Affiliate Marketing Success Stories - Raising an Affiliate Program Cash Cow (Part 2)

The following interview with Shawn Collins, a prominent expert in the

affiliate marketing field, should prove instructive to the reader. Shawn

has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the field and now runs his own affiliate

program management and consulting firm. As this interview is inherently

limited in scope, one is encouraged to read more about Shawn's experiences

in the field and the advice he dispenses through his books, conferences,

blog, articles, reports, and weekly radio show. The reader can also meet

Shawn at the Affiliate Summit, a "can't miss" conference for those

interested in excelling in the competitive world of affiliate marketing.

Q. Shawn, how would you describe your initial experiences with affiliate

marketing?

A. It was back in 1997. I had a dial-up account on AOL, a 14.4 modem and

a desire to make more money. At the time, I didn't know a thing about

creating websites, marketing, etc. But I went through a tutorial at AOL on

writing HTML and picked up the basics. Then, I created a hideous, single

page site about New York City and put up some Amazon links. I never earned

a cent on that site.

Q. What growing pains did you endure at first? What were the biggest

obstacles and challenges from that period of time?

A. Back then, there was a monopoly on registering domains, and it cost

$35 a year. At the time, that was a bit prohibitive for me (I didn't

realize what a good investment a short name would be). That was a trend -

an unwillingness to invest in my affiliate efforts. I was going the free

route with tools, hosting, etc. That definitely delayed my progress.

Q. What was your first "Ah-ha" moment? How did you incorporate the

lesson learned into your affiliate marketing business?

A. The first time I got my reporting via email from Amazon with

information on commission earned. Back then, there was no option to login

to an interface - just a periodic email with affiliate stats. When I

realized it was real that I could earn money this way, I was excited and

motivated. This persuaded me that I was wasting my time working in

magazine publishing - it was time for me to get into a line of work that

was stimulating and rewarding.

With my limited affiliate marketing experience, I managed to get a job

with a start-up in 1997 called Medsite.com, and I bluffed my way into

running the affiliate program there. I've enjoyed my work ever since.

Q. Without mentioning names, have you joined affiliate programs that did

not keep their promises and/or provide appropriate compensation? What

measures did you take when confronted with this situation and what advice

can you give others to avoid this circumstance?

A. Lots of affiliate programs lie in their recruiting efforts - they

talk about how easy it is to earn commission from them. That's simply not

true - it's not easy. I just don't pay attention to most recruiting

efforts from affiliate programs. I would encourage affiliates to ignore

proclamations of easy earnings and high EPCs - the most important thing is

to test everything yourself and promote what works for you.

Q. How has affiliate marketing changed in the last seven years? What

strategies would you implement now that you would not or could not do

years ago?

A. The industry has matured greatly. Seven years ago, many affiliate

marketers were content sites which relied on 468x60 banners. The analytics

were primitive and fewer companies offered affiliate programs.

Now, the industry is so diversified. Essentially, any way to market online

is being leveraged by affiliates... including comparison shopping,

domaining, video, SEO, e-mail, social networks, PPC, rewards programs,

etc.

If I could turn back time, I would have started up multiple niche

community sites back then for popular topics. By now, if nurtured they

would have grown nicely and become lucrative affiliate sites.

Q. If one is gifted marketing an affiliate product or service, is it

likely that this individual can effectively market his/her own products or

services? Should people look into developing their own items while

marketing or instead of marketing others' products/services?

A. I'd say anything that is already selling online can be effectively

marketed through an affiliate program. Selling your own products or

services can certainly provide more rewards in the best case scenario, but

then you've got a lot more risk, too.

If somebody has the infrastructure and know-how to sell a certain product

or service, I'd say to go for it. But don't take uncalculated risks.

Q. What are crucial mistakes that newbies tend to commit?

A. Lack of investment and understanding. It's really difficult to

succeed in affiliate marketing if you are unwilling to spend the time and

money required to develop a long-term strategy. And affiliate marketing is

most certainly not a quick endeavor - it takes patience to endure and

succeed.

Q. What are some of the creative (perhaps seldom used) strategies to

employ in the affiliate marketing field?

A. Simply going beyond the banner. There are a lot of exciting

opportunities out there with Web 2.0. It's just a matter of figuring out a

unique angle.

Q. How long does it realistically take to build a full-time income with

affiliate marketing, assuming "full-time commitment"?

A. I don't think you can qualify and quantify passion. And to me,

passion is an essential ingredient in affiliate marketing success. Also,

there are so many variables, like the size of a given vertical, the

margins involved, competition, etc.

Q. Is it easier to build income from this type of marketing now or was

it easier years ago? (Please consider competition, Internet usage, advent

of AdWords and Pay Per Click, etc.)

A. It was never easy. There was certainly less competition in the past,

but also less in the way of options of advertisers to choose and methods

to promote them. Plus, there is the continuing growth of ecommerce. I

think the opportunities for success are just as healthy now as they were

years ago.

Q. While I know that you do not recommend any particular affiliate

marketing programs, in your estimation, what are the "hottest fields?"

A. The "hottest fields" are a slippery slope. They change over time. I

think the hottest field for any given person should be the area that

interests them most. You can certainly go out there as a mercenary and

promote the most lucrative thing at the moment, like ringtones or debt

consolidation, but I suggest going with a long-term plan in an area that

interests you.

Q. Is there any affiliate marketing software that is a "must" when one

pursues an affiliate marketing venture?

A. This really depends on the type of affiliate. There are software

programs that help optimize affiliate efforts for different affiliates.

For instance, if you're working with data feeds, you should check out

WebMerge.

Q. What are your views concerning affiliate marketing networks such as

LinkShare and Commission Junction?

A. I think they're the backbone of the industry. The affiliate networks

account for the majority of large affiliate programs, and they also

provide a level of convenience in that you can consolidate a lot of your

activity under a few logins.

I would like to see them work together to establish standards. For

instance, there is a lack of standards in data feeds, which is a challenge

for the folks using them.

Q. Can any absolute statements be made regarding the most lucrative type

of affiliate marketing payment system (e.g pay per sale, pay per click,

etc.)?

A. In general, CPA seems to be more profitable, especially offers for

products and services that are not physical items.

Q. What influence, if any, will blogs make on the affiliate marketing

landscape?

A. I think some are influential in the way networks, merchants and

affiliates operate. For instance, Jangro.com is considered to have had an

impact in the decision by Commission Junction to change their plans on the

Link Management Initiative (LMI).

Q. What are, statistically, the best avenues to market an affiliate

program?

A. It depends on the vertical. Email and PPC work well for some CPA

offers, while an established web presence can be more important for

selling goods on a revenue share.

Q. Do you see any future trends in the affiliate marketing field?

A. Smaller affiliate programs. Affiliate managers are focusing on

working more closely with fewer affiliates. Also, I think we'll see an

increasing number of affiliates embrace the opportunities out there with

Web 2.0 and innovate with the new tools that roll out.

Q. What current projects are you undertaking in affiliate marketing, including

your work with the Affiliate Summit?

A. My main focus is Affiliate Summit, the largest affiliate marketing

conference. Our last show had over 2,000 this past January in Las Vegas.

We also have events scheduled in Miami (July 8-10) and London (September

28) this year.

Additionally, I provide affiliate management and consulting services as

Shawn Collins Consulting, and I publish an annual report on affiliate

marketing benchmarks called AffStat.

I also have a blog at http://blog.affiliatetip.com where I post daily

about issues in affiliate marketing. And I'm the co-host with Lisa

Picarille, Editor-in-Chief at Revenue Magazine, for the weekly show,

Affiliate Thing, on WebmasterRadio.FM.

Q. What do you attribute your affiliate marketing success to (e.g.,

building content, writing articles, following footsteps of a mentor, forum

participation, etc.)? Please include any last words of advice for one who

aspires to succeed/excel in the affiliate marketing field.

A. It's all about dedication, tenacity, and relationships. I don't look

at my affiliate marketing activity as a job, but rather a fun, profitable

hobby. Over the decade I've been involved in the industry, there are way

too many factors to list that have contributed to my success. But I'd say

the most important of all is to constantly endeavor to learn from others.

