Archive for the ‘Affiliate Marketing’ Category

Techniques for Keeping Track of Your Affiliate Referrals

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

If you’re seriously interested in knowing about Affiliate Marketing, you need to think beyond the basics. This informative article takes a closer look at things you need to know about Affiliate Marketing.

The number of referrals you can generate for your affiliate marketing program can range from a few dozen to several hundreds. Great if there are only a few names on your list so far since they would be easy to familiarize with but what if you’ve collected enough names equivalent to a mid-sized city’s worth of phone numbers? Without an organized system, you could easily lose potential income from referrals you can’t monitor. Learn how to keep track of your affiliate referrals offline and online so you’ll never have to waste your efforts.

Offline tracking techniques

Just because you’re in affiliate marketing doesn’t mean all your affiliate referral prospecting methods are limited online. Offline activities can be incredibly useful for generating leads.

If you’re the type of affiliate who has an active social networking life, you probably make use of conferences, trade shows and meetings to mine affiliate referrals. If you do, then make sure you are organized enough to take advantage of all the prospects you get in touch with during these occasions.

An excellent way to do this is to obtain a prospect’s business card. That piece of paper should hold enough information for you to use later to get in touch with that person. If you attend multiple events or are constantly generating leads online, make a few notes on the back of the business cards so you never forget important information about the person, such as the event they attended, what they said and other business-related stuff you might have discussed.

Keep all business cards collected specifically for your affiliate marketing program separate from your other business cards. This will prevent confusion later when you begin communicating with these people. Don’t be afraid to use labels and to make notes ? this will help ensure that you keep track of all your affiliate referrals and never forget critical information and data.

Online tracking techniques

The more authentic information about Affiliate Marketing you know, the more likely people are to consider you a Affiliate Marketing expert. Read on for even more Affiliate Marketing facts that you can share.

One of the fastest and most convenient ways to track affiliate referrals is to use online resources. Some of these include:

An affiliate referral tracking application

Once your referral activities begin in earnest, you’ll find it difficult to manually track the number of referrals you bring to your affiliate company’s website. You’ll need a reliable application to perform this efficiently. Some of these referral tracking applications may be downloaded for free, although you might prefer premium editions if your affiliate business is big enough.

These applications are quite easy to use so you can conveniently keep track of the activities of your affiliate referrals. Many of these applications even offer extras, such as features that allow you to monitor your banner exchanges, start pages and affiliate links ? essentially the kind of activities you’ll been doing in order to promote your website.

Your affiliate marketing program’s tracking system

Majority of established affiliate marketing programs have their own tracking system for their affiliate’s referrals. Check your program for this. You’ll usually only need your own affiliate ID in order to gain access to your stats.

Your affiliate program is able to do this because the affiliate links you post on your web pages are coded. This usually comes in the form of a tracking cookie. Each time your visitors click on that link and arrives on the affiliate company’s website, their tracking system will register the unique code coming from your site.

Activities related to this code will be kept in the company’s system which you can view at any time.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Hits and Earn: Hit per Sale Ratio Affiliate Program Decisions

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

Are you looking for some inside information on Affiliate Marketing? Here’s an up-to-date report from Affiliate Marketing experts who should know.

Congratulations! You have gone through the grueling task of deciding whether or not to try your luck with affiliate marketing, choosing the products you would be promoting, and establishing your affiliate marketing sites. The first few dollars have managed to come marching in, and you think it is enough. I know you are fed up with decision making and would rather just wait for the money to flow, but in order for you to succeed more, you have to make more decisions: that is what businesses are all about.

One of the best tools you can use to aid you in your affiliate program decisions is the hit per sale ratio. What is hit per sale ratio? Everyday, a number of unique individuals visit your site. Each unique individual is called a ?click.? However, out of the hundreds, nay, thousands who visit your site, only a handful end up purchasing your product. This handful of people is called your ?sales.? A hit per sale ratio is the number of hits you must get in order to get one sale. To calculate, simply divide all of the hits you get in a day by the number of sales you get in a day, and voila! You have the hit per sale ratio of your affiliate marketing sites!

