Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an online practice wherein a business rewards an affiliate for the visitors or customers brought in by his marketing efforts. 

The rewards are either cash or gifts and are given for either an offer completion or site referral. In this process, there are four players – the merchant, network, publisher and customer. Recently, this market has grown complex with the secondary players like affiliate management agencies, third party vendors (specialized) and super affiliates. 

It works by simply using the affiliate's website to drive traffic to the merchant's own site or to allow visitors to be forwarded to the merchant's main web page. 

Basically, this is also what we can call revenue sharing between the online merchants and online affiliates. The compensation given to the affiliates depend on how many user clicks, sales or registrations were made on the merchant's website via their own. Affiliate marketing enables the automation of the advertising processes and the payment for desired actions. Merchants have preferred this 


internet marketing strategy because it is a “pay per performance” model, where they do not incur any expenses for marketing their products unless the affiliate produces the results they need. 
Affiliate marketing can also be translated as a type of business relationship where you, as an affiliate, promote a merchant's services which is different from yours. 

This means that you do not need to have your own product in order to venture into affiliate marketing. You only need to promote your business provider's services and products.

This is how it works – you need to have a web page that contains a link that directs your users or visitors to the main page or online store of the merchant. 

When one of your site visitors clicks on that link and purchases something from the merchant's website, you will get a sort of commission or a referral fee. 

This way you are the one driving traffic to your merchant's website through your own web page. The merchant will pay you whenever a visitor from your site buys something or signs up for something on their site. A special affiliate link is assigned to your web page, making it easy for the merchant to track customers coming from your site. One merchant is allowed different affiliate links and all of them will direct the users to its website. 

Another strategy that works in affiliate marketing is the use of web page codes or web cookies. This is actually a very interesting way to still profit even if your visitor clicks on the affiliate link and does not purchase from the merchant's site at once. 

How does this work? The moment a user clicks on the link, a cookie is stored in his computer, indicating that he or she visited the merchant's site and recording your page as the one that referred him to that website. 

If, let's say a couple of weeks later, the user finally decides to buy something from the merchant's online store and types the web address of the merchant directly into his browser, the cookies stored in his computer will still recognize the purchase as a referral from your affiliate link, allowing you to receive a compensation from the merchant. 

Note that cookies have expiration, so you must read the affiliate program's terms carefully to check the life span of these cookies. 
The success of affiliate marketing has also paved way for the rise of many online companies such as Amazon.com, which now has thousands of affiliates.  

Basics of Affiliate Marketing

The concept of affiliate marketing is a variation on the outside sales position except that it all happens in cyber-space, and there is no door-to-door component.

Think of yourself as the salesman, one of many, for a specific product or service and you’ve mastered the basics of what is an affiliate.

People have all kinds of products and services that they want to sell online. Part of the process to become successful is to have a large amount of traffic that is interested in what you have to offer. The way you can accomplish this is by having salesman or affiliate promote your products.

When a sale is made, you share the earnings with your affiliate/salesman through commissions. Successful affiliates make a good living by promoting products and services of other vendors in order to make that commission.

For the purposes of this coming posts, I will focus on one of the easiest affiliate networks to get started – Clickbank and list the others with a brief look at the larger networks. Once you learn how an affiliate network like Clickbank works, you will be able to expand that to other larger networks that have a myriad of different products and services that are commission able.

Clickbank is one of the largest, oldest affiliate networks out there online. Clickbank sells only digital products, is extremely easy to learn how to use and has a ton of vendors just waiting to snap up a good affiliate.

There is no waiting time to become a part of the Clickbank affiliate family, and the commissions are much higher than the other networks, with some commissions going as high as 75%.

Clickbank is an affiliate network in that it is a whole bunch of vendors and affiliates all working under the umbrella organization called Clickbank.

Through Clickbank, products and services are bought and sold, accounting goes on within the network and commissions are calculated per product sold. Before we go any further, let’s look at what you can potentially earn from one product.

For example: You promote and sell on Clickbank product called Maverick Money Makers: Get Paid For Life!. It sounds like a pretty exciting product, right?