_____________________

Conclusion - Do's and Don'ts of successful affiliates

Analyzing the success stories, we may conclude the following do's and

don'ts of being a successful affiliate:

Do's

Build a useful website. Visitors must gain some benefit by visiting

your site.Retain visitors through unique content or adding your "personal

touch." Provide something unique / personal on a consistent basis so that

visitors will be motivated to revisit your site.Sign up with a known and established affiliate program. They have

their tracking systems updated and so you can be rest assured that you

will get your payments.Market your affiliate program so that you can increase the number of

visitors who see your affiliate offering.Optimize your website so that you get a high ranking in natural search

engines.Know your competition. You have to provide something better than

them.Choose the advertisement model that is in line with your overall

business model.Launch your site for some time, before joining any program. Good

affiliate programs may like to see your site and study the traffic before

enrolling you.Look for outside help. You may employ skilled people.Use blogs and RSS feeds for promotion.Remain active in your industry. You must know the latest trends and

needs of visitors.

Don'ts

Join just any affiliate program. Many affiliate programs are outright

frauds.Ignore your competition. They are the best evaluators of your

products/services.Get obsolete. Update your content regularly.Rely only on banner ads. Experiment with all types of

advertisements.Waste time. Be the first to capture any new opportunity.Encourage spamming. You will get blacklisted.

With successful identification of customer needs, providing a way to

fulfill those needs, and collaborating with established affiliate

programs, it is possible to create your own affiliate success story. You

just need to manifest a methodical, patient approach and perform lots of

hard work. But raising an affiliate program cash cow is certainly worth

the effort!

Author, Andy Lax, is an account manager at IntelliCollect ? a merchant account company that provides merchants with credit card processing and electronic check processing capability. This credit card processing company, http://www.intelli-collect.com, offers the best rates, exemplary service and their own potentially lucrative merchant account affiliate program http://www.intelli-collect.com/affiliates.html

Online Affiliated Marketing

Online Affiliate Marketing is a revenue sharing venture between a website owner and an online merchant. The website owner will place advertisements on his websites to either help sell the merchant's products or to send potential customers to the merchant's website, all in exchange for a share of the profits.

Affiliate Marketing Program

An affiliate marketing program is sometimes called an affiliate program, but also may be referred to as a pay-for-performance program or an associate program. An affiliate program is a marketing tool for the e-business that operates it, called merchant or advertiser and a source of revenue for the e-business that participates in it, called an affiliate or associate or publisher.

There are three ways to earn money through affiliate marketing:

1) Pay per Click or Cost-per-click affiliate programs: Every time a potential customer leaves the affiliate website by "clicking" on the link leading to the merchant's website, a certain amount of money is deposited in the affiliate's account. This amount can be pennies or dollars depending on the product and amount of the commission.

2) Pay per Lead or Cost-per-lead affiliate programs: The merchant pays the affiliate a set fee for each visitor who clicks through and takes and action at the merchant's site, such as completing an online survey, registering at the site, or opting-in to receive e-mail.

3) Pay per Sale or Cost-per-sale affiliate programs: Every time a sale is made as a result of advertising on the affiliate's website, a percentage, or commission, is deposited into the affiliate's account.

The Amazon Story

The world's biggest bookstore has one of the most successful examples of an affiliate program (called their associate program). Amazon now has well over 1 million affiliates! That is over 1 million websites actively promoting their products every single second of every single day. Amazon generates over 40% of its revenue through its affiliates program. That is over $3 billion in revenue every single year! As another (somewhat humble by comparison) example, Zeald generates over 50% of its revenue using its own unique affiliates program. Admittedly, not quite billions of dollars but that is definitely millions of dollars of revenue every single year.

Thousands of diverse e-businesses operate affiliate programs: E.g. barnes&nobale, dell,1-800-flowers, rackspace managed hosting etc.

Affiliate Programs as a Marketing Tool

The two major Advantages to merchant

1. Tie marketing effort directly to a lead or sales.

2. The merchant pays only for results.

The two major Advantages to affiliate

1. Additional source of revenue for affiliate who also sells products/services

2. Primary source of revenue for affiliate who offers entertainment or information

Two Approaches to Operating a Successful Affiliate Marketing

1. Acquire a huge and affiliate membership. e.g. The Amazon associates programs have over 1 million members as diverse as:

- RVPart - Sells parts for recreational vehicles and motor homes.

- Dilbert - Site for view cartoons, play games, send electronic greeting cards etc

- Books for Managers - Site for business reviews and lists of the currant top-selling business-related books provided by Business week, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and other publications.

- HaperCollins - Its site to promote its authors and their books. However, like many book publishers. HaperCollins sells its books through bookstores and not directly to the public.

2. Acquire a smaller number of highly effective affiliates that have a high volume of website traffic and offer web page content, products and services that are directly related to the merchant's products and services.

Affiliate Programs as a Revenue Source

Participating in an affiliate program and then getting the most out of your participation involves:

- Selecting the appropriate merchant and affiliate program for your e-business

- Understand the terms of the affiliate agreement

- Add custom links to merchant's site from affiliate Web pages

- Build traffic at affiliate site to increase click-troughs to merchant site.

Top 10 Tips for Choosing the Affiliate Program That Is Right for You

1. You have to identify a product or service for which there is a need. The product should be such that you would love and enjoy promoting it. You could start by searching for "Affiliate Programs" in the Search Engines.

2. The product or service should be relevant to your website.

3. It is always wise to join an affiliate program that is long standing, safe and secure and has a good reputation in the Internet world. This can be easily verified from the Better Business Bureau or other similar organizations. Visits to Forums and Discussion Groups will also provide you with a lot of useful information.

4. Most affiliate program providers provide a commission of 5% to 50%. The commission you earn for the sale of a product is your main income. So while choosing an affiliate program you should study the commission paid out and decide on a program that pays at least 35% for you to run your business successfully.

5. There should be a proper tracking system in place to record all the clicks and sales made through the text links and banners placed on your website, e-mails and other advertisements.

6. One important factor that is often overlooked is the "hits per sale ratio". This indicates the number of hits that have to be made to a Text Link or Banner to generate a sale. This will give you an idea as to how much traffic is needed before a sale is made.

7. How often are commissions paid? This is another important matter that should be considered. Most reputed organizations pay their affiliates monthly or when they accumulate a minimum commission of $50 to $ 100 or as indicated by you. You should avoid any program that requires too many sales to reach the minimum amount.

8. Affiliate Programs are generally single tier or two tiers. A single tier program pays you for whatever business you have generated. On the other hand a two tier program pays you for the business you have generated and also a commission for the sales generated by a sub- affiliate, you have sponsored. A two tier program is always advantageous.

9. Long standing reputed organizations provide a whole range of tools and resources such as Banners, Text Links, Brochures, Websites and training for their affiliates. When choosing look out for such organizations because they certainly make life much easier and helps you grow your home based business.

10. Finally, you must read and understand the agreement before you join as an affiliate even if it happens to be the best organization in the world.

Understanding the Affiliate Agreement

The affiliate agreement created by the merchant and agreed by the affiliate, defines all aspects of the affiliate program and typically includes:

- Types of Web sites merchant will accept into the affiliate program

- Types of links allowed and guidelines regarding their use.

- Schedule and payments terms of fees and commissions

- Terms of usage of merchant logo, name and web content

- Technical specification that your web site must meet, if any

- Restrictions on types of content that may appear on affiliate sites

- Requirements for compliance with all government laws, ordinances, rules, and regulations.

Affiliate Tracking Systems

- Allow merchant to control how it credits click-throughs

- Monitor window of time in which affiliate can get credit for a click-through

- Record and store affiliate information

- Provide commission/fee reports

Affiliate management networks

An affiliate management network is a third-party entity that recruits affiliates, manages the registration process, tracks and properly credits all of the fee and commissions and arranges for payment. In return for these services, the affiliate management network collects from the merchant a percentage of each referral transaction's fee or commission-perhaps as much 30 percent.

