Affiliate Marketing Guide Online

I sometimes find that I’m addicted.  First, I check CJ. Then I check google. Then I check clickbank, then yahoo, then on and on, until I’ve totaled up the days earnings.  Except that it’s only 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Surely I’ll make twice as much by 10 pm. Or maybe not.  Maybe I should adjust the bid price. Take a deep breath.  If you’re like me, sometimes you think you need to watch your PPC campaigns like a hawk in order to make them perform better.  Keywords should be checked two to three times a day max. Earnings should be checked even less, with one exception. New, untested campaigns.  A new campaign can end up costing you big bucks with no return if you’re not very careful. Setting a daily limit only keeps google and yahoo within 20% of your limit. Monitoring of your keywords can make sure that you’re not getting your ads shown for non-performing keywords.  

The ads always sound great on paper.  ”Follow these five steps and earn $$$$’s a day!” “Make $1,000 in just ten minutes a day!” “Earn $$$$’s on your Blog”But how do you really make money with your online website, blog, or just dive into affiliate marketing?   There are many variations on these basic models for making money online.

1.  Pay-per-click marketing - you buy or bid keywords and drive traffic to a vendors site. Think of this as gambling or buying stocks. You’re hedging your bets that you can buy clicks cheap and earn big commission on sales. 
2. Natural websites / blogs - you build a website and sell or recommend products.  In this case, you’re basically a magazine full of advertisements, product reviews and recommendations. Get a big reader base, and you’ll have your own little cash cow.
3. Coupon Sites, Incentive Sites, Comparison Shopping - Cut to the chase and build a site that pre-sells product.  Here, you might list all the coupons available for internet web hosting, or compare prices for people shopping for a product. Catch consumers in “buy” mode and hook them in to your favorite affiliate’s website. 

In all cases, you can choose to fill your new blog or website with pay-per-action or pay-per-click links.  This simply means, do you want to make money every time someone clicks, or everytime someone buys something. Very few Pay Per click (PPC) networks still exist, but the biggest is Google Adsense, followed by Yahoo’s network. In a nutshell, you put adsense code on your website, and when someone clicks, you get paid anywhere from a few cents to a dollar.   The other option is to join an Affiliate network that pays per action, per lead, or per sale. In this instance, you get paid every time someone fills out a form or buys a product. Pay per action, which is known as affiliate marketing, has taken popularity, over PPC networks like Adsense, because of things like click fraud and simple return on investment.  In general, pay per action is better fit for both advertisers and publishers, because while PPC may only pay 10 cents a click on some clicks, pay per action sales may pay anywhere between 1%-50% or more commission on a sale.   To be continued…. 

I recently downloaded a copy of John Leger’s  FREE SEO Myths Exposed report.  In a nutshell, he says that there are too many SEO “experts” out there who are talking and not enough who putting their money where their mouth is.  So, take a look at the PDF, it’s worth the read. I must say, he’s got some sound ideas, especially with his duplicate content theories and linking ideas.  Here’s a brief summary of some of the myths he debunks - straight from his site. 

 Myth #1: Google Knows All and Sees All
Myth #2: Google Will Not Rank Duplicate Content
Myth #3: You Must Get Links From Related Subject Sites to Rank
Myth #4: Your Site Must Focus On One Subject To Rank
Myth #5: High PageRank Means Good Rankings
Myth #6: To Maintain Good Rankings, You Must Add New Content
..and.. 
MYTH #7: THE BIGGEST MYTH: Ranking In Google Is Hard!

