Affiliate Marketing Blog

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Yahoo Answers is one of the largest and most popular social networking sites around. Answers attracts visitors seeking specific solutions to specific problems. While this has been played for a while, this is still a very simple and effective way for you to make money online. Think about it, this is 100% targeted traffic for your offer(s). People need a solution to a specific problem and you have that solution. Now before I continue, you should know that Answers does not allow advertising of any kind, so you have to be smart about it or you will get your account banned or your IP blocked.

What do I mean about being smart? Simple, do not answer a question with a simple answer and a link or answer a question you know nothing about. Your answer will more than likely be flagged as abuse and your account is gone. Answer questions that you know something about and put some thought and research (if needed) into your answer. Your answer as well as the link should be a solution to the problem.  You should work to make yourself an expert in your niche(s).

So how do you get started. Simple, create an account and start answering questions. I have also put together some tips and tricks below to help make you a little more successful.

• Open more than 1 account. I open 2 accounts per niche. This allows you to ask, answer and vote on your own answers for each niche you are targeting.
• Sign up for the RSS feed of each niche your answering.  This will give you an automated update of all new questions asked right to your desk top.
• Send the affiliate links through a sub-domain of your domain. This will help you monitor traffic so you know what is converting and what is not.
• Try to target high paying niches such as credit, mortgage, insurance, weight loss, etc.
• Once again, make sure your question and the link provided provides a solution for the question being answered. Do not just drop links with a stupid answer or you will not be in business long.

As you can see, this is a really simple way for you to make money online and done right can provide you a decent income.

Good  luck

Matt

Google is now in the affiliate marketing business with the recent launch of their new affiliate network. The The new CPA (cost per action) network is nothing more than a re-branding of Double Click (acquired by Google in March 08) and replaces the Google referral program. The network will operate much like CJ, providing real time tracking and payments will be made biweekly assuming you meet the $50 minimum.  You will need to apply to the network and wait 48 hours for approval notification and will then need to apply and wait for approval for each program you are interested in promoting. You can get more information and apply here.

I am always looking for alternative revenue sources for my site. After doing some research for Adsense alternatives, I decided to give Clicksor a try. I ran ads for 1 month on a banking related site and this is what I found.

• The small pool of Clicksor advertisers consist mainly of arbitrage, gambling and porn type sites. Ads served are irrelevant to the content of the site and take to long to load.
• The revenue per click is extremely low (1-3 cents) and the CTR is less than 1%.
• The publisher account area is very basic and there is no opportunity for advanced research.
• Support was not responsive to my original or 3 follow up emails concerning the adult/gambling ad removal.
• The worst part of my month long trial is that Clicksor tried to drop spyware and trojans on my computer.

My recommendation is that you avoid Clicksor.com. If you are looking for an alternative revenue source try Neverblue ads for some great converting cost per action programs.

One of the biggest problems new affiliates face is the high cost of pay per click traffic. The cost of traffic from Adwords and even Yahoo Search Marketing prove to be to cost prohibitive for new affiliates.

As one of the leaders in pay per click traffic, Miva.com provides affiliates with the opportunity to get highly targeted traffic for as little as .10 per click. Miva.com delivers more than 110 million highly targeted and responsive traffic through search engines, web portals, niche, specific content, and some of the worlds leading news and lifestyle sites.

Along with the targeted traffic, Miva.com provides you with excellent reporting tools that show the actual return on investment for each keyword and ad campaign. The bid position tool will show you the exact amount needed to obtain a specific position for your campaign, allowing you to start at the best position for your investment. The click spend statistics and average cost per click per ad ensure that you stay on budget through out your campaign.

The start up cost is $25 and you will get a 100% match (up to $25) to help start your pay per click campaign. With a low rate of click fraud, you are ensured that your investment is 100% cost effective and accountable.

Highly recommended, this is one of the best opportunities on the web to get the traffic you need to help you get your affiliate business off the ground. Get more information here.

As an affiliate marketer, your affiliate commission is your life blood. Whether you are in it as a part time business or full time, your time is money.

When you mention affiliate commission theft, the normal response would be to blame zango.com, spyware, scumware, other affiliates and  even anti spyware programs. No one seems to notice that there is an ongoing trend by some merchants that is costing you money. While the merchants may not be doing things to purposely steal your commission, the popular tactics below are costing you money and should be avoided.

• Phone Numbers On Banner Ads -  Your visitor ends up calling and places the order over the phone. Unless there is a way to track the phone order, your money is gone.
• Live Chat - this seems harmless, but this can be a huge problem. If you drive a visitor to the merchant and a chat window pops up offering coupons or discount codes, you have lost the sale. While most of the live chat programs offer outstanding tracking, if there is not a tracking code in place to track affiliates the sale goes to the merchant.
• Squeeze Pages -  these are extremely popular among Click Bank merchants. When your visitor arrives at the merchants site, they are directed to enter their name and email to get a free report or e-book. Once the lead is captured, you have lost the commission and the merchant has built their mailing list and possibly sold a product. Either way, your sale is gone.
• Newsletters - Another popular tactic by Click Bank merchants. You send the visitor and a few seconds after they hit the landing page, a slide in offer for a newsletter comes across the screen. Your visitor signs up for the news letter and they are immediately taken to another page or the landing page refreshes. Once the lead has been captured by the merchant, your commission is gone and the merchant has built their mailing list and possibly sold a product.

The list above is not all inclusive and there are other tactics that are being used. Before promoting a merchant, visit their site. Do you notice anything that is a leak? Do they have live chat? Do they have an phone number displayed on their site? After the visit, send an email to the merchants affiliate manager and ask about the problems you have noticed. Do they have a way to track sales that are directed to chat? Do they have a way to track phone orders? If they have procedures in place, you are good to go. If not, simply move on! I am not a big fan of Click Bank, but if you are promoting Click Bank products you need to make sure that you are not sending visitors to a squeeze page or a page that is immediately shown a newsletter offer. Remember that once the lead is captured by the merchant, your sale is gone.

Matt

Affiliate Marketing is one of the best home business opportunities available. One of the most important features is the ability to get started on a shoe string budget. I am going to show you how to get started for less than $20. (All links open in a new window)

The first step is to identify your niche. Choose a niche that you are familiar with so that you have no problem creating content. It is easy to get excited about something that you are passionate about and this excitement will show through in your web copy.

Get A Domain - Once you have identified your niche, get a domain. There are varying thoughts on choosing a domain name, but I tend to pick keyword rich domains to help with organic search results. I recommend GoDaddy for domain purchases. I have over 100 domains registered with GoDaddy and have never had any issues. They have the overall lowest price around and are a leader in the domain industry. Register your domain for at least 2 years. The standard registration is all that you need and I never register them privately.

Get Hosting - Next you need to get a hosting account. I recommend a hosting plan that allows for you to host unlimited domains (for growth). There are tons of hosting companies online and very few are worthwhile and reliable. I recommend using HostGator.com. They are affordable ($9.95 per month), do not require years of prepayment to get a good deal, and allow monthly billing. The Baby hosting plan provides you with 600Gb of disk space, 6000Gb of bandwidth, Fantastico and an easy to use cpanel for only $9.95 per month. Get more information here.

Create your site - NVU provides one of the top free WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) html editors. Download here, get templates here, and take a look at the tutorial here.

Affiliate Programs - the last step is to sign up for your affiliate programs. I recommend opening affiliate accounts with Commission Junction and Link Share. These are 2 of the top affiliate networks and have enough merchants to cover almost any niche.

Matt