Another eBookWholesaler Publication
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
Copyright 2002 David McKenzie
Proudly brought to you by
Recommended Resources
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
1 of 59
Table of Contents
ABOUT THE AUTHOR············································································ 3
ABOUT THIS BOOK ················································································ 4
CHAPTER 1 - AFFILIATE MARKETING – WHAT IS IT? ··············· 5
CHAPTER 2 - CHOOSING YOUR AFFILIATE PROGRAM ············ 6
Tips For Joining Affiliate Programs······················································ 6
Commissions - The Higher the Better ··················································· 8
CHAPTER 3 - AFFILIATE MARKETING PRINCIPLES ··················10
Spend 75% of Your Time Marketing Programs··································10
Affiliate Marketing Techniques That Get Results·······························12
Be an Affiliate Site AND a Sales Site·····················································13
Fewer Links = More Profits···································································15
Scatter Gun or Targeted Approach? ····················································18
Take Affiliate Links off your Home Page ·············································20
The Secrets of a higher "Conversion Ratio"········································21
CHAPTER 4 – AFFILIATE MARKETING STRATEGIES ················25
Does A High Traffic Site Convert Into Sales?······································25
Are you in Auto-responder Heaven? ····················································27
Web Design Tips for Affiliate Web Sites ··············································30
A Thousand Words.. Worth More Than One Picture! ·······················31
Are You Using Classified Ads in Ezines? ·············································34
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
2 of 59
Does Your Headline "Grab" Their Attention?····································36
A Guide to Creating Your Own Affiliate Newsletter ··························38
Put Your “Resource Box” on Autopilot················································40
CHAPTER 5 – AFFILIATE MARKETING TECHNIQUES···············42
Tips for Writing Articles To Promote Yourself ···································42
How to Market Your Free Articles with No Money ····························44
How To Sell Through Other People’s Articles·····································46
How to Create Redirect Pages for Affiliate Links ·······························48
Secrets of Using Popup Pages ································································50
"Don't just Get Sales. Get Affiliates in the 2nd Tier!"························52
But, what about the 2nd Tier? ·······························································52
LEGAL STATEMENT ·············································································59
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
3 of 59
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David McKenzie is the founding
editor/webmaster of
http://www.brisney.com, which is a
site dedicated to helping people make
money on the Internet. Its main focus
is affiliate programs and writing free
articles.
David is also the founding editor/
webmaster of
http://www.1sthomebasedbusiness.com
David has written 2 e-books "How to Write Free Articles and Market Them With a $0
Marketing Budget" and "The Facts You Should Know About Affiliate Programs".
David has been operating http://www.brisney.com since 1999 and http://www.1sthomebasedbusiness.com since 2001. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree and is a qualified CPA. He also is a regular investor in the stock market with a keen interest in both fundamental and technical analysis.
David can be contacted at: http://www.brisney.com
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
4 of 59
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Making Money With Affiliate Programs is written by a successful affiliate. It’s a book for anybody wanting to learn how to be successful with affiliate programs.
David McKenzie takes the reader, step by step, through the necessary processes to work successfully with affiliate programs. He also shows the reader a number of novel techniques/strategies that will maximize any affiliate’s income.
These affiliate success processes are universal. David knows the pitfalls, as well as the joys and rewards of working with affiliate programs.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
5 of 59
Chapter 1 – What Is Affiliate Marketing?
For those who don’t know what an Affiliate Program is please read this chapter.
However, if you do know what Affiliate Programs are then skip this chapter and move straight onto the next chapter.
Affiliate Programs
There are many ways to make money on the web. However, one of the quickest and easiest ways to start a web business is by working what are called Affiliate or Reseller Programs.
An Affiliate is essentially a commissioned agent for a product or service. What happens is that as a commissioned agent, you (the Affiliate) get a percentage of sales after you (the Affiliate) have made those sales.
Affiliates are also called Resellers, so you may come across this term as well.
You can easily find Affiliate programs by going to the numerous Affiliate Directories that are on the web. You’ll find these directories by going to any Search Engine and typing in the phrase “Affiliate Directory.” Alternatively, if you’re surfing the web and come across a site that you like with a product or service you believe is valuable or useful then take a closer look at the site for links to their “Affiliate or Reseller Program.”
Affiliate programs are usually free to join, and good affiliate programs will always have all the necessary tools for you to sell the site’s products or services.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the way that you market the affiliate programs in which you’re involved. It is the main subject of this book.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
6 of 59
Chapter 2 - Choosing Your Affiliate Program
There are many affiliate programs available to you on the net. However, to improve your profitability as an affiliate you need to choose the programs you market wisely, as not all affiliate programs are created equal.
Tips For Joining Affiliate Programs
Before you merrily join any affiliate program it pays to consider which affiliate programs are the best to join.
These are the crucial program features that I consider necessary inclusions in any affiliate program.
