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Allan Gardyne
A Beginner's Guide To Affiliate, Revenue Sharing, Reseller,
Partner, Bounty, Associate Programs
32 useful hints about affiliate/referral associate programs
How associate/affiliate programs work
Brief description:
You send people to a website. They buy something, or sign up
for something, and you are paid a commission.
Associate programs are revenue sharing arrangements set up by
companies selling products and services. Website owners are
rewarded for sending customers to the business.
For example, by February 1998
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos
one of the pioneers, had attracted more than 30,000
webmasters giving Amazon.com wonderful publicity in exchange for
a small commission on sales. (By June 1998, it had 60,000, by
July 1999, more than 300,000, by June 2000, it was over the
450,000 mark.)
These pay-per-sale or pay-per-lead programs are usually
remarkably easy to join.
After carefully reading the terms and conditions, which vary
from program to program, you place a banner ad, small graphic or
ordinary text which links from your site or newsletter to the
vendor. If someone clicks on the link and buys a product or
service from the business, you receive a commission.
Get up to speed fast
Here's the fastest way I know to get you up to speed on how to
make good money with affiliate programs. It's Ken Evoy's free
five-day Affiliate Masters e-mail course.
Just send a blank e-mail to:makemytams@sitesell.net
It's pure gold. No charge. I highly recommend it.
Have you sent the blank e-mail? Great! Ken will give you more
help and support than anyone else I know.
Harness your passion
I laugh when I see "experts" proclaiming that THEIR way is the
way to make money on the Internet. There are dozens, hundreds
maybe even thousands of different ways for imaginative people
to launch an Internet business.
One way which works for many people is to concentrate on a
small niche. Choose a topic in which you are passionately
interested, and create a website around that theme. Then select
associate programs which closely fit the theme of your site and
blend them into the site, using text links.
If possible, write about the products from first-hand
knowledge, so that you become a respected, credible source of
reliable information.
The more targeted your traffic, the more likely it is that
people will buy.
The huge advantage of basing a business on a topic in which you
are passionately interested is that you will enjoy running your
business it will be much more like a fascinating hobby that a
job.
Become interested in a hot topic
Instead of setting up a website based on your favorite hobby,
delve deeply and become a specialist in a subject which is hot
right now.
You'll find that as you immerse yourself in the topic, delving
deeper and deeper, you'll become intensely interested in it. The
more you learn, the less your business will seem like work.
Here are some hot topics you can choose from:
+ Ebook publishing http://makemy.sitesell.com/myks/
+ Pricing strategies http://makemy.sitesell.com/myps/
+ Ecommerce and credit card merchants http://www.aismedia.com
+ Instant businesses http://www.associateprograms.com/righton/
+ How to automate a business
http://www.associateprograms.com/automate/
+ Search engines
http://www.associateprograms.com/nbn/
+ Autoresponders http://www.aweber.com/?1983
+ How to create your own products fast
http://www.associateprograms.com/create/
You can choose almost ANY topic to be the theme for your web
site. However, before you begin, look in the
AssociatePrograms.com directory and make sure there are suitable
associate programs which fit your theme.
Aim to be the most knowledgeable person on the Net in your
small niche. If you build a really useful site, people will
recommend your site and link to it, giving you wonderful free
publicity. For us, this began to happen only a month or so after
we launchedhttp://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com/
Webmasters Earn Cash from your site Get paid without sales
In some cases, your visitors don't even have to buy anything.
If they fill out a survey, ask for a free report (
http://tracking.carprices.com/
), ask for a free sample or perhaps download software to try,
you get paid. WebSponsors has dozens of such offers you can
promote. You're sure to find some that suit your site's theme.
These are pay-per-lead programs.
Good pay-per-lead networks include:
+ DirectLeads http://www.associateprograms.com/dl/
+ onResponse http://www.associateprograms.com/onresponse/
+ Puzz.com http://www.associateprograms.com/puzz/
You need lots of traffic
If you already have a busy site and the product you choose to
promote is attractive to your visitors, you should start earning
money straight away. If you have a new, low-traffic site, you
have a lot of work ahead of you.
