Affiliate Marketing Review

2005-11-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

6 Things to Increase Your Affiliate Income by Nell Taliercio

So you've signed up for affiliate programs, posted links around the net but you're still only making pocket change? Wonder what others are doing that you aren't? Below you will find 6 things that every affiliate marketer needs to increase their income.

#1 - Your own Website:

Build a website to promote the product. Make sure it has its own paid for domain name (yourproduct.com), not a free site like (yourproduct.othersitename.com). If you don't know how to build a website there are lots of places that offer simple site builders or you could choose to have someone build a site for you.

#2 - Write reviews:

You need to know your product and preferable use it yourself so that you can write honest reviews about it. What better way to promote a product and get people to believe it's great than to say you use it too? Post these reviews on your website, in your newsletters, articles and any other site you visit that gives you an opportunity to do so.

#3 - Use a Blog:

I recommend that you get a Blog and link back and forth to your website. This will allow you to create discussions on the blog about the product you are selling and list any updates to your regular website. Active Blogs are indexed quicker by many search engines than are new sites, and after the blog is indexed, the pages you have linked to the blog will also get indexed.

#4 - Write Articles:

One of the best ways to become an expert on your product is to write articles on the Internet and include a link to your website in the resource box. There is a plethora of places to submit articles and the more you write, the more people will trust what you are saying. You get more exposure, more people coming to your website; more click thorough of your affiliate link to purchase the product thus making you more money.

#5 - Put your links in your signature lines:

Never allow a sale to pass you by! If you are a member of even one forum, you need to have your affiliate link in your signature line. It's free advertisement and you never know who will see it and click through to check out your product.

#6 - Use Links instead of banners or buttons:

Due to the overwhelming amount of pop-ups and flashy text that we get each time we visit a website, people have learned to block out these as well as banners and buttons. It's much more professional looking and effective to have a text link with a few lines about the product.

If you are serious about increasing your affiliate income I suggest you at least do some further research on the things I have listed. If you choose to use these suggestions and take the time to do them correctly, I believe you will see an increase in your income.

About the Author
Nell Taliercio is the owner of a leading work at home mom resource website packed full of fresh content for the telecommuter, business owner and virtual assistant. Visit http://www.mommysplace.net today!

2005-11-07T17:40:00.000-08:00

Guitar Affiliate Programs by P.J. Murphy

To find out how to make money from your guitar website - provided you already have valuable content - visit my Affiliate guide page at http://affiliates.guitarsongs.info

I have tried and rejected dozens of affiliation 'opportunities' over the past six years - this article will show you the sites which will provide what you seek - value-added content to your website... and checks in the mailbox.

P.J. Murphy
Webmaster,
PJ's Guitar Chords and Lyrics
http://www.guitarsongs.info
Mail: pjmurphy@guitarsongs.info
About the Author
Webmaster, PJ's Guitar Chords and Lyrics ( www.guitarsongs.info ). Website has been supplying resources to learning guitarists since 1999 and has had over 7 million visitors.

2005-11-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

Top eBay Affiliate Paid 1.2 Million in December by Howard Young

REQUIREMENTS FOR REPRINT: You have permission to publish this article free of charge in your ezine, newsletter, ebook, print publication or on your Website ONLY if it remains unchanged and you include the copyright, author information, and an active link to the authors Website (Resource Box) at the end. You may not use this article in solicited or unsolicited commercial email.

Top eBay Affiliate Paid 1.2 Million in December

Copyright2004 Howard Young

When eBay sent an e-mail to all of its Commission Junction Affiliates that its top affiliate was paid over 1.2 million for December 2003, I hurriedly ran to the Post Office to see if my check was there. It wasn't there, of course, nor was "the check in the mail."

Considering that eBay pays $0.05 per "Buy it Now" or bids and $5.00 per active registration, you can visualize the massive amount of traffic one affiliate had to send to eBay to receive a gross revenue of 1.2 million.

We can only speculate the spread between bids and registrations, but for simplicity sake, let's only review the higher payoff of registrations. eBay has a seven-tiered active registration program starting at $5.00 and increasing to $16.00 as you register more users. The second tier -- or breakeven point -- starts at 250 registrations where registrations increase to $8.00.

The metrics collected by Commission Junction indicate that the conversion rate for eBay is about $5.00 per 100 clicks or $0.05 per click. Coincidentally, this is the lowest price you can bid for an ad on Google Adwords.