Well-established affiliate management networks: Example: Commission Junction, LinkShare [2]

Affiliate tracking technologies

To achieve this we develop a strategic online relationship with advertisers to improve the creation, management, and analysis of online marketing and sales activities. These activities are supported by a scalable and reliable tracking technology. Keeping track of the click-throughs and properly crediting the affiliates is a complex programming task. Companies such as BeFree and ClickTrade sell software that automatically monitors and credits all followed links resulting in a sale. Note that ClickTrade was acquired by Microsoft and is now co-branded as part of Microsoft bCentral.

Some tracking technologies are following:

- Custom links containing affiliate information or affiliate and merchant information

- Tracking cookies

- Third-party tracking software

- Application service provider tracking service

- Sub Domain tracking

- Database record matching.

Affiliate Marketing Risks and Challenges

Affiliate marketing is not without certain risks and challenges primarily form unethical affiliates and the negative perceptions online consumers have about tracking technologies.

Unethical Affiliates

- Cookie stuffing - Multiple cookies placed on visitor's hard drive during a single visitor affiliate site.

- Spyware - General term used to describe software that has been installed on a personal computer without the owner's permission, its unknowingly download and install spyware when you download games, screensavers, freeware utilities and so forth.

- Parasiteware - Redirects affiliate links and Replaces content of existing tracking cookies

- Spammers - Merchant is responsible if affiliates use spam to promote sites

- Negative perception of tracking cookies - Many consumers install and use blocking software which includes Block tracking cookies and Delete tracking cookies.

Why Affiliate Marketing Is Profitable for E-Business

If you have been considering an affiliate marketing venture, there are some very good reasons why you should go with this method of generating recurring revenue. Here are some of the ways that affiliate marketing can be a lucrative means of creating income that will be stable and allow you to grow exposure over time.

- One of the first advantages of affiliate marketing for the new entrepreneur is that the startup cost is very low. Most companies that offer affiliate marketing programs do not require any type of monetary investment on the part of the affiliate.

- The second expenses are limited to what you have to pay to connect with the Internet, the software you may need to load on your computer, and a web site where the ads associated with the affiliate marketing program can be placed. With web site hosting such an inexpensive service these days, setting up your own web site for the affiliate ads will be a breeze.

- Another reason that affiliate marketing is such a moneymaker is the fact that there are so many different types of ways to set up the program. You can go with the pay per click option, which works out great when it comes to promoting special offers. Ads that lead to product review sites often are a way to allow product users to go through your portal and leave comments on the items they purchase.

First Thing's First-Avoid These Silly Affiliate Marketing Mistakes!

While affiliate marketing is a great way to earn a living, the fact is that many people become discouraged and drop out of programs. In many instances, the failure to be successful with affiliate marketing has to do with making a few simple mistakes. Here are some examples of those mistakes and why they should be avoided.

- A low-quality website with no original content and tossing in some affiliate links. While it is certainly true that you need to have a web site up and running in order to participate in an affiliate program, there is also the need to apply some effort to getting the word out about your site. Otherwise, the chances of people visiting your web site and clicking on one of the links are pretty slim.

- Another mistake many affiliate partners make is not choosing products that have some relevance to the content of your web site.

- Keeping your site content and the ads more or less relevant to one another will make it easier to generate revenue, and not fail as an affiliate marketer. Now, this may seem intuitive - but many make this mistake in subtle ways (i.e. they mismatch their customers with products).

- One final mistake that many affiliate marketers make is not sprucing up their web sites from time to time. Keeping the content fresh is one way of building and keeping a loyal reading audience because keeping the same old look and the same old text with nothing new to entice people back is a sure way to limit your chances at being a successful affiliate marketer. The fact is that you do have to proactively promote your site, keep the content fresh, and make sure the ads have some connection to the subject matter of your site.

What You Need Before Getting Started and Affiliated Marketing

While there is not a lot of expense in starting up as an affiliate marketer, there are a few things that you need to do if you really want to make money marketing other people's products.

Here are some basic tips to help you line up all your things to do before you ever sign up for that first affiliate program.

- One of the basic needs for any successful affiliate program is to have a web site of your own. While it is possible to purchase ad space on sites and to advertise through Google Adwords, this is short term strategy setting up a basic web site that has a particular focus will make all the difference in the world to the success of your program. Keep in mind that your web site does not have to be complicated with a lot of flash media, animation or other fancy bells and whistles.

- In fact, if you plan on focusing your attention on affiliate marketing strategies that target the home consumer, you are better off with a basic site that will load quickly on a dial up connection. After all, dial-up is still extremely popular in a number of locations.

- Online payments are a great way to easily receive your affiliate payments and keep track of your earnings. From this angel, you may want to look into opening an account with one of the more popular online services that send and receive funds. i.g PayPal

- Another important aspect is determining just what your contact information will be, regarding communication with your affiliate program. This would include an email Address and physical mailing address. The email address should be one you have set aside specifically for your marketing business.

How to Pick the Best Product with the Best Payout and Great Demand

- One of the first things to think in terms of when it comes to affiliate marketing is determining where your talents and expertise happen to reside. One of the keys to picking the best products for your particular situation have to do with what you know and how much you know about it. As an example, a person that has worked in telecommunications for a number of years will probably know a great deal about telephony, related services, and technology that are used within that industry.

- Another aspect about setting up with the right products to promote has to do with where you see a niche to fill in. Finding a population or business sector that appears to be largely ignored in the marketing process can provide the inspiration you need to create a successful affiliate marketing program.

- Do not allow yourself to get discouraged simply because everything is not crystal clear as you begin this part of the process. Practicing some patience and giving yourself time to find the right products to promote as part of the program will only serve to make you more dedicated to the success of the program

In the end, you will find the products that will lead to a very successful affiliate marketing scheme and provide you with not only a handsome revenue stream, but also a lot of personal satisfaction.

Recommended Top Affiliate Networks on the Internet

When you decide to enter the world of affiliate marketing, there are a number of markets that are worthy of consideration. Here are three programs that have captured the attention of a lot of people, simply because of their stability and reliability.

1. Perhaps the best known of the three programs is Click Bank: clickbank. There a number of reasons why people find ClickBank such an attractive option when it comes to affiliate programs. One aspect is that the revenue generated by any purchase made through the ad portal is credited to your account within two minutes of the completion of the transaction. Because Click Bank provides such a comprehensive tracking program.

2. pavdotcom is also an excellent choice as an affiliate network. Just as with ClickBank, PayDotCom provides an easy to use affiliate interface that allows you to view your numbers in real time. You can easily track such data as the number of clicks on the ads and the amount of commissions you have made by directing visitors over to the marketplace through the portal on your web site. One of the advantages of PayDotCom is that this program will interface with your PayPal account, which means that vendors can send your monthly commission directly to your PayPal account. It is important to note that not all vendors will use PayPal as a payment method, so you may still receive payments by check as well.

3. shareasale is a third option that is rapidly gaining recognition among affiliate marketers. As a program that is designed to match up to the content of your existing web site, Share sale is free to join as an affiliate.

Rising to the Super Affiliate Level - What Constitutes a Super Affiliate?

A super affiliate is a marketing affiliate that has created a network that provides a high volume of traffic to affiliate products and a high percentage of completed sales from that traffic. The super affiliate is not one who reaches this level once, or even once in a great while.

- Creativity is an hallmark of a super affiliate. The ability to present the same old information is new ways will keep people interested. Super affiliates know how to look at products from a variety of different angles, determine a series of ways to present the product, and then go out and find an audience to match up with each one of those ways. For the super affiliate, there is always one more way to draw attention to a product, and find a larger audience than ever before.

- Another characteristic of a super affiliate is the desire and ability to master technology. This does not necessarily involve becoming an expert in information technology. But it does involve learning enough about existing technology to make good use of avenues already open on the Internet to promote products.

- Making the most of your status as a super affiliate means enjoying the opportunities that come to you through word of mouth; additionally, it means taking matters into your own hands and promoting your status in such a way that you increase your visibility.

The Super Affiliate Marketing Tactics Exposed!

So what is it that allows a super affiliate to make hundreds or even thousands of sales when you struggle to make 5 sales of the same product? Why is that super affiliates rake in the cash while you struggle to get by? Think about this carefully: you are both selling the exact same product. The only possible difference is the tactics you use to market it. Below, we have included a couple tactics that we should use to sell more like super affiliates. Try to incorporate them into your strategy.

Tactic #1: Play the Long Game

Whenever some new launch is coming up, they will throw together a promotional website; and try to direct traffic to it using pay per click search engine advertisements or solo ads. But there is a major flaw with this approach: almost without exception, people will purchase a "big launch" product from an Internet marketer they already know this is why you have to play the long game, rather than focusing on each individual launch, prepare an approach that will work consistently for years to make more sales.

Tactic #2: Steal from Super Affiliates Whenever Possible

Many super affiliates are also big name Internet marketers. They have public personas that we can follow quite easily. We can find their user ld's, blogs, mailing lists and their web site's. Through this approach we can learn from each of them.

Tactic #3: Ignore Talk; Look for Revealed Preference

Talk is just that: talk. Many Internet marketers will talk about all sorts of different methods you can use to make money. They will tell you to advertise using Google AdWords or to build a list or to create viral reports. While some of this information may be useful and legitimate, we should ignore what they say and watch what they do. This is called "revealed preference.

Tactic #4: Make Friends with the Seller

Believe it or not, the seller wants you to be successful, too. So contact him ahead of time, make friends with him; and see if he has any particular advice for you on selling the product. Keep in mind that he talks to a lot of affiliates on a regular basis (especially around big launches) and has the best understanding of the tactics they actually use.

Become a Supreme Affiliate Marketing: Additional Supreme Affiliate Marketing Tips

If you want to make a six figure income - and possibly a seven figure income - then you have to do something that is truly different than what you are doing now. The big question is "how can I do this"? Here's following suggestion:

Tip #1: Start Acting Like a Business Owner

If you want to be a successful affiliate product marketer, you have to find people who can augment your weakness (and, trust me, no matter how smart you are, you have plenty of weaknesses). Additionally, affiliate marketers do not work in isolation. Most of them are friends with the marketers they sell products for; and this gives them far more leverage and information than you have access to. So start thinking of yourself as a business owner, rather than a completely self-sufficient Internet marketer.

Tip #2: Concentrate on Regular Sales

Regular sales are easier to quantify and predict; and, for this reason, it is far easier to continually ramp up small, regular sales until you are making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars each year. So don't worry if you're the top affiliate for some major new product launch. Instead, focus on regular sales and regular increases in sales.

Tip #3: Do What They Do - Not What They Say

Observe the channels of marketer through which he promotes his product. Watch carefully to determine what methods he's using to make sales, so you can replicate his successes, rather than chasing after dreams he's written about.

Conclusion

We may conclude that choosing an Affiliate Program that is right for you might be time consuming but a worth while process. Going through the above whole process will also be a learning curve for new entrepreneurs who are serious about starting a successful home based business. So there is an opportunity for business students and young entrepreneur to develop a simple website with limited budget that can be arranged easily through their own personal savings. This website can be developed with only $100 to $200 (Approximately). You can increase your business growth through adopting the approach where you can affiliate your business with different websites having relevancy with your business and internet heavy traffic as well.

Finally there's no single path to affiliate marketing riches - and that's a good thing. Instead, there are many pathways through which you can make your millions. So scout carefully, look for functional methods you can use, and implement them in your own efforts. You may be surprised with the results. But whatever you do - don't continue to use strategies that haven't worked in the past. Always think like super affiliates because they use a range of tactics and adopt different ways in order to consistently outperform other affiliates. But one thing you should always play the long game and build lists, create forums, and secure a captive audience in advance of product releases.

Aknowledgement

The Author indebted to Ms.Umera Imtinan, Lecturer Comsats Unversity,Lahore for her suggestion to write this article.

References

1. Napier Albert. "Book: Creating a Winning E-Business", 2nd edition, p256-257

2. Article, "Affiliate marketing",zeald.com/Services".

3. Article, "Affiliate Marketing Strategy for E-Business", "resources.alibaba.com".

4. Article, "Affiliate tracking", "kleindesigns.com".

5. Online Book, "Super Affiliate Marketing Secrets: Gain the Edge You Need to Become a Super Affiliate Marketer" "free-ebooks".

6. Internet Article, "Top 10 Tips for Choosing the Affiliate Program That Is Right for You"," articlesbase.com"

Affiliate Marketing Secrets, Strategies, and More!

Step-by-step Guide of Affiliate Marketing Strategy

Making money from affiliate marketing is an art. Only writing a great product review or promoting a great product will not work to make any sales from your affiliate links. But you have to do many other things to make money from your affiliate links.

Most of the Blog and website owners think that writing a great product review will work. But this is not enough. You need a perfect Affiliate Marketing Strategy and MUST work on it to generate sales from your links.

Here is a Affiliate Marketing Strategy Model. You can simply print out this page or save it on your desktop.

Step 1: Take Time (10-20 hours or even more) to chose a product to promote and write down a great, unique, and informative product review. This is very important.

Step 2: Become an Affiliate of ClickBank, Amazon, or Commission Junction and generate an affiliate link for your product and put it on your review page and publish it on your website or a blog. Now, suppose if you are not the owner of any website or a blog then it's also perfectly alright. You can post your review on Squidoo, HubPages, WetPaints, and other sites of that nature.

Remember, all we need to do is publish your web page containing your affiliate link anywhere on the web and divert the web traffic towards it.

Step 3: Link Building: This is very important. Your Affiliate link is live now. The only thing you have to do is drive web traffic towards it (the more the better). For this, you have to create and publish the content on other popular websites on the Internet and then put a link of your affiliate page.

Examples are EzineArticles, Squidoo, HubPages, WetPaint, YouTube, Xomba, eHow, WikiHow, Triond, Associated Content, Knol... etc...

Post content having your affiliate link page link on each of the above websites.

Step 4: Social Media: Try Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon & Reditt to divert more web traffic towards your affiliate links.

Step 5: Now sit back and wait for the web traffic to accelerate. This will probably take 1 week to 15 days to drive web traffic towards your affiliate page. Once the web traffic comes toward your page, you will definitely make money.

This is the Model of Affiliate Marketing Strategy. Nobody will teach you this.

Affiliate Marketing Secrets

Secrets of Successful & Profitable Affiliate Marketing

In fact, after reading this article, you will understand that there is no secret at all. But everything about affiliate marketing revolves around the one basic principle and that is:

"To make money from affiliate marketing, you have to drive more web traffic towards your affiliate links."

The more web traffic you divert towards your affiliate links, the more sales it will generate and the more money you will make. It is this simple. And I believe you should not spend money on those products which claim that they are offering you some kind of secret.

Once you generate an affiliate link on your website or a blog, all you have to do is divert more and more web traffic towards those affiliate links by Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Articles Directories, SEO and many other things.

The more web traffic that you divert towards your affiliate links, the more sales it will generate. There is nothing secret about it. Even a School going Kid can do this to make 6 figure Income every year by following this basic principle.

What is important, is the proper mindset. You have to understand the principle and develop a mind frame and stick to it and prevent this mind frame by eroding from your emotions. That's it. This is all you have to do to make money from affiliate marketing.

You don't have to be a popular product review writer for this. Nor do you need to be the owner of an Authority Blog or a Website. Of course, if you are an owner of a successful blog or a website, it will be easy for you to make money from affiliate marketing because you can leverage your existing reader/customer base.

Thus, these are the secrets of successful affiliate marketing.

Now, Take Action and start making money.

Affiliate Marketing eBooks

Should I Buy Affiliate Marketing eBooks?

You are here on this page probably because you have searched in Google for "Affiliate Marketing eBooks". I am sure that you have already gone through several websites and reviewed lots of books on affiliate marketing. But after watching literally hundreds of dollars of prices of those eBooks, you probably landed on this page.

