With thousands, if not millions, of affiliate marketing network programs online today, choosing the best ones for you requires more time and dedication than it was a few years ago. You need to commit the same time and effort in selecting your affiliate program, much like when you do your market research.

Ask questions and seek out answers because this will become the basis of your first major business decision. A decision that may well be the most crucial point of your affiliate marketing journey.

With so many of these affiliate marketing network programs, how can I tell which one is best for me?

Unfortunately, no one can answer this question other than yourself. The answer lies within you and you need to find it first before moving on.

Your current situation, ability and resources can tell you what affiliate marketing program is best fitted to you at the moment.

Always ask yourself these questions before you start promoting a certain product:

Does the program requires affiliate to pay before you can promote them?

This is the first thing that you should look for. Pretty basic actually, but others fall prey to programs that promise huge amount of commissions in exchange of an up-front fee. Most affiliate marketing programs today are free of charge, so why pay when you can find another one that offers the same results with no fee?

Is the merchant or company running the affiliate program reputable and of good standing?

The next important thing to know when looking for affiliate programs.

Try imagining this….you promote a program with all your effort and resources…

Payday comes, you wait for your payment, but no check arrived…

You called the company’s support, but no one answered…

You emailed the admin, but no one replied…

After a little research, you found out that several others have been scammed by this company.

Avoid this mistake by spending some time to study the company that you’re gonna work with as an affiliate. Know if it’s really a solid company.

How long have they been operating? How much are they earning per year? Are there any complaints and disputes against it? Research before you promote and not after you have been scammed!

How much are they willing to share their profits?

Don’t settle for programs offering 25-50% commission to affiliates (except for physical products – expect 10 to 20%), there are several out there that offers as much as 75% and even 100%! If the product is of top quality and have a high price tag, I’ll go with 50%-60% share.

How often do you like to be paid?

Affiliate programs are all different. There are programs who pay longer than others. Some pay monthly, while some pay daily. Choose the one that is suited for you. While you’re at it, review the program’s minimum payment amount. Check if you can achieve it with your current resources and ability.

Is the affiliate program capable of accurately tracking your referrals and how long are they cookied?

Before signing up with an affiliate program, read every line of text as much as you can. Know how long are your referral cookies stored, how are they tracking it, can they provide you accurate statistics of your promotions, and so on.

Cookie duration is important to you as an affiliate. Know if you are still credited for the sale on a referral that you made last few months ago. Look for possible loopholes that can hurt your affiliate commissions!

Does the program have a decent conversion rate?

So that you’ll know the average number of traffic or visitors it takes to produce one sale. Approach the product owner or affiliate manager and ask the program’s conversion rate.

If they don’t want to provide one or tell you that they don’t know, drop the program and move on to another one that can give you this number. This is important as it will let you know how profitable the product is. You can also derive how much traffic you must drive to their sales page or your squeeze page, before you can generate a sale.

There are several factors to consider before you can choose the best program that will really work for you but the answers to these set of questions will be sufficient enough to keep you right on track.

Weed out those that are not suited for you and focus only on the ones that satisfies your standards. It won’t be long before that affiliate paycheck hits your mailbox.

Good luck!

Others who read this post also read:

• August 4, 2009 -- Fail Proof Affiliate Marketing Tips (0)
• July 29, 2009 -- Why Affiliate Marketing Is Still the Best Online Business Model (0)
• July 27, 2009 -- Making More Money Online By Utilizing the Power of a Bonus (2)
• October 12, 2009 -- My Take On The New FTC Rule Concerning Online Marketers (2)
• August 21, 2009 -- File Storage Service – Using Amazon S3 Video (0)

Trying to make money online with affiliate marketing? Are you seeing no results with your affiliate marketing campaigns? Don’t worry; almost 95% of the marketers are in the same situation as you are right now. And it’s not your fault. It’s either the gurus have not given you a sure-fire way to success or you’re just following the wrong system.

I’m going to share with you the most important lessons that I learned during my first few months as an affiliate. Use this as a road map to get your affiliate marketing campaigns on the right track.

Affiliate Marketing Road Map:

1. Always Have an Opt-In Form in Place

Even if you’re just starting out, always practice to include an opt-in form asking for the email addresses of your visitors. Put this on all of your affiliate/ squeeze pages.  Make your visitors opt-in by giving away gifts such as free reports, mini-courses, ebooks, and so on. The key here is to make the gift related to the product you are promoting and should be of high quality and unique.

Getting their email addresses can help you make a sale from customers that were not prepared to buy immediately. This allows you to follow up with them as long as you like. You can also offer new products and refer them to more of your affiliate programs in the future.

