A discussion of earning with the Best Affiliate Programs, SEO, Wordpress Blogging and General Motivational Ideas for Internet Publishers and Affiliate Marketers.

Affiliate marketing is just like any other business in that it has it’s ups and downs, is dictated to by economic cycles and can be hit or miss depending on the consumer spending. While in the US, we are currently experiencing a downturn in the economy and consumer spending is driving many merchants to despair, there are always niches to be exploited by clever marketers if you apply a little bit of creativity and think outside the box.

In preparation for this article, I was inspired by Kris Jones of PepperJam Network’s incredible article Affiliate Marketing - Thinking Outside the Box. Kris goes into detail with several innovative ideas he and others have used in the past to turn incredible profits by finding untapped niches by *not* following what everybody else is doing but by following gut instinct.

One example Kris shares is his experience marketing “UGG Australia Boots” in November 2006. For those who don’t know what UGG boots are, they’re the absolutely most ugly boots that are popular with teenage girls. You know, those fuzzy wuzzy boots that Bam Margera’s wife Missy loves and although Bam threw Missy’s UGG boots in the fireplace, he quickly replaced them. Jessica Simpson has also been seen sporting UGG boots in the middle of the summer when she was out grocery shopping with Tony Romo. Anyway, UGG boots are a very popular item and Kris noticed they sell the best in the winter when there is a high demand for them. Additionally, UGG boots are not cheap. Kris netted over $15,000 profit from his ad campaign marketing these luxury items that will sell even when the economy is poor because girls just want to have fun, even when they can’t afford it.

Kris also brings up the point that he is a big believer that playing seasonality, holidays and other timeframes that generally lend themselves to sales and marketing. With that knowledge in hand, it’s easy to see how thinking outside the box while paying attention to the world around you can result in a successful campaign.

While the vast majority of affiliate marketers are spinning their wheels trying to cut a piece out of the most popular niches such as mesothelioma, mortgages, poker, ringtones and online dating, the easy money lies in taking a fresh perspective and evaluating which offers might be the easiest to pitch to consumers. Remember, affiliate marketing is sales, there’s no way around it but the advantage we affiliate marketers have is that we can pick and choose whatever offers we feel comfortable with promoting.

As with Kris Jones, I tend to prefer finding opportunity through promoting trusted products or services. As much as I hear the “super affiliates” talking about how much money they make through CPA networks such as Azoogle or Copeac by promoting those scammy “Get a Free Laptop” or “Get a Free Bahamas Vacation” offers, I prefer to avoid those type of offerings. I’m not condescending on marketers profiting from these offers, but for my ethics, promoting offers where internet noobs are duped into giving their personal information to hordes of rabid marketers for a freebie they will never get is just something I want no part of.

So back to Kris again, his philospohy runs true with mine. Give people what they really want, not something they don’t need or something that will jade their experience to the internet marketplace in the future. Equally important is to adequately check out the offers you intend to promote and ask yourself “Would I buy this product or service” and more importantly “Would I sell this pitch to my friends and family” ? If you answer “no” to either of those questions, then an offer is not worth wasting your time on.

Now onto the part you’re all waiting for, the recession proof niche marketing tips. Drum roll please…

1.) Healthcare and Dental Care - It’s quite obvious why this niche is at the top of the list. In a poor economy, where many people are in between jobs, the one thing people don’t want to lose is healthcare for their family and especially for their children. There are a number of programs available to promote but here are a few that have been working well for me :

• DentalPlans.com - Bringing individuals, families and groups affordable and comprehensive discount dental plans. Their offering through PepperJam Network pays a whopping $47.50 per lead and with a 120 day tracking cookie, this one is unstoppable.
• Guaranteed Issue Health Insurance - Plans that start at $99 for the whole family. The program pays $4.50 per lead and with a 45 day tracking cookie, this one can really pay off.

2.) eBay - Yes, I know you’re thinking I’m crazy but think about it. eBay is a recession proof marketplace because even if the number of sales are down, it’s always going to exist as the premiere place for people to sell their belongings to the highest bidder. eBay’s affiliate program is lucrative in that it not only pays you for people who signup using your affiliate link, you can also earn for any auction purchases people make through your link.