But how, you ask, do you get anything important out of a simple number? Well, knowing your hit per sale ratio and making informed affiliate program decisions based on that is one of the best things you could ever do to elevate your affiliate marketing enterprise. You might find yourself wishing you had a higher hit per sale ratio by either having more hits everyday, or having more sales out of your current hits. You could actually choose from a million solutions out there, but in this article, the liberty has been taken to discuss two of the most logical affiliate program decisions you can make and to which a lot of other affiliate marketers can attest to.

ADVERTISEMENTS

Ads are great if you simply want increased hits, which can lead to increased sales, everyday. You should take note, however, that since you are working on increasing your profit, you should never shell out more cash than you can afford (you might especially be tempted to bet all or more than your earnings when you discover that the ads you pay for are significantly raising your profits). Do a simple computation of how much money you can spend on these advertisements, and base your decisions on these.

For example, if you have a total of 300 hits per day, to which only 5 are ending up in sales, which means it takes 60 hits before you could establish sales (this is your hit per sale ratio). And if each sale gives you a profit of $25, it means you are earning $225 per day. This is the maximum amount you can spend on advertisements. To play it safe, pay for something that is significantly lower than your current profit so that when your ads prove to be worthless, you still have a bit of cash to take home.

Truthfully, the only difference between you and Affiliate Marketing experts is time. If you’ll invest a little more time in reading, you’ll be that much nearer to expert status when it comes to Affiliate Marketing.

So let’s say you made the decision to spend $100 bucks on ads. That leaves you $125 assured take-home money, which isn’t half as bad as taking home nothing. Let’s say your $100 ad doubled your total hits per day, and thus, doubling your sales (from 5 sales to 10 sales). That would mean that you have a $450 figure as your total sales. Subtract the amount of the ad, and you have yourself a total profit of $350. Not bad, eh?

PAY PER CLICK PROGRAMS

Pay per click programs are programs you could establish with search engines for your products to appear on top of searches. You are bidding per click here (for the keywords you have chosen), and this means those who bid highest find themselves on the top of the food chain. This is a relatively tricky business, so don’t get caught up in false hopes.

Now, to our calculations. Supposing you have a hit per sale ratio of 60, and a profit of $25 per sale, like the last example. In order to know the total amount you can risk on bidding, simply divide your profit per sale by your hit per sale ratio. That leaves you with a $0.40 figure. Again, do not risk this entire amount into bidding. You would do well to bid half of your safe value just so you can still be reassured of a bit of profit even if this program does not work out. A $0.20 bid per click shouldn’t be bad enough.

You would find some affiliate marketing enterprises bidding dollars for each click. DO NOT DO THE MISTAKE OF FOLLOWING THEIR STEPS. Instead, find a way around them by bidding on different keywords. Always keep your profits in mind.

However, in the world of affiliate marketing, increasing your profits isn’t as easy as simple arithmetic. You have to weigh your options well, and no one could ever teach you that as good as experience can. Try your different options as well as you can, make smart and informed decisions, and if you work hard enough, you might find yourself singing happily all the way to the bank.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Promoting Your Affiliate Product Sites Made Easy

Saturday, September 25th, 2010

The following paragraphs summarize the work of Affiliate Marketing experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of Affiliate Marketing. Heed their advice to avoid any Affiliate Marketing surprises.

Promotion can never be a walk in the park. That’s what most of us say. Promoting somebody else’s site for instance makes it much harder for you to attest for the said website. That’s how affiliate marketing works by the way. You are tasked to promote a certain website through your own website. It may sound like a hard task but in reality, that is not true.

Promoting your affiliate sites can simply start by enticing your website visitors to try out this particular product you are endorsing. If you are running a blog, you can simply shift your entries t the product’s advantage. Here’s an example.

You are currently promoting an Xbox website which caters to online gamers. The products range from Xbox accessories to online downloadable games. Your blog is about your everyday living experience, sort of a journal like website. So how would you shift your blog so it could help your affiliate to boost up its product’s sales? It is pretty simple. You could make your entry for one day something like ? you are bored and tried to look for something to do. Luckily your cousins arrived and look what they have brought ? an Xbox! So you hurriedly setup the console and played to your heart’s content! You must emphasize how you have enjoyed the experience, hence, now you are longing to buy yourself that same console. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. You will then mention there how they will save if they go to these certain website and order. You know the drill ? just make sure that you always say good things regarding your affiliate.

