Setting Up An Affiliate Marketing System

Setting Up An Affiliate Marketing System

Affiliate programs will enable a business to generate
a lot of traffic and therefore boost sales through
promotion by third party sales or sites.  It's also
a cost effective way to advertise your products and
services as you pay only for the efforts that
actually turn into sales.

Setting up your own affiliate system can be either
easy or overwhelming, all depending on how many
affiliates you want to recruit, as well as your
payment policy and the type of product that you are
offering.

As for your affiliate systems, there are two options
for your business - outsource the entire system or
run your own affiliate system through your own
web host.  Each one boasts its own advantages as
well as disadvantages.

If you have a small amount of affiliates, then you
can run your own affiliate software.  If you plan
to recruit a large number of affiliates, then you
will probably need to outsource.  The reason for
this, is because you'll find it easy to deal with
a large number of sign ups, track payments, monitor
clicks, etc.

Types of affiliates
There are numerous types of affiliates out there
to choose from.  There's the pay per sale, there
an individual is paid only if a sale is generated
from the affiliate's link.  It's the least attractive
to people, unless the product is in high demand
and the most profitable for business.

Another type is the pay per lead, where you pay
only for traffic.  With this type, the affiliate
is paid only if a visitor is generated from the
site of the affiliate.  It's attractive to affiliates
although costly to web site owners due to the
possibility of non sale visits.

Considerations
When setting up an affiliate, something to consider
is whether or not you'll approve affiliates manually
or automatically.  It's normally recommended to
start affiliate programs with your established
customer sites then progress to new ones.

If you are dealing with pay per clicks, you may
have to control the affiliates as the quality of
visitors will be a huge factor when it comes to the
generation of sales.  By manually reviewing, you'll
also be able to judge the website or individual
affiliates to see if it's in the best interest of
your company.

If you decide to use your own affiliate system, one
of your biggest challenges will be how to pay
affiliates a percentage of what you end up receiving
from customers.  To do this, you can rely on software
such as Affiliate shop to help you track and manage
commissions.

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Search Engine Relationships To Marketing

Search Engine Relationships To Marketing

The landscape of search engines have went through
some drastic changes over the years.  Not only with
technology, but also with various partnerships
between the many different search companies as well.

You might be running your search engine queries on
a particular search engine, although who is actually
supplying the results - it could be a different
company altogether.

Below, is a list of the search engines that feed your
precious keywords:

Yahoo
Yahoo provides the primary search results for Yahoo
search, Alta Vista, and AllTheWeb, and receives paid
listings from Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly known
as Overture).

Google
Google provides the primary search engine results
to Google AOL Search and also Netscape.  Google also
supplies paid listings to Lycos, Ask, Netscape, AOL
Search, and HotBot.  It also supplies secondary
results to HotBot and receives it's directory data
from DMOZ.

Lycos
Lycos receives the directory search results from
DMOZ, primary results from Ask, and paid listings
from Google Adwords.

Hotbot
Hotbot receives directory search results from DMOZ,
primary search results from Ask, and paid/secondary
results from Google Adwords.

Ask
Ask provides primary results to Ask, Hotbot, and
Lycos.  It receives secondary search results from
Teoma and the directory results from DMOZ, with
paid listings from Google Adwords.

In relations to marketing, search engines can
provide anything you want to know.  If someone is
looking for something, they normally refer to the
search engines.  When they type it in, the highest
sites on the engines will show - which is normally
where the visitor will go.

By keeping good position on the search engines,
you'll be near the first for visitors who are looking
for a certain product.  You can make a lot of money
with search engines as well, if you know what you
are doing.

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Protecting Your Affiliate Commissions

Protecting Your Affiliate Commissions

There are numerous software products on the market
that range from 15 - 50 dollars for special types
of software that'll assist you in protecting your
affiliate marketing commissions.  The effectiveness
and ease of use for the programs range greatly, so
before you buy one, you should always learn as
much as you possibly can.

Banner servers
Banner servers not only serve banners, as many of
the more recent servers will also display text
links as well.  The link coding that's associated
with served ads is normally long, so that the
visitor won't be able to see on the status bar
where the redirect is heading.

Click tracking software
Click counting software will not show the target
URL as the links point inwards to the software,
which is normally installed on your own website.

