Yeah ok, this isn’t ‘really’ a secret two tier affiliate program, but a lotta people just don’t think laterally enough to make use of the obvious.  If you have a bit of nouse though, this can be a handy little way to generate some income using a two tier affiliate program.

Firstly, head over to Affiliate Programs or Associate Programs and find a decent affiliate program that pays two tier commissions.  Altarnetively, just Google ‘affiliate programs + two tier’.

Look for sites online which are related to the subject matter of the affiliate program we selected.  For example, lets say we’re going to promote a web hosting service where we get paid 25% of the monthly membership cost for people we sign up directly for web hosting, and 10% of the monthly membership cost for every member that our sub-affiliates (second tier) sign up.  We might look at sites which provide products or services that compliment a service like web hosting (such as a site selling computers and computer components, or repairs).

Go to Alexa traffic section or Archive.org (for historical records) and find out how much traffic the sites we found in the above step are getting.  If they are getting a large volume of traffic, send an email to the manager or owner of the site (if the site doesn’t offer contact details, use WhoIs.com to find out the web site owners details).  In your email, explain to the owner that you’ve noticed their site is getting high volumes of traffic, and that you can help them make money from that traffic if they are prepared to promote the affiliate service which compliments their market (in this example, web hosting).   Explain to them that they can earn 25% of the monthly membership fee for every person they direct to the web hosting service and who becomes a member.  You don’t even need to tell them that you also make a profit from them doing so, although often honesty will be the best policy. 

In other words, have the site sign on as your sub-affiliate.  They then do all the work of directing new members to the web hosting service, they get 25% commission per member, and you get a nice 10% commission without doing anything else. 

Not bad for just sending an one email. 

Righto, enough theory on affiliate marketing let’s get into some details.  In an earlier post I discussed why it’s important to understand the fundamentals of affiliate marketing to do it effectively.  It sounds pretty obvious but many new marketers really do look for the quick fix rather than learning the ropes.  It’s not like we need to know it all, or can’t start testing things as we learn them, but if we don’t get a grip on the basics we’ll be relying on others to show us the way all the time.  I don’t mind a little hand holding every now and then, but personal coaching is too expensive to need it as a precursor to taking the next step.  It would be like paying a driving instructor every time you wanted to go down to the store for a quart of milk. 

So what’s this post about?  Basically it’s about knowing the skeleton steps of affiliate marketing so we can flesh it out by doing some of our own research.  If we don’t at least understand what steps we should be taking, how on earth can we possibly complete the task at all, let alone successfully? 

Ok, before we get into it, let’s remember again that affiliate marketing is really as simple as this:

1. People have a problem, need or interest
2. They surf the net for info on how to solve their problem or satisfy their need.
3. They find an article or content we have written and it offers help.
4. Our article or content redirects to a product that will solve the problem.
5. People buy the product…happy days!

So what other elements do we need to be aware of?

Step 1:  Affiliate Marketing Overview

We already covered an overview on affiliate marketing in an earlier post, but basically we need to understand where we can find affiliate products or services to promote, and how we get paid on them (ie: per sale, per lead or per click). Once we’ve decided on a product to promote by doing some market research, we then want to promote it with a view to making some dollars.  

Step 2: List Building

If you haven’t heard it already, I’ll trot out the old maxim that ‘the money is in the list’.  Basically we need to understand the following:

A list is an important resources as it enables us to build rapport and trust with a target audience we otherwise would not be able to, and allows us to use a list of subscribers as our very own captive market to whom we can offer value, and at appropriate times promote products to.

How do we build our own list?  We utilize an autoresponder system, such as Aweber or GetResponse to capture the name and email address of prospects using an opt-in form.  You can see an example of an opt-in form on my Newletter post. 

Generally, we position our opt-in form on a ‘squeeze page’ which is a page we set up offering our visitors some bonus or item as an inducement to joining our mailing list, but we can also have an opt-in form on a content site such as a blog.  What we offer as an incentive might be a free ebook, report, piece of software, an eCourse…almost anything with a perceived value to the visitor. 

