Affiliate programs are one of the quickest and easiest ways of making profits online. But if you don’t market effectively, they can also prove to be the black hole that sucks away all your money and effort.

Affiliate programs work in two ways to make you money: they can be used as a full-time career option or can be used as a supplement to beef up your main income. Your aim should be to start slow and then make your way to bigger bucks.

Affiliate marketing is a source of multiple streams of income. You can choose to be a product producer with an affiliate program or you can take the easier route and just become an affiliate yourself.

You can promote as many products as you want. You can choose a single-tier program or a multiple-tier program.

All of these factors decide the amount of money you make. Most of the affiliate programs you see are single-tier. You sell a product and you earn a commission on it. End of story.

In two-tier programs, you earn a commission when you refer someone else to your website. When that person sells the product, you will earn a smaller commission on that too. So, you earn every time the people below you make a sale. These programs are comparatively rarer.

What should you do to become a top affiliate marketer?

• Do build a base: Your first step as an affiliate is to set up shop. That means you have to set up a website or a blog. This is the place where your customers come to find you and your affiliate ads. The easiest way for you to kick-start your program is to set up a blog through a reliable free blogging service. You can have several websites or blogs recommending your products.
• Do select your product carefully: Select a product through one of the clearinghouses like ClickBank.
• Do track your efforts: Ideally, you should not have to spend all your time tweaking your affiliate links or strategies. You must invest some time in tracking your efforts and maintaining links.
• Do choose a catchy name: The name of your blog should be short and catchy, so people can internalize it quickly and remember it at will.
• Do put up your affiliate links carefully: Remember, these links are the lifeblood of your income. Get them wrong and you’ll be throwing good money out of the window, literally. Copy and paste the text of your links carefully.
• Do drive in traffic: Being a super-affiliate is all about being able to drive in hordes of traffic. You can use multiple websites or blogs to drive traffic your way. Increase your web presence by starting an eZine through popular eZine creation websites. Feed your websites with fresh content using RSS feeds.
• Do use social networking: Social networking is the hottest item online, as of today. With a nice profile in sites like MySpace, TagWorld and others, you can drive traffic to your blog. Use search engines effectively to build up your web presence.
• Do use viral marketing to improve sales.

In my next article, I will be discussing something that is rarely talked about. Nevertheless, it is one of the most powerful tools available to affiliates to attract volumes of traffic - a well-written sales copy.

Popularity: 100% [?]

As a first step, identify what you are interested in, because this will help you find the right products to promote. When you are enthusiastic about the products you sign up with, it shows in the way you promote them and it doesn’t seem like work at all. Your eagerness to share the product comes through in a genuine manner and it becomes much easier to convince others. See what we mean? So identify what you are passionate about. In fact, make a list of all the things you love. If you love music, go a little further and identify a ‘niche’ in that broad topic.

After you’ve zeroed in on a few music related topics you are passionate about, you can use ClickBank, the affiliate networking site to find sites you can broker for. When you go to the “promote products’ sections and click on the marketplace link, you will land on the ’search the ClickBank marketplace’ page. Here you can choose a category from the dropdown list.

Check out the ‘money and employment’ category for a huge database of niche market ideas in that category. Now all you need to do is find the niche market that interests you. You can check out the links to know more about the sites. See, right now your motive is to find ideas of the markets you can broker for and finding the specific sites is the next step. So shortlist the niche markets that grab your attention.

Probably the most intricate step is to find the sites to broker for, but once done with this, you would have set up a system that will earn you money for years and years to come for just a couple of hours of focused work. Let Google help you with this. Type in the search phrase with your niche market name followed by two tier affiliate program. You’ll get your search results. See the number of results? Look through it to find a site that suit the parameters we talked about in part two of our training series, namely provide promotional material, dependable tracking and a percentage from the sales of the affiliates you recruit.

With the steps outlined above, you can find a niche you love, a two tier commission structure, a commission of $10 or more from the sales of marketers with whom you broker the deal, promo material, and tracking system. Go for it.

Notice that you don’t even need a website to get started with JV brokering. But suppose your two-tier affiliate program asks you for your website URL? In most cases, you can continue signing up by mentioning ‘coming soon’ or not available. You can also find niche two tier programs from affiliate directories.

Popularity: 93% [?]