The more authentic information about Affiliate Marketing you know, the more likely people are to consider you a Affiliate Marketing expert. Read on for even more Affiliate Marketing facts that you can share.

Here’s another example. Same thing ? you have a blog and your affiliate site is for a Nintendo Wii. You could make your entry for one day something like this. You are bored and tried to look for something to do. Luckily your cousins arrived and look what they have brought ? a Nintendo Wii! So you hurriedly setup the console and played to your heart’s content! You must emphasize how you have enjoyed the experience, hence, now you are longing to buy yourself that same console. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. You will then mention there how they will save if they go to these certain website and order. You know the drill, you have to detail the good testimonies you have regarding the website you want them to visit.

If you are running a blog, you can simply shift your entries t the product’s advantage. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. Promoting your affiliate sites can simply start by enticing your website visitors to try out this particular product you are endorsing. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. You will then mention there how they will save if they go to these certain website and order. If you are running a blog, you can simply shift your entries t the product’s advantage.

In this manner, promotion of the affiliate sites will be much easier. No pressure on your part and the effect will be colossal. You can simply make the most out of your advertisement by simply using your blog to your advantage. It is like telling a story and at the same time, enticing to your target audience. Now that’s what I call effective blogging marketing.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Are Your Free Reports Too Sales Pitchy?

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

The following paragraphs summarize the work of Affiliate Marketing experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of Affiliate Marketing. Heed their advice to avoid any Affiliate Marketing surprises.

That’s NOT the Way to Promote Your Affiliate Products

The great sales pitch can be a bit overrated, seeing that majority of the most seasoned affiliate marketing customers and prospective members tend to be skeptical and jaded. When giving out free reports to promote your affiliate products, enthusiasm can cause you to produce a sales pitchy report, something that could be taken the wrong way by your prospects. If you want to make a good impression, writing a free report that smacks of too much sales pitch is just NOT the way to get people to purchase your affiliate products.

Why sales pitchy free reports are ineffective

There are several reasons why sales pitchy free reports are not recommended for promoting your affiliate products. For one, they sound rather suspect, are usually too colorful to be believable and, if they are especially badly written, are peppered by punctuation marks and bold letters that shouldn’t be where they are.

They also sound too desperate to be credible, sounding as if they were written with the sole purpose of making a quick sale. Furthermore, they usually do not present the whole picture to the reader, focusing instead on promoting a product profusely without considering how it can be useful or relevant to potential customers. Sales pitchy free reports usually lack the declaration that states its true value to its readers.

If you’ve read sales pitchy free reports before, you probably know exactly why you treated them with disbelief. If you’ve thrown away or deleted a sales pitchy free report you didn’t even bother to finish reading, you will understand why that’s NOT the way to promote your affiliate products.

Writing the right free reports without being sales pitchy

When you write free reports, consider them as part of your sales campaign. This means that they are essentially advertising and as such, should be able to gently push prospective customers into performing certain desired actions. Here are some very important things you have to remember when using free reports to promote your affiliate products:

Free reports should make a good first impression

Knowledge can give you a real advantage. To make sure you’re fully informed about Affiliate Marketing, keep reading.

A well-written title is an excellent technique to ensure that you get a hold of your readers’ attention and encourage them to read further. If the title is bland, your readers will either skim through the report and miss the good points or give up altogether.

Free reports should avoid the ‘general public’

A common mistake among marketers who write free reports to promote their affiliate products is that they tend to write for just about everyone. Remember that your affiliate products have specific market demographics. Find out what these are and write directly to them.

Free reports should include details

Words such as ‘excellent’, ‘good’, ‘amazing’ and ‘incredible’ always find their way into free reports. While there is nothing wrong about using them, they tend to be too generic and ultimately, sales pitchy.

Instead of using these words or their synonyms again and again, try to use details and specifics instead. Review that free report you have written and check out generic words. Instead of saying that the affiliate product is ‘an excellent deal’, say ‘you get 25% off your purchase’. Instead of merely saying that the purchase is ‘risk-free’, say instead that you offer a ’100% money-back guarantee’.