The cool thing about the autoresponder is that it enables us to send a single or series of pre-written emails to those who opt-in, ultimately inviting them to purchase a product or service.  The techniques and strategies used to convert sales with email marketing is a large sub-set of affiliate marketing, so we certainly won’t cover it here.  What is really cool about the autoresponder is it enables us to build a relationship with our prospect on auto-pilot.  We write the email series once, plug it into our autoresponder, and every time someone new signs up they get our emails without us having to send them manually.  

Step 3: Generating Traffic

Almost all forms of traffic generation are based on good keyword research practices.  Trying to generate traffic without understanding keywords is like trying to find the toilet in the dark…time consuming, unnecessary…and apt to produce messy results.  We’ve previously touched on the keyword research basic principles, so we’re aware that we’re looking to find keywords relating to our product or service that have a high volume of daily searches, but low competition so that we can have an article or content piece that ranks highly in the search engines.  This way when people go looking for an answer to a problem, we make sure we’re the ones pointing them in the right direction.

Want a quick example?  I was promoting an ebook on Aspergers Syndrome.  I discovered a keyword generated quite a number of searches per month, but didn’t have a lot of competition (which was actually a misspelling…asbergers…and yes I ‘discovered’ it because I misspelled it too demit!).  So I wrote an article using that keyword in the Title, intro and body of the article, then referred people to a content site where I plugged the product. I then posted the article on Ezine Articles. People would do a search on Google using my keyword, and sure enough my article would be in the number 1 or 2 position.  They read my article where I make some helpful suggestions about recognizing symptoms of aspergers, click on the link I include in the article, and get taken to my main page, where I exposed them to the product I was promoting.  Giddy up. 

It is important that we understand keyword research to make sure that our efforts to create traffic are not wasted.  Nothing sucks quite so much as writing a 500 word article only to rank on page 57 of Google. As a guide, I generally know if a keyword generates around 500,000 results in Google and there are less than 15,000 competing sites (which we check by searching for our keyword on Google with parenthesis…as in “keyword”) I can usually get my content to rank on to the first page. Any words with around 200,000 results and >5000 competing pages should be much easier to get towards or at top spot (or ideally, 1st, 2nd…3rd etc…all with different articles of my own).   

Once we have located a decent keyword we then use any number of methods to generate content which can rank for that keyword in the search engines, therefore delivering visitors to our website or squeeze page where we have our opt-in form.  What sort of methods?  Here’s a few:

Article Marketing (eg. Ezine Articles)
Video Marketing (eg. YouTube)
Blogging (your reading one…cool eh)
Content Sites
RSS Feeds
Posting on public forums
Pay per click advertising (Adwords)
Viral Marketing
Public advertising
Social bookmarking (eg. SocialMarker)
A review site, where we review the products we are promoting. 

Step 4:  Making The Sale

So if we’ve managed to get some traffic in to our squeeze page (or content page with an opt-in form) what do we do next?  Basically we want to redirect them to the sales page of the product we are promoting (if you want some examples of sales pages, head over the the Clickbank Marketplace and take a look).  We can do that on a number of levels. 

For example, if we have sent our visitors to a squeeze page or a content site with an opt-in form, when a person opts in to our mailing list we can redirect them to the product sales page.    This gives them the first look at the product on offer.  Why not just send them to the sales page without getting their name and address?  Because some folk just won’t buy the first time they see a product.  It can take a bit to convince them.   So much so that some marketers prefer not to direct a prospect to a sales page right away, but might offer an eCourse or some other information which they provide through the autoresponder email series, and raise the product they are promoting in their emails.  By using that delayed method, the prospect has the chance to warm to the idea of the product first. 

Is it starting to gel for you yet?  For anyone who has done a bit of affiliate marketing this stuff is basic, but when starting out it can be a real head-bend not to have that ‘aha!’ moment when it fits together and starts to make sense. 