In my last two articles, “Is Click Bank A Scam?” and “Do You Know The Adwords Secret?“, I covered the basics of how ClickBank works, some of the strategies affiliate marketers use to drive traffic and why some of those methods don’t always work. Today, I’m going to get right down to the nitty-gritty of bringing in that ClickBank cash - choosing the right kind of product. If you were to assess the biggest losers in the ClickBank game, you’ll find that they all have one thing in common. They are promoting the wrong kind of products.

Yes, it’s true that with some products, the market is simply too competitive to even hope to get noticed. Other products are just things that very few people even think about buying. The secret is to find that spot between these two extremes- ideally, the products you promote should fill two important criteria. There should be a demand that exceeds existing supply. Secondly, the market shouldn’t be saturated yet.

Right now, you’re probably thinking, well all I have to do is promote new products then, right? Not necessarily- the first thing to do is check out the ClickBank Marketplace. Choose a category that you like and then select New Products. Now sort these results in order of gravity or popularity- right now, this is your most important factor. But the most popular product doesn’t necessarily mean it will bring you the most money.

The Whole Equation

There are a series of figures that you need to consider when selecting a product. When you select one, you’ll notice that it comes with a list of symbols.

• $/sale is the amount you can earn per sale.
• %/sale is the percentage that the affiliate will receive.
• %/refd is the sales generated by that vendor solely from its ClickBank affiliates
• grav is the gravity or popularity of the product

A promising product should pay you more than $20 and have a minimum percentage of 50%. The ideal gravity threshold is 10- 60. Over 60 means the product is already doing well and the market might be saturated already. However, there have been instances of products ranking higher than 60 while having low market saturation. Less than 10 is a risk, because it says that the product hasn’t been able to prove itself as a seller yet.

Apart from these figures, it’s also important to take a good look at the product and the vendor’s selling page. Deciphering sales letters does take a little practice but soon you’ll be able to spot the winners and the ones you can ignore. Testimonials, benefits and time sensitive offers are all positive aspects you should look out for. Make sure the page is designed well- this doesn’t mean it has to be fancy, just clean and pleasing to the eye. A good, attractive headline is also a good sign.

Popularity: 92% [?]

A lot of Internet marketers ask this vital question - which should we find first - the market or the product? So lets get this cleared right away. It is not only easy, but also sensible to find your market first. Only then, understand what they want, look for those products and offer it to them. if you find the product first and find that there’s no hungry market for it, then you have just wasted time and effort that you could have effectively spent making a profit.

Here’s how you go about finding well-established products that are profitable:

Focus On Niche Products

A search will reveal the ones that make the largest commissions per sale. But remember, you must also get the products that aren’t so competitive that everyone is trying to make money from it. Did you ask why? Simply because when there is fierce competition you will have to invest in advertising and promotion - which involves time, effort and most of all - cuts into your commission.

Competition is good - but there are plenty of products and markets you can focus soon. So look for hungry markets niche products with high demand and lesser competition. Niche marketing is the way to go, because you can cater to a specific need.

Find Good Quality Products

The advertisements and sales letters must be accurate in their claims of the product. Can you imagine great promotion - the product turns out to be bad - and you end up getting involved in refunds? The market will just dry up. One way to figure out the quality of the product is to check it out for yourself. The easier way is to read reviews online. Marketplaces like Clickbank where you can find hot niche products will also rank affiliate products, which in turn, will tell you about their quality.

Pick Products You Like

Choose it -

• If you loved it and experienced it
• if you see a lot of repeat sales

It means its good, there’s a hot market and the sales material works.

Bottomline - High Margins?

Is the money you will earn worth the effort you put in? Personally I recommend products that offer you a high margin. The more you make per sale, the better your profits. So look for an average commission of at least $35 per sale.

Does The Product Have A Great Sales Page?

The job of a sales page is to convert the visitor into a customer with accurate information. It should grab the visitor’s eyeballs, get them excited, feature testimonials and offer a refund, among other things. Look at the sales page - does it grab you? if it doesn’t, it is likely that it wont pull in customers.

The Affiliate Program For The Product Must Be Reliable

Prompt service, good products, regular payouts and good reviews are the hallmarks of good affiliate programs. Look for them. One of the best sources is Clickbank, an affiliate network.

Popularity: 41% [?]

There are product launches happening all the time on the internet. But how would this benefit you when you don’t have a product or a website? Let me show you how.

People are looking for digital products all the time in the form of ebooks and software every single day. Naturally, marketers are smart enough to see their opportunity to earn a huge income making these products available and developing new ones on an ongoing basis. Added to this, the product is launched in a big way. Marketers don’t wait for the product to win on its own merit. They promote a new product even before it launches.