There has to be a sense of urgency

A good, non-sales pitchy free report should include a statement regarding the effectivity date of the promotion. When promoting your affiliate products, state in clear terms when the product will be sold for the special price and for how long. By restricting the product’s availability, you will be able to gently persuade your readers and turn them into real paying customers.

So are you still writing those embarrassing sales pitchy free reports?

Now that wasn’t hard at all, was it? And you’ve earned a wealth of knowledge, just from taking some time to study an expert’s word on Affiliate Marketing.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Products Make the Affiliate Marketing World Go Round:

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

How to choose the products to promote.

Affiliate Marketing has become a relatively easy and convenient way of earning money, thus, attracting quite a number of followers. For those who are new to the business, they have quite a lot to learn before they get to reap the bigger fruits of affiliate marketing. In fact, there’s so much to learn, it is quite difficult to focus on where and how to start on your own affiliate marketing venture.

The focal point of affiliate marketing, or of any business enterprise for that matter, is the product. No exchange ever happens if there is no product involved. For those who are new to affiliate marketing, choosing a product to promote might make their head spin like crazy.

The following tips regarding what kinds of products an affiliate marketer should promote are perfect for beginners. For those who are more experience in affiliate marketing, however, do not fret. You might also get a few tips from this article (or this article might just confirm what you already know, which isn’t all that bad, either).

The first step in choosing a product to promote using affiliate marketing is not being too specific just yet. Focus on a certain group of products you might find interesting enough to sell, and soon, we’ll get to the part where you choose the specifics of what you’ll be promoting.

For starters, CHOOSE A TYPE OF PRODUCT YOU BELIEVE IN. Promoting in itself is a great task, perhaps, the main focus of all your affiliate marketing activities. For those who aren’t exactly experts at promoting just yet, you might have to rely on your belief of the product above anything else?the more you believe in the benefits your products have to offer, the easier it would be to promote them. Anyway, if you, a real human being, find your product good enough, you might discover that other human beings find it good enough, too.

For those who are simply starting out, you might find it easier to PROMOTE A PRODUCT THAT IS ALREADY POPULAR. Promote those with brand names that stand out. Competition might be fierce, but since your product has already been able to establish a name on the market, it would be much easier to sell. A few newbie affiliate marketers think that promoting lesser known products would be easier due to the smaller competition.

Those of you not familiar with the latest on Affiliate Marketing now have at least a basic understanding. But there’s more to come.

They can’t be any more wrong. The fact that they are newbies promoting unknown products makes for the worst combination of all. Yes, competition might be fierce, but if you are just as fierce with your marketing strategies and promotions, you will eventually find yourself earning just as well as more experienced counterparts.

DO A ?MARKET RESEARCH.? It sounds like an expensive activity to undertake, but it isn’t. All you have to do is be observant. Try to observe people around you: family members, friends, strangers passing you by on the streets, and people you ride with on the public transit. What products are they using?

Put yourself in their shoes and try to think what kinds of products they might like to purchase. Ask them, if you have to. Try to observe how they react to certain product names, and how they do not when it comes to others. You might find yourself flashing a light bulb once in a while. Take advantage of what you have learned. They might come in handy as soon as you gain the information, or at a much later time.

Once you know what kinds of products you would want to promote, it is time to narrow down the list. This might be, initially, a tad confusing, but once you have established the categories of products you would like to promote, this part becomes much easier to undertake.

If you were lucky enough to know the specific product to promote given the tips above, then you might want to try SEARCHING FOR YOUR PRODUCT THROUGH YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SEARCH ENGINES. If you have already set your heart and mind on promoting a certain product, look for it, and try to find out whether the product can be promoted through affiliate marketing.

However, if you are like the rest of affiliate marketers just starting out, and, well, still confused on the specifics of the product you would promote, you might want to JOIN AFFILIATE MARKETING NETWORKS. In this case, search engines are as much your friends as the first case. Find marketing networks that have large product databases, and preferably, do not have any membership fees.

Once you know what products to promote, there should be no turning back. Everything else will fall into place. Though the next steps to finalizing your affiliate marketing venture aren’t exactly walks in a park, at least they are now focused towards a single goal, and that it to successfully promote the products you have just chosen.