After you register your first 250 eBay users, your gross revenue is $1,250 while your advertising costs are $1,250 -- a net profit of zero. With your next 250 registered users, your gross revenue increases to $3,250 while your Adwords cost only increases to $2,500 for a net profit of $750.

If you solve all the equations, you'll find that to gross 1.2 million it takes roughly 76,360 active registrations. Moreover, if the affiliate used Google Adwords to generate the traffic to eBay, the advertising costs were about $381,800 with a net profit of $818,200.

As indicated, this is all speculation on how the eBay affiliate generated this type of cash flow. However, I can testify that the process of using Google Adwords is a valid business model that we use 24/7 to generate affiliate leads and sales.

Although, with trail and error, you could implement a Google Adwords campaign to generate sales, it will cost you a signification portion of your advertising budget to fine-tune and optimize your ads. Or, you could read "Google Cash - How to Earn Thousands Writing Google Adwords Part Time" and take the headache out of a pay-per-click campaign.

Google Cash is a well documented step-by-step process on how to use Google Adwords -- in conjunction with Affiliate Programs -- to generate affiliated leads and sales. The author, Chris Carpenter, outlines several case studies which he uses to generate substantial revenue. Follow his advice and you will operate successful Adword campaigns.

Based on our experiences, the processes outlined in Google Cash generate revenue. But keep in mind that you have to find the correct products to sell that give you the highest leverage for your advertising dollar. Remember our 1.2 million eBay affiliate? The breakeven in advertising cost was $1,250 using Adwords. Read Google Cash and you won't need a large budget to generate positive cash flow and the check will be in the mail!

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Author: Howard Young
About: Howard Young is a freelance writer and site administrator for Fizziebooks where you can read reviews and commentary on ebooks and eproducts.
Website: http://www.fizziebooks.com
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About the Author
Howard Young is a freelance writer and site administrator for Fizziebooks where you can read reviews and commentary on ebooks and eproducts.

2005-11-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

7 Powerful Tactics To Promote Any Affiliate Program Instantly by Ewen Chia

Copyright 2005 Ewen Chia

Affiliate marketing is truly one of the most powerful and easiest models online to generate massive cash quickly, fact is you can get started in minutes from now without the hassle of creating your own products or websites.

While there're many factors to consider in the affiliate marketing business, one of the most critical questions I get every time from newer marketers is always...

Ewen, How Do I Promote My Affiliate Link?"

Here then are 7 powerful tactics you can use today to promote any affiliate program with:

==> Tactic #1: Your Own Opt-In List

If you've your own existing opt-in list this would obviously be the quickest way to start. However I'd like to provide you with some ideas to maximize the response and results you wouldn't otherwise get if you never applied them.

It's always a good tactic to provide some kind of time-sensitive bonuses to entice your list to buy through your affiliate link. It has always work and it'll continue to work.

You should also do at least 3 follow-up mailings as statistics have proven that you will get the most sales from your 2nd and 3rd mailings.

Now what if you don't have your own list to begin with?

The most logical action would be to seriously consider building your own money-making list without delay. A complete course to build and profit from your own opt-in list is at http://www.ewenchia.com/listsecrets.htm

Alternatively a 'second-rate' method is to use...

==> Tactic #2: Other People's Lists

What do I mean by this? One quick method to leverage on someone else's list is through ezine advertising, particularly with solo ads.

As in all kinds of advertising, what you want to do besides advertising the affiliate program is also to build your own list. A simple way to do this while promoting the affiliate program is by using a catchy one-two sentence signature file after your name.

The best advertising you can get is to pre-qualified targeted lists of like-minded people, especially people with money in hand. While these are rare and even harder to identify, an amazing resource can be found here
http://www.ewenchia.com/ultimatetraffic.htm

==> Tactic #3: Google AdWords

You can start promoting any affiliate program in less than 15 minutes with pay-per-click advertising, especially Goolge AdWords.

Since Jan 6th 2005, there had been some changes to Google's policies regarding advertising of affiliate products on Google AdWords.

Without going into boring details, you can still advertise affiliate programs by using landing pages customized to the affiliate program you're promoting.

As I've provided in detail exactly how you can use Google AdWords in "Striking Affiliate Gold", I won't repeat it again. You can download a copy of the manual at http://undergroundsalesletters.com/strikegold.pdf

==> Tactic #4: Article Marketing

This is one tactic you got to get started on because it works.

I've made tons of affiliate sales purely from articles. In fact, one of my articles generated over 25 affiliate sales in a little over 3 days on autopilot.

The key to successful article writing is to provide real information and tips. Make sure it doesn't sound like an outright sales pitch. Any recommendations you make should be added value to the article. The recommendation should not be its main purpose.

