added. You can specify a source name in the tracking URL to easily drill-down and analyze performance in reports.
• TinyURL option for affiliate links. You can convert affiliate links in the Tatto backend to TinyURLs with a click of a button (great for sharing on social media sites like Twitter).
• Ability to target specific browsers. Tatto Media now gives you the ability to target offers to users based on their browser. This will redirect users to receive offers designed for mobile devices including iPhones and thus increase your conversion rates.
• Generates tracking code with creatives via the Creative Manager. One of the biggest limitations of Tatto that I wrote about in my previous review was that none of the ad creative was available in the backend.  The team acted on my feedback, and has now made it simple for you to include the creative you want with the offer-specific tracking URL. There’s also a new feature to browse and preview creatives.
• Updated suppression lists to better support email marketers.
• Improved Stats API with updated functions and documentation to make working with the stats API easier (i.e. build your own applications with the statistics provided).
• Addition of live support (via instant messenger with affiliate managers) and a support tab with help options and glossary.

What are your thoughts on Tatto Media? Are you using it as your primary network for any big offers? How has it stacked up against all of the other networks out there?  Leave a comment with your experiences here.

Internet Marketing Blog – Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.

Tatto Media Keeps on Improving – Followup Review

  Related Posts:

• Tatto Media Review – A Top Ad Network Now In Affiliate Marketing
• Offer Vault Review – Compare Top-Paying Affiliate Marketing Offers
• HasOffers Review – Start Your Own Affiliate Marketing Network for Free
• Motive Interactive Advent 2.0 Review – Just a Great Interface?
• Publisher Spot Review – Find the Best Ad Networks

The last week if you’ve been reading this blog you know I’ve recommended two courses, both of which I am an affiliate for. In this situation both products I’ve promoted before, so they’ve proven successful, however they are very different in many respects, for example…

• One product offers a $1 trial and then is $67 a month with 50% commission
• The other product has several pricing points, however starting at $897 and hence the affiliate commission is at least in the several hundred dollars range per order (as much as $1250 commission per sale)
• One product is limited based on time (one week)
• The other product is limited based on space (200 people maximum)
• Both products offer affiliate prizes if you make a certain number of sales

Looking at this data you might wonder which product is the best to promote? Which will make more money?

Those questions are difficult to know if you’ve never promoted these kinds of offers before, but since I have I know that I will sell a handful of the high end course and several hundred of the $1 trials. It’s a moot point for me as to which one I will promote as I agreed to support both people months ago because they supported me and we have a relationship I want to maintain. That is always the most important concern for me, not the potential for profit, although that’s a motivating factor too.

In your case you need to build up your understanding of what offers work best to your market, so you need to test. The first time I ever promoted a product that cost over $1,000 I made two sales. I netted about $1400 in commission, which was by far the largest affiliate income return I had ever made with my blog at the time. This was about when my blog was 9 months old.

Before that I had tested smaller affiliate products and made a few hundred dollars worth of sales, so I was liking the large commissions from the higher priced items, however you can just as easily make zero sales too. That’s the thing I’ve found with high priced products. You don’t need to sell many to make good money, but it’s tougher to convert people, for obvious reasons. That’s why I like to promote products across the board, from free trials to several thousand dollars, so you have a good feel for what your audience responds to.

Of course price is not the only concern, the offer is actually more important. I’ve promoted many lower priced products that don’t convert as well as much more expensive items because of how well the offers match what my audience want. Understanding your people is the most important thing, so run some tests and see what the biggest sticking points for your audience are and then give them good products to solve those problems.

Why Promote This And Not That?

It’s worth noting that I’m presented many opportunities to promote products on this blog every week and 99% of the time I say “no thanks”. In fact we have a template set up in our customer service area that is designed specifically to respond to people asking me to promote their offers, which includes a polite no thanks and a direction to this article –

How Not To Approach A Potential Joint Venture Partner

Some people have replied that the title of this article is a bit rude, and I agree to an extent, it’s definitely a strong title, but I like it and I think it serves more to help people understand how best to find affiliates, especially the top JVs, if they read it with an open mind (which is sometimes hard I realize after being rejected for a JV request).