If you’ve picked some pointers about Affiliate Marketing that you can put into action, then by all means, do so. You won’t really be able to gain any benefits from your new knowledge if you don’t use it.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Articles your affiliate marketing sites should have

Monday, September 6th, 2010

Imagine the next time you join a discussion about Affiliate Marketing. When you start sharing the fascinating Affiliate Marketing facts below, your friends will be absolutely amazed.

…if you want to increase your sales, that is

The past few decades have bore witness to the internet being one of the best ways to earn money. Improved communication and safer money transfers make it easier for both the sellers and the buyers to indulge themselves in the act of buying online. Thus, the boom of Affiliate Marketing. The main reason why affiliate marketing has become so popular lies on the simple fact that all you have to do is apply for an affiliate program, pay for the program’s fees (if there are any), establish your pre-seller site, and write away. Simple, isn’t it?

Not quite. A number of affiliate marketers do not witness success (or any sales at all) because of the part where they ?write away.? Writing for your affiliate marketing site does not require the skills of a Pulitzer Prize winner, but those of a smart affiliate marketer. Your articles need to have certain qualities that would utilize online resources best, and, of course, turn prospects into closed sales. This article brings you five types of articles your affiliate marketing site should have, if you want to increase your sales (which I know you do!).

REVIEWS

People want information. Small is the probability of having a person enter your site and establishing a sale the first time around. They probably didn’t even notice the ?sales pitches? you have placed all over your site in the first place?the main thing that must have been going through their minds is that they need the product, and fast! Generally, people hate hard core sales pitches.

They want to know more about the product. So give your prospects what they want. Give them honest and sincere information on your affiliate marketing site in the form of reviews. Be honest with your reviews. Place any cons that might come in buying the product. And since this is an affiliate marketing program, market your product as well. Do so in a way that ?promotes? the product and not ?sell? it.

BENEFITS

Prospects want to know the features of a product the first time they get around to wanting to buy it. If the features of your products are to their liking, they would want to know more about the products. Let them know more of the benefits, instead of features, that come in buying your product. Your product is not the only one in the market, and it probably has other competition out there that have as good, or even better, features than the one you’re selling. But if you can provide your prospects with more benefits than the competition can, the more likely will these register as sales increase.

See how much you can learn about Affiliate Marketing when you take a little time to read a well-researched article? Don’t miss out on the rest of this great information.

COMPARE

If you are confident of your product’s ability to sell in the market, do product comparisons. Also, do so in the fairest way possible. Do not highlight all the cons of the competition while highlighting your own product’s benefits. Highlight the benefits of the other product, then compare in such a way that your product comes out on top. Be smart in selecting which benefits of the competitor’s product you are going to highlight.

If the competitor’s product has qualities that yours can’t beat, then opt to ?overlook’ that quality, and focus instead on the other product’s benefits which your product can beat. Make sure sales come your way, and not the competitor’s.

TESTIMONIALS

Your prospects need to know that real people are using your products. Find people who can attest to the benefits of your products in the real word. You might want to keep the contact information from previous sales. It would be good if your previous customers can provide you with photos of themselves, alongside the products if possible. Once you can convince your prospects that your products are good enough for real people, your sales have nothing else to do but increase.

NEWS BRIEFS

Keep your affiliate marketing site fresh with news briefs. You might want to include promos, developments, and previously unknown information regarding the product (such as ?studies show that this product (benefits of the product)? or ?Top Marketing groups regard this product as one of the most revolutionary products of the 21st century?). Keep your news briefs concise?do not bombard it with too much information. If you happen to have a dozen new information regarding your product, post them on your affiliate marketing site as a week’s worth of news briefs.

These types of articles can be used all at once, or in a combination. Choose what best works for your affiliate marketing program, or product, and you can be on your way to claim sales commissions that just keep on increasing.

So now you know a little bit about Affiliate Marketing. Even if you don’t know everything, you’ve done something worthwhile: you’ve expanded your knowledge.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Factors That Affect Your Affiliate Marketing Commissions

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

If you hate statistics and are involved in affiliate marketing, you will probably be disappointed to know that it is a very essential component to your success. For one, you will have to understand statistics in order to determine the viability of a program. You’ll also need it to find out whether or not you can be hopeful regarding the financial side of your business.

