So, you’re a newbie to this whole affiliate marketing gig? Don’t sweat it, my friend. It’s like fishing without the stinky bait or some would say being a matchmaker for products. As you introduce offers to potential buyers and get a cut of the action. Just make sure you’re hooking people up with the hot products, so you can rake in that sweet, sweet cash. And if you’re still scratching your head at the term “affiliate marketing,” fear not! This handy-dandy checklist will give you all the deets on how to be a boss at this game.
Affiliate marketing is a lucrative business, but success is not guaranteed. It takes commitment and following the next steps.
Affiliate Marketing: Find Products or Services to Promote
Affiliate marketing is a real business. For long-term success it’s important to select legitimate and ethical affiliate offers. But also follow the rules of each network.
The first step in affiliate marketing is finding a product to promote. Well, you don’t say. I hear you say. The best way to do this is to find a good affiliate network. Sometimes product owners operate their own-in-house affiliate network.
Now, it’s key to find an affiliate network, which is reputable and pays you a commission on time. It can either be digital or physical like products you can find on Amazon. So you could join the ranks of Amazon Associates.
Here is a list of the most trustworthy affiliate companies I have found.
There are many affiliate programs available, but some are more trusted than others. Here are some of the most trusted affiliate programs according to Google search results:
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Amazon Associates: This is the absolute best affiliate marketing program for beginners. It has been helping online marketers make money since 1996. It offers a wide range of products and has a reputation for being reliable.
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Shopify: This is a complete commerce platform that allows users to create an online store. It offers a generous commission rate and a popular choice for ecommerce businesses
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ClickBank: This is a popular affiliate marketing program. It offers a wide range of products. It’s easy to use and has a reputation for being reliable.
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eBay Partner Network: This program allows affiliates to promote eBay products. It’s a popular choice for those in the ecommerce niche.
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Rakuten Advertising: This program offers a wide range of products to promote. It’s another popular choice for those in the ecommerce niche.
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AWeber: This is an email marketing platform that offers a generous commission rate. It is a popular choice for those in the marketing niche.
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Fiverr: This is a freelance marketplace that offers a wide range of services to promote. It’s easy to use and has a reputation for being reliable.
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ShareASale: This program offers a wide range of products. It’s a popular choice for those in the ecommerce niche.
- CJ Affiliate: If you are an experienced marketer, CJ Affiliate is a program worth considering. It has over 300 brands, including some of the most popular ones in the world. The program has seen a significant increase of 43% in commissions on a year-on-year basis. Making it an appealing choice.
Some of these networks focus more on digital products. This includes Clickbank and JvZoo for online courses, e-books and software.
Find a product that matches the market or niche you want to be in, or something that solves a problem, well duh!
After you’ve found your product, it is time to make a review. Make sure you highlight both the good points and any bad ones. You must build trust with potential customers, so be honest. The best way to do this is actually to buy the product yourself, so you can show people how it works.
Reputation is Everything
As an affiliate marketer, it’s important that you focus on helping people. Its said that if you help enough people get what they want, then you will get what you want and make money.
Now that you’ve chosen your product, it is time to double-check the product vendor. If it’s a well-known company you can use Trustpilot.com. If not you can do your research on Google, Bing or forums and sometimes Facebook.
Alright, listen up folks! The real deal is here and it’s time to get competitive.
You gotta add some serious value to products if you wanna make it big in this game.
Key Takeaway: Now, here’s a little secret sauce for ya. Create some videos that explain more about the product you are promoting. Or a PLR product that add value to the affiliate product. Your customers can access this once they’ve made the sale.
Generating Leads To Product Site
The next step is to send visitors to the product owner’s site, but with a word of caution never send them direct. To generate leads you need to set up a lead generation system. Then drive traffic to your vendor’s site while promoting products. To increase sales and making a profit, it is important to collect email leads.
The way to do that is by the “bridge the gap” method. This involves offering something for free. This could be a guide (often called a lead magnet) on your website in exchange for the visitor’s email. This will add value to the transaction and build trust with the prospective customer.
If they don’t buy straight away you can follow up with them to promote other offers. Also provide value by answering questions and giving advice.
The lead, squeeze or optin page as it’s called should include call-to-action buttons. Or headlines that show the major benefits of a specific product.
Provide customers with reasons why they should give you their email. In other words, what’s in it for them? So keep it simple and just tell them the benefits they’ll receive from your lead magnet.
Something like, “Add your email to get my free guide on how to make money online without having a website in 7 easy Steps”.
If you want to maximize your chances of actually making money you’ll need an autoresponder. One of the simplest autoresponders to set up and use is Aweber. This can send a series of emails providing helpful information related to the offer.
You can also send helpful content about the niche/market and be able to promote other offers. This way you will be able to capture leads and send traffic to other offers. This will increase your chance of making future profits.