Don't Worry.... After reading this Article, You won't need to buy any Affiliate Marketing eBooks from the Internet. And Yes, I am giving this Information to you for FREE!

Let me tell you that all of those eBooks are revolving around the one basic core principle. And this Principle of making money from Affiliate marketing will never even change in the near future. And that Principle is:

"The Key of Successful Affiliate Marketing is Web traffic. The more web traffic you divert towards your Affiliate Links from all around the web, Naturally more Sales it will generate and the more money you will make."

Everything about Affiliate marketing ultimately revolves around this simple but very basic principle. You will find literally millions of eBooks on this topic. All of those eBooks are written around this basic principle. So if you understand this basic principle, there is No Need to buy any eBooks.

I have given you the principle of profitable aff. marketing right? So Now, you have to use your mind and figure out "How to Divert more web traffic towards your Affiliate Links?" Lets discuss the example provided below:

Suppose I want to make money from Affiliate marketing so What Will I Do? Well, First of all I go to ClickBank.com and chose a product to sell. Well, I advise you to start from Digital Downloadable products first, this is because they are easy to deliver and the commission per sale is very high (20-75%) in these products.

OK so now I have chosen the product. So the next step is to create an Affiliate Link. So What will I do? Well, I will write a keyword rich Product review having affiliate link and post it on my blog or a website. Or any other social network that we have discussed earlier.

After that process, the affiliate link is on the web. It's live now. So your 50% of the job is complete. The rest of the 50% is to divert the web traffic towards your blog/social network/website page on which you have put the affiliate link.

You can do this several ways.

One is Link Building. There are 2 advantages of link building. One is that they will divert more traffic towards your web page as well as it will increase the search engine rankings of your web page so drive organic (Search engine) traffic.

For this you have to write down and post articles on various 5,6, & 7 Page rank articles directories such as:

- EzineArticles

- Squidoo

- HubPages

- WetPaint

- YouTube

- Xomba

- Triond

- Knol

- eHow

You post articles on the above web directories. This is because Google simply loves and trusts these websites. So if each of these websites direct towards your web page having affiliate links, it will shoot up the page rank and thus more web traffic.

Now, the second way to drive more traffic towards your websites is Social Networking & the third way is Social Media. Here are the examples:

- Facebook

- Orkut

- MySpace

- Digg

- Delicious

- Stumbleupon

- Reddit

In short, you have to use your mind to find out more and more possible ways to divert the web traffic towards your affiliate links. Once you do all of this hard work. Just sit back and enjoy the steady passive income coming into your bank accounts.

Facebook Affiliate Marketing

How to Make Passive Income from Facebook Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing means selling other people's products from your web properties (Blogs & Websites) and getting commission for each sale you make. Many people have asked me: "How they can make money from Facebook Affiliate Marketing?"

Well, As far as I know, there is not any direct method of doing affiliate marketing on Facebook. But let's go to the basics and find out how we use Facebook to do affiliate marketing?

What is the Basic Principle behind Successful Affiliate Marketing?

Well, the basic principle of profitable affiliate marketing is - "The more web traffic you divert towards your Affiliate Links (Web pages having your affiliate links), the more Sales your affiliate links will generate."

This is the basic principle of Affiliate marketing and every theory and techniques of profitable affiliate marketing revolves around this simple basic principle.

Now, here we want to make money from Facebook affiliate marketing. So obviously, we need to find out the ways to divert traffic from Facebook to our affiliate links. Is this Possible? Well, Yes. There are several ways by which you can divert the web traffic on Facebook to your affiliate links.

Say for Example, Fan pages, Comments, News Feeds, Facebook applications, Direct Advertising on Facebook... etc...

By these methods, you can easily divert web traffic from Facebook to your own web property having affiliate links. The more web traffic that you divert to your affiliate links, the more sales it will generate and thus the more money you will make.

However, There is only one problem with Social Networking sites traffic and that is the traffic of social networking sites is not a buyer's traffic. They are there on the Social Network for being Social. So making money from Social Network traffic is really a difficult task.

And for Affiliate Links to work, you need the Buyer's Traffic.

http://mytimemattersblog.com

How Many Types Of Affiliate Marketing Programs Do You Know?

The following article is one of a series of articles which focus on Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing. All of the articles are based on real experiences and research done over twenty years as a personal and business coach. They are also written in response to questions which I have been asked as well as address common challenges that people have with affiliate marketing, article marketing, internet marketing or running an online business in

general. I sincerely hope that you find the following information of value. One idea, one tip, one clue can make all the difference.

How Many Types Of Affiliate Marketing Programs Do You Know?

Affiliate marketing programs have never been as popular before as they are today. Why? There can be a number of reasons. The most probable reason, however, could be the fact that the benefits of affiliate marketing have become clearer to a lot of people now than they were before.

Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them. The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost. The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.

Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has shifted into greater heights, so has the people's outlook about it changed. No longer is affiliate marketing considered today as an alternative method for the merchant to advertise his products, or as a source of additional income for the affiliates. For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a main source of profits and revenues.

So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? Are all affiliate marketing programs the same? Are the benefits the same? Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?

There are actually different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one will classify them. The most basic affiliate marketing programs, however, falls under two categories: pay-per-click (PPC), and pay-per-performance (PPP).

* Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small websites, and probably the easiest way for them to earn money. In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant's banner or text ads. The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant's site. However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click.

* Pay Per Performance (PPP)

PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action--that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant's site or when the visitor becomes a lead. This means a lot of savings for the merchant. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.

Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).

* Pay Per Sale (PPS)

In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant's site actually buys something from the merchant's site. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.

========SIDEBAR========

Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing in general isn't as easy as many would have us believe. I fully understand (through my own experiences) that it is a lot easier said than done. However, you are here, right now, because you have a desire to improve your business, grow your business, and be more successful. These articles are here with the sole intention of helping you to make the whole process a lot easier.

======END SIDEBAR======

* Pay Per Lead (PPL)

The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant's site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.

Apart from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant's site.

* Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing

These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made. In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. All the previously mentioned affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS, PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier classification.

* In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant's site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation. Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

* Residual Income Affiliate Marketing

In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant's site. Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product. Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.

The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits. Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? It is not really for me to tell. Rather, it is for you to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit your needs and characteristics best.

NOW is the time!

O.K. you have read the article. Now is the time for action. Without action, this article adds no value whatsoever to your affiliate success. But remember, without action, you cannot blame this affiliate marketing article or any article for that matter. So, take action NOW.

Even if only one piece of advice, one piece of information, one tip makes a difference, then the whole article has been worth it for all of us.

NOW is the time!

Providing a focused problem solving approach through our personal and business coaching (especially to small businesses). This approach is linked to providing work at home businesses, affiliates and online businesses with PROFITABLE INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS.

Finding help and resources for making money online or by affiliate marketing are some of the most sought after subjects on the internet. Our Independent Affiliate Review Site gives that much needed help and resources to ordinary people who want to run extraordinary businesses.

Independent Affiliate Reviews Provides All The Help And Resources You'll Need

Big Ticket Items - 6 More BIG Benefits To Selling As An Affiliate

Today, we're going to cover 6 More BIG Benefits to selling Big Ticket items

as an AFFILIATE.

First, we had better define both Big Ticket Item and Affiliate.

A Big Ticket Item is any product or service that sells for more than $500 or

$1000.

An Affiliate is someone who sells other people's products.

Or, at least, those are my definitions. I'm sure there are other possible

definitions but for this article, let's stick with the simple descriptions I've

given, ok?

Now, let's take a close look at benefits.

Benefit #1: Perks, Perks, Perks

You often get other types of perks or fringe benefits on Big Ticket items

besides your percentage of the sale.

Let's take seminar or workshop seat sales as an example. As a seminar affiliate,

your job is to "put butts in seats". So, if a seminar ticket costs $4997 and

your affiliate fee is $1000 per seat, you sell 5 seats and you make $5000. Not

bad!