The affiliate program must have a generous payment structure. For me, this means a high commission payment, which is a high percentage of the purchase price - nothing under a 25% commission.
Make sure the affiliate program you’re about to join has a professional looking site. You don’t want to send visitors to a site that looks unprofessional.
Make sure that the affiliate program has a comprehensive affiliate statistics page, which lists the number of click-throughs, the number of sales, and the amount you’ve earned to date. This should be broken down by month.
Make sure that these affiliate statistics are “real time”. This means statistics which are updated automatically and immediately. You do not want to find out today about a sale you made a week ago.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
7 of 59
Ensure that the affiliate program provides you with a wide variety of text links, banners and graphics to put on your web page. Personally I prefer to use text links. However, certain other types of banners and graphics still work well.
Know how often you are going to be paid. If you’re tossing up between 2
programs and one pays monthly and the other pays quarterly, the one which pays monthly is a better arrangement. You don’t want to wait months before you get paid for your hard work.
See if the affiliate program gives $ examples of how their top affiliates are doing. This can be a great indicator as to whether or not it is a good affiliate program. If some affiliates are earning many thousands per month, then it is a good affiliate program.
If the affiliate program has examples of which marketing methods these successful affiliates are using to get their results, then this information is also most beneficial.
An affiliate program, which offers a special monthly newsletter just for its affiliates is also great. Here, you’ll also get extra tips and information on techniques that are working well.
See if the program notifies you by email when you make a sale, or you have an affiliate sign up under you (if it is a 2-tier program). It motivates you when you see ‘You’ve made another sale, or another Affiliate has signed up’ in your email inbox.
Ensure that the program provides top-level support for its affiliates. If they cannot answer your query immediately make sure they respond within 48 hours.
Good, timely support is critical to your success.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
8 of 59
There is a huge selection of Affiliate Programs available to you on the web. Choosing the right one for you to market is never an easy task. However these features (described above) are necessary components of a professionally managed affiliate program.
Remember Affiliate Programs are a “buyers market.” So choose programs which have these preferred features, and a product or service you believe in.
Make sure you do plenty of research before joining any affiliate program.
Commissions - The Higher the Better
A good way to identify if the management of an affiliate program you’re thinking of joining is serious about their affiliate program is by the commissions (percentage of sales) they’re willing to pay you for your effort.
If someone is offering you 10% commission and they are keeping the rest, then you need to ask yourself this… "Should I really be in this affiliate program?”
An affiliate program I recently joined called ‘E-Book Marketing Explained’ pays out 45% commission to their affiliates and another 10% on the 2nd tier.
That’s 55% of the sale price!
The owners of the program only keep 45% of the sale price, and it’s from this percentage that they also take out their costs. Now, either they’ve gone completely mad, or they are very smart.
I suspect they’re very smart.
Why?
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
9 of 59
Well, by paying out such high commissions they’re attracting many serious affiliates into their program. This means that they’ll sell in much higher volumes. With these higher volumes of sales they can afford to give away such a high commission.
AND… because they give so much away to their affiliates with their high commission rate it shows that they’re supremely confident about the worth of their own product or service, and its ability to sell itself. Their product or service is that good, and this is why they offer these high percentages to their affiliates.
Affiliates do all the pre-selling and all the hard work to get the prospect to view the program’s web sites pages. Therefore, they want to be paid well for their effort. So, as an affiliate, do not accept miserly 10% commission rate payments. Set yourself a standard of nothing less than 25% and make sure that this 25% represents more than just a few dollars in payment.
It is with the bigger percentage payers that you’ll make decent commissions, the 40%-
plus hitters. These BIG affiliate program commissions are the ones that will create an income burst to your bank account balance each and every month. Focus on these to get a better return for your effort.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
10 of 59
Chapter 3 - Affiliate Marketing Principles
Spend 75% of Your Time Marketing Programs
How important do you think it is to market your Affiliate
programs? Well, most people would probably say that it’s quite important.
I would say that this is the main difference between success and failure for anybody marketing Affiliate programs. The more time you spend marketing your affiliate programs the more successful you’ll be… and the more money you’ll make.
‘Super Affiliates’’ spend 75% of their time marketing their affiliate programs. This means that they only spend 25% of their time working on their affiliate programs. The bulk of their time is spent in promoting them.
Now, compare this with most affiliates who spend about 10% to 20% of their time marketing their affiliate programs, and the rest of their time “fiddling.”
You may have read the statistics that indicate that between 80% and 90% of all affiliates make little or no money each month from their affiliate programs.
A big reason for their lack of success is…
LACK OF MARKETING.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
Making Money With Affiliate Programs
page
11 of 59
Just because it’s an affiliate program does not mean that you do not have to spend time marketing it.
Treat each affiliate program you belong to as if it were your own product. This will force you to concentrate more of your efforts on marketing. By thinking like the
“owner” rather than the “affiliate” you’ll automatically focus on what is important to make those sales.