2. Avoid Stuffing Your Affiliate Web Pages with Ads

Visitors will leave your site if it’s full of different ads. Take the extra time to create separate web pages for each of the products that you promote. On that particular page, you should focus on only one product. Make it simple. As much as possible avoid putting two to three different ads on a single page.

Don’t give your visitors too many distractions on your site. Instead create a clean, easy to navigate and informative affiliate site. Your only goal is for them to take your desired action, which is either opt-in on your form or click on your affiliate links.

3. Choose the Right Products To Promote

Just because the product has the highest payout or commission doesn’t mean it’s the perfect product for you. Of course, having a good payout and high converting product is one factor, but if you’re new to affiliate marketing, what you should look for in a product should go beyond its profitability.

Before choosing an affiliate program, you should ask these questions to yourself:

• Is the product something you would buy and use for yourself?
  • Always promote a product that is of high quality. Promoting sloppy products can really hurt your credibility in the long run.
• Can you sell the product given your available resources (time, money, knowledge?)
  • Remember, even if you opted to promote using free traffic tactics, this will still cost you in terms of time. Choose a product that will fit with your current resources.
• Is the payout of the product higher than the cost of getting one sale?
  • Simply ask the product owner for the conversion rate of the product. If you know this, you can compute how much it will cost you to earn a sale. It really depends on the advertising medium that you will use.

4. Buy the Product That You’re Planning To Promote and Actually Use It

It’s extremely easier to sell a product that you have tried for yourself. Spend time and money to try the product out and study it as much as you can. You’ll be glad that you did in the long run.

If you have used the product to its full capability, you can quickly tailor your promotions to connect with your site’s visitors. You will be viewed as someone who they can trust because you promote using the knowledge you gained from actually using the product and not just for the sake of making money.

If you can’t buy the product, ask others who have used it. Before promoting a product, I always ask the owner if he/ she can provide me a test copy for affiliates. And at most times, the owner will be more than willing to give you one.

Plus, you can create a guide for the product in pdf or video format and use it as your bonus. You can know more about bonuses by reading my post, making more money online using bonuses.

5. Rework the Sales Materials Provided To You

If you want to stand out from the rest of the affiliates promoting the same product as you do, you need to take this extra step. Especially if you are promoting internet marketing or make money online stuffs. You will be bombarded with several emails having the same subject line and content from different marketers. Would you open it all up? Heck no!

Add it up with Google penalizing duplicate contents and you’ll be sure that that web page will never see the light with all of those web pages having the same content that you have. (In case you put up a page for that product and copied all the sales materials given to you on it). Mix in your creative juices and add your twist on all of the sales materials (of course you don’t need to edit the banners or images) and you’ll be rewarded with a higher click through rate and make more money online.

6. Your Job is To Promote So Don’t Sell!

Leave the selling to the product owner. That’s why they have a sales page for their product. Your job as an affiliate is to promote the product by providing information. Pre-selling is entirely different to actually selling the product. By pre-selling, you give the right amount of information to the prospective buyers with the objective of drawing them in.

Intensify their interest to the product you’re promoting. Satisfy their hunger for information regarding the product but don’t give them all they need. Make them want more information. This will actually lead them to the product owner’s sales page.

7. Dedicate, Commit, and Focus!

If you lack even one of these three, you are guaranteed to fail sooner or later with affiliate marketing. Don’t be enticed with the promises of several affiliate programs out there. Sometimes the problem isn’t the system that you’re following, its YOU. Don’t jump from one program to the other unless you think that you have given enough time and effort to the program you’re currently promoting.

Once you have chosen the right product for you, dedicate and commit yourself by studying the program and the products you’ll be promoting. Once you started promoting it, focus on making a sale. Don’t just give up without exhausting all your resources. Almost all affiliate programs need ample amount of time before results kick in.

Follow this road map and you’ll be way ahead of several other marketers online. There is one final turn that I want you to take though. And this is to know the right mindset of an internet marketer. Without it, you could follow this road map all day long and yet still feel lost at end.

Believe in yourself that you can do it and follow this fail proof affiliate marketing tips.

See you at the top!

Others who read this post also read:

• July 27, 2009 -- Making More Money Online By Utilizing the Power of a Bonus (2)
• October 12, 2009 -- My Take On The New FTC Rule Concerning Online Marketers (2)
• August 6, 2009 -- Choosing The Best Affiliate Marketing Network Program For You (0)
• July 29, 2009 -- Why Affiliate Marketing Is Still the Best Online Business Model (0)
• September 24, 2009 -- Time Management For Internet Marketers (1)

I stumbled upon affiliate marketing during my third month of trying to make money online. I earned a lot from it and even though I am working on another model right now, I still use it and still is my favorite online business model.

