Affiliate Marketing Critical Success Factors – Part Four

What are the tools that an affiliate marketer require? There are

many, but for your benefit I will only mention two of the most

essential ones for now.

A - The first one, is "Track your Statistics".

You need to track your statistics and especially the amount of

clicks you send to the sales page of the product you are

promoting. If this statistic is not tracked you could for

example make ten sales over the period of a week and think you

are doing a marvelous job.

In reality however, it could be that you have sent more than

10,000 visitors to that sales page over the period , and the

conversion rate of actual buyers to clicks will then be 10 to

10,000 . This works out to a dismal 0,1% conversion, which is

not a very good percentage at all, meaning that you could be

wasting your time and efforts. Either the sales page is not

converting that well, or your source of traffic is not targeted

enough and therefore very poor.

B - The second thing to do is “Cloak your Affiliate Links”.

If this concept perhaps sound foreign to you, then you only need

to look at the following example of an affiliate link:

http://www.mysalessite.com/affiliates/refer.cgi?ID=726252

There are a good few problems associated with it, with the very

first is being able to blatantly see that it is an affiliate

link. For some strange reason, many people do not like clicking

on affiliate links and some will just simply cut off most of the

URL go straight to the actual sales page. The tragedy with this

is that it will lose you a sale.

Ensure therefore that you shorten your affiliate link by using

any of the multitudes of free software programs and other

services available on the Internet. Some programs even allow

you to rename the link with a domain named that reflects the

product niche.

Another scam that you must be made aware of is affiliate link

stealing, where cyber or Internet thieves can recognize an

affiliate program URL and substitute the identity or reference

number with their own unique details and deprive you even

further of hard worked for commissions.

Affiliate marketing is sometimes not for the faint-hearted, but

with enough of the correct tools at your disposal and coupled

with diligent application thereof, almost anyone can make a

success.

Please look out for Part Five of this series which will appear

shortly in the article marketing forums including EzineArticles

and GoArticles.

Beware of the affiliate scams and do your background work before

jumping into any program. For a comparison of the best affiliate

programs, please visit my site at

http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com

Affiliate Marketing Critical Success Factors – Part Two

Did you ever have an experience of talking to an electronics

sales person and asking questions about a product but felt that

they really had very little idea what they were talking about?

From a customers perspective, and whenever you are purchasing

something from a salesperson you will undoubtedly have more

confidence in the person if they have tried the product or are

currently using the product themselves. The very same rule applies

to affiliate marketing. It is almost impossible to be successful in

selling a product if you have some experience of its benefits.

It actually does not matter what the product is, but you should

at least spend the time and money to try and test it. Play

around and experiment, and tell yourself what you truly think of

the product by posing questions to others who are already using

it. Do not only ask questions for the sake of it, but ask the real

probing type as this will greatly assist in writing much better

copy and other promotional material.

The application of knowledge based on your own experience will

make you come across as a genuine person who knows what you are

talking about. You will then be selling to customers from a point of

knowledge and not from a point of greed. It is easy for anyone

to just sign up to be an affiliate marketer, throw up a standard

webpage and hope that sales will be rolling in. This is unfortunately

not the best approach to make money, and could lead to more

and more frustration and wondering why the big sales are avoiding

you like a plague.

Another means of increasing your sales even more, is to find a

product that you truly find useful with concrete evidence in

support thereof, and can also rave to others about. Affiliate marketing

has never been just about randomly selling other people’s products,

but more about finding a product that is beneficial to yourself, which

you fully understand and have the sincere passion to market.

To your affiliate marketing success.

Gerard.

Part One of this series was recently published on various article

submission sites including EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com

Beware of the affiliate scams and do your background work before

jumping into any program. For a comparison of the best affiliate

programs, please visit my site at

http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com

Is Affiliate Marketing Really For You?

There is a belief that success in affiliate marketing only requires you have to be a little creative and then promote your website, which will the ultimately sell the product or service.

Your success will however depend on what type of person you are and whether you are good in promoting your website. The main question is whether you have a passion for the product that you are marketing. You might have seen a website selling classical story books or different kinds of diving equipment, but if your ultimate passion lies in meditation or personal self-improvement, then it is doubtful if you should get involved with the first two as mentioned above.

There are so many affiliate programs to choose from and you are actually spoilt for choice e.g. on the Clickbank portal. It should therefore not be that difficult to find something that is relevant to your personal field of interest. It is for this very reason that affiliate marketing is perfect for almost everyone.

The other beauty of affiliate marketing is that the moneymaking potential is huge, irrespective of whether you are an average person with a regular job, a student who just wants to make extra cash or a housewife who wants to help with the household expenses. Notwithstanding your circumstances therefore, you can effectively become your own boss, dictate your own hours and thereby determining the size of your paycheck.

The Internet is a dynamic environment and there will always be
new online businesses coming out everyday. You will never run out of clients, as long as you upgrade your products and services all the time. Do everything you can to keep the visitors, interested and happy, so that they convert to buyers and ultimately become repeat buyers of your other products and services. To broaden your revenue base and after you see a steady income from one program, try taking on another two or three, but keep it manageable.