Later, we’ll look at each step in greater detail, as well as the other side of the affiliate marketing coin…creating and selling our own products through other affiliates.

 I’m just going to put in a quick plug for our Guru Or Bust Newsletter simply because some visitors have wondered why I need a newsletter as well as a blog and RSS feed…which in a market renound for information overload is not necessarily an unfair question.  The answer is a pretty simple one though, and that is that I appreciate your support and loyalty and as such the Newsletter is designed to give its members the heads up about any really juicy offers, up and coming resources you can get your hands on, regular giveaways, and every now and then I’ll shoot something especially for the list which won’t be made available to the general public. I want people to have fun with this newsletter. Want an example? Recently I was able to secure a couple of copies of a popular new product to give away to a Guru Or Bust competition winner…only for this list. Just my way of saying ‘Thanks!’ so sign up today and keep your ear to the ground for more info on Internet Marketing.

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A lot of people struggle when trying to learn how to start affiliate marketing.  Once we come understand how the system works, we can then set about seeking to manipulate it to best serve our own purpose.  However, bridging the divide between being an internet marketing newbie and an affiliate marketing success story can sometimes feel like a quantum leap. 

The problem is to a large degree perpetuated by the ‘get rich quick’ mentality that many would be affiliate marketers adopt as their approach to learning the ropes.  This is the very attitude that already successful marketers hone in on with practiced proficiency to squeeze as many dollars as they can from we ‘wanna-be’ marketers.  No doubt you’ve already stumbled upon those sites that guarantee untold riches on autopilot.  They suggest that you don’t even need to learn how to start affiliate marketing, just purchase their product for a measly $97 bucks and you’ll have cash dropping out of the sky in 24 hours even if you are a complete marketing noob.  They offer a turnkey business and stock standard website template, and seal the deal with testimonials from people who assert to having made $13,874 in 48 hours.  Of course, what they don’t tell you is that they have a list of 42,076 people, all of who regularly make purchases on their say so.  Do these sorts of arrangements make money?  For sure…the guy selling them makes a packet! 

Let’s damp down our cynicism for a moment though.  It’s not that these sorts of arrangements are all scams, some affiliate marketing methods are genuinely designed to assist people by providing them with a system to make money online.  The two big problems with many such systems though are:

1. They fail to address the fundamental knowledge that we need to really be successful at marketing.
2. They create unrealistic expectations in the mind of the purchaser as to what can be achieved in a short space of time.

The effect of the first problem is that without core knowledge, experience and ability new marketers can’t grasp the reasons why the things they are doing aren’t working, and equally they lack an appreciation of what they are doing right and so can’t capitalize on them.  The effect of the second problem is that when failure almost invariably raises its ugly head, the new marketer becomes demoralized and despondent, passes the whole ‘make money online’ gig as a scam, and tells everyone how crap the product they purchased was (or more frequently, just keeps the whole sorry experience to themselves due to embarrassment). 

When I first started looking into making money online I did my Google search like we all did, and got smacked in the face with a couple of thousand sites telling me how easy it was to make money online.  If you’re anything like me, even though I was excited by the prospect, alarm bells started to go off and something started to smell a little south of cheese.  I figured it had to be bollocks…and saw the sales hype for what it is, a thinly veiled curtain designed to convince me to make a purchase.  But that’s not what I was there for.   I wanted to go behind the curtain and figure out how to sell stuff to others!  Problem was I wasn’t sure how to ‘get on the stage’ much less pull the curtains aside. 

When I first started out with affiliate marketing the hardest part was understanding how affiliate marketing really works.  The basic premise is simple, but there’s so much we can do wrong that I just wanted someone to take me by the hand and show me, step by step, just once so I could make it ‘click’.   It seemed like everyone was prepared to show me a little piece of it but I just couldn’t get the clear picture I needed to start putting the pieces together. 

That used to drive me nuts.  I’d be told ‘All you need is adwords for instant traffic’ or ‘pick a keyword and write an article’, or ‘choose a hungry niche to create your own product’. 