Several times I've seen suggestions that to make reasonable
money from a web site you need at least 500 unique visitors a
day. That seems about right if you have a very tightly targeted
audience and also have a newsletter which gives you more
income and helps remind people about your site. Some people have
scoffed at the 500-a-day figure and say you need at least five
times that figure. Numbers alone aren't enough you need to
build trust and credibility.
Merely attracting traffic isn't enough. You have to learn how
to encourage people to click on the links and buy something. So
make sure you promote really good products.
Aim for a residual income
Some merchants which charge their customers monthly fees pay
affiliates monthly residual commissions. For example, I earn
steadily increasing residual income from
http://www.virtualisys.com/vr/agardyne .
I also earn residual income fromhttp://www.aweber.com/?1983
because it's an excellent service which charges a monthly fee.
When will you be paid?
Some companies pay you only after you have accumulated $50 or
$100 in commission. If you have a very busy site, that's OK. For
a small site without much traffic, it could take a long, long
time . . .
There's even the odd company which won't pay you at all unless
you generate a certain level of business. Read the rules before
you sign up.
Rule number 1: go for quality
I reckon the most important consideration when assessing
associate programs is to examine the product or service offered.
The better the product or service, the more enthusiastic you
will be about recommending it and you'll have a better chance
that people will want to buy.
For example, Ken Evoy'shttp://makemy.sitesell.com/myss/ and
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myks/ . Ken is a strong believer
in over-delivering giving the customer far better value for
money than expected.
Beware of anyone who raves on about the money you can make and
forgets to tell you about the product or service. The sales
blurb can be tempting, but make sure you don't promote something
which will harm your reputation.
Rule number 2: earn good commissions
Remember, those links and banners are helping persuade people
to leave your site away from the products or services you are
selling. So look for programs which reward you generously. Corey
Rudl's Internet marketing course, for example, pays me a very
generous $65 commission. Of dozens of programs I've tried, it
was my top-earning one for many months. My commissions fluctuate
but are usually over $1,000 a month.
Of course, high commissions alone are useless if people don't
buy when they reach the site. As well as using products and
services which match the theme of your site, it makes sense to
experiment and see what interests your visitors.
For example, Thomas Harpointner's
http://www.aismedia.com pays a generous
$175 commission when people sign up for AIS credit card
services. You receive an additional $50 when a sale is made by
someone you refer to the program. I haven't had much luck with
that one. People tend to visit several merchant account
providers before they sign up.
However, AIS also sells various other products and services,
which I've done extremely well with. These include
http://www.google.com , which can be summed up
this way: "Never pay retail again." It would probably suit most
sites. See details on my Top 10 page.
http://www.virtualisys.com/vr/agardyne ,
http://www.oneandonlynetwork.com and
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&c=money&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace are other examples of good
payers.
http://www.oneandonlynetwork.com/
(personal classified ads) pays generous commissions on any
subscriptions sold, plus any and all renewal revenue generated
for the initial sign up, forever, for the life of the customer.
As well, you earn 33.3% commission on the earnings of people you
sign up. One &Only often runs special promotions during which it
pays even higher, as high as 200%.
Rule number 3: seek sites that SELL!
It's no use having a good product and a high commission unless
you also have good salesmanship. That's why I'm really keen on
all the products promoted by the Declan Dunn/Patrick Anderson
team.
An excellent example of a product designed to sell is Patrick's
Right on the Money. It also has a high commission a powerful
combination. Highly recommended.
Also well designed for selling is Marlon Sanders' The Amazing
Formula. Marlon, who has a double major in journalism and
psychology, knows which buttons to push. He offers real-time
stats, a 60% commission, and a site which is very definitely
designed to sell.
I've been told that Marlon's site has "loads" of marketing
errors on it. Well, perhaps. That's ONE opinion. But it really
DOES sell like crazy and that's the test.
Perhaps even better designed for selling is Ken Evoy's
http://makemy.sitesell.com/ which pays lifetime commissions.