I bring this up now because there is a reason why I’m willing to promote the two products in question, yet not so many others. Personally I don’t want my blog to be full of just promotions nor do I want the obligation to promote lots of products as it’s just too much work. Heavy promotion will also have an impact on my readership, so I’m mindful of that aspect too.

As a result I generally focus on promoting only a few products, and usually because of one of these reasons -

1. I have a relationship with that person, possibly because they promoted my product, or because we’ve formed a personal relationship and I understand the value of maintaining contact with them.
2. They’re at the top of their field with proof of big results in a market very related to what my people want

Ultimately though a lot of this comes down to my mood and current life situation, which unfortunately is something you just have to deal with whenever you’re talking about affiliate relationships. You have to work with people when you can work with them, which since you are relying on a completely random and dynamic human being, means the situation is never certain.

If you can avoid relying on any one particular affiliate, spread your “risk” by building relationships with many partners, and never expect anything at any time, even if you are “owed” something based on the law of reciprocation, you will do fine in the long run. Remember your business is more than just one promotion, so think long term.

Establishing Your Clout

I remember many years ago when I first discovered Internet marketing and the idea that you can send an email and make thousands of dollars.

This was an incredible idea to me, but I couldn’t execute it at the time as I did not have a list and my blog was just getting off the ground. I remember joining a few affiliate programs and then watching as the concept of the product launch took hold, including the fantastic technique of running an affiliate competition with standings.

Around the time StomperNet was going through it’s very first launch I recall how amazing it was to me that a person could win a new BMW as well as make a million dollars in commissions just as an affiliate (I believe it was John Reese in this case). Most people will never reach that point, but it’s not as hard as you think to become a top affiliate, especially if you zero in on the best offers for your people.

A couple of years I made my very first top 20 affiliate list and won myself a small prize. More importantly to me though was this singled my entry into the elite list of top affiliates. The more often you appear as a top affiliate, the better your credibility and the more people who want to work with you.

The great thing about affiliate competitions is that you learn who the best affiliates are, and if you can get yourself into a top 10 or even a top 5 of a big launch, you build massive credibility, enough that you can go knocking on the other top affiliate’s doors and they will know who you are. This is important, as name recognition is a great way to start relationships.

Unfortunately most industries online haven’t yet adopted the concept of the affiliate competition, and some never will because of the culture or the structure of the marketplace. If you’re industry doesn’t currently do affiliate launches with competitions and standings don’t forget you can be the first to introduce these ideas if you release your own product. The first time techniques like these are used is usually the most effective time, so you should aim to be an innovator in your market if there is an opportunity to do so.

If You’re New What Do You Do?

If you’re just starting out in affiliate marketing I recommend you do a couple of things -

• First focus on refining your niche and learning about your audience’s needs and wants
• Once you know the most painful problems or the strongest desires of the people you connect with, focus your list building and content strategy on meeting that need
• As you build your influence, find products that help deal with the same problems and motivations you’ve learned your audience has, and test some different promotions to see what sells
• Focus your affiliate marketing efforts on fewer products and deeper promotions – by that I mean try and become a dominant affiliate for just one or two products by doing repeat promotions and testing different formats (reviews, email marketing, podcast interviews, etc) and then use that as a point of leverage to open doors to affiliates to promote your product, once you create one to sell
• Always have your audience’s needs as a first priority, so put relationships before profits and don’t be afraid to say no (don’t be greedy for money, be greedy for helping people and you will make more money)

Each success as an affiliate will help you take a step up the ladder to more success. Don’t forget as an affiliate marketer you need to work on your ground roots marketing too so you have a constant stream of new subscribers joining your lists. Successful affiliate marketing is not just performing well during launch time and attracting new partners for your own launch, it’s about building a business that delivers value to a target market who in return pay attention to you when you do affiliate promotions.

If you have any questions about affiliate marketing please feel free to leave comment replies and I’ll do my best to respond.

