Affiliate Marketing Secrets

Today, we can easily create own web site. As long as you have a Computer Access Internet, You will be able to access sites such as Google, using them to provide web site design templates to create a simple personal website. The website will assign you a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to store the content on your page, while also adding some of these sites want to advertise advertising. In this way, only one or two hours of your pages on the Internet in!

But how to make your site to achieve more function? How to use it profitable traffic to your site? If you are an online affiliate, how do you attract people to your site to buy things? A can simultaneously satisfy the above two kinds of needs and is quite popular method is to Affiliate Marketing (Affiliate Program). This article will introduce what is affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing principles apply to the object and how to use
affiliate marketing to make your site benefit from.

What is Affiliate Marketing or Affiliate Site?

Affiliate marketing is also called Affiliate Marketing Network (Associate Program), the Affiliate Web site (Online Merchant Web Site) and the affiliated Web site (Affiliate Web Site) an agreement reached between. Stipulated in the agreement, the latter providing the former users, the former to the latter to pay a commission for this. The affiliated sites to place links to business sites, and in accordance with the two sides agreed to receive advertising in return for payment of fees. Returns are generally disbursed in accordance with the adoption Affiliates (Affiliate) sites the number of visitors into the affiliate Web site or a purchase or other acts of the number of customers to be calculated.

Some are also in accordance with the affiliated Web site to access the affiliate Web site banner ads (Banner Ad) to calculate the number of people. Basically, as long as the affiliate merchant site members can give to bring passenger flow or earnings, business web site, which will be in accordance with agreement between the parties to pay a certain remuneration. The recruitment of affiliates (Recruiting Affiliate) is not only a good way to conduct online sales, but also is a cheap and efficient marketing strategy. In addition, it is a good choice of site promotion.

Affiliate marketing, at least the following three:
* Customer
* Affiliated sites
* Merchant Website

In 1996, Amazon (Amazon.com), CEO and founder JeffBezos (Jeff Bezos) to make affiliate marketing as a network marketing strategy to spread open. Amazon On-line commitment, in accordance with referral and affiliate sites to purchase books or other commodities, the number of profit-sharing commission, in order to attract affiliate website point to Amazon books for sale online, or link. The affiliated sites help only sold by Amazon’s other things to do online, including: taking orders, collection, shipped to customers. The results of this strategy victory need more than 500,000 Web site to join them.

Currently, affiliate marketing has been an increasing number of website used by a variety of forms. For many none core E-business the websites to become an affiliate member is engaged in a good way of e-commerce.

Affiliate Program, paid model

Affiliate marketing there are three models of payment:

* Pay according to sales (Based on sales to pay): Amazon’s online affiliate marketing program that is paid by sales of a typical example. In such a pay model, only when a customer through the affiliate link to visit the merchant web site members and produce the actual purchase, the affiliate Web site will pay to affiliates. Some merchants, like Amazon, the same line, according to a certain percentage of sales paid; there are also some merchants for each product sold will be paid a certain amount.

* Pay-per-click (The amount of pay-per-click): In this payment model, the affiliate Web site under the affiliate website and click on the link to point to the number of visitors to the affiliate membership fee. Visitors do not need to buy any commodity, but also from affiliate sites log on to the affiliate website and conduct after the act has nothing to do with the Member Web site.

* According to the number of pay-to guide (According to guide the number of payments): Click here to pay-mode operation of the business according to the completion of guidance (i.e., fills out and submits a form) the number of visitors to the affiliate membership fee. This means that the completion of a affiliate site requires visitors to fill out the information, which information can be used as a affiliate Web site sales leads, or as sales leads to sell other companies.

There are also some other payment model. Basically, the affiliate marketing program, merchants will select their best behavior as a basis for payment, and then transfer to their affiliate sites the occurrence of this behavior, the number of clients paid to affiliated members.