Well, it has the highest pay out of any Top 10 Clickbank Product and is the Top Converting product offer online. It pays out at a 50% commission level.

When you look at it’s pitch page, it is endorsed by some pretty heavy weight people including CNBC, As Seen On TV, Small Business Opportunities, Fox News, CBS News and Readers Digest.

As an affiliate, you will earn 50% of the $97 dollar price tag, and it’s repaid on a monthly basis.

So, that means that for every person who signs up through your affiliate link (which we will get in a minute), you will be paid $44 each month as long as that person stays signed up.

What do you think if you simply stuck with this affiliate program and reached their magical 100 referral mark. That’s $4400 per month for promoting only one product.

Are you beginning to see how lucrative affiliate marketing can be?

Think about how much you could make if you found 10 affiliate programs like this one? This is not only possible, but not that hard to accomplish if you know how.

Look on Clickbank and find 10 things that you think you might want to sell.

Make a list because as you learn more, you may want to revise it, and you may find that your choices are golden. 

INTRODUCTION TO AFFILIATE MARKETING

 When it comes to going into business online, one of the easiest and most lucrative experience, no website and simple promotional techniques that will convert prospective buyers into  customer,

For the relative newcomer, affiliate marketing offers a planned method and blueprint to begin making sales online. There are a multitude of different opportunities, niches and markets to choose from. A person can become an affiliate for just about anything from digital products to flowers and everything in between.

In this posts we will cover the basics of affiliate marketing to give you an idea of where to start, how to get started and what websites are good to work with.

We will then move into how to become a profitable affiliate in 60 days or less, becoming an affiliate insider and some advanced techniques that if applied properly will take your earnings to the next level.

This post is not the end all in affiliate learning; instead, it is a good step-off point that will lead you to other posts that will expand your horizons and earnings.

By the time you finish reading this reading coming posts you will be able to implement a concrete plan that will get you into earning money quickly and easily.

These techniques have worked for a long time, and they work consistently to earn money from affiliate marketing if followed.

If you are already familiar with affiliate marketing, coming posts  will give you new techniques to add to your marketing arsenal so that you can increase your affiliate earnings and expand on the methods that you use in order to be successful.

So, without further ado, let’s get started on our journey to affiliate profitability!

What Will You Need To Set Your Affiliate Business

Starting Affiliate Marketing Online Business is the most quickest, easiest and very cost effective way to start your home business.  

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing:

1  A.. You don’t need to create or come up with a product to sell,

   B.  You don’t need to worry about delivering the goods,

   C. You don’t need to provide an customer support

   D.  Most importantly, the startup costs are very low.

The things you will need to start your business are: - 

A. Website : - A website is like having your own shop online. A website is cost effective, because you know upfront what the cost of website will be. The good thing about online website is it is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Website help you build trust with your visitors.

There are two types of websites:

1  1. Brochure site: your blog (what you are reading now).

.    2. A Squeeze Page: (Your opt-in page).  Which help you to build           your list.  As once they are on your list, you will send them               follow up emails with your affiliate links and if they buy then           you will make money.

B.  Domain Name : -  You will have to choice name for your business, as this will help you in the future to establish your brand online. Before you can start building your website, you will need a domain name. The domain name and the website are closely connected but they are two very different things. Your domain name can be used for your website and your email. Your affiliate business email will be something like this: myaffiliatename@yourdomainname.com. Your domain name is what people will type into their browser to find your site. Domain names are not very expensive and you only need to pay a yearly renewal fee for them.

C. Hosting company:- Web hosting is a service that allows online marketers to display or host a website on the Internet. A web hosting service provider provides your business with technologies and services needed in order to successfully run your website. 

You’ll need to select a web hosting provider that has a high reputation and has a low percentage of server down time. Websites are stored on special computers called servers. You will host your  Opt In page on this server provided to your with your hosting account. This is important that your hosting plan allows for uninterrupted service. Because your potential customers will land on this page and be sent to your website.

There are lot of options available when you're considering Domain Name and Hosting Services.  Below are two links of industry's leading service providers. 

GoDaddy – Most people think that Godaddy sells only domain names but they also provide hosting services and lots of other add-on's that will be beneficial for your business. 