So, Go check him out. The SEO report is at SearchEngineMythsExposed.com

Today I was wading through a list of new publishers for an advertiser’s program that I oversee, and I was amused to find that someone wrote that their site incentive was - and I quote -  ”I give you kiss if I make sale.” Someone else preceded to enlighten me that Travelocity and Office Max have great deals all the time.  Needless to say, I did not hesitate to hit the big DECLINE button. Many publishers don’t realize that someone reads their CJ or Linkshare application other than the affiliate network where they apply. In many cases, the affiliate manager of the program also reviews or screens each publisher’s application, looking for certain criteria to find a good match between publisher and advertiser. Advertisers have complex lists based on the needs of the advertiser, and sometimes include things like a publisher’s earnings, category of business, and promotion methods, so don’t be offended if you get declined from a program. However, your application to the program is a lot like a resume - if it looks great, you’re a lot more likely to get accepted to the affiliate program of your choice. When filling out applications for affiliate networks and programs, try to include the following:

• Your full name and business name. If this is going to be a serious business venture, treat it seriously. At first glance, a company name looks a bit more like something that’s going to earn some revenue than “wallysmith” 
• A valid email address, preferably one that would look good at the top of a resume.
• The urls you use or own. If you don’t own a website yet, buy one for your new company, and think of it as real estate. Even if you’re just interested in running PPC campaigns, create a small website that says that you’re a PPC business. (see other articles for more info on creating websites)
• Any offer or incentive that you are passing on to the consumer. This only applies to loyalty or coupon sites. Are you donating a portion of the purchase commissions to charity? Are you giving the consumer cash back? Does your frequent buyer get a free ipod with $10,000 worth of purchases. You get the idea. Otherwise, don’t put silly things in the box. Incentive offers get double flags for advertisers, so when reviewing, I have to click ok twice. An affiliate manager on his 25th new publisher might get annoyed and click cancel or decline by accident. 
• Use correct grammar and punctuation. Remember that people reviewing these are from the 9-5 business world. They’re looking for some level of professionalism. 
• How you are going to promote the product. Depending on the affiliate network or program, this is either in a drop down form, or in a paragraph style form.  If you don’t have any ideas of how to promote your new advertiser, don’t apply yet - you’ll risk getting kicked out for being inactive. For those of you who are a bit confused, here’s the breakdown of promotion methods
  • Content / Website - You own a website, you’re going to put banner ads or articles about products on it. 
  • Email Marketing - You’re going to create a list of people and send them emails about products
  • Paid Search (Search Marketing) - You’re going to advertise on Google / Yahoo / MSN and then link back to their site or a landing page that then links to their site. 
  • Incentive - You’re going to give them something to buy products.

Insider TIP: Ever wonder why you were declined from an advertiser? Don’t hesitate to ask. You might be a perfect fit, but were missed because the advertiser didn’t understand how you were going to promote their product. Maybe your DVD site didn’t make sense for a women’s clothing store on the application, or your country of origin is outside of their shipping range. A quick email may be all it takes to get back on board. 

Wading through the various affiliate programs can be complicated enough, but choosing an affiliate company to work with is sometimes even more complicated.  The determining factor can be as simple as which company has the affiliate program that you want to use for your website, or could be determined by payment terms and schedule (Amazon, for example has a $100 minimum, and pays every quarter - not exactly great cash flow for starting out), ease of use, reporting, and offerings.  So, for those of you looking for a quick rundown, here’s a brief summary of the big players  and what they have to offer.

•  Commission Junction -  www.cj.com  Perhaps best known for it’s CJU Santa Barbara seminar / networking bash, Commission Junction (aka CJ) is one of the larger affiliate networks. Their interface is easy to use, and their CJ performer status gives you an account manager and some other perks. Pays monthly but does have a minimum payout requirement. CJ’s advertiser side has a full assortment of managed and unmanaged programs that attract top and mid tier businesses and brands. 
• Linkshare -  www.linkshare.com Competing with CJ for the big fish spot is Link Share, who has it’s own yearly networking summit. They pay out every two weeks, and do not have a minimum requirement. Their interface is not as slick as CJ’s, and link tracking can get complicated. However, once again, this is a larger affiliate network with managed solutions for businesses, so it attracts larger and mid sized programs and brands. 
• Performics -  www.Performics.com In case you haven’t read the Google / DoubleClick merger notes closely enough, Performics is a property of DoubleClick. Their interface makes linkshare’s look like a walk in the park, and, while it also attracts larger businesses, just isn’t quite as polished as the two other guys. Payouts are monthly, though, so if it works for you, they’re still a reputable company. 
• Azoogle -  www.Azoogleads.com  Here’s the deal. Azoogle gives you your own affiliate manager to use as a sounding board, and you can choose from a list of programs. The interface is pretty easy, maybe as easy as CJ. A lot of the ads are promo based, and I noticed that some of the same advertisers  are running on either CJ or linkshare, so you may want to compare commissions and creatives.  
  
