By Dean Brenner
The Internet
has been making more people rich in the last 20 years or so than any other
business platform on the planet. It's truly extraordinary how easy it is to
make money online using affiliate marketing. What is affiliate marketing you
ask? The short answer is it is using you (called an affiliate) as the marketing
vehicle for the millions of products out there that need buyers.
As an affiliate marketer you are essentially a salesman selling great
products that you believe in or have an interest in (you can choose from
literally millions of affiliate products), but there are no conventional
"sales" jobs involved in selling them.
Select A Product
The first step is to select a product to promote from literally millions
of products and services that exist on the Internet. There are usually 2 types
of affiliate programs with similar yet different concepts. Both concepts are
designed to make affiliate sales but how you get there is a little different
for each.
Affiliate Program Concepts
Which one is best? They both have their place in the online marketing
arena. Each affiliate needs to make that decision for themselves as to which
concept serves their needs the best ... The one common thread both concepts
have is you will need to join whichever program you choose by providing
identifying information as to who you are (name, address, email, social security
number, etc.) and how you want to be paid (mailed check, direct deposit,
PayPal, some programs may offer others too).
Your affiliate link is how you get paid (make a commission) for
referring potential buyers to the product website. By using your affiliate link
for referrals, the product website then knows which affiliate has sent the
buyer to the website. If the potential buyer does in fact purchase a product
from that referral, the sale is tracked and credited to the referring
affiliate.
The first concept is you have a single product or service where that one
item is offered by itself. Usually the author or a reseller (someone who has
the rights granted by the product owner to sell the product themselves) offers
an affiliate program for the product. To become an affiliate you will need to
join and be assigned a unique affiliate link and password to your account. The
link will both identify you as an affiliate for that product and also identify
which affiliate you are so they know who to pay for a sale. You will need to
keep track of what affiliate link goes with each product you sign up for as
each product will have a different affiliate link.
The second concept is having one affiliate program wrapped around
numerous individual products and/or services. This type of affiliate program
has numerous advantages over the single product program:
- Only one account for all commissions to accumulate (this is a huge
advantage as you will see a little later)
- One account, one password to keep track of for numerous products
and services
- Numerous products and services to promote with one account
- New products are added regularly into the one account
- High volume activity and usually a support staff exists which
provides quicker support responses
- No need to worry about getting paid. These sites exist by keeping
their affiliates happy. This may or may not be the case for an individual
running an affiliate program
"Down Side" to Affiliate Programs
There are couple of "down side" points to make about affiliate
marketing. Payments for credited referral sales (earned commissions) are
usually not paid right away. There are good reasons for this practice by those
running affiliate programs:
- When a sale is made at a website, the buyer is usually given a
money-back guarantee period of time, usually 30 days, to use and evaluate
the product to make sure it meets the users needs. If the buyer requests a
refund of the purchase, then the affiliate also loses their commission for
the sale. Payments to the affiliate are usually delayed until after the
refund period has expired so the product owner is not "left holding
the bag" for already paying a commission on a sale that has now been
refunded.
- Commissions are usually paid on a regular payment cycle, normally
monthly. What you earn in one payment cycle is usually not paid until the
next payment cycle. This way all commission payments can be handled at one
time and is not a full time job paying daily or even weekly.
The main "down side" to affiliate marketing is that most, if
not all, affiliate programs set a minimum dollar amount you must reach in
commissions before they will cut you a payment. This usually ranges from $20 -
$50 or more in some cases. Breaking this down in simple, easy to understand
terms is best served by an example.
Say for example you sign up for an affiliate program that has a $30
minimum payout level and the product sells for $49 with a 50% commission. You
do all of your work and generate a sale from your affiliate link. OK, you have
made a $24.50 commission (it will actually be a little less as you are paid on
the net sale, after all processing expenses are paid) ... You get that paid to
you on the next payment cycle, right? Not exactly ... You see, your commission
does not reach the $30 minimum payout the program sets before they will incur
the expense of cutting you a payment.
So what now? Well, you have to wait until you make another sale to get
you over the minimum before you get your commission on the first sale. This
could actually carry over for months before you actually get paid. In some
case, you may never reach the minimum if you do not make more than one sale. In
that case, your commission remains in "limbo" forever.
And to make matters worse, this minimum payout level applies to each
individual product for which you are an affiliate. Different products are owned
by different people and the earned commissions for all products do NOT
accumulate to get you over any minimum payout level.
Any minimum payout level problem is solved when using affiliate sites
instead of individual affiliate programs (this is the huge advantage referenced
earlier). Each sale you make under the umbrella of the affiliate site is
accumulated into one qualifying pool so you only have to make cumulative
commissions to meet the minimum payout level to get paid.
