Jerry D. Russell dot Com

Affiliate marketing is a broad term that refers to a commission based payment method.  Basically speaking, an affiliate promotes products or services that are provided by a merchant and receives a commission (or finder’s fee) when their efforts result in a sale. Internet-based affiliate marketing dates back to late 1994, when many e-commerce sites started employing the affiliate sales models and finding that they produces fantastic results. Currently, affiliate marketing is a very important player for most e-commerce merchant’s marketing strategy.

When an affiliate joins in with an e-commerce merchant of some sort (be it a subscription service, a shopping site etc.) payment is received through referrals done from the affiliate’s website, usually through one of the following methods:

1. Pay-per click systems  basically, the affiliate displays advertisements on their site and is paid when a customer or internet user clicks on the link to that website
2. RSS feeds or blogs – even personal sites can sit under this category. Blogging is fast becoming a staple form of marketing and promotion, and affiliate marketing pairs well with this form of online communication
3. Comparison sites and shopping directories – such as review sites or legitimate advertising sites
4. Loyalty sites – this is when a reward system is in place via a cash back or points back system (or charitable donations).  This is also referred to as Incentive advertising
5. Coupon sites that focus strictly on marketing and promotions
6. Email lists – legitimate email lists to subscribers of the affiliate’s website etc… These should be opt-in lists, NOT spam
7. A registration path – when a person registers with a specific site, be it for a newsletter or subscription, offers from other companies are represented and advertised
8. Networks – there are many affiliate marketing networks. Some even function on a multi-tier or multi-level marketing set up.  These offer more opportunities for affiliates, but also more competition in the marketplace.

Hopefully this little list will help you understand a bit more about the different types of affiliate marketing.  I’ll be covering each one of these methods in-depth over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Jerry Monetizing Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can be a daunting and complicated enterprise but at it’s core the concept can be explained simply.  Affiliate Marketing is a way of promoting online business through affiliate programs and other forms of advertising that pay the affiliate (or publisher) a commission based on the amount of business their website brings the merchant company.

To put the above statement in plain English, an affiliate marketer sells goods or services for the parent company.  The parent company then pays the affiliate a percentage of the sale for his or her efforts.

Affiliate marketing is a form of revenue sharing or commission-based advertising. The term “affiliate marketing” however, is often associated with network marketing or multi-level marketing (MLM).  This negative connotation causes some companies to use the term “performance marketing” for their ad campaigns, but the process for either form of advertising is identical.

Affiliate marketing is the most cost effective form of marketing a business can engage in, and is actually incredibly efficient. For this reason many companies (especially those that started in the early days of e-commerce) owe a tremendous amount to affiliate marketing. (Amazon.com is a good example.) It has become normal for companies to include affiliate marketing in their sales strategy.

Publishers participating in affiliate programs are generally compensated in one of four ways:

• Cost Per Click(CPC)
  CPC Advertising pays the affiliate based on the number of clicks an ad or link generates.  A famous example of a CPC system in action is Google’s AdSense ads, which generate incredible sums of money for both Google and its advertising partners.

  While this method works well in the arena of search marketing, factors like click fraud and other questionable tactics; most affiliate programs opt to use either the CPA or CPS models for their programs.

• Cost Per Mil (CPM)
  In Cost Per Mil advertising, the affiliate is paid a flat fee for every thousand visitors that see an advertisement on the publisher’s blog or website.  This method is widely used by blog advertising networks and social media sites, but is rarely used by affiliate companies as a means of selling products.
• Cost Per Action (CPA)
  The Cost Per Action model pays the affiliate whenever a visitor to his or her site completes an action such as filling out a registration form or signing up for a newsletter.  This model is sometimes referred to as Cost Per Lead, since the visitor does not usually have to pay the affiliating company any money at first.  They use the ads simply to gather prospective clients, rather than to make the initial sale.
• Cost Per Sale (CPS)
  The Cost Per Sale model works in an identical manner to CPA advertising, but is based completely on sales. In this model the affiliate is paid only when the visitor actually purchases a product from the parent company.  In most cases the company will track visitors so that the affiliate will be paid even if the visitor does not make a purchase on their first visit, though the length of time that an affiliate will be paid after the initial visit varies by company.

As you can see, the basic principles of affiliate marketing are quite simple. If done correctly, becoming an affiliate can generate a significant amount of revenue, both for the affiliate and the parent company.

Affiliate marketing is not, like some would have you believe, an easy way to make millions while you sleep.  It takes a lot of hard work and dedication in the initial stages to gain the trust of your readers and entice them to follow through with an action or a sale, but it is definitely possible.