Several basic pay in the above model, derived from some other more prevailing payment mode:
* Two-tier affiliate program(Two-Tier Program): two-tier affiliate program structure and Amway, Avon and other companies used in multi-layer direct marketing (also known as “network marketing”, is a development on behalf of salespeople and commissioned salespeople sell and profit from marketing) is similar to the organizational structure. In this payment model, affiliate membership is not only the sales from its Web site, click on or get a commission to guide behavior, but also its development, and point to cascade under the affiliate Web site is a member of sales, clicks or get a commission to guide behavior.

* The residual income affiliate program(Residual Program): This affiliate program provided that if the members from the affiliate web site visitors to enter the affiliate Web site to purchase products at the affiliate Web site or services, a continuous, affiliate members can thus continues to be a commission. Many customers get from regular income (such as monthly service fee charged) of online merchants to use more of this affiliate program.

In addition, there are a few shows by the number of affiliate programs pay. The implementation of these programs (also known as pay-per-view program of visits) companies only in view of its banner ads the visitors visits to the Member to pay a commission. This pattern often does not fully equipped with the structure of affiliate marketing, just as a traditional advertising and marketing to operate. Compared with traditional advertising, affiliate network marketing advantage only when an affiliate member of the business produced the desired results, the merchant fees are allowed.

While the advertisers, the traditional advertising (for example, that you see on television advertising and a number of banner ads on the Internet) and risk is relatively larger. Because in the traditional advertising model, they do the ads cost effectiveness is uncertain. If your ad is greater than the benefits to the company advertising costs, advertising even if successful; but if the benefits of advertising than advertising costs, the company can only resign to fate. In affiliate marketing, online business is only valid when paid in the ad. Thus, significantly reduced the risk of advertisers. It is precisely because of this, one would like to contract for advertising sites, in order to join affiliate marketing is far more direct way of advertising is much easier to find advertisers.

How to manage affiliate marketing or affiliate software?

Conceptually speaking, affiliate marketing, it seems quite simple; However, to ensure its smooth operation, people need to do a lot of work behind the scenes. In order to truly grasp the affiliate members of the commission amount, the need for someone to track websites visited by members of the actual situation of a affiliate website.

According to the different payment models may need to determine:

* Affiliate membership in a particular site and click to enter the number of merchant sites
* Members through an affiliate site links into the affiliate website and on the website shopping or perform other acts of the expected number of clients
* In the affiliate members of the website of a affiliate website published the number of banner ads

In addition, merchants and affiliate tracking between members of the original agreement to ensure that the latter received a deserved commission.

Whether a merchant Web site to recruit affiliates, or affiliates to identify interested in affiliate marketing programs are a lot of work needs to be done. However, there are still many companies that take the time to personally manage members are quite worth it, therefore, as tirelessly as the Amazon, the pro-force into it. Although these companies the entire process of marketing the program and in full control of the commission paid on time, they are still able to attract a large number of franchisees.

Because their conditions of membership in terms of a zero risk or zero cost, that is, affiliates can link to websites to make money just doing a good job. However, for many sites, recruiting members, or join an affiliate business websites are pieces of time-consuming and laborious task. Web site owners and many have little confidence in the commission calculation of the amount of commercial sites.

Are you looking for more information on affiliate marketing? CK Fang’s has been in the business of affiliate marketing websites for over 3+ years. He is the creator of “What is Affiliate Marketing Or an Affiliate Site”, which give you information what is affiliate marketing.

Since I decided to take the plunge 5 years ago and start working for myself as an online marketer, affiliate marketing has been the best thing I ever got involved in and is now part of my daily schedule.

It is without doubt something that all people who are interested in starting an online business or those who already have an online business, should investigate and take up.

If you are undecided or have little knowledge about affiliate marketing then I hope that you find the below information helpful and that it will clear up any doubts that you have over what the key benefits of affiliate marketing are.

1. Commission basis

For the affiliate marketer this is a key advantage as every time that somebody makes a purchase, the affiliate receives a set commission of the profit.

For the affiliate merchant this is an advantage as they only pay the marketer when they make a sale, so no money is wasted on marketing spend.

