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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Following up on my last post about choosing affiliate programs wisely, today I wanted to warn any of my fellow promoters out there about a few programs that are to be avoided. If you read my previous article about Google sending me an email that one of my blog categories here was suspected of delivering spyware or scumware and although I was a bit peeved with Google for trying to be a virus or spyware protection agent instead of focusing on search, the actual incedent caused me to act as a responsible webmaster and investigate the possible causes in case Google wasn’t finding a “false positive”.