Statistics will also help you determine how you can win in terms of affiliate marketing commissions, without which your program will be inadequate and your efforts useless. You’ll also need to learn how to ‘read’ the numbers so you can maintain a sufficient balance in the factors that affect your future income.

Increasing your affiliate marketing commissions

Earnings from affiliate marketing programs come in the form of commissions, similar to the type of earnings that salespeople receive based on the sales they generate. Commissions are a type of performance-based income, in that the amount will depend on how much an affiliate can produce based on the sales brought in by his leads.

There are several factors that will affect the amount of commissions you’ll earn from an affiliate marketing program. These are:

The choice of affiliate marketing program

Not every affiliate marketing program pays the same amount of commissions to its affiliates. Affiliates will have a choice of programs offering a low pay scale ranging from about 5 to 15 percent per sale or performance while others may pay as much as 60 to 75 percent, depending on the type of products or services being offered.

All things being equal, choosing the program that pays a higher commission will result to higher sales.

This can be tricky, however. If you have the niche or at least a good market following, taking advantage of affiliate marketing programs that pay higher commissions will be a no-brainer. However, if you cannot capture the desired market, you might have to experiment with a combination of programs that will bring in the kind of income that is satisfactory to you.

By maximizing your ability and opportunity and building your reputation in the process, you will be able to earn a decent income and solidify your presence at the same time.

The information about Affiliate Marketing presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about Affiliate Marketing or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.

The type of earning opportunity an affiliate program can offer will also make a difference in the amount of commissions you can hope to earn. Two-tier programs, for example, offer a better income-generating opportunity than flat programs. Two-tiers offer two income sources, generally from commissions on sales of a product or service and from recruitment of a new affiliate. Income from recruitment can either be a one-time cut (usually a flat rate) for recruiting each new member or a commission off of those members’ future earnings.

Some affiliate marketing programs may also offer recurring commissions, in which an affiliate can earn each time their lead or member renews a subscription or a membership. This type of program means you can hope to earn for as long as your leads or recruits continue to use an affiliate product or service.

Since choosing these types of affiliate programs can make a huge difference in the amount of commissions you can earn from an affiliate marketing program, it makes more practical sense to consider carefully the type of future earnings you can potentially generate.

The product

Affiliate marketing commissions will also depend on the type of products or services the program offers. A product that has the misfortune to belong to a market that’s already heavily saturated will be difficult to sell. On the other hand, a popular item can mean large sales if you have a strong and ready market.

Find out how you can perform based on the statistics offered by the affiliate marketing program you wish to join. ClickBank, for example, allows you to view a product’s potential based on its past performance.

The market

Affiliate marketing commissions rely heavily on how effective an affiliate’s sales and marketing strategies are. In many ways, they will also depend on the relative popularity of the affiliate and on the type of market he chooses to sell to. A small but highly targeted market is more likely to bring in higher commissions for an affiliate while a fairly large but generic market may not produce the same results.

The conversion period
Once you have selected the best and most profitable affiliate marketing program in terms of commissions, your next concern would be how to shorten the conversion period for your customers.

The conversion period refers to the time from which you bring in your lead until the time that he performs a desired action. This action can vary ? a lead may subscribe to a service, purchase a product, participate in an online poll or become a recruit. Since the incentive that drives leads to perform a specific action can vary, conversion periods can last anywhere from a very short 24 hours to about 30 to 60 days.

Your job as an affiliate is to persuade your leads to shorten their conversion period and thus increase your affiliate marketing commissions within a reasonable amount of time.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Web Hosting Affiliate Programs:

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Would you like to find out what those-in-the-know have to say about Affiliate Marketing? The information in the article below comes straight from well-informed experts with special knowledge about Affiliate Marketing.

Another Way to Boost Your Online Income

If one of your goals of being online is to earn an income, still one of the best methods to consider is signing up for one or two affiliate programs. Experienced affiliates are some of the Web’s highest earners and with enough training, support and willingness on your part, becoming involved in an affiliate program may just be one of the best decisions you’ll ever make. And now, here’s another way to boost your income online: web hosting affiliate programs.

What are web hosting affiliate programs?

These are programs that sell web hosting services through members, called affiliates. The market for website hosting is one of the fastest growing industries today, thanks to a robust Web economy and the continuous appearance of numerous websites, both corporate and personal.

