Email As an affiliate marketer you wont get that much email related to your business
Merchant partners may send out the occasional affiliate newsletter, but in my experience most don't communicate with affiliates other than to advise of new offers. Likewise is true of the affiliate networks, which will notify you of new merchants and those that have left the network. Keep your eyes open for emails with the subject line 'Check Your Merchant Status'. You won't receive much email from customers, as most of those will be directed to the merchant. However, if you DO receive email...
Affiliate Program Sales Data
In addition to information about your site's traffic, you'll need to collect information about each of the affiliate program products that you sell on your site. You should already be checking your sales and commission information on a regular basis. In addition to number of sales and commission earned, now you'll also need to determine the number of unique visitors you send to the merchant's site. If the statistics about the product that you sell is found through an affiliate network, like...
Web Sponsors
Programs - Primarily CPA Minimum Payout - 15 Payments - Monthly electronic transfer payments (ACH) to your bank account on a Net 30 days payment basis. Real-time Tracking - No. 24-hour delay Multi-Tier - You will earn 10 of whatever revenue the referred site makes each and every month. Websponsors' application process is short, sweet and pretty much automatic. You simply click the link in the email they send you to confirm your request to join their advertising Network. They have the usual...
BeFree Reportingnet
Minimum Payout - Varies according to merchant. Payments - Payments are made by the individual merchants. Timeframes also vary. Real-time Tracking - No Multi-Tier - No Email Marketing Permitted - Depending on individual merchant specifications. One of the BIG 3 affiliate networks, (i.e. BeFree, Linkshare and Commission Junction), BeFree's information page for new affiliates advises that BeFree merchants have paid out more than 220 million dollars in affiliate commission. My guess is that this...
Refer Back
Minimum Payout - 20 for check payments, and 50 for ACH (electronic funds transfer). Payments - Payments are made by check, Infinia and ACH. Real-time Tracking - Visits and downloads are made in real-time. All other aspects are updated every three hours. Multi-Tier - Yes. Earn 2 of your referral's profits. Email Marketing Permitted - Yes ReferBack is an affiliate network for online casinos. Signup is quick and easy. Their signup does not allow adult or adult-oriented sites. Spam techniques will...
One of the nice things about associating with merchants that are part of bigger affiliate networks is that you can
Some networks go so far as to indicate how well each merchant's account is funded, allowing you to choose whether or not you should promote their products. Other networks will suspend or put the merchant's account on hold until such time as they've deposited sufficient funds. You don't get any of that security when you sign up for a stand-alone program - a program that is administered by the company itself. While you don't need to worry about Amazon or Match.com, it's sometimes hard to be sure...
J
Javascript A programming language developed by Sun Microsystems designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files. Java requires a browser compatible with Java. Using small Java programs, Web pages can include animations, calculators, and other features. Joint Venture - A general partnership typically formed to undertake a particular business transaction or project...
Taking your list of Passion Topics above I did a search on the term wine using Overtures Search Term Suggestion Tool
Because of my personal success with dating sites, I often gauge a topic's potential by comparing its primary keyword against the keyword 'dating'. 'Dating' usually receives around three hundred thousand searches per month at Overture and its partners. Checking the results below, there were over 221 thousand searches for the term 'wine' and related phrases in just one month. If I were a wine enthusiast or winemaking expert, I would feel very positive about the potential for my topic at this...
Turn Clicks into Customers
While it is true that millions of computer owners are now online, it simply isn't true they are just sitting there eagerly waiting to send you money the moment you contact them (in fact it is harder to get someone to buy on the Internet than in a normal business environment). Corey Rudl, President The Internet Marketing Center The average visitor-to-sales conversion for a good affiliate program is between half and one percent. In other words, you are achieving an average 'conversion rate' if...
Affiliate Program Directories
Affiliate Program Directories are Web sites that contain lists of links to affiliate programs that have been compiled and organized by various webmasters. They usually categorize the listed programs by type of products sold (e.g. educational, business, etc.) and include brief summaries of each program with sufficient information to allow directory users to choose which programs they would like to join. Some also provide program ratings as supplied by program users. Affiliate program directories...