But, in many cases, the seminar promoter also offers a deal where if you sell so

many seats, you can go to the seminar for FREE! They might run a "Sell 3, Go for

Free" campaign. So, not only do you make $5000 but you get to attend the $4997

seminar for free.

And sometimes the seminar promoter will offer an additional cut of the sales if

you sell over a minimum number of seats to their event. So, if you sell over 10

seats, you might get an additional $500 for every seat over 10 you sell. Even if

this isn't offered, you can often negotiate a deal like this with the promoter.

These are just a few examples. There are many other types of perks that are

available or that you can negotiate.

Benefit #2: Super Affiliate Extras

Let's say you get really good at affiliate selling Big Ticket Items. You could

become known as a super affiliate. A super affiliate is simply an affiliate who

is capable of generating a significant percentage of the sales of any affiliate

program.

In other words, you are "kicking butt" and producing more sales and revenue than

many if not all of the other affiliates in a product owners affiliate program.

Now, most product owners, if they are smart, know that it is vital for them to

recognize and reward these super affiliates. After all, they are selling more

product then anybody else and they want to encourage them to continue to do so.

So many product owners will give a higher percentage of product sales to super

affiliates. If normal affiliates receive 50% of each sale, super affiliates

might get 65% to 75%.

Super affiliates may also be given advance opportunity to sell new products

being introduced by a product marketer. This means they get to sell the new

product before all the other affiliates are allowed access to it.

Plus, if you are the super affiliate, you can often negotiate other benefits,

tailored specifically to what you want for selling these Big Ticket items.

Benefit #3: Multiple Streams of Income

As an affiliate, you can help market multiple Big Ticket Items. These items can

come from the same or different product owners. And the products can be focused

at the same or different target markets.

So even if one product has a slow down in sales, the other products may be doing

fine.

Now, I am not telling you to go out and become an affiliate for a ton of

different Big Ticket items. You still need to choose products you believe in and

that are of high quality. In the long term, this will serve you much better than

a "scatter-gun" approach to Big Ticket affiliate sales.

But, the ability to chose several high quality Big Ticket items to market as an

affiliate, means that you can diversify your income streams so that you are not

dependent on one stream alone should the market slow in that area. Robert Allen

calls this Multiple Streams of Income.

It's just a sound business concept that you should follow, even as an affiliate!

Benefit #4: Differentiate or Die!

There are a ton of products and product owners out there running affiliate

programs. Many of these programs are marketing or selling E-Books or other low

profit items. How will you differentiate yourself from all the other affiliates

flogging the same low ticket products?

I believe that the best way to set yourself apart from others is to sell Big

Ticket items as an affiliate. Many existing affiliates are uncomfortable selling

items with a big price tag because they have a hard time justifying the value of

the product to themselves.

This is why it is so important to sell only items you believe in. Your belief in

a product comes from you having carefully evaluated the product and ensuring its

high quality, yourself.

But once you understand the benefits a product can provide, it's very easy to

sell the product to others, even when it costs a lot more.

And selling Big Ticket items gains you the appreciation and respect of product

providers much more quickly than selling their low ticket items will. That

appreciation can translate into the perks and extras we've discussed on other

sections of this article.

Big Ticket Affiliate Selling puts you in another class from those who only do

affiliate sales of low ticket items!

Benefit #5: Continuous Residual Income

Another type of Big Ticket item is one where the price is not a fixed amount,

one time sale. Instead, the customer purchases a product or service where they

continue to make regular payments.

Examples of this type of Big Ticket item are Membership sites, Shopping Cart

Service or Monthly Hosting Fees.

Many affiliate programs are setup such that you continue to receive a percentage

or a fixed amount per period (e.g. monthly) as long as the person you sold the

original membership remains a member of that service.

For example, the hosting service I use (where I keep my web pages) has an

affiliate program similar to the one I just described. For each person I sign up

for their service as an affiliate, I received $10. EVERY MONTH that the

person continues to use their hosting services.

Now this doesn't sound like much. But consider this... I only pay around $25 per

month for hosting myself. All I have to do is make 3 affiliate sales of the

service and my hosting is FREE! (3 sales x $10/sale = $30 covering my

hosting costs)

Anyway, I think you get the idea that selling as an affiliate for a service

where you get an ongoing cut of the revenue stream is itself a Big Ticket Item

over time. Especially if you sell a lot of them.

Benefit #6: Multiple Tiers Means More Profit For You With No More Work!

Some affiliate programs are also setup such that you can also make money from

2nd tier sales

2nd tier sales are simply any sales of a product that a customer buys from the

same product owner or marketer after the first one that you sell that customer

as an affiliate.

Let's look at an example.

Let's say you sell an internet market marketing home study system for $1499 as

an affiliate to Customer X.

You get 50% of the sale or $749.50.

Customer X is very happy with the product and decides to buy the ADVANCED

internet marketing home study system directly from the creator of the original

home study system for $2499.

Now, you were not involved in the 2nd sale at all. But because the affiliate

system you joined was of the 2 tier variety, your agreement with that affiliate

program says that you get 25% of all future sales of any products in the

affiliate program to the same customer you original brought in for the first

sale.

So because Customer X is buying another product within the same affiliate

program and he was originally sold his first product by you... You get 25% of that

sale. In this case $624.75.

And you weren't even involved in the second sale! Nice!

And that wraps it up for 6 More Big Benefits To Selling Big Ticket Items As An

Affiliate.

Copyright (C) 2005 Chuck Daniel, Like Magic Marketing, LLC - All Rights Reserved.

Chuck is a former Microsoft software designer and program manager who spent more than a decade happily working on Email and CRM. Admittedly a seminar, workshop and information addict, Chuck left Microsoft to pursue his interests in personal development, Internet, direct and information marketing and to promote and work for charitable causes.

Chuck Daniel
Would You Like to Make BIG Bucks
With BIG Ticket Items Online?
http://www.bigtickethomestudy.com
http://www.bigticketblog.com

This article may be reprinted in its entirety in your E-zine or on your site as long as the content is not modified, all links are left in place and you include the resource box as listed above.

The Top 22 Affiliate and CPA Networks

Affiliate Networks are a great way for website owners and content producers to monetize their work with related products and services. With literally hundreds of affiliate networks in existence, it can be an arduous task to stay in the loop about the network options with their respective pros and cons. We've picked our favorite 22 affiliate networks; included in this list is a little something for everyone. From the beginner affiliate marketer to the Fortune 500 company, these affiliate networks have the tools, campaigns, and integrity that other networks continue to strive for. Here they are, in alphabetical order:  

Affiliate.com 

Affiliate.com is a Media Breakaway, LLC company who has been involved in the affiliate marketing arena since 2001. With value added services that include domain registration, email list management, and website hosting, Affiliate.com has proven they are one of the leading affiliate networks. Affiliates are paid on a net 15 basis, and advertisers can place offers on their network with no setup fees. Affiliate.com's blog is the place to check out their new offers and company announcements. Their website home page lists all of their social network profiles so potential affiliates and advertisers can follow them too.

Buy.at

Buy.at has been a pioneer in affiliate marketing since 2002 when it was launched by Perfiliate Technologies. They were then acquired by AOL in 2008 and have become part of the Platform-A department of AOL, and are a business unit of AOL's Advertising.com. Buy.at is the second largest affiliate in the UK, and has been aggressively expanding their offerings into the U.S. Buy.at has many well known advertisers including Ticketmaster, The New York Times Store, Discount Tire, Speedo, and TurboTax to name a few. Buy.at offers a customizable reporting dashboard to publishers, and pays affiliates monthly. Advertisers and affiliates alike enjoy the added level of transparency that Buy.at has become known for.

ClickBooth

ClickBooth is an industry award winning CPA network with many exclusive advertisers. With over 5 years experience in affiliate marketing, ClickBooth has become the premiere network for over 20,000 publishers and brands like Blockbuster, ADT, Dish Network, America Online, and VistaPrint. With a continuing effort to ensure the quality of affiliates and advertisers, ClickBooth has maintained a superior level of network compliance within their network. The ClickBooth Blog features even more info about the company, contests, and links to the major social sites so you can easily connect with them.