Yaro Starak
Affiliate

P.S. That $1 trial offer I mentioned at the start of this article expires on Tuesday, just over 24 hours from the time I published this article. If you want to try out Adam Short’s Niche Profit Classroom offer, you have sign up now if you want to take the $1 trial -

www.nicheprofitclassroom.com

---

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“How To Start An Internet Business
& Make Your First $1,000 Online”
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Last December, Trainsignal.com maker of computer training videos, won my Affiliate Summit West charity auction for $10,000.

When they saw this years charity auction they wanted to send me a quote to let people know about what kind of exposure they got and the value:

Not only was it for such a great charity, but we received a tremendous amount of exposure last year and it was well worth the $10,000. Not only did attendees of Affiliate Summit talk about Train Signal, but online exposure has been huge.

Iman Jalali
Director of Sales & Marketing
Train Signal – IT Training Products
www.trainsignal.com
www.trainsignaltraining.com

There is only 1 day left on the Affiliate Summit East auction and as of right now its at ONLY $1,200. What a steal!!

You are getting external exposure on ShoeMoney.com and also giving to a great charity.

So go here now and bid!!!!

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

Only 1 Day Left On The Affiliate Summit Charity East Auction

“How do I find affiliate products to promote on my blog?”

Last week I spoke with a small group of bloggers here in Melbourne over a coffee. One of the topics that a number of them were interested in talking about was affiliate marketing. They were struggling with the advertising as a model to make money from their blogs and wanted to branch out and experiment with affiliate promotions on their blog.

However wanting to get into affiliate marketing and actually doing it are two different things. There are a number of challenges to overcome first.

One of these challenges is finding the right product to promoted.

Choosing the right products to promote in affiliate promotions is crucial for a number of reasons – the two main ones being:

1. Relevant Products are Key – if your blog draws an audience centered around a particular topic or demographic you’re unlikely to be able to sell products that have no relevancy to your blog’s topic.

2. The Quality of Products can Impact Your Long Term Brand – promote low quality products and you could be hurting your brand. Readers remember who they heard about products from and their trust of you and your blog will be increased or decreased by what you recommend to them.

So – choosing the right affiliate product is crucial. It not only impacts conversions and profitability but it impacts your brand and relationships with readers.

How to Find the Right Affiliate Product to Promote

A few tips and thoughts on finding affiliate programs to promote come to mind:

1. Google It – this one isn’t rocket science but it does work. If you have a Beauty Product blog google “Beauty Products Affiliate Program”. Insert your main keywords into that search and you may just find products that are relevant to your niche.
2. Look at Your Competition – what products are other people promoting in your niche. Quite often a quick glance down the sidebar of another successful blog in your niche to see what products and services they are promoting will reveal affiliate products you could promote to (and it could also point you to some relevant advertisers to promote).
3. Check out AdSense Ads – many of the AdSense ads appearing besides Google search results, on other blogs and even on your own blog are likely to be products with affiliate programs attached. Don’t click the ads on your own blog but checking out what the ads promote can reveal all kinds of potential affiliate partners. The same thing is true with other types of advertising. For example I was recently surfing on Facebook and saw an ad relevant for my blog – on clicking it I found a new product with an affiliate program that I’d not heard of before.
4. Approach Potential Affiliate Partners – this one might not work if you’re a new blog with small traffic but as your blog grows you might find yourself in a position to approach the makers of a product or service to see if they’d start some kind of affiliate program for you. I’ve done this a couple of times over the last year and it has been great. The best part of it is that you get a head start on your competition for the promotion as you’re likely to be the only person promoting it.
5. Search Affiliate networks – lastly there are quite a few affiliate networks around that list many affiliate programs. Most of these have search functions to allow you to type in keywords and find promotions relevant to your niche. Check out MarketLeverage, Clickbank, Commission Junction, PepperJam Network (disclaimer, MarketLeverage sponsors ProBlogger) and many more.
6. Search Online Stores for Products – many online stores like Amazon have affiliate programs attached to them. In general the comissions are not massive (for example Amazon’s range from as low as 4% up to 15% depending upon the type of product and how much you sell) – I guess they have narrower profit margins) – but stores like this have a massive range of products and can be a good place to start while you build traffic and find other programs.