Click on this link: http://goo.gl/DS10fh

Hostgator – Hostgator is very popular for hosting, but they also provide domain names & hosting service.

Click the link :  http://www.hostgator.com

D. What is an Autoresponder and Why Do You Need One?

An autoresponder is a required tool for your online business.(Just like Web Hosting). Autoresponders are used to automatically send your follow-up messages to your subscribers. You just write your emails once and each time someone subscribes to your list, the messages are sent to them automatically.

There are three types of messages that you can set in the autoresponder.

    1.  Time based - once set will be sent to your contacts in any                   sequence you want it to be sent.

    2.  Broadcast message - can be sent when you want to send special         messages or when you are launching new product.

    3.  Event based messages - can be set for if your subscriber 

         performs  a certain type of action.  For example, if they click the      link, change their personal information, or any other sort of              special criteria you have set. 

There are a lot of options available when it comes ta autoresponders.  Autoresponders are time savers and are cost effective because you know up front what the cost will be each month. 

Here are links to two very well-known autoresponder companies, check them out before buying. 

Aweber – They have a trial offer of  $1 -

 http://www.aweber.com/easy-email.htm?id=455350

Get Response – They have a free trial offer -

http://www.getresponse.com/index/Infotemple16

If you feel you want to start your business as soon as possible then   click the link below to start today. 

http://Infobuzz13.rhccyp.hop.clickbank.net

Affiliate Marketing

Okay, so you've bought a domain name & hosting, set up Wordpress, chosen a theme, optimized your blog, and added some content. Now how do you make money from this thing?

One of the most popular and effective ways of monetizing a blog is by using affiliate marketing. Basically, you become a salesman for a particular company / product, and you receive commissions on everything you sell.

Many bloggers are affiliates for Amazon or Ebay. If we made a blog on “bamboo fly fishing rods”, this would be a good option because it is a physical product, and chances are good that people searching for that keyword might want to buy it.

It's extremely easy to sign up as an affiliate for these websites.

Another highly popular website is Clickbank. Clickbank specializes in digital products like eBooks and software. Affiliates love to promote these products because they usually offer high payouts ($15+ per commission).

A quick search on the Clickbank marketplace and I was able to find “Deadly Fly Fishing Tactics – Revealed” which might be okay to promote to someone looking for bamboo fly fishing rods. However, it's not terribly targeted like an ACTUAL bamboo fly fishing rod for sale on Amazon or Ebay would be.

Keep these things in mind as you choose a product to promote. You want to be as targeted as possible.

Other websites where you can find products to promote are Commission Junction, PayDotCom, and Share A Sale. Also, sometimes individual companies offer affiliate programs on their websites. There's also CPA (Cost Per Action), which is in a whole other ball park. Do some research and see what you come up with.

When you find a product you want to promote, you'll receive an affiliate code to put on your website. It's good to put some kind of ad on the sidebar of your blog, which you can do by accessing the “Widgets” page and adding the code into the “text object” box.

Also include text affiliate links throughout your blog posts. But not too many, otherwise it'll look spammy.

Sorting Out The Confusion

It might help, at this point, to look at a quick comparison of  3 similar forms of `affiliate’ marketing:

Affiliate Marketing	CPA Marketing	MLM Marketing
Affiliate marketing can be originated from a network – such as Clickbank  – or from an individual marketer.	CPA marketing can originate from a CPA network  - such as AZN Network, CPA Empire, PrimaryAds or Incentaclick – or from a large, recognized company or organization who can afford to run its own ad campaigns	Multi-Level Marketing depends on its members recruiting new members in what is basically an illegal “pyramid” marketing structure.  Ethical internet marketers avoid this model.
Commission payouts are usually once or twice a month, and are based on results (sales)	Commission payouts are less restrictive and are based on actions the end user takes (especially lead generation)
Occasionally offer promotions or product bonuses	Often offers its publishers high-end  contests and promotions
In 95% of all cases, any one will be accepted as an affiliate	CPA networks screening prospective web publishers, often with a phone call as part of the process
You provide the landing page and all promotion.	CPA network or advertiser provides the landing page. You provide the space to display their link or banner ad.