Again I won't be repeating information I've already covered. If you're interested in using articles as an affiliate promotional weapon, download these two revealing reports I've written:

http://www.marketingebookreview.com/LifetimeTraffic.pdf
http://www.stuffyourinboxwithcash.com/lazy.zip

==> Tactic #5: Leverage On Your Existing Web Pages

There're 3 main ways to go about doing this...

One is to simply promote your affiliate programs on highly trafficked and relevant pages of your website. Check your website statistics to see which pages visitors view the most. These are great target areas for your promotions, especially if they are relevant to the affiliate product in question.

Two, recommend affiliate products on your thank you pages. After a visitor has made a purchase from you or sign up for your ezine, all you've to do is add in a short recommendation of an affiliate product prominently on the thank you page.

Third, use your custom error (404) pages as affiliate marketing tools. This is the page that shows up when visitors enter a wrong URL or extension, there's no point in wasting this space so why not use it to promote an affiliate product?

==> Tactic #6: Capture Exit Traffic On Demand

You can quickly make extra affiliate sales just by using an exit window or pop up window to promote your affiliate programs.

While there're popup killers out there, you'll be surprised just how many percent of people actually install them - I don't.

Fact is, pop ups, especially exit pop ups still produce good results. Stick with one tasteful pop-up targeted to your visitors and youll see great results.

==> Tactic #7: Other Quick And Simple Tips

Recommend affiliate products in your 'thank you emails'.

This is a no-brainer, whether youre saying thanks for joining your ezine or for buying a product, always give your email recipients an affiliate recommendation for a targeted product you've personally found useful.

You can also create autoresponder courses on topics related to the affiliate program you're promoting as a form of follow-up preselling.

That's it for now and I hope this article has been useful. If you're interested, you can read the FULL article at
http://www.ewenchia.com/affiliate.html

Go and profit from your affiliate programs with confidence!
About the Author
Ewen Chia's Free Secret Manual "Web
Money Formula" Reveals How You Can
Start Making Quick Cash Online In As
Little As 7 Days...Even From Scratch!
Click Now For Instant Download:
http://www.InstantMarketingSecrets.com

2005-11-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

6 tips on becoming a successful affiliate by Damon Willis

As most of you know it takes a lot more than just a great product to translate into dollars in your bank account. The six tips I want to share with you are the same tips I give my partners (also known as affiliates) who sell my product. We all know myself included that becoming an affiliate for a product you believe in can be very exciting, but lets channel that energy and enthusiasm into success!

1.The first tip is extremely important; you need to know your product! I know that most affiliate programs are free and it can be frustrating when you have to consider spending money on the product youre selling, but sometimes spending as little as thirty bucks to start a career seems like a great investment to me.

2.The second tip is to build a great website. If you dont have any web publishing skills there are tons of free sites with web templates that make your job easy such as Tripod or Lycos who will host your website for free. After youve built a great site ask yourself a few questions, would you visit this website? And more importantly; what would make you revisit this website. Remember only one out of every hundred visitors will purchase the product you sell so make sure the quality of your website isnt the reason they go elsewhere.

3.Offering free stuff is the best way to draw traffic to your website. You can usually increase your web traffic up to 400% just by offering something free like an article or maybe a free e-book. Now that you have visitors to your site its up to you and the quality of your product to keep them there.

4.Advertising your website is vital to your companys survival because without different forms of advertising nobody knows that your product exists. It takes a while to figure out which advertising methods are the most effective for your company so concentrate on the hits and get rid of the misses. I go further into depth on the subject of advertising in another article which is available on my website.

5.The fifth tip is that you must choose the right keywords and the right Meta tags to insert into your website. The reason is that, this is the way search engines decide on what your ranking will be when someone types in a keyword. Now choosing the right keywords can be a tough challenge but there are tools to help, such SEOs or search engine optimizers as well as a host of other tools that will help you get that top 20 ranking. Remember 80% of your website hits will probably come from search engines, so your keywords are vital.

6.Last but not least, our sixth tip is to trade links with reputable websites. What this does for you is increase your website credibility and it usually makes your web ranking skyrocket when you link to sites that have a higher ranking. Remember to choose sites relevant or similar to the content on your website because that click-through from another website could turn into a paying customer.

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Damon Willis is the author of a new book titled
How to start a successful daycare business
http://www.startadaycarecenter.com or email to:damonwillis@startadaycarecenter.com
The article is free to publish with my permission but you must run the article as it appears.

