What Are Affiliate Programs?

Welcome to the wide world of affiliate marketing!
So, what is an affiliate and what does he or she do?
The affiliate marketer acts as a “middle man” between merchant and consumer,
but without adding anything to the consumer’s cost.
Affiliates do not mark up or resell products.
Instead, the affiliate educates and directs the consumer to a product, and they
receive a percentage of the sale in commission from the merchant.
The affiliate acts as an independent lead generator for the merchant by
bringing in new customers.
This is a win-win situation for both the affiliate and the merchant.
The affiliate can reap a full-time income marketing a whole suite of products
that he does not own. They don’t pay for product creation, don’t have to ship
anything and don’t deal with customer service issues or returns.
The merchant benefits from the influx of new customers, the boatloads of
cheap traffic and low cost advertising. Merchants get their product and their
brand in front of thousands of potential buyers without paying a dime until
someone makes a purchase.
It is truly a pay for performance arrangement.
It's also one of the toughest types of business to earn a significant income
from. Competition is fierce and almost 95% of affiliates earn little or no
income.
For the lucky few, the ones that know how to do it the rewards can be
amazing. This course has been created to help you become one of the few and
to perform at the very highest levels of Affiliate Marketing . . .
Choosing an Affiliate Program
Before you begin your venture into affiliate marketing, it is necessary to choose
the right program for you. There are almost as many programs out there as
there are products! When you first start out, it’s easy to go overboard signing
up to as many programs as possible, but this isn’t the right way to go about it.
First, you need to decide on a area of particular interest to you. What products
do you know the most about and think you could do the best job of selling?
Once you identify your specialty, you begin by sorting through the available
merchants and examine the structure of their affiliate programs.
Key areas to investigate:
1. When and how do you get paid?
Find out whether the program pays you weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, etc. Most
programs have a minimum payout amount, meaning that you don’t receive
your commissions until hitting a minimum number of sales for the pay period.
You’ll also want to find out whether the programs pays you via check, direct
deposit, Pay Pal or any combination of the three.
2. How much do you make per sale?
Remember you’ll be investing your own money into advertising and other
expenses to promote these programs. Therefore, you should seek programs
which reward their affiliates well. You’ll also want to seek out high-value
products. A fifty to sixty percent commission on a $100 product is very good,
but it’s not so hot if you’re promoting a $15 product.
3. Is the program managed well? Is this a reputable company?
Larger companies usually have “affiliate managers” devoted to maintaining
contact with their affiliates. Even if you go with a smaller outfit, they should at
least offer clear contact information. You might want to try e-mailing them at
their contact address to see how fast they respond to you. Mismanaged
programs are, at best, a sign of disorganization and, at worst, could indicate a
company in trouble.
The last thing you want is to be sitting on a grand worth of hard earned
commissions and see the merchant go out of business before paying you.
Keeping these factors in mind, here are some great places to seek out products
you can promote:
www.clickbank.com
www.cj.com
www.linkshare.com
Commission Junction (CJ) and Linkshare provide affiliate hubs for major brand
corporations and mid-sized businesses. Their focus is generally on tangible
products and services. Clickbank is the leading source online for affiliates of
information products like e-books, software and membership sites.
And of course there's our own high payout affiliate program for our Affiliate
Enhancer Software -

Five Approaches to Affiliate Marketing
As a new affiliate, one of the first things you’ll want to know where and how to
promote your affiliate link. Today we’ll cover several options and discuss the
merits of each method.
1. Direct Links via PPC Advertising
If you use PPC advertising, you can embed your affiliate to the ad and send the
prospect directly to the merchant’s site. This is a **really** lazy thing to do
though. You might make a few sales, but it’s far better to approach the process
as outlined in tactic #2.
2. Linking to Your 'Affiliate Enhanced' page via PPC's
Place ads for your target keywords and direct the prospects to your capture
page created with our AffiliateEnhancer software - Greet them with an invitation
to subscribe to your newsletter or to download a special report. This is
**Vital** because once you’ve collected a prospect’s email address, they are
yours to market to on a repeat basis.
3. Build Content Focused Sites
This approach aims for long term traffic through search engine optimization.
You’ll need to publish content related to the type of product you’re trying to
sell. Searchers will be drawn in by informative articles. You’re affiliate links will
be sprinkled discreetly across the site.
4. Advertise in E-Zines
This is a good method to use if you can find targeted lists for your product. Ezine
ads can be purchased in most cases, and in other cases you can snatch
them up for free by bartering with the list owner. Remember, rather than link
directly to the affiliate site use your Affiliate Enhanced page to capture
subscribers and build your list. Not only will this allow you to follow up and
convert more sale (for fr^ee) but it will also enable you to sheild your affiliate
link.
5. Purchase text link or banner advertising on high traffic sites This type of
advertising isn’t quite as popular as it used to be. It is most effective when you
can find high traffic sites for smaller niche subjects. These sites tend to focus
heavily on content and run only a handful of ads on site. Space is limited and
rates are likely to be at a premium.
Beating the Odds
This will be a cold, hard dose of truth, but you need to know the facts. The
majority of people who go into affiliate marketing fail to break even. Some
people will earn thousands in this business, while others will struggle to
generate even a few hundred in sales per month.
Affiliate marketing is very competitive and cut-throat. You’ve got to stay on
your toes to win in this game. While I can’t guarantee your success, I can
provide you with some fundamental knowledge that just might help you beat
the odds.
Get ready to learn how to play hardball with the super affiliates.
#1: Never Stop Searching for Profitable Keywords
Successful affiliates are never satisfied with the status quo. Even if you endured
hours sweat producing research to find your target keywords, keep on
searching out new ones and adding them to your list.
#2: Become Obsessed with Testing and Tracking
If you aren’t testing and tracking absolutely everything – and I mean everything
from your keywords, your ppc ads, your web site copy and any thing else you
can think of to test/track, the odds are stacked against you.
Successful affiliates are maniacal about testing and tracking every detail of their
campaigns. They are details oriented and use all of their collected data to refine
their entire system on a day to day basis.
You might want to take a look at an amazing software tool called MyClickSpy
for more info: http://www.infoclicks.co.uk/mcs/
#3: Innovate and Update Constantly
Keep your approach fresh by testing new conversion tactics. If you rely on PPC
engines for advertising, start throwing in e-zine advertising into the mix. If that
doesn’t produce the desired results, investigate banner ads, classified ads,
message boards, offline media and anything else you can think of to get your
message across.
Don’t rely on one conversion channel. If you send your prospects direct to the
merchant, change up your campaign and start sending leads to your special
capture page created with our Affiliate Enhancer software and start collecting
email addresses. Experiment with your content and your web copy. Try out