Good luck with your online business.

Gerard.

Beware of the affiliate scams and do your background work before jumping into any program. For a comparison of the best affiliate programs that brings you money, please visit my site at http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com

Online Survival As An Affiliate Marketer

Successful affiliate marketers are always looking for
opportunities that provides the biggest and most consistent
income. Newcomers or newbies however, sometimes think that
there is a magic formula that is readily available to them,
and actually become highly disappointed when they find out
that it is much more complicated than that.

Irrespective of which category you fall into, there are
definite tactics that have worked before with online
marketing, especially in the world of affiliate marketing
which generally does not require a lot of money to start
off with. In the sections below, I will be sharing with you
some of the top three marketing tips that can be used to
increase your sales and survive in the online affiliate
marketing game.

Firstly, offer something free to your readers in the form
of a report or ebook. It is advisable to position them at
the very top side of your landing page so that it simply
cannot be missed. Also try to create very convincing
autoresponder messages that will be mailed to respondents
who provide their personal information into your sign up
box. Verified research has proven that on average, a sale
is usually closed around the seventh contact session with
a prospect. Be absolutely sure that the content is
directed toward specific benefits of the product and do not
make it sound like a sales pitch.

Try and avoid the use of the word “free” because there are
still a good few spam filters around that dumps those kind
of content straight into the junk even before anyone has
read it. Attach some mystery to your offer by convincing
those who signed up for your free reports that they will be
missing out on something big if they do not take up on your
products and services.

Secondly, try and use unique web pages to promote each
separate product you are marketing. It is not good practice
to just lump all of it together just in order to save some
money on web hosting. It better to rather have a site
focusing on each and every product as a standalone as this
will further enhance your reputation as a niche marketer.

A well accepted trend nowadays is to include product
reviews on the website so that visitors will have an initial
understanding of the product benefits. In addition, it is
of no harm to even include testimonials from users who have
already tried the product, but be sure that these customers
have given you their explicit permission to do so.

Thirdly, it is essential to get the kind of traffic that is
targeted to your product. If the person who visited your
website has no interest whatsoever in what you are
offering, they will be turned off and might never even come
back. Writing articles for publication in e-reports and
e-zines is a sure way to get virtually free traffic to your
site.

It is advisable to try and write a minimum of 2 articles
per week, within a range of 300-700 words in length. With
continuous writing and maintaining these articles you can
easily generate as many as 200 targeted readers to your
site on a daily and consistent basis. Another statistic to
remember is that only about 1 out of 100 people are likely
to buy your product or get your services. This translates
into a 1% conversion rate. If you can therefore generate as
much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, it
then means that you can then make 10 sales based on the
average statistic.

The above tactics are not rocket science and yet many online
marketers get it wrong by wanting to take short cuts. It
only requires a little time and an action plan on your
part and you are A for Away.

Use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs and
it is bound to become a great source of income that can
lead to a prosperous and comfortable lifestyle.

To your continued Affiliate Marketing success.

Gerard.

For more information on the top affiliate programs
that consistently delivers on its promises, please go to

http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com/

Affiliate Marketing Is Your Tool To A Steady Online Income

You most probably want to be the kind of affiliate marketer that

visualizes a steady stream of checks when you open your mailbox,

or payment notifications when you open your email in box.

Not all affiliate marketers are successful and there are lots of

them who can never make a sale and have never received any

checks in their Internet marketing career. On the other side

however, there are also a select few who receive huge monthly

checks almost all year long.

Irrespective of the kind of affiliate marketing you are involved

with, you will want to join the ranks of those who are

regular earners.

Many suggestions have been made in the past as to what works

best and the below guidelines are some of the better known ones

which will quickly raise your affiliate marketing profile.

1. Have your very own website and create a newsletter with

absolute content-rich information that focuses on your niche

market. A website is necessary in affiliate marketing because

this is where people will go when they find that your offering

is interesting and where they can obtain additional information.

It is important to be able to expand on all the attributes and

benefits of your business.

2. Identify a practical market niche with a relatively high

demand . Try to identify the niche market you want to focus on

and whilst there might be a lot of those out there, not all are

easy to infiltrate. Be careful about those that might seem

attractive but do not have a realistic chance of success. You

will more often than not, end up losing money more than gaining

some in the first instance.

3. Convert your visitors to buyers. People going to your

affiliate site should be ready to make the buying decision. You

must therefore present them with an offer they will find so

tempting that it will almost be unable to resist.

4. Search for a stable affiliate program that offers the niche

market you want. Search broadly and widely all over the Internet

in order to find this program through the use of keywords. Make

absolutely sure that you find the company that not only assist

their affiliates through advice and tools needed for affiliate

marketing, but also offer continuous support. The drive for

success must be mutual.

5. Make sure that your target audience arrives at your site and

then get them to sign up for your ezine or newsletter . This can

be achieved by trying to differentiate yourself through

innovative advertising of your affiliate marketing program.

There is an eager and willing audience out there looking for

something unique and you must therefore think of creative ways

to make people go to your site and and buy from you.

Freebies always work well.

To your continued success.

Gerard.

