In this article, I’m going to look at the best sites to broker for. After all, this will be the basis of your earnings. As a JV broker, here’s what you do:

• Find someone who wants to sell products
• Find a marketer to sell these products
• Broker a deal between them
• Earn profits

You’ll remember in my last article, “Taking The First Step Towards Profits“ that I talked about how two-tier affiliate programs are the best ones to sign up for. To get a little deeper into this, here’s what you should look for.

Sites That Pay A Minimum Second Tier Commission Of $10

We are looking at a minimum commission of $ 10 per second tier sale. This is not tough to do. Even if the marketer you broker a deal with makes ten sales, you earn $100. If the marketer has a huge list of subscribers, just by sending them a simple email, you are looking at a high conversion rate that can earn you thousands in commission. See how powerful this method is? So even with a product that doesn’t cost much, you can still make a lot of earnings by identifying and leveraging marketers with huge lists.

Sites That Give Your Marketer Promotional Material That’s Ready To Use

The marketer you are brokering the deal with will love it when he can earn without doing a thing. If you outline even a couple of simple jobs like sending out an email or setting up a banner ad, chances are that they’ll never get around to doing it. Instead, if the product site you are brokering for provides all the promotional material in a ready to use form, you can tell your marketer that all he needs to do is copy paste it into his email software and send. Don’t forget to tell him that he’ll see money within the hour of doing this. It’s a lot easier to send out an email campaign that has already been written for you than go through the process of writing them and then sending them. So you simply need to find a site owner who is smart enough to provide the promotional material to sell his products.

Sites That Give Your Marketer Promotional Material That’s Ready To Use

In fact, this is your first priority as the success of your JV brokering depends on this. What if the marketer doesn’t sign up right away through your link? There is every chance of them signing up even a couple of months later. How do you keep track? More importantly, how do you ensure your commission on the sales generated by them?

Here’s where you need to ensure that your site owner has a cookie tracking system in place. Sign up with sites that offer you a two tier program as well as track everything through cookies valid for several months. No matter when your marketer signs up through your link you will get a commission on the sales they make.

Popularity: 29% [?]

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% [?]

There has been a lot of controversy about how well safe lists work, but you’ll find that they are very effective in bringing traffic.

What are safe lists?

Basically safe lists are groups of people who agree to receive messages from one another. Similar to optin lists but more advanced, safe lists are operated from a website. So lets say you want to send a message to other members on the list. You will need to go to the website and post your message, after which it is personally sent to the members to ensure there is no junk being sent indiscriminately. Those managing the safe list take adequate care to ensure that bouncing emails and overfull inboxes are dealt with appropriately. Since the members on the safe list are double opt in, all the email ids are authentic.

You can join as many safe lists as you like and there are both free and paid ones. So what is the best way to use safe lists so that you don’t devote more time and effort than is necessary? Here are some tips:

• You must be wary about safe lists whose site is not professionally designed. Beware of websites that have too many ads, banners, overloaded with graphics and dollar signs. You must have enough information about the safe list. If no contact information or support link is forthcoming, forget it. If the safe list has no affiliate program or does not disclose the number of members on the list, don’t even consider it.
• Safe list users tend to look at ads when they clear out their safe list email folders. Often a catchy subject line appears tempting them to click and read the ad, resulting in making them sign up for a newsletter, an ebook, a bonus or even buy something. The point of the matter is - you must make sure your subject line is catchy.
• It is also worthwhile to write appealing ads. Your safe list advertising must be excellent to ensure that your affiliate marketing business is a success.
• Make sure you track your safe list ads. You will find a majority of the better safe lists have built in tracking tools.

There is a reason why safe list users don’t feel very comfortable using safe lists to bring traffic and in list building. This is simply because they lack the tools to deal with the huge email volume being received. One of the first things to do is get a large capacity mailbox. If you are looking for a paid email account, ensure that you get email filtering, web based email, POP3 and free affiliate programs. You can also get automatic email deletion.

To get more tips and strategies on how to use safe lists, and get access to several other effective ways to profit from affiliate marketing, get your complete list-building blueprint to success at 15Kin7days right now.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Much of your marketing efforts rely on email marketing. So you want to make sure that the emails you send your subscribers reach their inbox and are read by them. To be successful with your email marketing efforts, you need to develop your own lists. Why? Because if you rent a list and email them, no matter how legit, its very short term. With your own list, you can build a customer relationship and communicate with them again and again. You build your list as a result of your subscribers opting in to receive your messages and avoid the risk of being reported as spam.

In spite of a well-planned marketing strategy and designing an effective series of emails, sometimes these emails end up in cyberspace, thanks to automatic spam-filters. To avoid this happening, you will need to be conversant with the words, phrases and characters that can kill your email before it reaches your recipient.

There are a lot of unscrupulous marketers out there who send unsolicited messages and give the legitimate ones a bad name, causing people to be doubly wary about which websites they subscribe to and which emails they receive.

The first step, then, is to do some quick research on the kind of words and phrases that can activate these filters and avoid using them completely. Filters especially look for certain symbols and words and by knowing what they are you can avoid them. So make sure your emails comply with the CAN SPAM Act.