How do you find affiliate products to promote on your blogs?

PS: this post builds upon yesterdays post – What is Affiliate Marketing?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Find Profitable Affiliate Products to Promote

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What is Affiliate Marketing?

It seems that more readers are asking this question than I previously thought.

In a recent poll here on ProBlogger I asked readers whether they’d done any affiliate marketing on their blogs. The results revealed that:

• 29% of readers regularly do it
• 24% occasionally do it
• 27% have never done affiliate marketing on their blogs
• 6% used to do it but don’t any more
• 14% don’t know what affiliate marketing is

There’s some interesting results there but it was the last category (of bloggers not knowing what affiliate marketing is) that I wanted to write this post for with the hope of answering the question. It’s pretty basic and quite beginner focused but for the 14% of you who don’t know what affiliate marketing is – here’s a brief introduction.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Perhaps the simplest way to explain affiliate marketing is that it is a way of making money online whereby you as a publisher are rewarded for helping a business by promoting their product, service or site.

There are a number of forms of these types of promotions but in most cases they involve you as a publisher earning a commission when someone follows a link on your blog to another site where they then buy something.

Other variations on this are where you earn an amount for referring a visitor who takes some kind of action – for example when they sign up for something and give an email address, where they complete a survey, where they leave a name and address etc.

Commissions are often a percentage of a sale but can also be a fixed amount per conversion.

Conversions are generally tracked when the publisher (you) uses a link with a code only being used by you embedded into it that enables the advertiser to track where conversions come from (usually by cookies). Other times an advertiser might give a publisher a ‘coupon code’ for their readers to use that helps to track conversions.

For example:  when I recently released my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook I also give people an opportunity to promote the workbook with an affiliate program whereby they could earn a 40% commission for each sale. When you sign up to become an affiliate you are given a special code unique to you that enables you to promote the workbook and make $7.98 per sale. The top affiliates earned over $2000 in the first few weeks after launch through these commissions.

• Advertisers often prefer affiliate marketing as a way to promote their products because they know they’ll only need to pay for the advertising when there’s a conversion. I knew when I started this affiliate program that while I’d earn less for each sale that having a network of affiliates promoting it would almost certainly increase overall sales levels.
• Publishers often prefer affiliate marketing because if they find a product that is relevant to their niche that earnings can go well in excess of any cost per click or cost per impression advertising campaign.

Why Affiliate Marketing Can Work Well on Blogs

Affiliate marketing isn’t the only way to make money from blogs and it won’t suit every blog/blogger (more on this below) but there are a few reasons why it can be profitable in our medium. Perhaps the biggest of these reasons is that affiliate marketing seems to work best when there’s a relationship with trust between the publisher and their readership.

I’ve found that as this trust deepens that readers are more likely to follow the recommendations that a blogger makes.

Of course this can also be a negative with affiliate marketing – promote the wrong product and trust can be broken (more on this below).

Affiliate Marketing – Easy Money?

While affiliate marketing can be incredibly lucrative it is important to know that affiliate marketing is not easy money. Most people who try it make very little as it relies upon numerous factors including:

• traffic (high traffic helps a lot)
• finding relevant products
• finding quality products
• building trust with your readers
• having a readership who is in a ‘buying mood’
• you being able to write good sales copy (and more)

There’s also some risk associated with affiliate marketing in that if you push too hard or promote products of a low quality you can actually burn readers and hurt your reputation and brand.

It’s also worth noting that affiliate marketing doesn’t work on all blogs. Some blogs are on topics where it is hard to find products to promote – other blogs attract audiences who are not in a buying frame of mind and for other blogs it just doesn’t fit with the blogger’s style or approach.

Tomorrow I want to continue the focus upon affiliate marketing with another post – this one on how to find affiliate products to promote.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

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