When I announced that site in my newsletter, an astounding 9.5%
of the people I sent there bought Ken's book. (In comparison,
about 1% of the people I send to Corey Rudl's site buy his
marketing manual. Of course, with Corey's high commissions, 1%
still gives you $65 for every 100 people you send an excellent
result.)
I highly recommendhttp://makemy.sitesell.com/
Rule number 4: seek good tracking
When you experiment with your promotional efforts you want to
know straight away how effective your work has been, so you need
instant immediate, or real-time, tracking.
The best tracking I've used is provided by AIS. When a sale or
sign-up is made, I am notified immediately by e-mail and can
quickly tell whether the sale resulted from a banner ad,
paragraph on my main page, article in my free newsletter, or a
post to a mailing list or newsgroup, etc. AIS lets me change the
last four digits/letters on each URL to suit.
Here's an example:
http://www.aismedia.com/secrets
Those last four letters let me know when a sale is generated
from this page.
Rule number 5: Look for LIFETIME commissions
Imagine you set up a bookshop as an associate of Amazon.
Someone visits your site and hey! you're in luck buys a
book. You earn 5% or 15% from Amazon. Next time, however, that
customer will probably just go straight to Amazon, and might buy
$100 worth of books. You won't receive a cent on that purchase.
(Amazon has a good program but there's a weasel clause in its
contract. If you send people to buy a particular book at Amazon
and they click around and explore before buying the book, you
will earn only 5% instead of the 15% you deserve. Also, if they
click around, delay a decision, and return next week and buy,
you won't earn anything from that purchase. That's unfair.
A few programs DO pay you for the second and third and fourth
etc purchase by the customer. The best one I know of is Ken
Evoy's SiteSell program (you'll find I mention it a lot), whose
products include:
http://makemy.sitesell.com/
the BIBLE of site-selling
http://makemy.sitesell.com/myks/
The BIBLE of selling what you know on the Net
I strongly recommend Ken's 5 Pillar Program.
http://makemy.sitesell.com/ and click on "5 Pillar Affiliate
Program" to join.
Another good program which pays lifetime commissions is
http://www.PublishersPipeline.com/ It
provides good software, free and nearly free.
Rule number 6: Don't lose the plot
Some website owners sign up for dozens of programs and clutter
their site with them so much that it's difficult to see the
theme of the site. Affiliate programs consultant Declan Dunn
calls this the "flea market" approach. Other webmasters try
"banner farms". Don't waste your time. If you want your visitors
to keep coming back, your site needs to have an obvious,
memorable reason for its existence.
Some website owners have reported success with programs totally
unrelated to their site's theme. My experience has been the
exact opposite, so I prefer companies which have products or
services which complement my site, although I occasionally
experiment with others. AssociatePrograms.com is aimed at
website owners who want to earn money, so an ad like this will
generate enough interest to send someone to the site to learn
more:
DISCOVER LITTLE-KNOWN SECRETS used by marketing pros
which will let you build and promote your own
high-income online business. Discover how you can turn
your computer into a virtual cash-machine and make
money completely by remote control.
http://www.aismedia.com/secrets/index
Beware of sharks
Some website owners don't put their name and address on their
sites. Ask yourself: What are they ashamed of? What do they have
to hide? There are sharks out there in murky waters. Be wary.
Ask for references
While researching the company before you sign up, it's a good
idea to ask for the names of associates and contact them to see
if they're happy with the company. A vendor will usually offer a
carefully worded, detailed agreement. If the vendor doesn't, be
careful.
However, don't rule out a company completely just because it
doesn't have a slick public relations exercise. You could be
overlooking a really talented tech wizard.
How professional are they?
If the vendor is slow replying to your e-mail, that's also a
warning sign. I've found that the most successful companies on
the Net are often amazingly fast at replying to e-mail.
Don't sell AWeber to footy players
My site is aimed at e-marketers and website owners who want to
make money, so thehttp://www.aweber.com/?1983 is ideal for
my site because e-marketers know the value of follow-ups to
achieve sales. They will recognize immediately that a system
that saves you time by doing e-mail follow-ups automatically has
to be highly useful.
