by Claude Pelanne at November 7, 2010.

Monthly Archives: November 2009

Choosing An Affiliate Program

What To Look For In An Affiliate Program

Trying to find an affiliate program for the new person just starting out on the Web is like walking into the proverbial Star Wars bar. There are many strange looking creatures and none have your best interest in mind. So what can you do? When you are choosing an affiliate program there are some key things to look for as you do your due diligence.

Program Research Terms and Condtions

The first thing is to research the legitimacy of the business. How long has the business been in operation? Who is the principal owner? Is there contact information so you can contact him or her to verify company information. What is the company track record? What are people saying about the program? One option is to google the program or the owner name. I tried that and avoided a number of scams. Another option is to find a reputable forum and post a question about a program you are looking at. You will be surprised by the information people will give you. Look for leaks and click outs like toll free phone numbers, opt-in boxes and text links leading to other sites. These will all be signs that the affiliate marketer is not in the best position to get paid if your referral goes out to buy elsewhere or if you are just building the vendors list.

Another factor is whether the affiliate charges a membership fee. Many affiliates do not, but some do and if you are new to the business, this can be a good thing. If you pay a fee, see what you are getting for the money. Do they have marketing tools to help sell the product? Is there a proprietary system that will increase your sales? Fees are not necessarily a bad thing if there is good return on your investment. Many programs that say they have a system have nothing more than a written report. Though the information may be nice to know, the report often offers nothing about HOW to implement an action plan.

Commission Payment

Check and see how affiliate payments are disbursed. Are they monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly? Is there a minimum volume that triggers a payment. Whatever the system, make sure you understand it thoroughly before you make your decision to join.

What is the commission rate? Some affiliate programs offer a 25% commission. while others offer 75%. Some may pay a fraction of a percent on certain offerings. Generally you can get that information if you go through Clickbank or Paydotcom but make sure to get that information up front before you sign up.

Conversion Tracking

See whether the affiliate offers tracking information to oversee what the conversion rate is for incoming prospects. You also want to know the number of impressions and click throughs that are being generated by your campaign. This is important because some programs pay for impressions and click throughs.

Recurring Income

Finally, see if the program is a single tier or double tier system. A one tier pays you for the business you send to the program. A double tier pays you for the business generated by someone you have referred to the program.

These are some of the important points to understand when selecting an affiliate program. Asking the right questions up front can ensure that you will have a very prosperous experience.

Good luck and may your travels be prosperous!

Online Home Based Business

Is A Home Based Business Right for You?

Are you thinking of starting a home based business on line? Attracted by all the claims of fortunes made?

Starting your own home business can bring a lot of benefits with it; being your own boss is one is one of them. Deciding when to work and when to play is another. And the upside in income is unlimited depending on how much time and effort you want to put in.

So where do you start?

1) Decide what really drives your interest and passion. It could be the experience and knowledge you have acquired from your current job. Stick with what you know; only this time you make all the revenue.

2) Develop a budget. It is going to take some investment to get started so do some research and develop with a plan with some numbers. How much can you afford and how much are you willing to invest? There are options that are free and may offer the prospect of starting with no investment. While they are helpful in learning some of the techniques of marketing a product online, they are not always very effective at driving revenue.

3) Join some online forums and just cruise to see what people are asking about and see what some of the answers are. They generally have sections for newbies and they are very helpful at teaching you what you should be looking for in setting up your affiliate marketing or Intenet business.

4) Set some goals for what you want to achieve with dates and benchmarks. What potential revenue targets can you set that are reasonable to achieve? Do some research on the market sector you have chosen. Again, here forums and blogs are a great source of information. Check out the sites of the star affiliate marketers in the product area you are interested in. Google the keywords and see who pops up.

5) Network with people who have already established a successful online venture and see if you can learn from their experiences. You are not alone in going through the experience of starting an Internet business and there are plenty of people who will help out if you ask.
6) Come up with a final business plan or action outline to carry out. Review it and make adjustments based on an assessment by an independent third party. Try coming up with a list of 3-4 products you would like to market.

Then the fun begins! Take action; get online and begin to set yourself up. Remember a plan has to be flexible. It will change and adjust as you make your way through the marketplace. It will time and persistence and some help along the way. Once again, forums are a great place to turn to for assistance.

Make sure you understand your online market and your customer. That will be vital to your success.

Good luck and may your travels be prosperous!

Pay Per Click Profit Calculator Review

Affiliate Marketing Pay Per Click Profit Calculator

PPC Profit Calculator

Mastermind Pros PPC Profit Calculator Tool

What if you could determine how much you should pay for a keyword in order to make a profit on a Pay Per Click campaign?

More people than are willing to admit it often launch a Pay Per Click campaign without fully knowing what their break even point is.

This goes with beginners as well as some advanced types who have been in business a while. I witnessed a case study in which a super affiliate launched a direct linking campaign and two review sites for a software niche. He lost $1500 on all three over a 3 week testing period and $2000 if you add in the design costs for his review sites.

Now there are a lot of factors that go into the success or failure of a PPC campaign, but there was no mention in this case study of how the cost per click worked in the campaign. If fact I was not sure what the break even point was in terms of cost per click. In other words, what is the highest you can bid before your campaign loses money no matter how many widgets you sell?

Well I found a tool called the PPC Profit Calculator that allows you to run numbers on a specific offer you may be researching. It will ask you to input certain data like total exact search volume of the keywords you are using. It will ask for a percentage of the total search volume you think will become impressions that your ads will show for. It assumes a $1 a day spend to start. Yes, that’s right $1 a day budget to start.

You then input your estimated click through rate, cost per click, conversion rate, product price, and commission. Once you’ve done that you can look at the profitability of your proposed campaign.

Their is one more input for a larger daily budget if you want to go with a higher daily budget.

The benefit here is that you get to see profitability numbers that show you if you are making money or not. The beauty is that you can test different cost per click and conversion rates, as well as, click through rates to see what works and what doesn’t.

What I find when I research campaigns is that I will see by the cost per click and by the conversion rate whether a campaign makes sense or not. For example, I tested a retail product campaign with commission rate of 8% and an average sales price of $90 and found that in order to make money, I needed a cost per click of 15 cents and a conversion rate of 6%. For a PPC campaign that is a tall order. After testing every which way, I moved on to something else.

When I found a product line that ran $300 on up, my calculator gave numbers that began to make more sense.

You will get data that tells you what the maximum cost per click and minimum conversion rate should be in order for you to make money. It will tell you what your maximum spend should be in your campaign. With that information you can move ahead and look for products and services with pricing to make you a profit.

You will learn about the relationship between total exact search and impressions. How to look to turn impressions into clicks. When it is time to increase your click through rate to boost your conversions and what your maximum bid should be to stay profitable.

You will learn that increasing you budget will not increase you profits. On the contrary, in some cases it will lose you money.

All in all the PPC profit calculator is a tool that every marketer should use in order to get data to make the right decisions.

For the advanced user it is a great tool. For the beginner it is an essential tool that will teach you the key elements that control profitability.

So there you have it. Take a look and see if it makes sense for you.

May Your Travels Be Prosperous.