If the marketer is well established, and enjoys a good reputation in the market, it is possible to have the product sold out even before its launch. People associated with the marketer like joint venture partners, affiliates, etc. go all out to promote it, getting richer in the process. Here’s how you too can profit from someone else’s product launch.

Each time a product is launched, which is about 5-6 times a month you can promote it in a few easy ways and enjoy the results. You need to move quickly when you spot the opportunity. This brings us to the first step - finding the product launch. You can find this through popular JV networks and other sites where marketers announce their launch. You can use Google to find them. Where necessary you can sign up for a membership without paying anything.

Internet marketing product launches are usually announced at least a month before the actual launch so you must act soon. The moment you spot an announcement for a launch, sign up as an affiliate. Hopefully you have a ClickBank account - if not sign up for one right now. An account with PayPal, Paydotcom etc. also helps so that it enables you to take part in as many launches as possible.

Keep a track of the launches. After you sign up as an affiliate, you’ll be ready to grab your share of the profits through your commission.

Here’s a tip - you can cash in on the high amounts of traffic that the website launching the product will receive on launch day. Lots of people type the domain name of the website directly into their browser and go to the site. Now that you know this, how do you use the information? Here’s the trick. The fact is, a lot of people tend to type in variations of the website URL. What you need to do is register these domain names with the most obvious variations and direct them to your affiliate link for the product being launched. This converts to easy commissions on the day of the launch.

Popularity: 29% [?]

If you have heard of the Internet marketing business for quite some time, then you already know that niche marketing is one of the most popular methods of making money online. Best of all, this market is nowhere near saturation because of the ever-increasing demand for quality information.

So let us quickly look at how you can select a niche that pays.

Choosing THE right product from a hot list of products is probably the most difficult thing for a marketer. Coming up with an idea that sells is something that gives jitters even to the experts. Here are a few things you can do to improve your chances.

Keep your eyes open: The first thing to do is to spend some time surfing the net. Look at ads on websites. What products are they selling? Visit blogs and look at the “paid sponsors” section. Watch the news and read papers. See what products are being offered on the market right now. Search for a keyword and see what comes up in the search engines. Visit websites like google.com/trends or wordtracker.com and look up the demand for keywords you like. Watch TV and find what products are selling hot. Market research is vital to finding the right niche.

Look inwards: What ideas do you have in your head? Are your ideas already on sale? Explore new ideas and new angles of old ideas. Can you come up with a better idea and beat your competition?

Turn to ClickBank: Just as their tag suggests, ClickBank is the world’s biggest marketplace. So, they have a finger on the pulse of the market. If it is selling hot, it will be on ClickBank. Visit their website and click on “Buy products”. This will open up a large category of products. Clicking on any of these categories will take you to the sub-categories of that category. Click on any of the sub-categories and see what kinds of products are selling in that niche. Read through the sales pages of these products and discover their USP. This will give you a good idea of what you should select.

Once you have identified your niche, half of your business structure is in place. But you need to build the other half too.

The power of niche marketing comes from the fact that the market consists of consumers looking for a particular product. Even if you develop a product, you can’t succeed till you shine a torch on the fact that you are the best in your field. You need to reach out to people.

For this, it is essential that you know your target audience. Knowing who you are marketing to, makes it easy for you to channel your energy and marketing $$ only on that section of people.

For example, take a car dealership. The first thing you have to decide is where the dealership is located. If it is in New York, chances of consumers coming from Seattle to buy from you are less. So, narrow your focus to people within a 50-mile radius. This increases your chances of clinching a sale.

Defining your target audience helps you to:

• Maximize your profit by targeting a defined market. Your efforts will no longer be like a shot in the dark.
• You can optimize your search engine accordingly, so your customers can easily find you.
• You can offer solutions specific to your niche.
• This makes it easy for you to develop new ideas for supporting products.
• It is easier for you to dominate the market if you know the dynamics of your niche.

This should give you a good idea of how to develop a niche and become the expert of your field.

Now that you have the product, it is time to market it. Niche marketing can be done in two ways: Membership websites and websites with no up front charges.

Membership websites obviously ask for a fee upfront, before they give members access to their site. This is a recurring income business model where members keep renewing their subscriptions if they are happy with the product you offer.

Websites without an up front charge are a little different. They offer the cake free of cost and tell members to pay up for the icing. If you like the cake well enough, you will pay for the icing.