Once someone has clicked on the link, the click
tracking application will then redirect the
visitor to the URL that you have specified within
the script.  The click tracking software will also
provide a great way to monitor the usefulness of
your ads and not just relying on the reports
that merchants will provide.

Protecting your commissions is extremely important,
as you want to get paid for what you do.  Even
though fraud is possible with affiliate marketing,
you can protect yourself.  Fraudsters have certain
techniques and tactics they use, which you can
protect yourself from.

If you own your own business, the last thing you
want to experience is either credit card fraud or
affiliate fraud.  They do happen on a regular
basis, simply because those who have it happen
haven't taken the necessary steps they should
have to protect themselves.

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Overachieving Your Way to Super Affiliate Stardom

Overachieving Your Way to Super Affiliate Stardom


Internet business is a bit confusing especially if you’re not really knowledgeable at it.  You will also be left completely blank, asking yourself as to what type of online business is best for you. Why don’t you try affiliate marketing business?

Affiliate marketing is defined as a revenue sharing relationship between advertisers or merchants and online publishers or affiliates. It is a low cost way for merchants to sell their products and services.

In this type of online business, you don’t have to take any risk because you only have to pay the affiliate once the result is achieved. Once a customer is gained, a portion of the profit from that customer will be given to the affiliate as commission. Usually, an affiliate gets a commission for referring clicks, leads or sales to the merchant’s website. The said affiliate income can be a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage.

From this simple commission-based referral system, some affiliates become experts on this field. In fact, some of them are gaining more than five figures every month. However, among the thousands of marketers, only 1 to 5% of them reached this level. And if you’re among the lucky ones who achieve this so-called elite level, you can now be aptly called a “super” affiliate.

This means you are capable of achieving noteworthy percentage of sales or traffic on your merchant’s website. Super affiliates are not only experts on search engine optimization; they are also great in newsletter marketing, email marketing, reciprocal linkages, keyword optimization, link exchanges, advertising in forums and other methods to advertise and promote their products and services.

But how does a person become a super affiliate? And how can they overachieve their way to super affiliate stardom? Making your way to super affiliate stardom is not that easy; and it surely won’t happen overnight. Bear in mind that you need to embrace some tactics, carry out effective online business strategies and of course give hefty time commitment. You can’t be a super affiliate without blood and sweat and without the following traits - patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge. Matched with efficient strategy, these three traits provide you the formula towards super affiliate stardom.

Affiliate marketing strategies are a bit difficult but they are achievable; you just have to work hard on it. First, look for a unique and exceptional niche and focus in it. The reason why most people in the affiliate marketing business didn’t turn out to be very successful is that they try to offer almost everything under the sun instead of giving all their attention in a particular niche market. If you want to become a super affiliate, try not to scatter all your efforts; concentrate on your niche and make it grow by means of promoting, advertising and selling it well.

The next step you must do after you have established your affiliate storehouse is to promote it. Most affiliates resort to pay-per-click engines. But what’s more advisable is to discover how to accomplish organic search results or better yet, hire a search engine marketing company. Through this, you can be saved from losing all your profits on pay-per-click engines.

Then, familiarize yourself with your product and know your audience. Remember that credibility builds trust. And you can only make information that puts up your credibility if you know the products and services your site is offering. If you’re target audience don’t trust you, how could you expect them to purchase from your affiliate storehouse? Moreover, if you take time to learn the products and services you are recommending, it will be way too easy for you to establish a website that converts well, which will enhance your affiliate income in return.

Try to promote and resell products from different merchants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this strategy because it is just a way of protecting your business and broadening your horizons to be sure that you won’t experience the so-called famine effect. Aside from that, promoting different merchants on the same site provides your site visitors a handful of destinations to choose from. This strategy will also make you aware on what your visitor want to see and it can also help you find out how well various merchants perform against each other.

As mentioned earlier in this page, a super affiliate wannabe should have this trait - thirst for knowledge. It is because this trait can help him or her stay updated and remain on top of the trends. If you are knowledgeable in internet marketing, then you know that what was adopted few months ago may not be applicable at present. So it is important to seek knowledge and make sure that you are updated on what’s new about affiliate marketing daily. Keep in mind that super affiliates take time to read, learn and embrace the changes in online marketing business.