2. Huge audience

For the affiliate marketer – having built up various marketing lists or websites, they can make use of their huge audience base and ensure that the traffic they send over to the merchant is qualified and that sales are made, making the affiliate more money.

For the affiliate merchant – they receive access to a wider audience base than they may have had before, creating more interest in their products, resulting in more sales and all without investing any more money or time.

3. Ease

For the affiliate marketer – once they have set up their additional sites and links across to the merchant, it is very simple to manage and often affiliates will continue to make money from sales without having done anything for months.

For the affiliate merchant – they do not have to invest time and money writing content or creating expensive images in order to promote their services/ products. Instead affiliates will apply to be a part of their programme and all the merchant need do is have many affiliates all working towards promoting their products/ services and wait for the sales to flood in.

4. Steady cost

For the affiliate marketer – building on the last point, an affiliate can keep receiving commission from sales of a product or service for years, despite not doing a lot of work to promote it. You do need to invest time at the start but then you have a regular source of income coming in for the market life of the service/ product.

For the affiliate merchant – they set up all the costs so the chance to make a huge profit on sales without having spent much on marketing, is very likely. They do not have to pay their affiliates much per sale to make the business relationship worthwhile, as it tends to work best on a quantity basis so everyone is happy with the set amounts.

5. Brand Visibility

For the affiliate – there is a lot to be gained reputation wise from working with a range of brands and you will find that you get a lot more work should you be able to prove that you have succeeded with others in the past.

For the affiliate merchant – they receive free brand exposure on a continual basis, which is never a bad thing. If you have many affiliates working on promoting your brand, you’ll soon see a boost in search engine rankings and online sales; Amazon.com is an excellent example of where this has worked in the past.

6. Outsourced expertise

For the affiliate marketer – they get the continued experience to improve and work on their methods of online marketing, investing only their time, not money.

For the affiliate merchant – they will be able to utilise all kinds of affiliates who are experts in SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimisation) without investing a lot of money, yet still manage to get to the top of Google rankings.

7. Transparency

For the affiliate marketer – through the various affiliate programmes, it is possible to see exactly when sales are made and payment is automatic, so you do not have to worry about chasing merchants for payments.

For the affiliate merchant – they can see and manage their R.O.I (return on investment) extremely easily and do not have to worry about tracking the origin of each sale.

8. Online market

For the affiliate marketer – there are an endless number of affiliate programmes out there and the demand for online shopping is not going to decrease, so the earning potential for affiliates is huge. You can access any number of markets with your affiliate work, whether you choose jewellery, hygiene, pet insurance or food.

Use long tail pro to find targeted long tail keywords with low competition, ensuring maximum affiliate sale for you.

For the affiliate merchant – as previously mentioned, online demand is not going away any time soon, therefore merchants are able to continue to expand product ranges to meet a range of online markets with the knowledge that they have a number of affiliates on hand to promote quickly and at a low cost.

9. Home-based work (aimed at affiliate marketer)

If you become successful in the world of affiliate marketing then it is entirely possible to create a long term Passive Income from it and a huge bonus to this is that you can work cheaply from home and be your own boss. You don’t have to pay to sign up to affiliate programmes and there are a huge number to choose from, all from the comfort of your own home.

10. Overcoming tradition (aimed at affiliate merchant)

Using affiliates to promote your products and services will guarantee that you receive a lot more exposure than you would by using more pricey traditional marketing methods. Having a number of affiliates promoting what you are selling and only being paid when a sale is made, is one of the most cost effective marketing methods ever as well as being incredibly successful.

Let the professionals help you… in mass:

Affiliate marketing networks provide an environment where companies who have something to sell (Advertisers) meet with companies who know how to sell it (Publishers). Many large Affiliate marketing networks provide hundreds of products to be sold to their network of thousands of publishers.

