Selecting products to promote
There is certainly no shortage of products out there to promote, whether you're interesting in digital or physical.
Actually, that brings up an interesting debate... Is it better to promote physical products or digital products such as eBooks, courses, videos etc?
There are advantages and drawbacks to both - and it will depend on things like where your particular interests lie and what niche you are in. For example, if you're in one of the hobby niches then you'll probably find no shortage of physical products to promote - but if you are in a niche such as internet marketing then digital could be the way to go. Many people prefer digital products because you often get paid more generous commissions and they are often paid to you immediately - and that's what we are going to concentrate on primarily in this report. However if you're in a niche such as diet or weight loss for example then there might be an opportunity to promote both digital and physical products.
Now we've got that over with it's time to introduce you to some of the main affiliate programs and discuss some of the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Clickbank
Clickbank deals in digital products such as eBooks, Courses and Digital Membership Programs.
As one of the big affiliate networks Clickbank provides you with a huge choice in products you can promote, however they don't deal in anything physical.
The best way to see the type of product's on Clickbank is to head on over to their website, go to the Marketplace and spend some time having a browse through the product offerings. Some of these products are one-time sale products, whilst other's give you the chance to earn a recurring commission (for example monthly membership sites which charge people a monthly fee for access)
Against each product you'll find detailed information about it such as a description of the product content, how much it sells for, the percentage sale commission and the average amount you get paid per sale (from memory it takes into account refund rates etc).
Getting your unique affiliate link is easy - you simply click on "promote" next to your chosen product and enter in the Clickbank 'nickname' you chose when you created your account. If it's an encrypted affiliate link then it will be automatically generated for you. Clickbank commissions unfortunately aren't paid instantly - you instead receive your money once your commissions have reached a certain threshold.
PayDotCom
PayDotCom seems to have reduced in popularity in recent years, however they are still a notable affiliate network in the world of digital products.
There is little point in going into too much detail about them inside this report - if you have a quick browse of their website you'll easily be able to see how they operate.
JVZoo
JVZoo is one of the biggest instant payment affiliate networks. When you promote something on JVZoo and make a sale the money lands in your Paypal account instantly, which is one of the things which makes it so popular.
Like Clickbank and PayDotCom you'll see that all products listed on JVZoo are digital products. You'll find a huge variety too, from reports and courses through to software and plugins. JVZoo tends to be mostly internet marketing related - so if you're looking for products in other niches it's perhaps not the first place you'd look.
WarriorPlus
WarriorPlus is very similar to JVZoo except for one thing - it only deals in Warrior Special Offers.
In case you're not familiar with the Warrior Forum (http://www.warriorforum.com) it's perhaps the largest internet marketing forum out there - a place where marketers come to discuss their businesses, strategies and to network with each other. The Warrior Special Offer forum (WSO forum) is a sub- section where you'll find forum members selling internet marketing related courses and software - and you'll find that many of these offers are being sold through the WarriorPlus platform.
If you're in the internet marketing niche then you'll find no shortage of products you can promote.
As a sidenote you'll also find WSOs listed on JVZoo. But whereas JVZoo deals in both WSOs and non-WSOs, WarriorPlus is ONLY for WSOs.
Amazon
If you are in a different niche and want to promote physical products then one of the most popular affiliate scheme's is by the retail giant Amazon (https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
One thing you'll notice is that the commission percentages are generally nowhere near as generous, however you also need to take into account the huge variety of products that they sell, the popularity of many of those products and the fact that many retail at much higher prices than digital products.
When you also factor in that Amazon is generally considered to be one of the world's most trusted brands and it's easy to see why you can make an awful lot of money promoting Amazon products as an affiliate, especially if you're in the right niche.
As I mentioned earlier we're going to primarily focus on promoting digital products within this report but that doesn't mean that you should always dismiss physical products because it IS possible to see great success when doing so.
Product selection
Ok - so let's get back to the primary focus of this chapter: choosing products to promote as an affiliate.
This is one of the most important parts of being an affiliate because when you choose the right product to promote then you can make an awful lot of money and your customers will love you for it too.
On the other hand, if you promote something that doesn't quite capture the imagination of your target market then you'll probably not make many sales. That's no biggie of course and it's definitely true to say that nobody picks the right products to promote 100% of the time...
What DOES matter more is promoting products that look appealing but are actually pretty rubbish in reality. Promoting bad stuff is a surefire way to lose the trust of your prospects and fail in your ventures, so it's important to do your very best to choose products that your audience will both find appealing AND which deliver what your audience actually wants.
Let's cut to the chase and look at how to go about selecting the RIGHT sort of products.
To start with, head over to one of the affiliate network's we've just discussed.
Have a browse through products that would appear to fit your niche and get a feel for whether they appeal to you.
Golden rule number one: Promote the product that your prospects will get the most value from, NOT the one which you think will make you the most money.
There's a general philosophy shared by many of the most successful marketers and that is that you should always put your customers interests above your own.
Let me ask you a question. If you knew for certain that you could promote a particular product and make $1,000 in commission even though you knew the product was crap, would you still promote it?
The answer should be NO because even though you can make a lot of money up front people won't make the mistake of trusting your recommendation's twice if you promote total garbage.
If you promote GOOD products and place other people's interests ahead of your own then you'll earn the trust of your prospects and people will purchase your recommendation's again and again.
Part of being an affiliate is being a trusted advisor. Let's say you're using email marketing as the main way of driving traffic to the offers you're promoting as an affiliate. The people on your email list are placing their trust in you to recommend offers to them which you believe can help them. There are thousands of products out there - some good, some bad and some that aren't relevant to your audience. If you can point people in the direction of product's that can genuinely help them or which they will find useful/interesting/relevant etc then you're setting yourself up for success.
"So if I'm a trusted advisor, does that mean I have to purchase and review every product before I promote it?"
Nope - not necessarily. There are several ways around this and sometimes you might choose to take an educated gamble on a product.
Here are several scenarios:
1. You buy a product, like it and think that your niche will like it too, so you decide to promote it.
That's the ideal scenario because:
But you're not always going to want to purchase every product before you promote it, so....
2. You could ask for a review copy.
Many people who produce digital products will be willing to give away a review copy to affiliates. So, you can check out the product for free and then decide if it's something your audience will want to buy and whether you can give it your recommendation (or not).
3. You've bought from the same product owner before and you know you like their products.
Ok, so it's possible that you loved all their previous products but their new one turns out to be bad. That's a slight risk, but nine times out of ten if you liked their previous offerings and thought they had value then the new one will too.
4. You take a punt based on reviews.
Ok, so this is the most risky strategy of all - but it can work.
Let's say you're on the list of somebody who you consider to be one of YOUR trusted advisors and they send you an email promoting a particular product. You trust their recommendation, check out the reviews and see that they're decent and you think the product's a good fit with your niche - so you decide to promote it without seeing it.
NOTE: If you are promoting something that you haven't personally checked out then it can be good practice to tell people so.
Some other thing's to think about when choosing products (Note that these are all of secondary importance to choosing good products that are a good fit with your niche)
The offer's average conversion rate
Some products can be great but have a rubbish sales page, meaning that very few people actually buy. You want to be looking for offers that convert at a fairly decent rate... so if a product converts at 7% then (on average) seven out of every ten people who view the product are going to buy it. If you promoted a product that only converted at 2% then clearly you're going to make less sales, even with the same traffic.
Obviously bear in mind that conversion rates vary a lot, even for the same product and can largely depend on the traffic source. Imagine promoting a dog training product to an internet marketing mailing list. Sure, some of those people might have dogs but you're probably not going to make too many sales because it's untargeted :)
Similarly, if you promote an offer to a "dead" audience (for example a mailing list you have mistreated by promoting crappy offers to them all the time) then you're going to achieve a below average conversion rate.
So, when you're looking at a product's claimed conversion rate you need to remember that you're not always going to match it. Sometimes you'll achieve higher than the average conversion rate and sometimes it'll be the other way around.
There isn't always a logic to the actual conversion rate you achieve, either. Sometimes for example you'll promote a really good product that also has a good average conversion rate and you'll make very few sales. There isn't always a reason for it - sometimes an offer just captures the imagination for your prospects and sometimes it just doesn't.
Don't worry about your actual conversion rates on individual promotions too much. Sure, look for products that have decent average conversion rates but don't take it as a given that those are the rates you'll actually achieve.
What is the percentage commission - and how much does this actually equate to per sale?
If you're choosing between two $10 products and product-A offe