How do web hosting affiliate programs work?

They pretty much work in a similar manner to the average affiliate program with the exception that the products they are promoting are web hosting plans. An affiliate earns when his referral purchases a plan from the program.

A good step for a web hosting affiliate would be to create a standalone site or blog that promotes web hosting and attract traffic to that site. However, posting affiliate links consisting of banner ads and text links from an unrelated website could also work.

Who can benefit from web hosting affiliate programs?

From the customer’s side, virtually anyone who has a website or is planning to build one will find web hosting services useful. From the affiliate’s side, it varies greatly ? beginner and experienced affiliates, internet marketers, webmasters, web consultants and bloggers will find this opportunity very promising.

How much commission can I expect from web hosting affiliate programs?

Web hosting affiliate programs offer some of the best wallet-friendly commissions in the industry. Commission rates are great, ranging from around $50 to $100+ per successful business referral. That’s considerably larger than other commissions paid through affiliate programs selling more traditional products.

What’s the success rate for affiliates in web hosting programs?

You can see that there’s practical value in learning more about Affiliate Marketing. Can you think of ways to apply what’s been covered so far?

This is a very competitive segment of the industry, which means that once you sign up, you better have a good strategy to back you up. If your idea of earning from these programs is posting an affiliate link on your website and leaving everything to chance, you won’t earn much. If you have a strong game plan, however, a web hosting affiliate program will work well to your advantage.

Some of the web hosting affiliate programs available today include:

Yahoo!

Yahoo’s web hosting affiliate program rewards you for the volume of referrals you bring in. Earnings can range from $60 to about $70 for every successful web hosting customer you refer, although you can also make as much as $100 for each referral if you bring them in by volume.

And here’s more: Yahoo! will pay about 20 percent out of the total sales generated from every domains customer you refer.

LunarPages

If you have your own website, you can set up an affiliate link to LunarPages’ web hosting program site. You’ll earn $65 each time you refer a new customer. You can earn more by referring advertisers to the program. Each new customer referred by these advertisers will bring in an additional $5 per.

Web.com

Web.com is another excellent web hosting affiliate program, offering $80 in commission. If your sales reach over 25 in one month, you can add 12.5%. Over 50, that increases to 50%.

DreamHost

DreamHost offers you two choices for the type of commission you’ll earn: one-time credit for every referral you bring to their web hosting affiliate program or you could choose to earn recurring credits for payments made by your referrals to DreamHost. One-time payments will earn you up to $97 while recurring payments give you 10% off the payment amount of your referrals.

DreamHost is also one of the web hosting affiliate programs that offers a two-tier payment scheme. If your referral brings in their own referrals, you’ll earn a one-time payment of $5 or 5% of these referrals’ payments to DreamHost.

There’s a lot to understand about Affiliate Marketing. We were able to provide you with some of the facts above, but there is still plenty more to write about in subsequent articles.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

What You Should Know About Affiliate Commission Payment Schedules

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

In today’s world, it seems that almost any topic is open for debate. While I was gathering facts for this article, I was quite surprised to find some of the issues I thought were settled are actually still being openly discussed.

Arguably the best and most exciting part of becoming an affiliate is receiving your payment for the very first time. After all, that check or deposit notification represents all those weeks (or even months) of hard work, tireless promotion and lead hunting on your part. Finally, there’s proof that your affiliate marketing efforts are beginning to pay off. To understand how the payment system of affiliate marketing program works, learn the basics of affiliate commission payment schedules.

Getting paid

Your earnings as an affiliate come in the form of commissions. This is a set percentage or portion of the total price of an affiliate product or service that you helped promote or sell. In many cases, it can also come from a portion of the monies generated through the efforts of downline members in your team.

The payment of commissions to affiliates is ruled by a schedule. This can vary from one affiliate program to the next, although a minimum amount and cut-off date are generally imposed.

If you’re wondering why affiliate programs do not automatically send you a check for every sales income you generate, it’s quite simple, actually. Affiliate programs need to maintain a standard when it comes to paying their affiliates to make sure that the process is seamless, glitch-free and fair to all. A program without a commission payment schedule risks becoming disorganized and erroneous.