In later articles I’ll cover the best way to choose the right affiliate ads for your site and the most effective ways to promote those affiliate efforts for maximum impact. For now, think about what you write about every day.  Are there products out there that are a perfect fit for your interests?  Would they interest your readers?  If so, you might want to see if those companies offer affiliate programs and if they do, sign up and start writing!

Jerry Monetizing, Uncategorized Affiliate Marketing, Marketing, Monetizing

if you are just getting into affiliate sales there is a very real temptation to simply go after those products that make you the most money. I caution against this.

While there is potential profit in chasing each and every product with a high percentage of payout per sale, the potential for garnering a distrust between yourself and your customers by far outweighs any potential for a profitable lasting  relationship.

Before you decide you’re going to market a product or service you need to ask yourself if it’s something you would use yourself. If the answer is yes, then buy the product or sign up for the service and make sure that it works for you. If the answer is no, walk away, you shouldn’t be selling it.

I don’t offer this advice lightly. the decision to be ethical in your sales approach can be costly. Very costly. It’s simple to promote the heck out of some product that has no real use to your customers but turns large commissions for each sale, but this method of doing business comes at an even greater cost.

It will cost you your customers

A customer who feels that they have been slighted in the least is not likely to return to you for advice on their next purchase. It’s far more likely that they will tell every single person that they know how badly they feel they have been treated, thus costing you more customers, more revenue and a serious lack of trust in an open marketplace.

If you’re wondering why I so vehemently preach customer relations on this site, it’s because I learned a long time ago that making a small sale today and leaving my customer satisfied translates directly into more sales from that customer later. It was true when I sold retail, it was true in web development and it was true in technical support. A satisfied customer will most likely come back to you the next time he or she need something that they feel you can supply for them. They might even tell a friend or two.

If you’re selling or promoting software or programs on how to make money, it’s likely that if your customer runs into a problem, he or she will contact you before bailing out completely and walking away in disgust. If you have used the product or service you’re selling, you have the tools to turn the situation into a positive one. If you’re hawking snake oil… Well, don’t expect to see many “thank you” emails. It’s more likely you’ll be seeing chargebacks on sales.

Nice guys don’t finish last. They may get to the finish line later, but they have more to show for it.

If you promise what a product can deliver and sell it on its own merits, you stand to gain a collection of loyal customers, a good reputation and at least one of those “thank you” emails. Your customers will very likely trust you to recommend another product at some point in the future, since the first actually worked for them. This is what they call in marketing a “win-win” situation. You have a sale and you customer is happy.

This concept is especially important in times of economic upheaval. In times like these customers expect to get what they paid for. They don’t have a lot of disposable discretionary income. Make that sale count and it will provide a gateway for another. Blow it by selling your customer something he or she didn’t need and you’ve shot yourself in the foot in the worst possible way.

Stand behind what you sell. It may not make you a fortune in your first three hours, but it will build a solid foundation on which to make more sales in the future.

Jerry Business Sense, Monetizing best practices, Business, Business Sense, ethics, making money, Monetizing

Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject of affiliate sales and affiliate marketing. In this short amount of time I’ve come to realize that 99% of the information that most people see on this topic when they first decide to venture into the world of affiliate sales is absolute chaff not worth taking the time to read through.

In my first three hours of research I was completely inundated with products offering me the one sure fire method that would jump start my online affiliate career. These programs promise all sorts of amazing results, from making a profit within the first three hours to making $700.00+ per day with just minutes of work on my part. Each one promises to give you all the secrets the top affiliate marketers don’t want anyone else to know. All you have to do is sign up for their program (for a fee) and they’ll show you how to get rich in minutes.

I call BullS**t!

The truth of the matter is this. There is no magic bullet. The promise of “if you build it, they will come” only works for baseball fields in small Midwest towns, not marketing niche sites. It may have been true in the early days of the Internet but it is most definitely not true today. Successful affiliates are doing well for the same reason any other entrepreneur does well. They work very hard at it.

I’m not saying that all of these programs are completely useless, but I do feel that he basic premise of most is to prey on the gullibility of people who really do want to learn new ways to supplement their income. Each and every one of the sales pages I visited tells the same story. “It’s simple”, “It’s Easy”, “we’ll walk you through a step-by-step method to make amazing amounts of money”, “it’s fun!”. The promise is for amazing profits with no effort, the same promise that’s heard all over the world on late-night infomercials and it’s the same in the case of the Internet. It’s a false promise.

The more reputable of these systems is selling information that anyone could have found for free on their own if they had just looked for it. In essence you are simply paying them for doing some of the legwork for you. My wife actually purchased one such affiliate program and made her money back within one month without spending another dime. The reason she did not continue was that she found she wasn’t really interested in the situation. Fair enough, the program delivered at least the basic tools for a complete novice to make some extra money. In this case it wasn’t a complete scam.