You must put specific information in the title and from fields of your emails. Include your name and state your purpose. Don’t write so much in your email that your recipient has to keep scrolling till eternity to get to the point of the message. Rather than use superlative words, present the topic and content of your email so that your recipient is keen to know what it contains and how it will benefit them. Sign off with a call to action.

Many affiliate marketers invest in a reliable email service provider who also makes sure about email deliverability, hosting, customizing content and compliance with the CAN SPAM Act.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Before I answer why you need a squeeze page, lets talk about what a squeeze page is. It is a really interesting list-building tool. In fact, squeeze pages have brought about an amazing change in the way Internet marketing is done. They play a vital role in increasing traffic on your website. If you design your squeeze page well, you will directly benefit in multiple ways.

A squeeze page is like a prelude to your website and is used to attract your visitor to sign up and make them want to be on your list. The main elements of a squeeze page are

• A web form that your autoresponder will use to sign you visitors up automatically so that more information can be sent to them as promised.
• An attention grabbing headline
• Interesting content that is very relevant to your main website with brief info helping your visitor to sign up quickly.

Your squeeze page must be as simple as possible so that you can get your visitors to respond right away. It is okay to offer something for free, like a report or an ebook for signing up with their email address and name, so that you can send them the download link via email with their consent.

Here’s what you do:

Squeeze page title (what will the sign up do for me)

• What info will I get
• How it will help me
• How will it benefit me

SIGN UP form

That’s it. With a squeeze page, you can get your visitor’s email address so that you can build your optin list - which is your goldmine. It is a must have strategy for every Internet marketer because it helps you get your visitor’s permission to send them email so that you are not treated as spam. Of course, you also allow them to opt out of your list whenever they want.

You can use your autoresponder for double optin subscribing. After your visitor subscribes on the squeeze page and goes to the confirmation page - it redirects them to the information they wanted or alternately, onward to the free report you offered. For each website you own, a squeeze page is essential if you are serious about building unlimited optin lists.

But let me share a secret here with you. Sometimes, your visitors are clever enough to see the html source code of your squeeze pages and find the URL of the web page that will follow. Rather than wait to sign up and be led to the information they are eager to see, they try and directly access the URL. You can avoid this by encrypting the URL for the information page.

In fact, an even better way to send the information for which your visitors signed up is by email. By this, you ensure that your visitor signs up with an authentic email id. If it is an invalid email id then you simply don’t send the info to them! If they try to bypass the squeeze page, then they don’t get the promised information. You can be pretty sure that someone who is keen on the information and really interested will not find signing up a big ordeal.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Expert internet marketers know that lists are the foundation of their online marketing business. I have put together some critical tips to cost effectively build your email lists - use this as a checklist to enable you collect focused email addresses at every opportunity. 

• Make sure that each and every one of your web forms includes an email list opt in box, whether it is to do with registration, information requests or ordering products.
• Ensure that your website URL appears on all official stationery, promotional material, newsletters etc. You’d be surprised at how many people will immediately visit your link to know more and be ready to optin for email communication.
• While browsing your website your visitor must be able to optin from any page of your website.
• If you use direct mailing methods or paper forms offline, make sure your customers are requested to give their email addresses. At offline events it is standard practice to have a “Visitors book”. Have your visitors write down their email in it so that you can be in touch with them.
• Each and every paper that goes out to your customers and contacts must include an email request. Use every possible way to get hold of email addresses to build your lists - when you respond to customer questions, your invoice, etc.
• An effective way to build your list is to look at your current list. When you mail them request them to tell a friend or refer you to someone. Since these people receive the message from someone they know already, they are receptive to signing up with you! In turn, these people can refer you to others. Not only do you get an authentic list but also an endorsement. Provide a link that your optin list can forward to their contacts and grow your list.
• Be honest about the frequency of mailers you intend to send your optin list before they sign up so they know what to expect. If you send too many mailers too often, you’ll just get blocked.
• Solicit feedback from your subscribers so that you can design your messages according to what they want. If not, they will simply use the ‘unsubscribe’ option and that’s the end of the relationship.
• Your optin list is looking for value when they sign up with you - so make good use of your autoresponder to keep in touch with them with useful stuff.
• Remember that every interaction with a prospective customer is your chance to grow your list. Use ethical ways to build your list.

As you experiment with different methods you will learn different ways to succeed. List building is an activity that never stops as long as you are in business!

Popularity: 20% [?]

Here’s a compilation of all the things you must be wary about in your on-going list building process:

• You’ve got to remember that when a visitor signs up on your list, he or she is doing the same with your competition - and there is nothing you can do about it. Your list will receive email messages from both you and the competition. Over time, they may decide to use the ‘unsubscribe’ option and there’s a good chance it could be with you. Is there anything you can do about that? Yes - one way to stop this from happening is to design your emails so that they are distinctive. Don’t make the mistake of sending the same email twice. It’s also important to be alert about what the competition is doing - and BE different.
• You are probably signed up with several affiliation programs that are good money-earners. You are selling someone else’s products here, and you will obviously be sending traffic to a squeeze page. This is where the traffic will register with the original seller whose products you are promoting. But hey, granted you will earn commission on sales through you; however, what about the contact information of the customer who bought the product? It is the original seller who gets to be in touch with the customers - what about you? Perhaps you have other products you’d like to offer them! So what you do is - send these customers to your own squeeze page first! Let them sign up here for something in return - maybe an ebook or information related to the product. From here, they can move to your affiliate’s squeeze page through your free download or even your autoresponder. When you do this you will also be able to build your lists - and a targeted one at that!
• WOW! So you have a free ebook to give away. There are plenty of free ebooks that you can distribute even if you didn’t write them. But wait - did you notice that this ebook has the name and URL of its author with an optin form where the visitor must register to get actual access to the ebook? What this means is your subscribers will head there directly. What do you do then? You can counter this by getting your potential customers to first opt in to YOUR list before receiving the ebook download link. You can even bundle two or more ebooks that relate to the same topic as a gift for signing up. In fact, better still; get the resale rights of the book, rebrand it with your own opt in form so that everyone is happy.

The important thing is to use list-building methods in such a way that you get the contact info of the visitor and keep them!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Here is a list of methods you must NOT use to generate traffic! Why? Simply because they don’t work! Why waste your time and money on them? Here we go!

Through traffic exchanges

The concept of traffic exchanges is this: it is a website with a lot of member websites. If you look at another member’s website they will look at yours and you earn credits in the process that you can use. This does bring in a lot of traffic - you will see your counter go up, but chances of getting focused traffic that will sign up with you or buy from you are very less. Instead, focus on forums, ebook or article marketing!

Buying traffic

Many Internet marketers buy lists. Huge lists are available at affordable prices. But unfortunately, most of these lists have dead information. We already know that quite a few of these list sellers buy domains that have expired. They then use pop-overs and pop-unders to direct visitors to their customer-websites. While this looks very attractive, what if only two out of 100,000 visitors sign up? Suppose you paid $100 for these 100,000 visitors just imagine the waste of money per subscriber!

Another problem here is the authenticity of these lists. What if the list provider sells you someone else’s list and you send them emails without their consent? You will be accused of spamming and get a bad reputation.

Tricking search engines

Every Internet business must use search engine optimization as a strategy - but some try to cheat the search engines by link farming, masking content, etc. As long as there are methods, there will be loopholes. There are plenty of fly by night Internet marketers who will offer to increase your profits instantly. There is nothing ‘instant’ in Internet marketing. Everything requires careful planning and implementation and constant monitoring. “Instant automatic methods” just get you banned from the search engines. So do not think of cheating the search engines.

Be wary of traffic generation scams that tell you that they can bring you millions of visitors at negligible costs. In Internet marketing, often ‘free’ methods like using forums to generate traffic and profits works much more steadily than the so-called ‘cheap’ methods.

Online marketing and affiliate marketing are as challenging as they are interesting. Constant experimentation is required to make use of all the techniques and strategies you come across. The Mike Filsaime Butterfly Marketing Manuscript is a blueprint for both beginners and advanced marketers alike - since it is packed with all the little known simple strategies that make all the difference between a very successful business and an average one.

Popularity: 19% [?]

If you haven’t tried Twitter yet, you’ll soon see why you should sign up there. Twitter is a very rapidly growing social bookmarking site and everyone’s excited about it. Quick to sign up with and easy to manage. Twitter is an online community where members ‘twitter’ through ‘twits’ or short status messages. This could range from ‘I am off to the disco” or “I love the new iPod’ and stuff like that. Each twit can be 140 characters long. People on Twitter basically keep a track of or ‘follow’ what their friends and contacts are up to.

So How Can You Find Your Traffic On Twitter?

Twitter lets you add links in your twits. See how this link will bring traffic to your site? Your twits could be optimized headline after headline written creatively to communicate with your page visitors. Its as easy as that. Here are more things you can do and enjoy that huge traffic rush to your website:

Since Twitter is a social media website, you have to browse around and make the effort to connect with others. You can check to see who are already members from your own email lists and automatically add them as friends. You can also invite those who are not yet on Twitter. The more friends you have, the more people will see your twits on their home page.

You can enhance your chances of being seen by the millions of users on Twitter by adding a picture to your profile. You get to choose the pic and you can make sure it is something your contacts will want to see and act upon.

Being active is a big activity on any social bookmarking website and Twitter is no different. So long as you keep posting interesting info that appeals, you will be found and befriended. Nonparticipation is a no-no. Why not talk about Twitter on your blog and add a link to your Twitter profile?

Make use of available resources. You probably still think that it’s a tough job to multiply your ‘friends’ on Twitter. Why not use the Twitter Widget for WordPress on your blog? Not on WordPress? Sign up now! Or use the Twitter badges on your website and let your visitors see it and head there.

The idea is to connect with as many people as you possibly can and add them as friends. Check out the Top 100 list on Twitter and work from there. Keep track of what is happening on Twitter.

Social bookmarking is here to stay and its only a matter of knowing how you can get the most out of it. Most of all it is fun and it’s easy. Apart from building your lists, links and traffic, you also develop long-lasting relationships.

Popularity: 11% [?]