Finding out the schedule of commission payments for your affiliate program
When you sign up as an affiliate for a program, it’s important that you check their FAQ section. Affiliate marketing programs often provide the most basic information about themselves on their website. Their FAQ section should clearly state the schedule of commission payments they have imposed for their affiliates.

If the information is unavailable, you can ask your sponsor (if you have one) or your affiliate program. The schedule of commission payments to affiliates is an important consideration when choosing an affiliate program. Do not sign up for an affiliate program without this information so you will be able to avoid disappointments later.

If you find yourself confused by what you’ve read to this point, don’t despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.

How often is the payment disbursed?

The schedule of commission payment varies, depending on the preference of the affiliate program. The affiliate pretty much doesn’t have any control over this matter. Schedule of disbursement can range from bi-monthly to monthly payments. Some, such as LinkShare, disburse commission payments on a weekly basis, a considerably shorter amount of time.

What methods are used for affiliate commission payments?

There are three methods generally used by affiliate programs. These include: electronic payment processing (such as PayPal), checks and wire transfer. The length of time it will take for your commission payment to reach you will depend on the transaction method.

If the payment is coursed through electronic payment systems, this will usually take as little as 24 hours. Checks (usually delivered via postage mail or courier) usually take from 3 to 7 business days ? longer if the affiliate is located in certain areas. Wire transfers take from 3 to about 6 business days.

Is there anything that will affect the schedule of affiliate commission payments?
Generally, the schedule of commission payments for affiliates are pretty much set. However, there are certain things that might cause delays. One of the most common is whether an affiliate’s earnings have reached the minimum amount.

Affiliate programs often impose a minimum earned amount per pay period ranging from $10 to $100. If an affiliate earns less than that, his current earnings will be carried over to the next pay period until such time that he will meet the minimum required. Only then will his payment be released.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

How to Choose a Niche for Affiliate Marketing

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Nowadays everybody wants to earn in the most convenient manner. Everyone seems to be looking for the easiest way to get the extra bucks they would need to fill in their increasing expenses. A lot of us are asking how can we earn extra easily and quickly. The answer is as simple as 2 words. Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing came about in the early stages of the 20th century. It was like a little spec when it started and it proved itself to be effective therefore it expanded and now everybody seems to be enjoying the benefits of affiliate marketing.

If you are just new to the industry you might be asking yourself: What is affiliate marketing? Well, derived from the word itself ? affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company that has this product or service they would like the public to know about through the power of online advertisement or promotion. Companies will gladly pay certain individuals that could actually showcase their goods online through blogs, articles or in any manner that their products will be exposed.

Having this said, so what do you need in order to plunge in to the world of affiliate marketing? To tell you frankly, you might be surprised to know that it really doesn’t require much. Aside from a decent computer, you would just need an internet connection and of course a bit of your time to this chosen online business.

Knowledge can give you a real advantage. To make sure you’re fully informed about Affiliate Marketing, keep reading.

Where to start? Companies will gladly pay certain individuals that could actually showcase their goods online through blogs, articles or in any manner that their products will be exposed. That being said, it is obvious that you should have at least a website online. The more traffic you have on that website ? the better.

Since affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company, their product or service must be known to the public through online advertisement or promotion. Let’s say you have at least 5,000 visits a day in your website ? that will have a corresponding equivalent to your affiliate marketing capability.

That being said, it is obvious that you should have at least a website online. The more traffic you have on that website ? the better. Since affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company, their product or service must be known to the public through online advertisement or promotion. Having this said, so what do you need in order to plunge in to the world of affiliate marketing?

To tell you frankly, you might be surprised to know that it really doesn’t require much. Aside from a decent computer, you would just need an internet connection and of course a bit of your time to this chosen online business. Companies will gladly pay certain individuals that could actually showcase their goods online through blogs, articles or in any manner that their products will be exposed. That being said, it is obvious that you should have at least a website online.

The more traffic you have on that website ? the better. Since affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company, their product or service must be known to the public through online advertisements or promotion. So if you want your affiliate marketing to be successful, you need to have an established website first then the rest will follow.

You can’t predict when knowing something extra about Affiliate Marketing will come in handy. If you learned anything new about Affiliate Marketing in this article, you should file the article where you can find it again.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO