How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income E-Course
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Part 3. How To Choose An Affiliate Program
As with any marketing venture, you need to be careful in the
selection of an affiliate program. The benefit of an affiliate
program is that it gives you another way to make money from your
users.
Instead of selling them a product yourself, you send them to a
partner and take a cut.
On the downside though, your affiliate ads will take the place
of
a different ad that you could have put in that same spot.
You have to make sure that each advertising position on your site
is bringing in the maximum revenue possible
If you’re not getting the most from your site, you’re
tossing
money away.
The key to success is to choose the right program, right from the
beginning.
Now, a lot of commercial sites run affiliate programs. That’s
because they know that they only have to pay a commission if a
sale is actually made; it’s a proven way to generate revenue
without risk.
What that means for you is that when it comes to choosing an
affiliate program, you’re going to have a huge range to choose
from. What it all boils down to though is product and price.
While it might be tempting to go for the program that pays the
highest commissions, the program won’t pay you a penny if
your
users won’t go there or won’t buy once they get there.
You have to be certain that the service you’re promoting
is of
genuine interest to the kind of users you buy, whether you’re
buying them from search engines or anywhere else.
Sure, you can work backwards: You find a high-paying affiliate
program and create a small site to send users to it, but do you
know where to buy users for a program like that?
You’re going to have to research the field, check out the
most
popular sites, and negotiate banner campaigns and link exchanges.
That’s fine if you want to invest the time and the effort.
But
it’s much easier to find an affiliate program operating in
a
field you’re familiar with, and use that program to earn extra
cash.
For example, suppose you had set up a dating site. You might make
bit of money selling subscriptions, but you might make even more
by joining Match.com’s affiliate program and selling them
your
users. Unless you’re planning to be the Internet’s biggest
dating
site, you’re not going to be able to compete directly and
beat
them, but you can join them and earn money.
Or rather than sell your users directly to a ‘competitor’,
you
can look for services that complement your own. Visitors to your
dating site, for example, might be interested in buying flowers,
books on relationships or tickets on singles cruises.
Instead of selling just one product membership subscriptions
you’d be selling a whole range of different goods to the same
people, and increasing the sources of your income.
Here are some tips to selecting an affiliate program that is
lucrative and right for you:
- Don’t accept less than 25% commission. You can find affiliate
programs with great payment structures and high percentages of
the purchase price in just about every field.
- Look for comprehensive statistics pages that list the number
of
click-throughs, sales and earnings so you can see how you’re
doing. The information should be broken down by month.
- Look for programs that offer a wide variety of promotional
tools to put on your Web page, including textlinks, banners
and
graphics.
- Find out how often you will be paid and make sure that the
payment schedule meets your expectations. Some programs pay
monthly, others quarterly; which is best for you?
- Look for examples of marketing methods that successful
affiliates are using to get the best results.
- Make sure that top level support is given. If they can’t
answer
your questions promptly and intelligently, you don’t
want to work
with them.
I mentioned the two top books that can teach you about affiliate
marketing from A to Z in yesterday's lesson. I think they are
worth mentioning again here.
THE SUPER AFFILIATE HANDBOOK by Rosalind
Gardner
Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous
business experience, earns 400,000+ per year selling other
people's stuff online!
Click
here to learn more now.
CLICKIN' IT RICH by Michael Campbell
If you are ready to fire the boss and set up a profitable home
business, I'll tell you exactly how I make over $200,000 a year
in affiliate revenues.
Click here
to learn more now.
Click here to proceed
to Part 4 : What Is The Best Product To Sell Online?