However, you are unlikely to sell it on your site if most of
your visitors are football players who don't own websites. A
footy magazine ought to sell better.
Get your own domain name
You can promote revenue sharing programs from a free website,
but you create a much more professional image if you get your
own domain name. You'll also receive more repeat traffic if you
have a memorable name. You can
http://www.virtualisys.com/vr/agardyne/domain to
see if the name you want is still available.
Show people you're serious. Grab your domain name now before
someone else does. It's getting harder and harder to find a good
.com name.
Personal endorsements increase sales
One way to increase your click-through rate and sales is to
write a personal endorsement praising the product or service
so make sure you sign up with companies which have excellent
products.
If you haven't tried the product, perhaps you can get an
endorsement from a friend who has.
However, successful affiliates buy the product so that they can
write a genuine, honest review of it.
Slightly critical reviews work, too
Even if your review is partly critical, such as my review of
Corey Rudl's marketing course in Associate Programs Newsletter
#5 it can still increase sales dramatically.
Start collecting domain names
One excellent way to promote an associate program is to buy a
special domain name just for it, set up a site of a few pages,
and list the site in the main search engines. Choose a memorable
name. You can reserve one now for future use.
It's an excellent investment.
An excellent tool to use when searching for a domain name is
http://www.NameBoy.com/ It's also a good idea to go to
http://whois.net and look for domain names which people
registered and decided they didn't want so they are available
again. Some surprisingly good ones can still be found.
Promote in your signature
One way to promote an affiliate program is by giving it a
brief, eye-catching, tempting mention in a signature at the end
of an e-mail. I joined The Amazing Formula program when I was
tempted by an intriguing signature similar to this:
Have you seen the Amazing Formula?
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/amazing/
You can create several different e-mail signatures, each one
promoting a different commission-earning product, and use which
ever one is most appropriate for the e-mail you're sending.
I use Eudora Pro e-mail software, which makes it easy to set up
a range of different signatures suitable for different occasions.
Try a friendly P.S.
Some marketers use a signature written in the style of a
friendly P.S.
For example:
All the best.
Allan.
P.S. Have you seen Marlon's new product?
"How To Create Your Own Hot Products in a Flash"
It's given me a lot of awesome ideas. Marlon has created
another winner!
You can check it out here...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/create/
WARNING: This technique may backfire on you if you use it
unwisely. For example, I've been e-mailed by amateurs who dream
up some thinly-disguised excuse to approach me, and then zap me
with a P.S. signature which promotes an affiliate program. Do I
buy from them? No.
Like all marketing, it needs to be aimed at the right target
and needs to be offering something which the recipient wants.
Think very carefully about who is seeing your message and what
effect it will have.
The worst way to do it
The dumbest way to promote a program is to use spam bulk
unsolicited e-mail. You can wreck your reputation, lose your
Internet connection, forfeit any commissions you've earned, and
the company may even bill you for the time it has wasted dealing
with complaints about you. Don't say you weren't warned!
Selfish, inconsiderate oafs use spam.
The laziest way isn't the best
Website owners doing very well with associate programs usually
don't just paste in a banner and wait hopefully for the money to
roll in. They write endorsements, provide useful content, offer
helpful advice . . . in all sorts of creative ways they weave
the links and graphics into the content on their sites.
Watch for exclusivity clauses
Some companies have an exclusivity clause (they want to be the
only retailer of that type on your site), some allow only
graphical links, and some want to approve every word you write
before you promote them more good reasons for reading the
contract.
Appropriate linking increases sales
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/
Some companies let you link to various pages, categories or
individual products on their site. Linking to categories may be
OK. Linking to individual products is usually much more
effective. For example, the Outpost program at LinkShare
provides cut-and-paste code for linking to one of its top
sellers, the
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/
Linking tip
Here's a hint from the Music Boulevard newsletter: Think of key
points and themes on your site to tie into Music Boulevard's
content. For example, if you review a CD, band or performer on
your site, include the album cover art and a Music Boulevard
link to that CD or artist's discography.
You can adapt that hint to suit other sites, products and
services.