To qualify for your commissions, you could make sales of 2 different
products and the earned commissions from both are combined for you to reach the
minimum payout level. Yes, this is huge ... Instead of having 10 different
sales individually setting in 10 different affiliate programs, none of which
meet the minimum for you to get paid, now you have those 10 sales commissions
added together to get you over the minimum payout level and now you get paid
for all 10. I hope you see the huge advantage the umbrella type of affiliate
programs offer.
How To Get Your Affiliate Link Online
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that unlike a salesman in the real
world, you are not trying to convince anyone of anything. You just register a
domain (which is recommended but not required) and put up a product review
minisite, a one page website that describes and promotes all the features and
benefits of the product being promoted.
Although a product review site is recommended for the best results, it
does require that you do have some web space on the Internet. Hosting accounts
are available for just a few dollars a month so this should be within anyone's
reach that has a true desire to be an affiliate. Many review sites can be
placed on one hosting account. In fact you could well have thousands of review
sites on one hosting account.
If you do not want to create product review sites, there are
alternatives. Some affiliate sites offer you pre-made products and websites and
are available for free for your use if you join their affiliate program.
Promoting Your Product
The seller in essence does all the conversion work; you just have to
send targeted traffic to the sales page.
Here are a few ways to promote your affiliate link:
- Article Marketing: Write an article describing the features and
benefits of the product
- eMail Marketing: Use your article as an advertisement in ezines or
mailing lists
- Classified Ads: These are available all over the Internet for free
- Pay Per Click Marketing: Choose the best place for your ads
- Many of the larger affiliate sites offer training and promotional
materials for your use for free
You are only limited by your imagination on how to market your affiliate
link. Be creative. Step "outside the box" and create a new way that
works for you. You can also research Online Marketing by searching the
Internet. Online Marketing is a huge field and there are tons of informational
products already written on the subject. Take advantage of that and you are on
your way to financial freedom.
Making Money
Affiliate marketing is all about making money for both parties and often
the commissions on sales (buyers you send to the site through your affiliate
link) are 50% or higher! Some of the better affiliate programs pay as high as
an 80% commission on every sale you make.
Although the product owner handles the product delivery, customer
service and virtually everything else beyond your referring targeted potential
buyers to them, including overhead, you get paid the same amount if not more as
they do on the sale! Your only overhead is your domain (usually under $10 a
year) and web space (a few dollars per month) if you decide to do review sites.
You can use the many free advertising venues such as online classified
ads, article submission sites and more to refer traffic to your affiliate link
site, however you would be missing out on building a much higher income
potential because you would not be able to push these articles up in the search
engine rankings as easily as if you had a domain. Getting traffic from search
engines is the gold mine of affiliate marketing!
Thank you for your time and interest in learning more about affiliate
marketing. Choose your affiliate programs and products carefully and wisely. We
hope we have provided some insight into what to expect if you decide to enter
the affiliate marketing arena. We wish you the best in planning your strategies
and implementing your plan.
Just remember, if you keep doing what you are doing now, you can expect
to keep getting the same results. We urge you to challenge yourself, move off
your comfort zone and try something new. It can be very rewarding both in
satisfaction and financially...
You do not have to want to become a full time marketer to enjoy
affiliate marketing. Use it for a little extra Christmas money or to put a
little spending money in your pocket you can just blow on something you have
been wanting.
Step "outside the box" and give it your best shot.
All of the affiliate program features mentioned in this article (and
many, many more) are available at the Affiliate Success For Life
[http://www.affiliate-success-for-life.com] website. We provide hundreds of
products for affiliates to choose from in over 150+ categories. Pick one, pick
them all. They are sitting there waiting for you to join us and begin or expand
your affiliate marketing with a top-notch affiliate provider. We add products
regularly as well as a continually expanding list of features such as pre-made
websites, training, ad tracking, affiliate discounts, a product storefront and
free promotional resources. Optional add on features such as add your picture,
pay per click advertising and promotional ad writing. We have a unique and
different program that we challenge you to find anywhere else on the Internet.
We will even compensate you for writing promotional ads if you are so inclined
or post your testimonial to our home page for some free advertising for you. We
encourage our affiliates to offer suggestions on how to make things better for
everyone ... and yes, we do listen. Come by and give us a try, we think you
will like what you find...
Dean Brenner is the author, webmaster and owner of the Affiliate Success
For Life website, a member of the BWS Group Family of Websites which
consists of over 1000+ individual digital product, software, custom and
proprietary websites and monetized blogs. He has been in the web development
and consulting arena since 1984, both in the corporate and private sectors,
building and/or maintaining all kinds of database driven and dynamically created
websites for corporations as well as private companies and individuals using
Microsoft development tools on the Windows platform. He is now self employed
and works privately in development and consulting from his home office.
Article Source: EzineArticles expert=Dean Brenner
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