That’s all well and good buddy, but how do I know what my niche is hungry for, and how do I get my article off page 793 of Google, and why is my freaken adwords campaign costing me a fortune when I haven’t made a single sale?

Actually setting about learning something, like proper affiliate marketing, can feel boring.  It’s not glamorous to think of ourselves wading through pages and pages of info in a bid to understand.  It smacks of self education…that was what Uni was for and I spent 8 years getting a 5 year degree.  It’s much more fun to be attracted to the lure of fast money and minimal effort, to think of spending our time jetting along some sanded shoreline with a pina-colada in one hand and a sexy siren in the other.  The problem is, it’s just not going to happen that way. 

Learning how to start affiliate marketing is the first step on a path that leads to a very important place…leveraged and passive income.  A place where we can use the ongoing efforts of others for unadulterated self gain.  This should be the true lure and our ultimate goal if we are to embark on the journey at all.  It takes some effort on our part however, so it’s better just to get savvy with that and understand it’s the price we pay now to keep making money in the future…even if we are on a holiday.  But trust me, the journey can feel almost as good as the destination.  If you haven’t already, when you make your first sale through affiliate marketing and money appears in your bank account almost as if by magic…you’ll feel the elation, and that my friend, is what will keep you treading down the path to success.

Take the time to make an investment in yourself.  Learn how affiliate marketing works.  Avoid the hyped up get rich quick schemes.  Be smart, and treat affiliate marketing like the business that it is.  You wouldn’t open a restaurant without knowing how to manage it.  If embarking upon a campaign of affiliate marketing, just be sure those guiding the way don’t have some self interest in misleading you.

In a subsequent post I’m going to give you a little over view of the fundamental type of affiliate marketing to get started.  If you want to fast track the process, then I can recommend a resource designed specifically to cater to giving new marketers current and practical information.  You can use it to learn how to start affiliate marketing. 

Or simply stick around and I’ll do my best to take you there with me.

Justin Miche WSO Secrets may be touted as the holy grail of special offers, but what does that mean for you, me and the average marketer?

If you’ve spent any time at the Warrior Forum (and if you haven’t…you should) you’ll have no doubt checked out the Warror Special Offers section (“WSO”).  The WSO section is a forum where other Warrior members can promote and sell their product at prices which are lower than the prevailing market value.  It’s a brilliant little conception, because those who run the WSO have access to a captive audience who aren’t shy about pulling out the wallet, and those who make purchases get products at often heavily discounted prices.

It’s easy to think that this tidy arrangement would mean flogging off multiple copies of our latest ebook would be a cinch.  Alas, like almost anything online, even the WSO forum is competitive, with the bigger fish frequently outselling the smaller.  Many a first timer has failed to produce the desired (and at times expected) results due to any number of factors, including the poor timing of their WSO, rotten sales copy, or a lack of reputation to help their product stand up among the crowd.  As with most things in marketing, even WSO’s can be fickle creatures.  It’s a seemingly simple arrangement which can still turn pear shaped unless the essential elements of a successful WSO are present.  Actually, watching folk who really aren’t clued in to how a WSO should be handled is a lot like watching lemmings rush headlong towards the edge of a cliff and beyond…it’s embarrassing, a little silly, and somewhat painful…although  more so for the lemming than the observer. 

WSO Secrets by Justin Michie, sets about laying bare his personal experience with running multiple WSO’s and has been decent enough to give a no-holds-barred account of his successes, and failures, with a view to helping our first WSO be a show stopper instead of a stinking flop. 

I have personally purchased this ebook and have found it to be immensely informative.  It’s not just that Justin takes us through the essential elements of what it takes to run a successful WSO.  In fact, the nitty gritty of when to run your WSO, how to set it up, how to ‘bump’ it for greater exposure, and like matters only form a fraction of what the ebook covers.  If anything, WSO Secrets is more of a system than an ebook.  It takes us through planning our WSO product, how to customize our launch to get the most out of the WSO format, how to set up our product delivery so that it allows us to grow an email list, how bonus items can bolster our sales, how to include killer sales copy, provides a pre-launch checklist and tops it off with a fist-full of hot tips. 