Fine Clickscom is a division of Shareasalecom Inc an affiliate network detailed later in this chapter
Their application form is short, and approval is automatic upon replying to the confirmation email they send. The interface is FAST and very easy to use. I especially like the 'Revenue Bar' at the top of the page, that give current stats for Own Revenue, Referral Revenue, Carry Over, YTD, and Referral Clicks. Commission Junction has something similar, that is actually more descriptive, but being on the right side of the page, seems slightly less apparent. When searching for new offers, one...
The Top 200 Long Term Keyword Report
Wordtracker's current database size is 335,789,918 search terms which represents the complete queries from the largest Metacrawlers on the web (Metacrawler Dogpile etc ) for the last 60 days (2 months). Surprised Get any ideas It would be almost impossible NOT to get ideas from those incredible lists. Unfortunately, by the time you read the 'Super Affiliate Handbook', the 24-hour and 60-day Reports above will no longer be completely accurate. It's therefore a good plan for you to sign up for...
A spreadsheet is basically a computerized ledger and the best way I know of to keep track of many aspects of your
Instead of buying expensive software to keep track of your affiliate programs, you can use spreadsheet software to keep track of the affiliate programs you join. List names, broker and affiliate links, as well as amounts of money that they owe you each month. Use a spreadsheet to create lists of keywords for submission to your pay per click search engine campaigns. As a matter of fact, most of the PPC's give you a spreadsheet to download if you plan to make a large submission of keyword...
Link Share reports over 10 million partnerships in the network and claims to be the most successful pay for performance
I find their user interface quite intuitive and easy to use. I especially like the 'Create Links' link that takes you immediately to a list of all your current merchant partners in the Linkshare network. This is a step up from Commission Junction's interface where it takes a couple of more clicks to get to the same place. Within the Your Account, Program Controls section, it's really simple to get all the information you need about an individual merchant and their program, including contact and...
Programs Cpa Cpc Cps Minimum Payout
Payments - One consolidated monthly check. ShareaSale issues payments via check and PayPal on the 20th of each month for those affiliates who reach the 50 minimum before then end of the previous month. Real-time Tracking - Yes Multi-Tier - 1 per signup as an affiliate, and 5 of their future earnings. Email Marketing Permitted - Yes There were no real restrictions in the application process, other than having a valid web site address, and valid email address. They also suggest that affiliates...
Lead Hound
Programs - CPC, CPA, CPS Minimum Payout - 50. Payments - Commission payments are paid in US Dollars, Euro, Japanese Yen, or UK Pounds via PayPal on the 15th of each month for the previous month's revenue. Email Marketing Permitted - Yes Real-time Tracking - Yes Multi-Tier - Earn a 5 monthly bonus for all new affiliates and merchants you bring to Leadhound. LeadHound's three-part signup process isn't too painful, although the programmers forgot that Canada has provinces, so Canadians like me are...
Cobranding is a form of customization whereby the affiliate program permits you their affiliate to brand a copy of the
This method gives your visitors the impression that they are still on your Web site which can improve visitor trust in 'your' products and result in increased sales. Many merchants offered co-branding when affiliate marketing first began on the 'Net. However, very few merchants offer co-branding nowadays. It's simply too much work for them to approve each and every affiliate's logo graphic. For sites that allowed affiliates to automatically upload logos, there was always the potential that the...
Commission Soup and Credit Soup are part of the same affiliate network that specializes in offering financial related
One of the beefs I have with some stand-alone programs, as well as with some affiliate networks, is their requirement that affiliates be U.S. citizens or operate sites that promote products only to other U.S. citizens. I've always wondered why it matters where a site is based if I can direct U.S. citizens to their site. Fortunately, companies like Commission Soup understand that Internet marketing is a worldwide activity. Commission Soup is a network that sells credit card offers exclusively to...
Meta Tags
If we continue our 'snooping', I mean 'research' at Rupert's site, one step farther by doing a 'View Source' on his homepage, we discover that he's made excellent use of his keywords in his Meta Tags. The 2 Meta Tags that you need to be most concerned about are the Title and Description tags. Title Tags - The title tag is perhaps one of the most crucial factors in how a search engine will rank your site. The text you use in the title tag must include your most relevant keyword phrases. It must...
Overtures Search Term Suggestion Tool
To assist its over 80,000 advertisers choose keywords and phrases relevant to their sites and businesses, Overture provides a 'Search Term Suggestion Tool'. You simply enter a term related to your site and the tool returns related searches that include the term you placed in the search box. The results also include the number of times that term was searched for during the previous month. I've noticed that it usually takes until the middle of the following month for the previous month's results...
