Affiliate Marketing For Beginners-How To Start In Affiliate Marketing

February 17, 2010 by affiliate starting line · Comment
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing Reviews, Affiliate Marketing Tips, Affiliate Starting Line, Internet Marketing

Home Business: Steps for the Newbie Affiliate Marketer

Starting out with an online Home Business is a daunting task. Where do you find a reliable and legitimate program that can teach you the basics? What are the steps to follow to get up and running?

The first step is to do some research and see what people are saying on different Affiliate Marketing forums. What are the names of affiliate programs that keep popping up from satisfied marketers? Check out those sites and see which one fits your particular need or style. There is no simple answer. Some sites are free, but most legitimate programs have some nominal charge or subscription fee. That is good because it weeds out those who are not serious in setting up a business.

Once you have a program, take the time to follow through the tutorial and learn the basics. It takes time and effort to see what the different tools are and how they work. Over time you will begin to better understand the different elements of the business and how they can contribute to creating revenue streams. Again, a forum related to the program may exist or a forum in the particular business sector may be available. Join in and ask questions about all aspects of your plan. You will be surprised by how helpful people are in giving you the information you need.

Some lessons will emerge. For example, is it more profitable to use unique web pages for each product you sell? It looks more professional. Generally, each product you pay to resell will come with customized designed pages. That is why it makes more sense to market from a unique Web site. Do you need to buy keywords or are there ways to market without risking your money up front? Different programs offer different approaches along these lines.

Buy the products you sell. It shows you believe in what you are selling. That’s why it pays to research your product and product provider carefully. What kind of commission is being offered (generally 50% or better is what you are looking for.)? Are there any backend products that can be sold at higher price points? These are a couple of the questions you will need to know about when selecting a product.

Write reviews of your product lines. They should focus on the features and benefits and help inform your customers to better make their decision to buy. Your reviews and products pages should include opt-in links to help build your customer list.

Follow up your opt-in inquiries with an autoresponder message campaign that will work to help you close the sale with your customers. You can set up a sequence of email replies that will help connect and close your prospective customers.

These are some points that will grow out of your effort as you move through the business development phase of your online business.

With some upfront planning and due diligence and following some basic steps, anyone can achieve a satisfactory level of success with a home based business on the Web.

Good luck and may your travels be prosperous!

Tags:

Your Online Home Business

December 3, 2009 by affiliate starting line · Comment
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing Reviews, Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

How To Check Out An Affiliate Program

Introduction

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.

Who Are You Dealing With

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.

Fees

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.

Payment Schedule

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 5% 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.

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.

Tiered Commissions

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!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: affiliate marketing

Pay Per Click Profit Calculator Review

November 2, 2009 by affiliate starting line · Comment
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing Reviews

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.