This WSO Secrets review isn’t just about extolling the virtues of the ebook author’s experience with WSO’s.  Why?  Because the WSO Secrets integrated approach is more akin to a lesson on good marketing practices in general, but it’s still perfectly tailored to the Warrior Forum and takes the hard work out of preparing and running a successful WSO campaign.  Following these techniques, you almost don’t have to think!  That essentially brings us back to the question posed at the start of this post…what you and I and the average marketer stand to gain is not just a rare insight into the mind of a man who has made a living for the past 12 months on WSO’s alone, but a solid reminder of what we should be doing in our day to day money making endeavors outside the forum. 

My hat goes off to Justin and I wholeheartedly recommend this ebook to anyone considering online marketing, and an absolute must have for those looking to run a WSO. 

Grab your copy of WSO Secrets by Justin Michie today. 

There’s a lot of fuss made about article marketing (also known as ‘bum marketing’) and the various ways to undertake it. There’s no doubt we can do things to improve our results, but the basic premise of article marketing is dead simple…and I happen to like simple. The premise is as follows:

1. We do our keyword research and take a juicy keyword with low competition and high search volume.

2. We then write an article using that keyword in said article.

3. At the end of our article, we include a byline which includes a link to our squeeze or content page.

4. We then submit said article to article submission directories (I primarily use Ezine Articles)

We can take a few additional steps to draw attention to our article or web content containing our keyword (see below); but if done correctly, we should rank highly (preferably first page) on the major search engines for our juicy keyword.

Couple of quick tips:-

Article Title

When creating a title for our article, try and use the ‘keyword – benefit’ technique. That is, start by listing the keyword, then a benefit of the keyword, and then repeat the keyword again if appropriate.

Example:

Aspergers Syndrome – Recognizing Symptoms Of Aspergers Syndrome

Dog Barking – 5 Ways To Stop Your Dog Barking

Keyword Use

Let’s not go crazy splattering our keyword all the way through our article. Aim to use it 4 to 5 times in a 500 word article. We should use it in the first paragraph and use it in a way that once again highlights the benefit of reading the article.

Example:

Recognizing the symptoms of Aspergers syndrome can be a significant first step in the successful diagnosis and treatment of the condition.

People Love Steps Or Tips

It’s true. Readers love easy steps, tips, top tens, anything that we can put in a list format. Consider making our articles thus.

Byline Hype

It might seem pretty obvious, but it’s no good having great search engine rankings and a brilliant article if we have a garbage byline. We don’t just want to put a link to our squeeze page or web site at the bottom, we want to invoke some curiosity in our reader so they are hungry for more. The whole point of having written the article is to get people to our squeeze page, so let’s make it a no-brainer decision to click on our link.

Tell them to click on our link, and what the benefit will be to them if they do.

Keep Em Short

If you are anything like me you actually have to curb your writing juices from flowing. I always write articles that are too big. Try and keep your articles to around 500 words. Give the reader two or three hard hitting and interesting points and then let the byline do the rest. We aren’t looking to educate in our articles, just incite…incite curiosity that is.

Can’t write? Outsource the writing.

It’s A Numbers Game

No matter how good a writer we are, chances are that not all of our articles will make it to #1 on Google. Those that do are wonderful, and make it a pleasure to look at our traffic statistics. Those that don’t can nevertheless create reasonable streams of traffic.

Remember we looked earlier at the concept of long tail keywords, and that having multiple sources of small amounts of traffic can often yield better results than a single large source. Same principle here. If we write even just one article a day, that’s 30 articles a month, or conservatively 300 articles a year. If even half of those are effective at brining in a couple of hundred visitors or ‘hits’ a month, we can expect to do quite handsomely with our affiliate marketing. They say the average income expectancy of any single article is around $20. Some will yield more, some less. Try not to get too bogged down when writing articles. Just make them interesting enough that the reader will be left wanting more, and get them out there. The great part about articles is that they will continue to earn you money in the long term as well as the short.