Looking back, I try to remember the things that got me into this affiliate marketing thing and dug up the reasons behind it. Hope this also clears up some of your questions regarding affiliate marketing.

Why I Think Affiliate Marketing Is The Best Online Business Model:

• Low Capital Requirement – you can start without having much money to invest with. I know of several marketers out there that starts with nothing online using this business model. Although this might work for you, it’s best to prepare a little investment on your online business, not more than $100 (use this wisely!)
• Huge Profit Potential – every successful business model should have this factor. There are several great business opportunities out there, but the majority has a limit as to its maximum profit potential. In affiliate marketing, the only limit is your imagination. You can start small and scale it up to your dream business.
• Can Be Run From Anywhere – this is one of the reasons why I tried affiliate marketing in the first place. Your place of doing business doesn’t matter as long as there’s an internet connection and a computer. You can travel all around the world and still operate it 100%.
• All The Headaches Of A Business Eliminated – in affiliate marketing, all of the overhead costs and the tedious works of several key processes of typical businesses are removed. Say goodbye to inventory issues, product shipment problems, payment collection headaches, refund issues, and most of all, to customer support problems.
• No Selling Required – you don’t sell in affiliate marketing, you refer. You leave the selling to the product owners. If you have chosen a product with a really good affiliate promo tools in place, they will do the follow ups and yet you will still be credited for the sale! Other selling processes are done by the product owner like testing and tweaking of the websites for conversion rate optimization.
• Can Be Automated – the secret of six figure affiliate marketers. Affiliate marketing is one of the few business models that can run with systems. Information you provide and products that you offer can be all programmed to run automatically by using autoresponders. In fact, there are hundreds of products and services that can give you similar result.

If you are really decided in making money online, then I highly suggest taking the affiliate marketing path first. Almost all the known internet marketers started with it. It has low start-up cost and highly profitable. Affiliate marketing can earn you your first dollar online – the fastest way that I know of.

Others who read this post also read:

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If you are subscribed to a number of affiliate marketer’s list, chances are that you’ve been offered a bribe to purchase whatever the affiliate is referring you. This method changed the affiliate marketing game as every buyer is now on the lookout for the best bonus that they can get from purchasing a particular product.

Bonuses are what’s “in” right now in affiliate marketing. Yes, it only made the game harder; pushing you to provide high quality bonuses to your loyal customers, but you can’t just simply ignore it. Unless you want your loyal customers to go to the other guy’s list just because he have a bonus to offer while you don’t.

Some of the more popular bonuses that are offered by affiliates are ebooks, videos, and a free access to their membership sites. The question you should focus now is not only how you should market the product but also what bonuses can you give.

Here are some tips to make your bonus package irresistible:

1. Make sure that your bonus package is relevant to what you are promoting. If you are promoting an SEO software, it’s not wise to offer copywriting ebooks. Look for PLR products that can supplement or complement to the product you are promoting.
2. Ask the product owner for a sample of the product so you can test it. After checking out the product, make a video or a guide for the product and use it as your bonus.
3. Interview the product owner and record it. Audio interviews are hot bonuses. Just make sure to let the product owner know of your intention.
4. Ask the product owner this question: “What is it that you wish you have included in your product that you didn’t?” This knowledge is powerful. You can create a product out of this that makes the product that you’re promoting complete. Provide it as a bonus and all you do is wait for the money to roll in.
5. Offer a free ticket to one of your seminars. This is the technique that several internet marketing gurus are using recently. Anik Singal and Amit Mehta’s PPC Classroom 2.0 and Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing 2.0 use this as their bonus.
6. Sometimes, the product owner is just waiting for someone to contact them and ask for further assistance in promoting their products. Try to squeeze out something from the product owner; he might give you exclusive rights to one of his best products so you can give it away as a bonus on your promotions.

Bonuses are an amazing tool to utilize on your promotions. It can make you a lot of money online. Just be sure you can deliver it to all who took your offers. Also, make sure that you can check who actually purchased through your affiliate link and if you’re credited on the sale.

It is also equally important to clearly state to your buyers how can they claim their bonus from you. If you can’t give it on time, notify and let them know when they will receive it.

Keep your customers happy by giving high quality bonuses and ensuring proper bonus fulfillment. Set your goals and work to reach it!

Others who read this post also read:

• August 4, 2009 -- Fail Proof Affiliate Marketing Tips (0)
• August 8, 2009 -- Why 95% of People Fail In Making Money Online (0)
• August 6, 2009 -- Choosing The Best Affiliate Marketing Network Program For You (0)
• July 29, 2009 -- Why Affiliate Marketing Is Still the Best Online Business Model (0)
• October 12, 2009 -- My Take On The New FTC Rule Concerning Online Marketers (2)