Popularity: 38% [?]

In this article, I’m going to discuss the importance of AdWords when working with ClickBank. I’m also going to be looking at some popular strategies affiliate marketers use to sell their products. But perhaps most importantly, I’m going to take a look at why some of these strategies work and some don’t.

Let’s start with the basics- first of all, why is AdWords so important to your marketing strategy on ClickBank? Affiliates use AdWords in two very important ways. One, they are used to find out what people are looking for on the Internet. In that way, you can choose to promote a product that people actually want to buy. Secondly, affiliates use these same AdWords to market and promote their products. If your Adwords match the ones people tend to use in the search engines, you can drive a lot of traffic your way.

It used to be pretty easy to use AdWords in affiliate marketing- all you had to do was set up a direct link campaign, put your feet up and cash the checks when they came in. Today, the search engines have made things more difficult. In fact, Google now won’t allow more than one affiliate on the same page. This has simply meant that different strategies are needed to make AdWords and ClickBank work better together.

Choose A Strategy

One of the popular ways to make AdWords work for you is to bid on a specific product name. This approach can be very competitive, especially when you are bidding for a very attractive name that drives enormous amounts of traffic- you could end up in a very aggressive bidding war. The benefit of this kind of strategy is that, it gives you a direct link to traffic that is interested in making a purchase. However, the cost per click for these words could also be high.

Another option is to use keyword lists- this means, consolidate as many keyword phrases as possible and track the sales of each one. This is a very thorough strategy and will put you right on the pulse of what’s hot and what’s not. However, this can be a time-consuming job as well. You’ll probably have to invest in some keyword software to help you along.

Some affiliate marketers create campaigns, which are targeted towards sites that are AdWords enriched. This is probably one of the most difficult strategies of all, since it tells Google which web pages should hold your ads. Another drawback of this method is the click through ratio- this means that if you don’t generate enough sales, you’ll end up paying for the impressions, even though they didn’t translate into clicks.

An effective and relatively easy method to work your way around affiliate bidding wars is to write a review for your product, then offer visitors a gift or bonus if they buy using your link. It’s even better if you can harvest names and email ids, so you can do direct follow-up sales later on.

If these methods still seem too time consuming for you, you can visit CB Affiliate Revenue for a quicker way to start attracting traffic for high-profile products.

Popularity: 28% [?]

ClickBank has emerged as a bone of contention among a number of online entrepreneurs. Some swear by it, saying that they’ve made good money on a steady basis. Others have made little or nothing at all- in fact, some people have been claiming that ClickBank is a scam! To better understand who’s right and who’s wrong, we need to get a clear idea of what ClickBank is and how it works.

In simple terms, ClickBank is the middle ground between affiliate marketers and people who have a product to sell. Normally, bringing merchants and affiliates together can be bogged down with a number of negatives for both sides. Some merchants might have a bad product or might offer low commission rates. Affiliates might drive a lot of traffic but very little sales. ClickBank offers a relatively risk-free venue for both parties. As an affiliate marketer, you can use ClickBank to instantly find products to sell that have a high market demand and can generate good revenue.

The benefits of using ClickBank for affiliate marketing are multiple- for one thing, you have instantaneous access to thousands of products to sell. Your checks will arrive twice a month and you can keep track of multiple marketing campaigns. Perhaps, the best reason ClickBank has going for it is its commission rate, which can go up to about 75% for a single sale.

The Scam Sham

So why are so many people jumping up and down, pointing fingers at ClickBank for being a scam? Simply put, they’re not making the kind of money that they thought they would. The reason for this is very simple- they don’t know the rules of the game. While ClickBank does offer high commission rates, it also requires you to have payments come in from five different credit card companies, with at least one Visa or MasterCard as a mandatory factor. ClickBank will also dock your money for periods of inactivity- these penalty rates can be as high as $15 a day, after a year of no activity. ClickBank also docks $2.50 for every check you get.

Do these guidelines seem unreasonable? If they do, keep in mind that you simply can’t find ClickBank’s commission rates anywhere else. The penalty fees are simply a way of keeping the real players in and the weaker ones off the food chain- keep in mind that just because this is an easy way to make cash, it is no less aggressive. The bottom line is that, the profits you can make on ClickBank are so high that you won’t even miss the amount docked on your checks. ClickBank isn’t a scam- it’s just a business that has tough rules.

Popularity: 15% [?]