3.) Guaranteed Approval Credit Cards - No matter what shape the economy is in, people are always going to be applying for credit cards even when the the interest rate is. Sure, savvy consumers will look for a low rate but when marketing on the internet, we’re looking for impulsive consumers and guaranteed credit cards are a snap to promote. My personal favorites are :

• First Universal Platinum - First Universal Platinum has the credit card marketing game downpat. All you have to dois turn traffic at their landing pages and you’re in the money. Their offering through PepperJam Network pays $22.30 per lead and the 45 day tracking cookie is a dream for promoters.
• MyFreedom Credit Cards - Pairs consumers with credit cards offers that are suitable for them. The program is offered through NeverblueAds and pays $1.15 per lead but converts after first page submit of first name, last name, email, verify email, and self credit rating. Easy Money.

If you’re not signed up to promote offers for Pepperjam Network, Neverblue Ads or Market Leverage, you can signup through the links below.

• Join Pepperjam Network today!
• Join Neverblue Ads today!
• Join Market Leverage today!

         

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Cloaking your affililate links is a recommended practice for anybody seriously involved in affiliate marketing. Not only will affiliate link cloaking help prevent people from stealing your commissions, it can also allow a secondary mechanism to track the links going out of your site without completely relying on the affiliate program’s internal tracking. Most affiliate networks permit url cloaking and ClickBank actually encourages it to prevent hi-jacking of affiliate commissions. While there are many ways to handle affiliate link cloaking, I personally have found that using a PHP file to redirect requests is the simplest yet most effective method to accomplish this task.

Here’s how I handle affililiate link cloaking…

Create a directory named “out” in the root of your website and create a file named “index.php” with the following code :

if ( empty( $_GET['at'] ) ){
    // this is the default link if no destination is specified
    $link = "http://YourClickbankID.DefaultProgramID.hop.clickbank.net/";
}else{
    if ( $_GET['at'] == 'Program1' ){
        $link = "http://YourClickbankID.Program-1-ID.hop.clickbank.net";
    }elseif ( $_GET['at'] == "Program2" ){
        $link = "http://YourClickbankID.Program-2-ID.hop.clickbank.net";
    }

}

Note: If you have trouble copy and pasting the code above into your site, here’s a text file with the code in it.

As you can see from the example above, you will specify a default link in case there is no program specified and then you will specify two more links to whatever programs you are promoting. If you want, you can always add more program links by simply adding another “elseif” switch at the end of the second “if” statement. The “header” function causes the actual redirect to whatever url is specified in $link, so to call your cloaked link to Program1, all you have to do is write your url as follows :

http://www.mysite.com/out/?at=Program1

Which will send your visitor to :

http://YourClickbankID.Program-1-ID.hop.clickbank.net

This is the simplest method of cloaking a ClickBank affiliate link and it can be used to cloak any affiliate links whether it be PepperJam, NeverBlueAds, CJ or any CPA network that uses hop style links. You can see this script in action by clicking the Fat Rich Pig or Adwords Profits links on the sidebar of this blog.

As I stated in the beginning of this post, if you want to add additional tracking to your cloaked links, you can always create a MySQL database and populate it with data every time somebody clicks one of the cloaked links. Data you might store can be the page the link came from, the IP address of the person who clicked, the date and time of the click, the program the visitor clicked to and the affiliate network the click went to. This is especially useful if you have several sites or blogs and you’d like to track them all against the various affiliate networks you might be using. Note: To do this, you must add your code before the actual redirect happens in the “header” command.

For anybody interested in the advanced tracking script, please subscribe to my RSS feed via email and I will send you a copy free of charge. Please leave a comment on this post if you have any questions and I’ll try to help you out as best I can.

Until next time…

Happy Publishing,
Dave

         

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When I started this blog a year and a half ago, I knew that I was in for the long haul and in that time I’ve seen numerous bloggers make a big splash in the scene and then disappear as quickly as they entered. While I’ve chosen to keep a low profile and adopt a “slow and steady wins the race” mentality, it’s still interesting to watch the thundering herd of moneymaker bloggers migrate like sheep in search of greener pastures only to find out they’ve been left stranded in the desert with no shepherd to guide them home.

For the most part, there are common elements to success and conversely there are common elements that produce failure. While nothing in life is absolute or guaranteed, the following seven character traits are generally considered common shortcomings found in every washout story.

1. Patience is a virtue

- In the affiliate marketing world, patience is perhaps one of the most essential character traits you can posess. I routinely see people searching for “quick fixes” to gain traffic, backlinks, SERPS and pagerank without realizing that these things take time to develop. As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in one day”, in affiliate marketing it’s no different. Overnight success stories are few and far between but on the contrary, those who exhibit patience and work tirelessly to produce their visions usually meet with eventual success.