Commission Junction  

Commission Junction is one of the largest affiliate networks in the world, and they work with some power-house companies like Yahoo, Home Depot, HP, Apple Store, Dell, Staples, Buy.com, E Harmony, and Expedia. CJ has a pioneered many affiliate resources which have been adopted by many other networks. Among those resources is CJU, an area of the CJ website dedicated to educating CJ publishers about affiliate marketing's best practices. CJ was also one of the first affiliate networks to make public internal performance metrics (like EPCs or Earnings per Click) for both publishers and advertisers, enabling both groups to make better decisions about their campaigns.

CrispAds  

CrispAds is the affiliate network arm of Intela, a performance-based marketing company with offices in the U.S. and UK. They feature a "blog advertising network," which has allowed bloggers to sign up and earn revenue in a format that is designed for bloggers. Some of CrispAds advertiser brands include Visa, DirectBuy, Gerber, and Toyota. Their blog is the best way to stay current on new campaigns and special announcements.

CX Digital Media  

CX Digital Media, formerly IncentaClick, is an affiliate network based out of Toronto, Canada. CX Digital Media works with advertisers like Netflix, DirectTV, U.S. Army, FreeCreditReport.com, and FlyCell. The blog has details about their current affiliate bonuses and promotions, as well as links to their social profile pages. CX Digital Media has an agency component designed to work with traditional advertising agencies for online media buys.

DirectAgents  

DirectAgents is an interactive marketing agency from New York specializing in affiliate and search marketing, lead generation, and media buying. Some of their high profile advertising clients include Experian, Scholastic, SnapFish, Terminix, and TruGreen. DirectAgents has been presented with numerous awards, including the Inc 5000 for fastest growing companies. The DirectAgents Blog is a very active affiliate blog, with posting occurring almost daily, and is the best source for media mentions and company events.

FluxAds  

FluxAds is a CPA network that takes a hands-on approach by matching up affiliates with offers that match the demographic of their audience. The FluxAds website even has a live web cam where visitors to the website gain a visual insight into the daily activities of the FluxAds team. Their blog is full of quick tips, conference reminders, and has the links to their company's social profiles. They have been actively posting content on their blog since January 2009.

Google Affiliate Network

The Google Affiliate Network is a relatively new player on the scene but has quickly become one of the primary destinations for both advertisers and affiliates.It is one of the more strict networks for allowing publishers to sign up without the proper verification; they take a close look at publisher websites and promotion methods prior to account approval. The Google Affiliate Network hosts their blog on Blogspot. They frequently blog about new laws that affect affiliates and system maintenance schedules, and they have a section for GAN frequently asked questions.

Hydra  

Hydra Network is one of the most popular CPA networks and has won numerous awards including Inc 500 Fastest Growing (2007, 2008), and 2009 Internet Advertising Competition Award for Outstanding Achievement in Internet Advertising. Hydra features many exclusive campaigns that can only be found on their network, as well as offers that can be incentivized. Hydra's affiliate dashboard is very well laid out, making it easy to access reports, campaigns, and account settings.

LeadFlash

LeadFlash is a CPA network and is one of the largest players in the cash advance/payday loan vertical. More recently LeadFlash has moved into the home loan modification, debt, and automotive loan verticals as they continue to host some of the highest paying CPA offers on any network. The LeadFlash affiliate dashboard is one of the most simple and easy to use dashboards of any CPA network. Finding the category of offer to promote and integrating it into your website or email campaign is very intuitive. LeadFlash is located in Florida and employs nearly 50 people.

LeadPile  

LeadPile is one of the largest lead aggregators and they feature one of the most diverse selections of lead types for both affiliates and lead buyers. Through their custom forms, LeadPile reports that over the last 30 days they have served 61 different lead types. LeadPile has a few different options for affiliates; they can send traffic to a LeadPile web property, embed a form on their own website, or HTTP and XML post directly into a LeadPile server. Their demo videos clearly explain and illustrate many of the CPA lead concepts and decrease the learning curve when starting to work with them for the first time. The LeadPile blog has current company news and lead-gen tips for their affiliates.

LeadPoint

LeadPoint is a lead network founded in 2004 in Los Angeles offering services for both lead buyers and sellers. With many lead types, LeadPoint has services for voice leads, custom forms, and other creative solutions for lead delivery. The LeadPoint Blog is a great resource for all topics pertaining to lead generation and links to their social profiles. LeadPoint also has a UK arm of business that works with many of the same verticals as their U.S. counterpart.

LinkConnector  

LinkConnector is an affiliate network which launched in 2004. Their client list includes JC Whitney, MyLife, American Muscle, WordTracker, PR Web, and Monster Learning Network. LinkConnector's platform features some great benefits, including an affiliate widget builder and a linking technology that allows for affiliates to link directly to the advertiser's site while still maintaining a high level of tracking. The LinkConnector home page also has links to their Facebook and Twitter profiles so you can quickly connect.

LinkShare  

LinkShare is one of the largest Affiliate Networks and boasts one of the most impressive client portfolios. Advertisers include AT&T, iTunes, Delta, CompUSA, Enterprise, FootLocker, GNC, Hotwire, Macy's, McAfee, PetSmart, Toshiba, WalMart, and Zales, to name a few. LinkShare's affiliate platform features an exclusive CPA area called "Lead Advantage," where publishers gain access to high performing lead offers. LinkShare was founded in 2006 and has offices in both the U.S. and Europe.

NeverBlue

NeverBlue is a lead generation affiliate network headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia. It began business in 2004 and is a subsidiary company of Vertrue Inc. NeverBlue's advertisers include GameFly, MindSpark, PerfectMatch.com, and CellFish. The NeverBlue blog gives potential affiliates some insight into the corporate culture of their company, and offers some helpful tips to affiliates. Their "meet the team" pages are filled with fun facts about the people who work there.

PartnerWeekly

PartnerWeekly is the largest full-service player in the cash advance/payday loan space today. That didn't happen by accident. Their philosophy of continuous improvement makes being sensitive to affiliate needs a way of life. Today, that means offers that convert extremely well, and that generate industry-leading ROI. Tomorrow, that means a dedication by the company to diversification within other non cash verticals. More choice. More opportunity for profit. Business relationships, and how to make them great, is a PartnerWeekly mantra. That starts with the best offers. An unmatched capability to customize them. Supported by world-class customer service from experienced affiliate managers, and real-time communication tools to maximize business results. PartnerWeekly is a business unit of Selling Source LLC, which earned its place in 2008 at #68 on the Inc 500 list. That didn't happen by accident either.

PepperJam  

PepperJam was founded in 1999 by internet marketing expert Kris Jones and has successfully integrated several core services to their affiliate network side of business. Among those value added services are search, media buying, and design services. The PepperJam was recognized by Inc Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. Their blog announces new campaigns on their network, company events, and links to a few of their social profiles.

ShareaSale  

ShareaSale is an affiliate network with over 2000 merchants and numerous awards. Their website features a preview of all merchants that they work with so potential affiliates can search by category, allowing easy look-ups of relevant campaigns. Merchants to ShareaSale have a minimal network access fee and a very competitive pricing structure. The ShareaSale Blog is the prime source for company info and events.

Share Results

Share Results is an affiliate software and network with merchants that include PhotoBucket, Nero, eLearners, and PlanningFamily.com. Founded in 2002 by Nicky Senyard, Share Results is known for, among other things, the high level of transparency the network provides to both its affiliates and merchants. Share Results features multiple campaign types like CPA, CPL, referral, and rev share, and they make their affiliate payouts monthly via wire, check, or PayPal. The Share Results Blog is packed with great affiliate information and video interviews with industry professionals.

Tribal Fusion

The Tribal Fusion network serves over 20 billion impressions per month reaching over 230 million users. Clients include Classmates.com, Morpheus Media, Beyond Interactive, PowWeb, and Artifact Software. Tribal Fusion has a very handy "channels" page which compares some of their network metrics with some competitors. Potential clients are also able to drill-down the category that their site fits in and see landscape of Tribal Fusion's reach within that vertical.