Affiliate marketing networks generally work on a performance basis (CPA), where you only pay when a sale or lead is generated for you. You receive a sale or lead at a predetermined cost and then award the affiliate network with a bounty for generating the sale or lead for you. The Affiliate network then pays their publishers for generating sales on your behalf, minus what the network keeps for itself for putting the deal together. This may sound similar to a shopping portal, however there are some distinct differences. A shopping portal places your products in direct connection with the online shopper. Affiliate marketing networks place your products in direct connection with publishers (marketing or media companies.) Each publisher will then use their own resources to generate sales for you, be it PPC, SEO, email, banners and the like.

Not every product or service will work with an affiliate marketing campaign, and many affiliate networks will not accept your offer unless certain criteria are met. The average website is not “marketing ready” for an affiliate marketing campaign, and often requires a redesign or a separate website to allow for easy sales or lead conversions. Most sales lead generation campaigns work across affiliate marketing networks as long as you are not trying to collect too much information, or information that makes your customers feel nervous such as a social security number. For product sales, you need to present a very attractive offer like “a free 7 day trial for a diet pill”, “free services for 1 month”, or anything that can be considered a low risk bargain. An offer such as “a 42 inch plasma screen Television for only $1,597” will not work. As always, there are exceptions, and you may need to work closely with your affiliate manager to produce a campaign that will be popular amongst the publishers.

Due to the nature of the affiliate networks, they can be volatile and risky, and are not recommended for any company until they have a lot of internet marketing experience under their belt. The overall sales potential of affiliate network marketing can be enormous, and any time gigantic sales numbers come into play, so do gigantic risks. Many affiliate networks have what are known as “Super Affiliates” who have the potential to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales commissions each month. The volatility stems from both the marketing power available through an affiliate network, along with the performance-based environment they provide.

For the most part, the publishers who do the selling through the affiliate networks are greedy. They want to sell only the products and services that yield them the most revenue. It is their right, after all, because they are working on a performance basis and assume all marketing risks. If a good offer comes across an affiliate network, where a lot of money can be made, many publishers will market the product and sales will come streaming in. If a product comes in that does not generate good, or at least acceptable, revenue for the publishers, they will chose to not market the product and sales will be almost nonexistent. It is difficult to find the right balance to satisfy all parties involved (advertiser, publisher, affiliate network, and potential customer.) All parties must be happy in order to yield a successful affiliate campaign. The swing between a high performing campaign and an unpopular one can be tremendous. This volatility introduces significant risk, which comes in three flavors.

Affiliate Network Marketing Risk:

• (1) Not enough business You have put significant time and resources into building an Affiliate marketing campaign. You have commissioned all types of marketing creative, website design and even bulked up your sales staff. Despite this preparation, your offer is not a money maker for the publishers, and they are not marketing your campaign. Your expenses have increased in anticipation of increased sales that simply never materialized.
• (2) Too much business You hit the nail on the head… Your offer is hot and the publishers love it. They love it so much that sales flow in faster than you can handle. Your call center can handle 50 leads per day but the publishers are generating 200. For each sale or lead made you must pay a commission whether or not you can address it. You are literally downing in too much business, and your pocketbook can’t hold out long enough to expand accordingly.
• (3) Cheating You didn’t invest much effort in validating your sales or leads. Your affiliate marketing campaign is generating a lot of leads, but sales are not happening. You are receiving numerous disconnected phone numbers, invalid credit card numbers or people who say “I only signed up for the free gift.” Leads are coming in, but a bunch of crooked publishers are submitting fake information to get paid as if their data was real. Notice how that last lead had a Texas area code, their zip code was “12345,” they stated they live in Alaska and gave you the credit card number “4444555544445555.”

Many Affiliate marketing networks will also ask if they can run your campaign exclusively. This means that they are the only affiliate network that can provide your offer to the world. There are some distinct advantages and disadvantages to running your campaign exclusively with one network.