For many new marketers, one of the major roadblocks to starting to make money with an internet affiliate program is figuring out how the whole thing works.  It’s no good having the nitty gritty knowledge which can be gathered piecemeal from the Internet if we don’t know how to fit the pieces of the puzzle together into something that resembles a well oiled machine.

I remember when I first started out this used to drive me balmy.  I would stumble across some ‘brilliant traffic generation method’ but I needed to understand RSS feeds to use it.  Oh ok, I thought…I’ll go research RSS feeds.  Wait, I probably need a blog as a vehicle to deliver my content.  Crap…now I need content.  And you say I need to keyword optimize it…lemme’ just spend another couple of days figuring that one out.  And exactly how did you say having this traffic was going to make me money?  I need to monetize my blog you say?  Well how the *#%* do I do that?

You get the drift.  I just wanted someone to tell me…how do affiliate web sites make money?  Now you can have the answer, without having to undertake the research.  Affiliate marketing in particular can be a fickle creature, so let’s just take a quick peek at an overview that might at least help slot some of those puzzle pieces into a meaningful picture. 

Affiliate Marketing Model

Ok, so the basic model of affiliate marketing is as follows:

Affiliates direct traffic to a

squeeze page containing the

opt-in form to the affiliates autoresponder mailing list which

redirects the prospect to the

sales page of merchants, and the

sales page generates a conversion (a sale).

We of course, make commission on the sale, being the one responsible for sending the traffic which resulted in the sale.  Pretty easy right?  It is, but let’s also take a quick look at some of the steps in between.Firstly, we’re going to assume we’ve found an affiliate product to promote, for example from the Clickbank Marketplace.  How do we go about converting our traffic into sales? 

The Squeeze Page

Just in case you don’t already know, an autoresponder is a type of software which enables us to send emails to people automatically. A prospect has to sign up to be on our list (known as “opting in”) to start receiving our emails. We use a name and email capture form, known as an opt-in form, to get a prospects contact details. 

Why do we do this?  Why not just send the prospect to the sales page and not bother with trying to get their contact details?  The number 1 reason is because most people just won’t buy a product on their first exposure.  In fact, it can take up to 7 times for a person to be exposed to a product before they will consider pulling out the wallet.  By grabbing their details before sending them to the sales page, we give ourselves another chance to build a relationship with the prospect, and give them additional exposure to the virtues of the product we are promoting.  So how do we do all this?  With a squeeze page.

Components:-

1.      A compelling headline;

2.      An autoresponder opt-in form; and

3.      A call to action.

4.      A sign off. 

Headline

·         Uses curiosity to encourage a prospect to opt-in.

·         Stuck for a headline? Use the headline on the sales page of the product being promoted. 

Opt-In Form

·         List the benefit of the product we are promoting in dot points before the opt-in if desired.

·         Ask only for the prospects name and address. 

A Call To Action ·         Ask the prospect to opt-in.  No really, ask them for it.  Don’t be shy!

·         Tell them to put their name and email in your opt-in form and submit.

·         Remind them to confirm their subscription. 

A Sign Off

·         Include your name and signature.

·         Include your photo. 

We can set up our autoresponder to redirect prospects who opt-in to our email list to the sales page of the merchant.   Want some visual stimuli to figure out what I’m yapping about?  Check out this Squeeze Page example.

The Follow Up Emails

Ok, so assuming the prospect doesn’t buy the product right off the bat, we’ll need to do a little convincing.  We don’t want to just spam them with sales drivel though, we want to build trust.  We write our follow up email before sending subscribers to our opt-in page.We want to provide quality content or bonus material to our subscribers to build rapport and trust in our list. Then they are more likely to purchase products on our recommendations.  This might take some time, but if we can give to our list, there is a greater likelihood we will experience positive returns.  Email marketing can still be one of the most powerful tools of affiliate marketing. 

