Affiliate Marketing: Is This For You ?

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing

It’s a fact that many affiliate marketers are earning a substantial income.

The question: Will it work for everyone?

The simple answer: No, it won’t !

I made a conscious decision to give Internet Affiliate Marketing a try a few months ago, motivated by the fact that I wanted to supplement my income. So I began clicking on those pesky little ads that keep popping up in my email account.

Before a week went by my daily average of incoming emails of 12-15 per day jumped to around 60-80 per day. And my spam filter went from 30-40 pieces of trash each day to somewhere above 150. All I wanted was information on “Home Business Opportunities.” Well the floodgates opened and I have been swamped ever since.




What Affiliate Marketing is All About

If you aren’t really sure what affiliate marketing is, then here’s a brief description: Affiliate marketing is a means for you to sell products–in my case it was digital products like ebooks on “How To Do Something or Other” and computer software. I signed up with a company that offers 10s of thousands of such products.

Next I chose a few products that were of interest to me and I contacted the authors (Vendors) via their “Affiliates”link. Sounds pretty simple so far, and so far none of this activity has cost me a more than I’d pay for a dinner for two. In fact, if you can complete the steps that follow, you can earn extra income with Very Little Cash Outlay!

Here’s How to Get Started
One of the largest, most visible, most reliable purveyors of digital products in this country is ClickBank. In their 10 years of business they have paid out over 1.4 Billion Dollars in affiliate commissions. To register with CB go to clickbank.com. Fill out your contact information (so they’ll know where to send the checks) and select a CB “nickname.”
Once registered with CB, click on “Marketplace at the top of the homepage. Here you can search for products you think you might be able to sell. At least for starters, choose products that are somewhat familiar to you. I chose “Digital Photography” and “Weddings” first, since I’m a wedding photographer. Once you have selected a product, click on “Pitch Page.” This is the page that a potential buyer sees when searching for information.
If you like what the author has to say about his product, back up to the previous page and click on his “Affiliate Link.” This page will give you a “pitch” to sign up. You’ll learn what the commission rate is that he pays for each sale. This varies–some average 50% to 75% of the selling price. The author may also offer some tools to make your job easier. You will also be provided with your affiliate link, which looks something like this: http:// (your affiliate ID).(product ID).hop.clickbank.net. ClickBank also provides an encrypted link to prevent “affiliate hijackers” from stealing your commissions.
Next you need to let the world know that you have a particular product for sale. The time-proven method for doing this is “Article Marketing.” The Internet is populated with scores of free article sites. You will write articles about your product and post them. I started off by reading articles about similar products just to get a feel for what to say and how to say it.
Be certain to read the article site’s publisher or author guidelines. These folks can be really picky about what they publish. Most will scrap any article that begins and ends with a sales pitch. Every article site I post to stresses “Content” above all. The article should provide an answer to the searchers question or problem. Someone searching for information on digital cameras isn’t necessarily looking to buy an ebook on digital photography. It’s up to you to give them some basic tips on how to use a digital camera and how to take great photos, and then give them the link (the hop link from CB) to a source of additional information.
6. Many of the top-rated article sites like squidoo.com do not permit you to use a “direct affiliate link” in your article. So unless you are prepared to purchase a domain name and pay monthly hosting for a website that would serve as an intermediate link, stick with sites like this one, www.goarticles.com. You’ll see my direct affiliate link below.
Most of the free article sites are able to offer free article posting because they also post those “pesky little ads” on the same page as your article. The good news is that some sites share that revenue with with their authors on the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads.
From this point on the whole process is on “autopilot.” The purchaser clicks through the link in your article to the vendor’s pitch page and fills in the credit card information. ClickBank verifies the purchase and supplies a link to where the purchaser downloads the product. Meanwhile you may be sound asleep or taking a nap on the beach or by the pool.
More than 90% of the new affiliate marketers who sign up this week will eventually fail. They give up because there were no instant riches pouring into their bank accounts. You see, being successful as an affiliate requires a sincere, ongoing effort. A handful of articles on a couple of sites just won’t add much toward your retirement. This is definitely not a lazy man’s sport!

Decide and Let’s Start

So decide if you interest affiliate marketing and want to make money with it. Let’s start to learning today and get success tomorrow. Don’t waste your time for play a game. Let’s make money and become rich !