Search Engine Crawler Listings
Search engine crawlers visit sites and automatically build listings, generally without the need to submit your site. To get picked up by the crawlers, you need to have good links pointing to your site. As mentioned earlier, the best link to get is a paid listing in the Yahoo directory. Having that Yahoo link, will almost guarantee you a visit from Google's spider, and a free Google listing by result. Getting found on the major engines is important. In order to do this, your pages must be...
Link Trading FFAs Banner Exchanges
Link trading, link exchange, or reciprocal linking is a web promotion strategy used by webmasters and site owners to increase link popularity as well as qualified traffic to their sites. Page ranking in search engines is influenced by the link popularity of your site. The numbers of sites that link to yours, as well as the popularity of those sites determine link popularity. This is a relatively important factor as far as search engine placement is concerned. You've probably seen sites with...
Dynamic Pages
Dynamic pages, which deliver content based on user input or other variables, can be more useful and responsive to visitor needs than regular static HTML pages. However, if while indexing a search engine encounters a dynamically generated page, as distinguished by a question mark ( ) in the URL, the SE stops indexing the site at that point. Here are a few tips to get your dynamic pages indexed. The simplest and cheapest method to get your dynamic pages indexed is to link to them from a static...
Does the Program Pay Lifetime Commissions
I make a distinction between 'recurring' or 'residual' commissions, and 'lifetime' commissions. An affiliate program paying residual commissions pays you every time the customer renews their subscription to a specific product, not just for the first purchase. An affiliate program paying lifetime commissions pays the affiliate a commission for each and every product that the customer buys from that merchant, including residual commissions, if applicable. For example, let's say that you are...
Does the Program Require Exclusivity
An exclusivity clause is one that says you can only sell the products of a particular merchant and cannot partner with merchants selling similar products. When Barnes and Noble started its affiliate program, it had an exclusivity clause. Now if you want to sign up with them, you'll notice that is no longer the case. Was that clause detracting from their share of the affiliate market Exclusivity in an affiliate program is exactly what it sounds like. In most cases, it means that if you sign up...
Overview of the Business Building Process
It's always easier to tackle a big project, when you break it down into manageable chunks. Here are the 10 'chunks' involved in building an affiliate business. Each chunk is comprised of Chunk by chunk and step-by-step, you'll soon find that you're making money on the Web Let's look at a brief description of each 'chunk' in the process of building an affiliate business. 3. Find Related Products and Services with Affiliate Programs 8. Sign up for Affiliate Programs 10. Repeat the Process with a...
Commission Junction
Programs - CPA, CPC, CPS Minimum Payout - 25 up to 75 Payments - Payments are made on the 20th of the month to Canadian and American publishers (i.e. CJ's name for affiliates), and on the last day of the month to publishers outside those countries. Advertiser payments are available in 16 different currencies and are consolidated into one monthly check. Direct bank deposits are available. Real-time Tracking - Yes Multi-Tier - Yes, with restrictions. They allow only U.S. and U.K. publishers to...
Brief History of Affiliate Marketing
According to Amazon.com, theirs was the original affiliate program. The following statement is taken directly from Amazon's Associate Programs FAQ page. Our Associates Program, the first on the Web, started in July 1996. That statement is generally accepted as gospel truth. However, if you thumb through Daniel Gray's Top 100 Directory in his The Complete Guide to Associate and Affiliate Programs, you'll learn that there were a number of sites that operated affiliate programs years before...
Google Toolbar
Go glc-P .Search Web Search Site News Pj9eFijr Page Info - t Up - I mention the Google Toolbar first because it will save you time. It allows you to search the web from any website location, without returning to the Google home page to start another search. This Toolbar is free of charge, takes only a few seconds to install on your computer, and is available in a variety of languages, including 'Elmer Fudd' and 'Pig Latin'. Once installed, the Google Toolbar appears along with the Internet...
This is a VERY important question Its not the MOST important but its close
It's absolutely essential that you understand commission structures and compare the payout rates between the affiliate programs that you plan join. This will affect how and to what extent you promote individual products. Let's look at some real examples. Imagine that you want to build a site promoting online credit card applications. I visited Commission Junction and saw that they currently have 28 advertisers in the 'Credit Cards' category. By selecting 'Lead' within the CJ interface,...
