Learn Affiliate MarketingTips And Guides For The Beginner or Veteran
It's important to learn affiliate marketing the right way before you begin, otherwise you'll spend a lot of time and won't have anything to show for it.
So what exactly is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a way of promoting goods or services to a customer, and then earning a commission ($$) if the customer takes a desired action, such as buying a product or clicking an ad.
Basically it works like this:
- Joe sets up a webpage about Widgets.
- Joe includes an affiliate link to Widgets-R-Us in his webpage.
- Widgets-R-Us offers a 10% commission on all referrals.
- Jane visits Joe's webpage, clicks on the affiliate link to Widgets-R-Us, and buys a Widget for $100.
- Joe gets $10 from Widgets-R-Us for referring the sale.
That's pretty much how it goes, and it doesn't really get much more complicated than that. There are a few different types of affiliate marketing, and a number of different ways to make money from it.
"MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned $6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing and forms of lead generation other than contextual ad networks such as Google Adsense." ~Wikipedia
How about getting a piece of that bounty? ;)
If you're an affiliate marketing beginner, the best way to learn affiliate marketing is to start with the authority on the subject: The Affiliate Masters Course. Download it from our library. It's a free affiliate marketing ebook that covers all the bases thoroughly. Actually, even if you're somewhat experienced with internet marketing I bet that the Affiliate Master's Course will give you some great new insights into your craft. Another way to learn affiliate marketing is to just go out and do it, but that method could literally take years!
The Affiliate Marketing Opportunity
Affiliate internet marketing is a great opportunity for people who want to build up a business and make money online. Affiliate marketing makes it possible by allowing you to promote and earn money from products without having to carry inventory, create the products themselves, ship them out, etc. The merchant takes on all these risks.
However, it's also important that you protect yourself by creating multiple streams of income and diversifying your affiliate marketing ecommerce efforts. For instance, if your sole affiliate provider is Widgets-R-Us, and they go bankrupt for some reason, you'll have quite a problem! Besides protecting yourself, diversifying your affiliate income also helps monetize more of your traffic since you'll be able to target people who are looking for things other than, say, Widgets-R-Us.
Learn Affiliate Marketing: Basics
Affiliate compensation methods vary from company to company. Among the types of methods are CPS (Cost Per Sale), CPA (Cost Per Action), CPC (Cost Per Click), and CPM/T (Cost Per Mille/Thousand). Click here for greater explanation of these methods.
Affiliate programs can be provided by the company itself, or the company might use a third party affiliate program provider such as Clickbank or Commision Junction. There are a bunch of affiliate program providers out there, and I'll recommend some of the good ones to start out with.
Publishers (those who publish websites with affiliate links in them) get credit for referrals by using special tracking codes in their links. For example, a "hoplink" from Clickbank will contain the publishers "nickname" by which the link can be tracked. Many affiliate programs provide cookies so that a publisher still gets a commission even if a referred customer can buys a product at a later date. Inserting tracking links and hoplinks isn't that hard to learn. Affiliate marketing link tracking is becoming much more advanced than ever.
Affiliate Marketing Tips
As an affiliate marketer, you're obviously looking to earn money. The best way to increase your income of affiliate revenue is to
- Increase the number of "click throughs" you get (people using your affiliate links to go to the merchant)
- Increase the conversion rate of these potential customers.
If you get 100 clicks on your affiliate link and 1 person buys, that means you have a 1% conversion rate. Now, if you can increase your affiliate referrals to 1000, you'll increase your sales to 10 buyers. However, if you can simultaneously increase your conversion rate to 3%, then you'll have 30 sales!
My Recommendation
If you're looking to learn affiliate marketing and earn money online, let Site Build It get you started down the right path towards success. Site Build It has helped me earn money through affiliate marketing, and it can do the same for you. Check out their page all about successful affiliate marketing with Site Build It.