2. Give up too easily

- All too often, when faced with adversity or challenges beyond expectations many people will throw in the towel and walk away from something before they’ve ever really begun. Perseverance is mission critical when attempting to make a career of affiliate marketing. The ability to reinvent your strategy when you’ve hit a brick wall is also pertinent to a successful business. Charles Goodyear, the inventor of modern rubber vulcanization, spent years of failure and a creditor even had him arrested and thrown into prison before he came to a semi-accidental discovery that he eventually patented. Had he given up on his dream, we might still be driving on wooden wheels.

3. No Self Discipline

- A methodical approach to anything in life will usually yield the intended results but if you lack foundation, consistency and an overall gameplan, you’re efforts will usually go unrewarded. Contrary to what any of the “get rich quick” gurus try to sell you, the truth is affiliate marketing is a time consuming job. When you are responsible for setting your own work hours, nobody is going to be there to make sure you punched the time-clock or if you completed your tasks at hand. A diligent approach such as making “thing to do today” lists and following them is essential for reaching both long term and short term goals.

4. Lack of Concentration

- So many novice affiliate marketers waste hours of valuable time jumping from one idea to another thinking they are going to find the magic formula to success. They read every affiliate marketing guru’s blog and spend sleepless nights trying to duplicate the same success John Chow or Shoemoney claim they have but in the end, all they have to show for it is bloodshot eyes and a sense of unfufillment. Concentration is essential to the completion of tasks. Without it, you can wander the web forever without every having a penny for your thoughts.

5. Target Popular Niches

- Many novices make the mistake of targeting too wide of a niche in their affiliate marketing efforts. Generally speaking, if you go to some keyword tracker application and search for the top keywords and phrases, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to conquer one of the more popular, overpopluated niches. Targeting several long tail keywords and alternate phrases can produce more fruitful results than racking your brains trying to figure out how to find your place in the widest niche. As the old saying goes, “It’s better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond” and mind you, the big ponds on the internet are brackish waters full of sharks and pirhanas who will eat you alive if you don’t swim fast enough or have a natural self-defense mechanism.

6. Can’t Close Sales

- Anybody who tries to sell you on the idea that affiliate marketing requires no knowledge of sales is either a clever salesperson, pulling a fast one or they’re sadly misinformed. Closing sales in the real world is essentially the same process as closing sales on the internet. The only difference being, in the real world, a good salesman can read the body language of a potential customer while using charisma and persuasion to close a sale. On the internet, affiliate marketers must be charasmatic and persuasive just as in the real world, except you can’t read a potential customers body language and see how they are reacting to your pitch so you can make adjustments. Honesty, trust and a good reputation are the most important traits if you are going to have people pay attention to you when you’re making a sales pitch on the internet.

7. Never Learn From Mistakes

- Learning from your mistakes is possibly the most important factor in attaining your goals and aspirations. Sometimes it’s from those mistakes that we find the greatest revelations which in turn lead us to our greatest accomplishments. Never be afraid to fall down and pick yourself back up again. It’s all part of the learning process and no matter what people say, everybody who achieves any modicum of success has picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and started all over again.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. If you’re serious about affiliate marketing, please take a moment and subscribe to my RSS feed to keep informed of what the wonderful world of affiliate marketing has in store for all of us who choose to make our living in the world wide web’s most cut-throat industry.

Peace Out,
Dave

         

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Affiliate programs are a fantastic way to make a residual income utilizing the power of the internet, but I would be lying if I told you that finding success in the affiliate marketing industry could be accomplished with little or no effort.

Another common misconceptions is that affiliate marketing can be automated, not unlike a virtual money-making machine. The truth is, promotion and marketing are hard work but if you’re the type of person who loves a real challenge, maybe you might be cut out for this frustrating yet fast paced industry.

While most fledgling promoters go into the field thinking it’s all about driving traffic to your website, the real battle is finding legitimate, honest programs or services worth promoting to earn commissions. You’ll also want to be certain a vendor you are promoting has a satisfactory history of paying affiliates on time and as promised.

There are countless facets to achieving success through affiliate marketing but in this article I’m going to briefly touch on several fundamental concepts considered essential when choosing to promote or not to promote a particular affiliate program.