Quick Tips

·         Use our autoresponder function to refer to our prospects by name in our emails.

·         Use your prospects name in the email heading, and remind them when they subscribed to our list.

·         Use questions in subsequent follow up emails to prompt our prospect to purchase.

·         Offer bonus items as an incentive to be on our list.

·         PLR products make for easy, and affordable bonus items.

·         Remember to include our affiliate link in your emails (3 times for long emails).

·         Continue to give give give quality content to build a responsive list.

The system works on the basis that our prospect will either be find the sales page of the merchant compelling enough to buy the product, or will over time be impressed enough by our email series that they are motivated to purchase the product on our recommendation.  This is the classic affiliate marketing model, but is in fact only one method of affiliate marketing.  We’ll look into this and other options in more detail, but I hope you’ve found this preliminary answer to how do affiliate web sites make money helpful. 

There is no shortage of options for those of us looking to commence working from home or establishing an online business. No doubt if you’ve found your way here you have probably already been exposed to at least one other web site deriving income from the sale of ebooks or services. Affiliate marketing arises by virtue of the ability it creates for a seller of goods or services to leverage the marketing efforts of others. It’s a relationship symbiotic in nature insofar as those who are marketing the product or service (the affiliates) have a beneficial interest in promoting the product due the commissions they recieve for every sale made.  This is where we as affiliate marketers can fit in.

In general terms, an affiliate program operates with the provider of goods or services giving an affiliate a commission for every product sold or for every referral directed to their website. The affiliate benefits by virtue of the commission, and the provider benefits by virtue of having made a sale or retaining a client. There is an ancillary but nevertheless  significant benefit to the provider of the goods or service, insofar as they avoid having to incur the financial and time burden involved in marketing the product. This is left to the affiliate.

This type of online business is particularly attractive to novice affiliate marketing entrepreneur’s because it involves the promotion of ready made products for commission. We can expediently do away with the need to have our own merchandise, and to that extent affiliates leverage the efforts of the provider, who has had to go to the effort of developing a product. It can even be done without our own web site, or though the use of public content sites such as Squidoo, or blogging sites such as blogger.com or wordpress.com.

To the extent that the system of affiliate or niche marketing operates, it is a potentially uncomplicated way to make money, and provides the potential to leverage the income of our initial efforts over and over again. However it remains a highly competitive field and due consideration ought be given to having a good understanding of ‘the big picture’ before making any costly forays into the field. The good news is that with appropriate preparation, and an appreciation for the right methodology, affiliate marketing can be a lucrative launchpad to greater online income earning potential.

Novice affiliate marketing enables a small start to escalate into a fully fledged business, and provides a gainful, and largely risk free opportunity to survive comfortably in an increasingly financially burdened society. It may not be long before others jump on the bandwagon, and to that extent, if you are considering affiliate marketing as an option, now is the time.

95% Of Novice Affiliate Marketers Fail. 

Click To Discover the ‘Newby’ Affiliate Marketers 7 Step Super System & Beat The Odds.

Affiliate marketing is a model of Internet marketing where authors, sellers or distributors of products and services (merchants) pay commissions to affiliates who successfully make sales to customers on behalf of the merchant, or help the customer to form a commercial relationship with the merchant by way of referral. Conceptually it’s a bit similar to the way a door to door sales person selling vacuums gets a commission for offloading the latest model Hoover, only in our case it usually takes place online and doesn’t yet have the stigma which detracts from some other forms of sales marketing. To be paid for referrals or sales we usually have to sign on as an affiliate to the merchant to be eligible to receive a commission.

There are three main types of affiliate programs:

1. Pay per sale

2. Pay per click

3. Pay per lead

Pay Per Sale

In this case, affiliates promote a particular product or service and receive a commission or percentage for each sale made to prospects on behalf of the merchant or service provider. For example, if you promoted an ebook on ‘avoiding panic attacks’ and the value of the book was $90, you might receive upwards of $45 for each sale made. The precise level of commission  paid depends on the nature of the product or service, but for information products, 50% commission is typical.