Look for companies which HELP affiliates
Steven Rothberg's CollegeRecruiter.com helps its affiliates by
providing useful search boxes for job seekers. On an appropriate
site, these achieve extremely high click-through rates - as high
as 90% in some cases. That is fantastic for the affiliate,
because the company pays for click-throughs as well as a
commission on sales.
Here's an example from CollegeRecruiter:
Enter Keywords Then Click GO to Search 25,000 Job Openings at
CollegeRecruiter.com:
You can join the CollegeRecruiter program at Commission
Junction.
http://www.commission-junction.com/track
Ken Evoy'shttp://makemy.sitesell.com/myks/ helps its
affiliates by providing extensive online information, an e-mail
helpdesk and three extremely helpful newsletter, offering
excellent advice. The company works very hard to help its
affiliates succeed.
You'll also receive a LOT of help from experienced marketers
Declan Dunn, author of
http://www.activemarketplace.com/cgi-bin/store/ and the hugely successful Corey Rudl.
You'll need a newsletter
If you don't have your own newsletter, now is the time to get
started. If you build up your circulation by providing mainly
useful information, a newsletter can be a great promotional
tool. I like the ones that have very few ads, so that's the way
I run the Associate Programs Newsletter.
Some people mess around wasting lots of time with e-mail,
subscribing and unsubscribing people.
http://www.google.com does all
that for me automatically. It's a fabulous service, reasonably
priced.
The BIBLE of e-mail newsletter publishing has been written by
Chris Pirillo. Don't be put off by the name: Poor Richard's
E-mail Publishing. It's THE must-have book for all newsletter
publishers.
You DON'T need a web site?
It makes sense to aim for repeat customers and if you want
them, you need an interesting web site. However, if you want to
just tip your toe in the water and experiment a little, you can
do it without having a web site. For good advice on this, see
Ken Evoy'shttp://makemy.sitesell.com/
Well, you don't really HAVE to have a website, but it makes good
sense to have one. That way, you can aim for repeat traffic and
repeat sales. It's much easier to sell to an existing customer
than always trying to find new ones.
Aim for repeat visitors
Often people will buy on their THIRD visit to a site, not the
first. So you'll miss out badly if your traffic is not
interesting and useful enough to encourage people to return.
Planning a banner farm? Don't even waste time thinking about it.
Affiliate networks are a good place to start
Networks provide guidelines for the merchants in them, so you
know you're associated with quality programs if you're with the
networks.
They're free for affiliates to join.
The best network is
http://www.commission-junction.com/track/ because they consolidate checks from all their different
merchants into one big check, allowing you to easily experiment
with many different programs. Other networks include the
LinkShare Corporation,http://service.bfast.com/bfast and
http://www.plugingo.com/ .
Amazon makes it easy
The
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos
associate program has a few faults, but it's still a good one
to join, especially if you're new to affiliate programs.
Amazon, one of the pioneers in the affiliate marketing
industry, knows how to make things nice and easy for new
affiliates. You write a book review, put it on your site and
link to the book at Amazon.com.
If you want to, you can create a large or small online
bookstore, but Amazon says that's not necessary.
You benefit because Amazon.com is a high-profile site with a
good reputation. I like Amazon.com because of its low prices and
mammoth selection of books.
Here are examples of how it works
I read this book and want to recommend it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec
by Greg Helmstetter and Pamela Metivier. That link will take
you to the right page at Amazon.com. "Affiliate Selling" is a
good, solid, comprehensive introduction to affiliate marketing,
without any hype. To buy the book, just click add to shopping
cart.
Another helpful book I've read is Jaclyn Easton's
http://www.amazon.com
The title says it all. It's a fascinating, useful book.
If you're thinking of adding a bookshop to your site, see it as
a useful service for your visitors. I don't regard it as an
excellent way to make money.
Four weeks of Amazon results
In my first four weeks as an Amazon associate on a neglected
little hobby sitehttp://www.ozemail.com.au/~coeliac I earned
$10.76 from 73 visitors sent to Amazon.com.