Exclusive Affiliate network Campaign Advantages:

• Your Affiliate marketing campaign manager may pass your campaign on to other affiliate marketing networks, and manage your account for you. This saves you considerable time by not having to seek out new networks, organizing campaign launches, marketing creative, and other tasks required to launch a new campaign.
• You will not have to pay startup fees or sign contracts for the affiliate marketing networks that your affiliate manager passes your campaign on to. You simply work under your single agreement with your affiliate manager. This can save you thousands of dollars in startup costs, and lots of time.
• Affiliate marketing networks use exclusive campaigns as “bragging rights,” and often give priority to their exclusive campaigns. Your campaign is more likely to be advertised to the publishers and given special attention. This helps to get your campaign noticed by the publisher, and ultimately increases sales or lead flow.

Exclusive Affiliate network Disadvantages:

• Your campaign manager will outsource your campaign to other affiliate marketing networks. You will not know exactly who is marketing your offer and therefore the quality of the web traffic coming into your website is unknown.
• Your affiliate manager may not be as ambitious as you. Your campaign may not get passed on to other affiliate marketing networks, and because it is an exclusive offer you can’t pass it on to other networks. Growth may become stifled.
• The publishers who run your campaign through outsourced affiliate networks will not receive as high of a payout (sales commission). There are effectively two affiliate marketing networks: Your direct affiliate network and the outsourced network. More hands are in the pot, taking money and leaving less for the publishers themselves. The decreased publisher bounty with result in decreased interest in your campaign, so the outsourced affiliate marketing networks will not be as productive as if you worked with them directly.

Most affiliate networks will want to incorporate email marketing into your campaign. This is strongly recommended, as sales or lead generation volumes could be significantly higher. If you do allow your campaign to be email marketed, you will need to be able to maintain an email suppression list. The suppression list is a list of email addresses of people who want to opt-out from receiving your offer. An opt-out link must be provided on your email marketing creative where people can opt-out from your offer. You must then supply the suppression file to your affiliate network so they can in turn pass your suppression file to their publishers. This is a part of the Can-Spam law and it can be effectively managed with a small opt-out landing page connected to a simple database. Make sure you provide an updated suppression file to the affiliate networks at least once per week.

Launching affiliate marketing campaigns that convert:

• Your goal is to generate a campaign that puts the most money possible into your publisher’s pockets, while also generating a profit yourself. Keep in mind that a break-even campaign is also a successful campaign as long as you can re-market to your clients and generate additional sales, upgrades, etc.
• Design your campaign to maximize conversions. Minimize the clicks needed to purchase a product, or have your lead generation form on the home page. Don’t collect information that you really do not need, or that people do not like to give out (like an SSN.) You may have to build a unique website for the affiliate marketing campaign if your current website is not fine-tuned for affiliate marketing.
• You are competing against all of the other campaigns on an affiliate network, not just ones selling the same thing you are. Publishers optimize the offers they market and drop the poor performing campaigns. Design an offer that works both for you and your publishers; your affiliate manager can help.
• Make the steps necessary to allow your campaign to be email marketed by the publishers. This means you will need to create Can-Spam compliant email marketing creative, an opt-out page linked to a database, and provide access to an updated suppression file (a text dump of your database suppression file.) Email marketing will significantly amplify your campaign’s effectiveness.
• Develop a large selection of various marketing creative, lots of standard size banners, multiple email creative, multiple email titles and subject lines, various text links and so on. Your affiliate manager will provide you a list of critical media types and sizes, but try to provide more than their minimum requirements.
• Stay on top of lead quality and fraud. No matter how advanced your validation system may get, someone will try to sneak fake data past you. Make sure that you can track all lead sources, including the subIDs that are passed on through the affiliate network.
• Every time you make a change to your website, submit a test to ensure that the affiliate campaign is still running as it should be. If your website has an error preventing sales conversions or introduces tracking problems, you may be asked to pay the publishers for their lost business. Remember that your broken website will affect many companies who stuck their neck out for you.
• Be prepared for large volumes of leads, or no leads at all.

The risks associated with affiliate network marketing are many, and they are significant. You must be on your toes, thinking ahead and quick to move if things turn sour. But if you come prepared and design an offer that the publishers love, the financial rewards can be enormous.