Do your research to distinguish which affiliate programs are

genuine. For information on exceptional programs that genuinely

delivers, please visit my site at

http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com

How Much Money Can I Make With Affiliate Marketing?

The above is not only a million dollar question (excuse the

pun), but also a very important one for anyone wanting to make

online money with affiliate marketing

In real terms, earnings are completely up to your efforts, and

the sky is virtually the limit, but always make sure that you

get the best commission possible.

When you examine any affiliate program, one of the very first

things that you should look at is the commission per sale. This

may often be portrayed as a percentage, or as a dollar amount

figure. If the commission is only presented as a dollar figure,

it then becomes important to locate the sale price of the

product, and figure out the commission percentage.

It is advisable to go with affiliate programs that offer a 50%

or higher commission. If the product is higher priced however,

you may consider going as low as 30% commission, but not lower.

You should also carefully consider exactly what amount of sales

it will take you to earn the amount of money that you have set

as a goal. The amount of $25 per sale may sound like a lot, but

if you require 5000.00 a month to live comfortably, you will

have to make at least 200 sales each month in order to reach

your target. This could be very realistic for certain products

in an exclusive niche, and totally unrealistic for products in

other more common marketing sectors.

Always consider the “what” and “who” of selling i.e. what

product you are selling, and to what target market. This will

give you at least some guidelines to determine whether the

number of sales needed to make the money you require is indeed

realistic.

If you find that the number of sales required is not realistic,

you will then need to either look for something uniquely

different to sell, or alternatively look for additional products

to broaden your range. Another strategy is for you to start on a

smaller scale, with smaller commissions and use this is a

stepping stone to work your way up. You have no doubt heard of

Super Affiliates, and this is exactly the strategy that they

follow.

Super Affiliates are successful because they have the ability to

show the product owner or affiliate manager that they understand

the market and have the credentials to make a large number of

sales each and every month. They are consistent in their efforts

and their track record enables them to negotiate directly with

the product owner for a higher commission. They therefore first

prove themselves by making substantial sales first, and this can

then puts them are in a commanding position to negotiate.

Remember that you might have some marketing expenses to take

into account, and this might erode some of your commission. Do

not spend more money on promotions than you are making in

commissions as this does not make good business sense.

Good luck with your affiliate marketing.

Gerard.

Beware of the affiliate scams and do your background work before

jumping into any program. For a comparison of the best affiliate

programs, please visit my site at

http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com

Free Online Resources For Your Internet Moneymaking Business

There is a one in three hundred and sixty five chance that today
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And if that's the case... Happy Birthday!

But if it isn't your birthday, would it still be alright if I gave you
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Good!

Let's start by providing you with the following lucky
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Simple and free tutorial for new marketers



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Please feel free to share this with others in your network.
Drop me a comment to this blog to let me know how
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To Your Internet Success.



Gerard.



Beware of online marketing scams and do your prior
investigations before committing any of your money.
For comparisons of profitable affiliate programs, go to
http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com/

For a genuine moneymaking opportunity that will bring
you thousands of dollars in a matter of weeks, go to the

Private-Millionaire Organisation introduction page at
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Starting An Online Business Does Not Have To Be Expensive

You do not have to be a millionaire first if you want to start an
online business, and although . it does not take money, It does
take a lot of money. If you are by any means afraid to spend
money on your own business, you are probably in the wrong
business. Why should people put their faith in you, give their
money to you?

When people first come online, they know that they want to make
money, but they don't have the faintest idea of how they intend
to accomplish this goal. For those who are looking to get on the
fast track of making money online, affiliate marketing and
network marketing is most probably the best option. These
programs were specifically developed to help them to reach their
goals more quickly. When you sign up as an affiliate for a
company or as a network marketing associate, the company you are
dealing with will always give you a special tracking link to
refer your potential clients to.

Some advertisers will however not allow advertising to appear if
it contains an affiliate or tracking URL. If you use articles as
I have done to promote your business, most article directory
managers expressly forbid the use of affiliate tracking URL's
inside the body of the article and in the resource box that
follows the article.

When you advertise, ensure that you always promote yourself and
not someone else. Say for example that in a year's time from now
you decide that you don't want to promote a specific affiliate
program anymore. If you have spent all of your energy promoting
your affiliate URL during this time, then you will have nothing
left to show for your time and efforts. On the other hand
however, if you have been promoting your own domain or website
for the same length of time, changing affiliate programs
mid-stream will not affect the cash turnover within your
business. All of your link building will stay with you once you
have made your decision to move on to another program.

You should never put all of your eggs in one basket. In other
words you should never put all of your energy into one company,
product or service. Not all products and services are created
equal and not all compensation plans are created equal. Also be
aware that some companies offer products and services that have
seasonal selling cycles. It is only through multiple streams of
income that you will find a more even balance in your income
levels throughout the year.

Selling other people's product through affiliate marketing is
definitely one of the easiest methods to launch an online
business, but beware of the scams. Do you own due diligence
first before parting with your money.

An absolutely fantastic site that compares programs and
prevent you from losing lots of money, can be found at
http://www.onlinesuccess.thebestbizreview.com