• ClickBank -  www.clickbank.com I’m not quite sure how to describe click bank, other than I love to hate them. In order to activate your account, you must have sales on 5 different credit cards with 5 different names and addresses, or they won’t pay your commissions. They’re mostly a small business software / online book network, but many affiliates swear by them. I’ll post more about the ins and outs of ClickBank.
• Share-a-Sale  www.Shareasale.com Until recently, I wouldn’t have listed this site at all, but I found one really cool product on there that changed my mind. You’ll find small to middle sized advertisers, so it’s great if you’re looking for unique products to promote. 

There are a lot of other Affiliate networks out there. Kowabunga! Technologies and NeverBlue ads are just two that I have bookmarked for future reference. TIP: Not all businesses go through affiliate networks, because these programs can charge flat fees or an additional percentage per action for management and recruitment fees.  Check your favorite websites to see if they run their own affiliate program.

When reading an affiliate advertiser’s terms and conditions, a common restriction says something like “you are forbidden from bidding on “ourbrand.com, brandmisspelling.com, and our brand name”.  For some PPC publishers, this means it’s time to move to a new advertiser.  But should you be so hasty to dismiss these brands?

More and more advertisers are hesitant to give up the rights for publishers to run PPC campaigns on their brand terms. While it may aggravate the publishers, the reasoning is sometimes sound. For the advertiser, small in-house paid search campaign is sometimes more cost effective than paying commissions, depending on the bid prices and the competition in the market place. A smaller business may pay only $100 per month to cover ppc fees to get some paid search coverage, but find affiliate commissions ranging in the $1,000 range for the same volume of sales. 

There’s also a large concern among advertisers over ad content. If a publisher forgets to turn off an ad for coupon or promotion that’s expired, the company’s customer support phone line may experience a huge volume of calls from customers looking for their “discount”.  At this point, the advertiser is almost always responsible for honoring those discounts, or stuck doing extra work to resolve the issue.

So, the question is, if brand names are off limits, is it possible to run a pay per click campaign successfully without having the brand name as a keyword? The answer is a resounding… it depends. I think maybe the best example of PPC without Brand is ClickBank. Here, hundreds of products get sold without any real previous brand exposure, just on their merits alone through sell pages. And the price points vary from $10 to $100’s.  But I’m not sure the example holds true for every product out there in affiliate land. Insider Tip: Bidding policies may not be fixed in stone.  Contact your advertiser if you have questions about their ppc policy and its restrictions. 

I open up my inbox occasionally and read the emails from CJ.com that say something like so-and-so advertiser is no longer in the program or has deleted you from their program and I immediately hit the delete button. After all, I didn’t really want to promote that guy anyway, never really managed to make that program work, or don’t remember why I signed up in the first place.

But what happens when the advertiser on that “no longer with CJ” list is your bread and butter? Or, what if your favorite advertiser changes his terms.  Sorry Charlie, those terms that are converting well for you are suddenly off-limits. Now what?

So, my new years resolution is to consider my affiliate business to be more like my stock portfolio. I would never pour all of my money into one single stock.  But yet, I found it all too easy to grow my favorite advertiser until it was a nice chunk of income, forgetting that I needed to look for new leads.

This is my recommended strategy for growth. Start with at least 2 solid advertisers on one affiliate network.  Then, try a new network, and see if you can grow a third and forth. Then, try a new network, or move back to affiliate network #1.  TIP: Remember that affiliate managers often make decisions about accepting new affiliates based on things like earnings, so if you’re only earning a few dollars with one affiliate network, it may make sense for you to work on getting more earnings per network before branching out too far.