Pay Per Click

This model involves we as affiliates encouraging prospects to click on a link which directs the prospect to a merchants web site. The commission for each individual click is usually very small, but the cumulative effect of multiple clicks can still generate significant income for affiliates who have the ability to generate high levels of traffic which can be redirected to the merchant.

Pay Per Lead

This model involves an affiliate being paid for generating client leads for the merchant. This is distinguished from Pay Per Click in that frequently a higher level of commitment is required from the prospect to the merchant before the affiliate receives payment. For example, a prospect might need to sign up for a three month trial of a merchant’s program before an affiliate will receive a commission for having generated the lead for the merchant. However, some Pay Per Lead affiliate programs can provide quite generous commissions per lead.

Affiliate Marketing – The Benefits To Merchant

1. You leverage the work of your affiliates and only pay commission once a sale has been made.

2. You can cut down on overheads customarily associated with advertising by encouraging others to undertake the promotion for you. Higher commission levels for affiliates has the effect that they are to promote your product or service.

3. Greater exposure and increased traffic (visitors or prospects).

Affiliate Marketing – Benefits to Affiliates

1. Can be undertaken without our own product, and does away with the need for customer support.

2. Can be utilised by both beginners and experts alike.

3. There are almost no limits as to what sort of product or service we can promote…there is an affiliate program for almost any market.

4. We can utilise our pre-existing or new web site to generate an income stream.

Affiliate Marketing Model

So how does affiliate marketing work on a practical level?  The classic model of affiliate marketing is as follows:

• The affiliate does something to capture the attention of the prospect.

• The affiliate then forwards the prospect to the merchant’s website (usually to a sales page).

• It is the merchant’s job to ensure their sales message “converts” the prospects into a customer (ie. Convinces them to buy stuff); and

• The affiliate and merchant take a share of the money earned from the sale.

Affiliate marketing can be a rewarding exercise and establish leveraged income from our initial exertions if done correctly.  This is what makes novice affiliate marketing a particularly attractive proposition. 

Google AdWords is a pay-per-click program which permits us to advertise on the Google content and search networks. These ads appear on the right hand side of the Google Search page when a person searches for any one of the keywords we have selected to prompt our ad to appear.

PPC advertising can be an extremely profitable, and rapid form of traffic generation if done correctly. However many new marketers (I was absolutely no exception) struggle in the early stages in understanding how to set up, manage and streamline a PPC campaign to minimize cost, and maximize returns.  It’s for this reason that it’s imperative to get some exposure to get some guidance on Adwords for beginners to ensure our campaigns are cost effective.  We’re not going to delve too much into the basics here though, because there are four excellent resources we can utilise for getting on top of adwords:

1. Firstly, head over to the Adwords Learning Centre.  There’s a massive amount of beginner info to be had, as well as a large number of video tutorials.  It should be our first port of call to get some detailed guidance on Adwords for beginners.

2. Then, download a copy of Adwords Made Easy.  This is a free resource which goes through setting up campaigns and reinforces the importance of maintaining high click through rates and low cost. 

3. Next, take a look at Perry Marshall’s Blog, and sign up for his 5 day eCourse. 

4. Finally, get yourself over to Frank Kern’s Mass Control Blog and grab a copy of his free report on getting low CPC for some great Google Adword Tips.  There’s also a wealth of free info on his blog relates to all areas of Internet Marketing which makes it a worthwhile read any day of the week. 

By making the most of these resources, and of course keeping an eye out here, you’ll get a good grip on adwords and avoid some of the major pitfalls which new marketers invariably fall into.  I state this from experience, and can assure you that a stubborn or shallow approach to adwords will invariably wind up costing money.  You don’t need to do the research, I’ll done that for you, but do make sure you make the most of the above resources, and stay tuned for more.