#1 - “Supply and Demand” drives the global marketplace

The first thing you need to ask yourself when choosing a program - “Is there a demand for this product and can the vendor keep supplying the demand?” To put it simply, do you think that a lot of people would want the service or product and would you personally buy it? Do you know what type of people would be interested in it and/or where to find them? Do you have insight on how you will reach those people and get them to respond to you efforts by purchasing the product which will earn you a commission? If you think that the internet is just some great big place that all you have to do is spam your ad to a few select sources to turn a profit, you’re sadly mistaken.

#2 - Conversion, Conversion, Conversion

Do you think the vendor’s sales page for the product itself will convert a sufficient amount of your leads into buyers? This is about numbers. If you are spending money or elbow grease to bring visitors to your pitch page, only to pass them to the final sales page, does it make the product and the offer look enticing enough that you would buy it? Other considerations are the ease with which potential customers can navigate the website and is the purchase process secure and professional. Is there a detailed FAQ and are all potential questions answered honestly on the vendor’s site. When you look at the sales page, do you trust your own consumer instinct with the vendor’s final pitch? If you feel as if you could be sold on this product and if you would feel secure doing business with the vendor, you’re probably ready to get started promoting.

#3 - Commission vs. Conversion?

Commission rates are irrelevant due the fact that sometimes a program that offers a higher return can have a poor conversion rate over the long run. Factors that influence affiliate sales are : the availability of marketing materials for promoters and most imporantly lack quality in the product or service. Most marketers initially lament “is the commission rate high enough?” but the overall commission rate is only a small factor defining the potential marketability. Digital products (such as e-books) usually offer huge commissions (50% and up) but they have high rates of returns (which you, as the affiliate, lose commission when a digital product is returned). Physical products (the ones that need to be shipped to the customer) usually pay 5-10% per commission but have a higher true conversion rate because returns on tangible goods occur at a much lower rate than digital products. Paying attention to the dollar amount that you’ll be earning per sale (ie: a 10% commission on a $200 product equals a 50% commission on a $40 product) is essential to evaluating the cost of your promotional efforts versus gross earnings to reach your net revenue. While they may seem to be identical on the surface, if the $200 product required 100,000 page impressions to convert and the $40 product required 4,000 impressions to convert, you can see the law of averages is in favour of the second product as being a more productive promotion.

#4 - Quality or Hype ? It’s YOUR reputation on the line.

Do you believe in the product? Would you be proud to promote it? No matter how “hot” and lucrative an offering may seem, if you have any reservations about the product or service’s quality, purpose or it’s industry, you will probably be better off not promoting it. Your online reputation depends on an inumerable amount of factors, but honesty is the #1 quality that will win you a loyal following. Engaging in any sort of business or doing something that does not feel honest is not only going to be a failure from the start, it could also involve you in unwanted personal and business liabilities that you might regret in the end.

As a promoter, putting your reputation on the line each and every time you turn your audience onto a new program, product or service is a given. In this industry, respect is not only something you must earn, respect is a commodity that must be maintained. Promoters and marketers are in a constant morale struggle between making a quick buck “at the moment” which could damage your reputation down the line. On the flip side, taking the time to build a residual income based on an impeccable reputation will almost always yield favorable results. As an example, You’ll never find this blog promoting opaque “get rich quick” programs like Ty Coughlin’s “Reverse Funnel System”, Agloco, Yuwie or other shady, borderline pyramid schemes and potential scams. As an affiliate publisher, promoter and marketer for the better part of a decade, I’ve lost a lot of sleep, time, blood, sweat, tears and money on the learning process but the experience has taught a valuable lesson which is “slow and steady wins the race”. This is why you will often hear me extolling the virtues of established affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates and Commission Junction (particularly the eBay affiliate program) and examining the transparency of any questionable programs.

#5 - Tracking is Essential

When promoting affiliate programs, keeping track of all your work in terms of clicks, conversions and commissions is a priority. Not to mention, keeping track of any expenses you might have occurred for a particular campaign. In the long run, it’s best to work with well established programs that have CSV exportable reports that allow you import your performance data into a spreadsheet or tracking software to monitor your results. Many of the most popular programs such as Commission Junction, Google Adsense, PepperJam, Amazon Associates and even Bidvertiser provide a significant amount of tracking information available in a variety of formats. The reason tracking is so essential is because you will want to know “what” works “where” in order to maximize your earnings. If something works, you will want to focus more effort on that particular niche and if something isn’t working at all, you’ll want to pull it from your roster.

While I’ve glossed over some of the most basic yet essential topics here, each entrepreneur learns to eventually make experienced descisions for themselves based on their efforts which is the best policy for increasing earnings across the board.

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