Zanox

Zanoxis a leading affiliate network with advertisers that include Jamster, 1&1, ZoneAlarm, GameOn, and FerrariStore.com, Amazon, Lycos, Procter & Gamble, Citibank, among others. The Zanox blog features a live cam of their office in addition to links to their Facebook Group, company Twitter account, Flickr photos, and their iGoogle gadget. Zanox works with over a million affiliates in over 190 countries and offers direct support in about 30 countries.

Evan Ernst is a technology marketing specialist and COO of Adworkz, a performance marketing agency with an innovative Affiliate Network, a lead management and delivery platform, and a full suite of website development and optimization services. http://www.adworkz.com

Interview with Lily Shen - Senior Manager of eBay's U.S. Affiliate Program

Shawn Collins: Thank you for joining us. Today I'm speaking with Lily Shen of eBay, and we're going to be talking about some of the different things they are doing with the affiliate program over there. I want to thank Lily for taking the time to speak with us and look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Lily Shen: Thanks, Shawn. I'm definitely excited to speak with you and definitely look forward to sharing some more information. We have a lot of exciting things going on, so, yeah, definitely looking forward to it.

Shawn: Great. One thing that I am curious about it, if you could let me know and the rest of the audience, what sets eBay's Affiliate Program apart from the other affiliate programs that are out there?

Lily: Sure. I can't really speak for other affiliate programs per se, but I do have to say that the eBay Affiliate Program offers a really competitive payout, very easy to use tools, and the unparalleled breadth and depth of products that are currently on eBay.

In terms of our compensation today, we pay out on both ACRUs, what we call Active Nearly Registered Users, and we pay anywhere from $12 to $22. We also pay on the rev share side anywhere from 40 to 65 percent of revenues generated to eBay buyer affiliates, and that launched just late last year and it's proven to be very successful for many of our publishers.

In terms of the marketplaces, we have an amazing breadth and depth of products with over 50, 000 categories, and even just in Q3 we had 584 million new listings added to eBay worldwide. We also have a global presence in over 33 markets with users from every country around the world, so we definitely provide a great playground for our affiliates and our publishers to be successful.

Shawn: Great, sounds fantastic. Can you tell me a little more about some of the tools and resources that eBay has innovated to help affiliates to succeed?

Lily: Yeah, absolutely. We actually have a dedicated team here just looking at products, tools, and infrastructure for the eBay Affiliate Program. We have a number of tools that our affiliates employ to really get them up and running quickly.

To start, we have a flexible destination tool which instantly allows affiliates to create trackable affiliate links to any eBay URL. We just this year launched an RSS feed generator that obviously creates RSS feeds that include affiliate links. We offer free APIs for our affiliates, and just a couple of months ago we launched an API plug-in tool that allows affiliates to conduct some research and become more familiar with eBay's API data in Excel.

We also have hub pages, very vibrant discussion boards, and community newsletters et cetera. I don't know if you are aware of this, but we are actually looking to launch in probably the first half of 2007 a product called AdContext, which is a contextual advertising product that will allow affiliates and our publishers to basically take some code and put the product on the site, and we'll essentially call the content from the site and surface up the most listings that will help our affiliates be most effective. We're currently in beta mode at the moment.

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Lily: This is currently invite-only.

Shawn: OK. Gotcha. As far as engaging the eBay affiliate community, are you using any kind of Web 2.0 methods for communication or have any events or any kinds of things to get in touch with the affiliates and keep in contact?

Lily: Yeah, absolutely. We have a dedicated team of account managers both here at eBay and on the Commission Junction side, and we manage many, many of our top accounts. We actually do have a monthly newsletter that goes out that provides best practices, trends, product information to our publishers. As I mentioned before, we have very active discussion boards, and we also hold an annual invite-only affiliate summit for our top publishers, and we run this in parallel with our developer's conference. This year we are looking to build that out even more and have an affiliate track at the developer's conference, too.

In addition to that, we have very comprehensive pages on the affiliate site that provides best practices for our affiliates who are really looking to pursue almost any type of business model. We are always looking for new ways to share information and allow affiliates to really communicate with each other as well.

The community is really the bread and butter of eBay's business, and that is absolutely the same thing for eBay's affiliate community. We feel that it is really important that we develop the relationships with them directly and learn from them.

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more successful with your affiliate program?

Lily: I wouldn't say it depends on a business model, per se. We have a very diverse portfolio of affiliates ranging from content and portals and SEO, shopping comparison sites. We have auction tools, loyalty incentive affiliates and obviously paid search affiliates.

We found what makes most affiliates successful is less about the model they engage, as a matter of fact many of them employ multiple models, but what really determines there success is there level of dedication to innovating: finding new things and really optimizing what works. The space is constantly changing as well as the marketplace, so we find that those who are really dedicated to it find huge success in it.

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Lily: Yes. We really encourage our affiliates to always think about the end customer and stay abreast of not only industry trends but also product trends. Obviously for this holiday season it would be the PS3, Wii, the Xbox, etc. Some new top affiliates just this past month have solely built sites around these products and have simply turned the traffic to eBay. That's pretty interesting. We really encourage our affiliates to keep on top of that. I would say it's really tough to try new things and to really optimize space on the results that you see in the data that we provide you. A lot of our affiliates have been successful that way.

Shawn: OK. I know you have affiliate teams all around the world. Do you have any tips for affiliates that want to expand beyond the US borders as an affiliate?

Lily: Yes. We have programs in almost 20 countries today. We manage them in a very decentralized manner, and so we recognize the importance of localization in our affiliate program. I really encourage the affiliates to research the market itself and understand the end users there, but also spend some time understanding the programs of each of our countries.

You may find that the more mature markets may be more similar in nature. For example, you may want to start with English speaking countries if you're currently in the US. You may want to start with the UK, Australia or Canada and you've got a springboard to launch into some of the other markets. I would definitely say spend time localizing your content enough for it to appeal to the end consumer in the English market. I would say that geo-targeting has helped our affiliates a lot as well.

Shawn: OK. I've been hearing a lot about affiliates trying to play around with both video and mobile phone. Do you see either one of those playing a role with the eBay affiliate program in the near future?

Lily: Yes, absolutely. In terms of mobile it already plays a role in the program and we're looking to make that even bigger. We're actually launching a place off our API probably in the first half of next year that will really enable affiliate tracking for a lot of the folks that are building mobile apps for eBay. What we really want to do is allow affiliates to scale in this space. Certainly in terms of video, we believe it's a huge opportunity and we're just starting to work with a few affiliates now looking to plan this new and exciting space as well. We'll definitely have more information to come.

Shawn: OK, fantastic. I got some announcements in the past month that Project Rover and how the affiliate program has changed with that?

Lily: Sure. Project Rover is really a new HTML tracking methodology. We pursued this in order to decrease the number of redirects users may follow to reduce added cookie blocking and to allow for more global infrastructure improvements. The affiliate program itself hasn't really changed. We're simply looking for new ways to improve the infrastructure for our affiliates and to make things easier. Our goal is to simply provide more immediate and long-term benefits to our publishers with the project. I'd say that the program itself hasn't changed. We're just hoping to make things better for them.

Shawn: OK, that makes sense. That's all the questions I had. Do have any other updates or news about the affiliate program?

Lily: I think I covered a lot with the questions that you had. I just want to say that we really encourage our affiliates to innovate and to test and to provide us with feedback on things that we could be doing better as well. We're really here to serve our publishers and we're excited for a lot of the new and upcoming initiatives rolling out in 2007, such as ad contacts in the place off our API. Thank you.

Shawn: Thanks a lot. Thank you to Lily Shen eBay for joining us. For more information affiliates can go to affiliates.ebay.com to apply and learn more about the program. Thanks a lot, Lily.

Lily: Thank you.

Shawn: Great. Take care.

http://www.affiliatetip.com