Other programs are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to sell even more products that their customers will probably never really need, with the promise that these tools will help in making that first “Internet million.” The reality of this type of program is that they have taken the same basic skills detailed in more ethical systems and turned them into an affiliate marketing sales pitch of their own. In the end they’ll promise to refund the entire cost of their program if the customer isn’t satisfied (this probably happens quite often), but if their customer went through and bought several different tools and utilities as suggested, the company has easily made treble that amount of money off of that person.

It’s simple for an inexperienced or gullible individual to fall prey to companies like the latter and eventually find that they have spent thousands of dollars on useless software, bloated website hosting, design services and useless or outdated information. These people leave the experience disillusioned and disparate. They probably won’t try again, which is a shame, as there is money to be made if the situation is approached in the right manner.

That’s why I’ve decided to write an eBook on the topic. I want to take the mystery out of the process and point people to the right resources, tools that actually do work and people that can actually help them move forward without burying themselves in debt. As a byproduct I’ve come up with ideas for several other eBooks, all on topics that are designed to help people move in a positive direction toward their goals.

I have to be a bit vague at this point on topics and the actual titles and information these eBooks will contain, not because I’m not so excited about it that I don’t want to share it with everyone, but because I don’t want someone to take my exact idea and get it out before I have the chance to do so.

And how will I market this little gem, you ask?

With affiliate marketing, of course. I’ve already gotten a massive amount of help from dozens of affiliates, why not give back by hopefully earning them some money in the process. (Making a bit to help with hosting costs and other necessities doesn’t sound bad either.)

I’d love to know what you think about this. Is it worth the time? Does the topic interest you? Please leave your ideas in the comments. And hey, feel free to let other people know so that I can get as much feedback on the subject as possible.

Peace, I’m out.

Jerry Announcements, Business Sense, Monetizing Announcements, Business, Business Sense, ethics, growth, making money, Monetizing

Let’s get one thing straight.  Stimulus package or no, it’s going to take time for the economy to get back on track.  In the time being, it’s getting more and more difficult to get a fair price for the work we do.  This isn’t a conspiracy, it’s that advertisers are feeling the crunch just as much as we are and no one wants to risk any money that they don’t have to.

If you are counting on one source of income from your online ventures you’re in for a rude awakening. The amount you earned last week will most likely be significantly larger than the amount you will earn this week. If you haven’t noticed a difference in the amount you can earn per job or per sale, you are among the lucky ones.

If you think I’m sitting in a gilded room spouting these little tidbits of information you’d be wrong. In the past three weeks I’ve had four advertisers send polite emails telling me to pull the ads and links that I had on various blogs.  Each of them was sure to tell me that it was not the performance of these ads that prompted their decision, rather it was a change in marketing focus. What they really meant is that their companies are feeling the strain as well and they can no longer afford the advertising channel that included my blogs.

I have no hard feelings.  this is business and in tough economic times businesses need to cut back. if you do paid posts, you’ve seen it in the pricing for them.  What used to pay $10.00 for a few hundred words is now paying $2.50.  It’s a trend that is going to continue in every market.  Advertisers need people to buy their products.  When people aren’t buying, they don’t have the advertising budget to pay their affiliates or freelancers as well as they used to.  In turn, those people that are dependant on these companies for income accept lower payments, which brings the overall market down.

Diversity is the key

Diverse income channels was a good idea in a strong economy.  Now that the economy is depressed it’s not just a good idea, it’s an absolute necessity.  If you’ve got all your eggs in one basket, you’re going to suffer, if you survive at all.  That’s not a remark made lightly, it’s the plain simple truth.

now is the time to get out there and find other methods of making money.  Look to affiliate sales, freelance writing assignments and alternative forms of advertising.  See if you can barter links with other sites to get your traffic up.  At the very least your CPC revenues should increase with more traffic.

Look closely at any affiliate programs you may be using.  if they aren’t bringing in money, get rid of them. now is not the time to be stubborn and wait for results.  if it’s been there a month and made no money, its dead weight that is on;y eating screen real-estate.  Liabilities cannot be tolerated when money is tight.

The time for tough decisions is here.  There is still a lot of money to be made, but only those who are willing to work very hard are going to reap thee benefit of a good income in times like these.  What the future holds is still uncertain.  For the moment it’s time to tighten your belt and live lean.  if you’ve got the right mindset you may just come out of this in a far better place than you were when it wasn’t so hard. And at the end of this we’ll all have a lot less competition, because those who don’t adapt will go under, leaving more opportunities for those who did.

Jerry Business Sense, Monetizing Business Sense, Monetizing, Recession, the business end