Not much? Sure, but that was on a site that gets a few thousand
visitors a year. Also, it took only about half an hour to set up
the little bookstore and even if I merely maintained a weekly
average commission of $2.69, that would be $139.88 in a year for
30 minutes work.
Write reviews in your newsletter
Remember, you can provide book reviews in your newsletter you
can also review CDs, for example those available from
http://cdnow.com/from=sr-817934 .
Lack of results
More than a few affiliates have complained about lack of
results from various affiliate merchants. It's difficult to know
whether this is because these affiliates have unrealistic
expectations or if there's a more serious reason.
It takes a lot of traffic for an associate program to work
well. Perhaps 0.5% of your visitors will click on a banner and
when they get to the site, perhaps 1% or 2% of them will
actually buy something.
For that reason, unless you have a truly innovative idea, don't
look at associate programs as your major revenue earner. See
them as a handy gap filler useful if you can't attract all the
advertisers you want.
You can also view them as a way of adding income streams to an
existing business.
(Writing personal endorsements instead of using banners can
boost your sales dramatically. In the Associate Programs
Newsletter, I've reported a case where personal endorsements
achieved truly astounding click-throughs of about 50%.)
Start your own network
If you're really smart, you won't just become an associate,
you'llhttp://www.affiliatezone.com/al/
. Craig Belcher's Affiliate Link software is a good, low-budget
way of doing that.
See also How to set up your own affiliate program
List your associate/reseller program
Associates and vendors: Be the first to list an
associate/affiliate/partner/reseller program in the
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/ and I'll post your referring
ID number or your referring URL FREE.
Earn free mailings
Instead of money, some companies offer discounts. One example is
PostMaster Direct Response, which provides 100% opt-in bulk
e-mail. It sends its messages only to people who have asked to
be on a list.
Click here to learn more:
http://www.postmasterdirect.com
(If you sign up while you're there, I'll earn a discount on my
next order.) Postmaster Direct Response is a good, non-spam way
to promote your business to a targeted list of people who have
chosen to be on one of the many lists available.
Paying per lead and per sale
http://www.musictus.com/webmaster/bannerad.html">http://www.musictus.com/webmaster
Excellent marketing advice
Here's the book that got my business started on the Internet:
I'm an associate selling the excellent book "Insider Internet
Marketing" by Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing. I receive a $US10
commission every time someone clicks on
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&c=money&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace and buys the book.
Making money on the Internet is NOT very difficult, says Jim. And
it just got a lot easier . . .
Jim Daniels, author of
Insider Internet Marketing, tells you how to use the secrets he
has spent a lot of time and hard work learning.
I strongly recommend this book. It may not be right for veteran
Net marketers who already know it all, but for anyone else it's
perfect. Without bothering to do any promotion other than
mention it on my web site, I receive a small cheque every month.
My March, 1998, commission was $US50 and they gradually
increased since then. I use many of Jim Daniels' ideas to
promote this site.http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&c=money&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace Even
veteran web marketers may find the book reminds them of a few
good marketing ideas they've forgotten. JDD will also set up a
cheap, easy, commission system that makes it easy for you to
sell the book.
More information
For more details of how associate programs operate, marketing
tips and interviews with affiliate program winners, see the
Associate Programs Newsletter archives
Other people's opinions
http://www.refer-it.com/owner
http://www.revenews.com/
http://www.adbility.com/wpag
http://www.musictus.com/webmaster
http://www.2-tier.com/
http://www.associate-it.com
Good anti-fraud advice
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace
http://www.worldwidescam.com/
http://www.riskybusiness.org
http://www.fraud.org
http://www.scambusters.org/
http://www.scamfreezone.com/
http://www.natlconsumersleague.org/
http://www.netscams.com/
http://www.coriolis.com/webpsychos Tips for
spotting scams.
http://www.cybercops.org/index.html
http://www.alexanderlaw.com/nccc/
http://www.mlmlaw.com/
http://www.acc.gov.au/smallbus
Anti-spam advice
http://www.cauce.org
http://www.junkbusters.com/
http://www.consumer.net/
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