Always Say Thank You – It’s Only Polite
Once the client has opted into your email list you should send them to what’s called a thank you page.
Now you have three options here:-
- Send them to the vendor’s sales page, now you have their email.
- Send them to a review page of the product on your site that has a link to the offer.
- Or my recommendation especially when you are new. Send them to a contact page where they can ask you a question.This works best as it builds trust. You will set yourself apart from other affiliates, pitching products at every opportunity. You’ll be amazed at the difference.
Getting Traffic to Your Lead Capture Page
There are two types of traffic, free or paid traffic. Free traffic is not free because you have to do some work to get it. This could be by posting on social media, blog posts, videos or doing Search Engine Optimisation on a site.
Traffic sent from free platforms such as a Facebook group or a free blog platform, can be profitable.
Example: For Cleaning-related offers on Offer Vault and ClickBank can be promoted by creating simple videos demonstrating how to clean different items.
To get free traffic you can also write blog posts that can get your site ranked on Google or Bing. But you’ll need to find keywords that have low competition but with a decent search volume. You can find these using a keyword search tool like Spyfu.com or similar.
There are lots of paid traffic sources including Google Adwords, Bing and Facebook.
When starting your affiliate marketing journey, selecting the appropriate network for your business is crucial.
It is advisable to establish a good reputation on a single network . You’ll see why when reviewing the other checklists and when it comes to getting approved to promote. Yet, it is also essential to have accounts on all the leading affiliate networks in your niche.
Internet Marketing Niche Instant Pay Networks
Make money online (MMO) networks usually provide immediate payment to accounts. If you choose to get paid via Paypal new payments will be 30-60 days. This is until you establish a more regular sales record.
Affiliate Networks Outside of the Internet Marketing Niche
You should consider several significant factors when deciding on what to promote.
Is there a good selection of products to promote?
If the number is below 100, we disregard it as it indicates a small network.
What are the requirements of the offer before we get paid?
Most networks do not pay right away, especially if you are new, but most pay within 60 days.
Is there a minimum payout?
Be careful in this case. If the smallest payout is $1000, please make sure you can make this amount on that network.
How fast is the support?
Contact them as it’s very easy to contact and test.
How long do the vendor’s site cookies last?
The longer the better but if only 7 days I would pass. Most programs offer a 30-day, lifetime cookie or a 365-day cookie.
Do other reputable brands and companies use this affiliate network?
If you come across brand names and individuals that you recognize, it is a positive sign. It is not a good sign if the website has a slow loading pages. Low-quality products, and an unappealing appearance, so avoid it.
Would you like a done for you complete affiliate marketing sales system?
Understanding Abbreviations
Ensure that you have a clear understanding of each term, you can mark them off on the checklist provided below.
Here’s a break down some important terms to being successful in affiliate marketing.
CPA – Cost Per Action
You get paid some someone simply giving their email, Zip code, filling out a form, or making a phone call.
CPS – Commission Per Sale
This is the commission you make for every sale you make.
CPS – Commission Per Lead
The set amount you’re paid for each new lead/email sign-in/Zip submit you generate.
Statistics
EPC – Earnings Per Click
So, if you’re wondering how much you’re earning per click, it’s pretty simple to calculate. Take the total money you’ve made in a certain time and divide that by the number of clicks you got. That’ll give you your earnings per click!
So, let’s say you send 100 clicks to an offer and end up making $100. That means your earnings per click would be $1. Pretty simple, right?
Conversion Rate
First up, we have the conversion rate. This is the percentage of clicks that result in a sale. To calculate, divide the total money you made, by the number of clicks you received during that same time.
For example, if you had 50 conversions from 1,000 clicks, your conversion rate would be 5%. Easy peasy, right?
Grav or Pulse
Next, we have Gravity or Pulse. This estimates the number of affiliates who have promoted a product. This indicates its conversion rate. The higher the score, the better the product is performing.
Initial $ sale
So, this is how much money you’d get from one sale.
This is the amount of money you can expect to receive, taking into account both the initial sale and any subsequent rebills.
Avg $ sale
This is the amount of money you can expect to receive, taking into account the initial sale and any later rebill.
Avg Rebill Total
This is how much money you can expect to receive every month after making the initial sale. It’s a payment that you’ll be receiving on a monthly basis. As long as that customer remains a member and pays their subscription each month.
Avg % Rebill
This is the percentage you will receive in commissions for recurring payments.
Avg % Sales
This is the average percentage you will receive in commissions from the initial sale.
Refund Rate
The percentage of customers that have requested a refund after purchasing the product. The lower this number the better well of course!
Visitor Value
Lastly, we have Visitor Value; this is the average return for sending a prospect to the vendor’s sales page.
For example, a product with a $100 commission. The affiliate would have to send 100 visitors to make a sale. So on average the visitor value for that product would be $1.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any questions you can contact me here.