And what’s most important? Never, ever give up. Being engaged in affiliate marketing business is hard, that’s why you must be equipped with patience and persistence. Check your statistics and find out the things that are working and those that are not. Make changes if the situation calls for.

These are just few suggestions and ideas if you want to boost your affiliate income. Let me reiterate, you have to be patience, persistence and knowledgeable. Then, follow the above mentioned strategies and you’ll surely find yourself on the road to super affiliate stardom.

Money Making Tips

Money Making Tips

Affiliate marketing is all about getting paid for
selling products you don't own and not going to
jail for it.  Someone else goes through all of the
trouble to develop software programs, service, or
digital content products.  They'll do all the work
then you collect the money!

Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing arrangement
between the product developer, known as the affiliate
merchant, and the affiliate marketer who is anyone
that's willing to promote the sale of product by
advertising the product using any type of legal
means available.

The relationship will allow the affiliate merchant
to grow their revenue by paying only for the
advertising that results in a sale.  The affiliate
marketer will profit by making a percentage on a
sale that he does not have to manage after the
sale.

Getting paid
Getting paid all depends upon how the affiliate
program is set up.  Some merchants will run their
own affiliate program.  They'll have special types
of software that assigns each affiliate marketer
a special link that's used in promoting the product.
The software will track sales of every marketer
and the merchant will pay the commission on a
periodic basis using either PayPal or another
method of payment.

Selecting products or services
Your income is directly tied to how well your
selected product or service sells, and the size of
the commission you earn, which makes it very
important that you choose carefully when it comes
to choosing the affiliate merchant you'll be
partnering with.

Choose programs that you aren't embarrassed to
promote and programs that you'll feel comfortable
recommending to your family and friends if they
were to ask you about it.

You'll do much better if you promote products
that you fully understand and are already familiar
with.  This way, you'll be able to write better
ads without having to strain yourself coming up
with the right things to say.

You should only promote products and services for
companies who have gone through the trouble to
provide you with training programs and sales aids
such as banners and other marketing materials that
you can either use directly or model the one you
own after.

Be on the lookout for programs with commission
rates no less than 50%.  You should give preference
to programs that pay commission on multiple levels,
which means you'll also have to earn commissions
on sales made by people who buy the products
through your link then go on and become affiliates
themselves later on.

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Managing And Recruiting Affiliates

Managing And Recruiting Affiliates

Once affiliates begin to sign up, even if you are
automatically approving them, its in your best
interest to audit your network on a regular basis.
Now, the FTC is making marketers responsible for
the actions of their affiliates.  If your affiliates
get out of control, it could cost you a lot of money.

You'll have hundreds of affiliates sign up for your
program.  Hobbyists, spammers, webmasters and even
marketers.  It's very important that you review
each one on a regular basis to ensure the way they
are promoting you is acceptable to your company and
above all - its legal.

Below, you'll find some tips when screening:
1.  All affiliates must have an active web
site.  If not, they may be spammers.
2.  The affiliate site content must relate
to your products or services.
3.  The site should have appropriate levels
of content.
4.  Misuse of content.  Be very clear with
your affiliates and what content they can use from
your website.

Affiliate fraud
Fraud with affiliates has been increasing over the
last several years, which is another great reason
to screen your affiliates on a regular basis.  With
fraud, there are two main types:

Malware - Some affiliates out there have developed
software that is installed on a machine, normally as
part of a free download.  When someone clicks on the
affiliate link, the true affiliate ID is replaced
with the fraud.

Fake purchase - If you have a product of high value
that returns large commissions for affiliates, you
may notice some bad parties signing up, then using
stolen or fake credit card information to purchase
products via their links.

Communicating with affiliates
Good affiliates are normally busy, as they can
easily forget about your services and products.
As time goes by, your offers can wind up less in
less visited areas or accidentally deleted.

It's extremely important to stay in contact with
your affiliates, even more so with the high performers.
Do not wait for them to contact you, as if you
do, it normally means they are reporting a problem.
By taking the time to contact them, you are showing
that you are interested in the partnership.

You don't need a new product as an excuse to
contact your power affiliates.  Even if it's just
a quick note to ask if they need anything.  You
can also use the opportunity for feedback on your
program as well.

Managing a successful affiliate program is not an
easy task you can fully automate, as you'll have
to get involved.  Happy affiliates are more
productive, and the more money they make - the
more money your company makes as well.

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