About the Author
Damon Willis CEO of Open Arms Information Services and author of the new book titled "How to start a daycare business" has worked countless hours improving the Pasadena community. Whether it's charity work or providing information Damon Willis delivers.

2005-10-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

Affiliate Marketing- Part I by John Benjamin (ProMinds Inc)

"A system of advertising in which site A agrees to feature buttons from site B, and site A gets a commission on any sales generated for site B. It can also be applied to situations in which an advertiser may be looking for marketing information, rather than a cash sale. Popular among startups with very small marketing budgets."

This is what you get when you do a search in Google for the definition of Affiliate Marketing.

I still remember, my early days of induction into the world of Internet Marketing, more specifically "Affiliate Marketing."

Till then, I was completely oblivious to this term. For most of us, Affiliate marketing is a term that has different meanings. Let me first move to the other side of the line and say that affiliate marketing is nothing but unnecessary pop ups, newsletter spam, affiliate tracking code cloaking and much more.

Now from the other side of the line, Affiliate Marketing is a way to market your products online by signing up affiliates who have websites and are willing to advertise your products on their site, in return earning a certain percentage of the commission from the sales they generate.

If you take a closer look, for one particular product or a company, you will find server loads of affiliates, marketing the company or a product. Now this is an indicator to itself of the way you market your products on the Internet.

To talk about Affiliate Marketing, this one article would not suffice. Hence, I have divided it into a series of articles. Although I am very tempted to first write about "The tools to improve an affiliate's conversions" let me stick to the chronology.

Why does a company need an affiliate program?

Having defined, affiliate marketing, the next obvious question that arises is, why a company needs affiliates when it can market its products on its own.

To answer this, while a company may be very huge in terms of the infrastructure, or has a really successful product, it cannot sit silent and bank on its own strengths.
Further to this, a company cannot customize the look and feel of the site to suit the tastes of the local markets. Although there are tools where you can cloak your website, it would involve a lot of complexity in terms of the technical and marketing demands. Hence, arises the need for affiliates.

What makes a company look for affiliates?

Lets face it. Every website which has a decent hit rate does enjoy a certain niche market. It is mostly for the smaller sites that you see a higher percentage of customer loyalty. There are various reasons to this; one most obvious factor is the service and the personalization provided by the smaller sites. It is sites like these which attract companies to negotiate them into signing up as an affiliate.

The mistakes most companies make:
In my experience, working with the affiliate program, one huge error made was that most companies which are into affiliate marketing just design the specs and set it up on their website and wait for webmasters to sign up with them.

Now you never know the kind of traffic you would be attracting. This where the 80:20 rule comes in the picture and that is how most of the companies strategize their affiliate marketing efforts.

A more detailed article about this can be found, entitled: "Eliminating the 80:20 rule"

Do you think you are ready to sign up as an affiliate?

Perhaps, for most of us, this question never seem to arise because of the fact that the commissions offered to an affiliate is huge enough to blind us from the most basic and simple facts to begin with. Lets face it, if a company offers you a huge commission for selling their products, you can rest assured that it will take you a lot of time and effort to make a single sale. I would not quote any numbers here as the commissions differ from one market sector product to another.

A few pointers to keep in mind before signing up as an affiliate:

1. Take stock of the situation.
Or as the "Gurus" call it, make a SWOT analysis of your site. This will present your website in a very plain and subtle way. Through this you would know where your website's strength lies in.

2. Scout for the right product for you.
This is common sense, but let me reiterate this fact. Always sign up for products you think will fit in with your website's theme. You would not want to be a web host and sign up as an affiliate, selling another web host who promises to give you a 50% commission. Now that would be very silly to do. The bottom line is that sign up for services that will "Add Value" to the services provided by your website.

3. The Affiliate Terms & Conditions.

This is the saddest part of affiliate marketing. In my experience, I used to come across at least 2 cases of misunderstood affiliates who feel they are cheated out in the deal. Always ensure that you read the terms & conditions carefully and clarify with the company incase you have any further queries.

4. Prepare your site.
Another major problem in affiliate marketing is tracking. Always ensure that you have some tools and logs to monitor the traffic on your site and if possible the outgoing links, clicks, etc. Lets face it, no matter how big a company is, setting up the perfect affiliate tracking tools is something which I have not come across so far. So there will always be a situation where in you will have to lose out on a conversion. Make sure that you have your back covered with the tools so that your case will have credibility.

Remember, a company would never want to deny an affiliate, especially if the affiliate is really genuine. Why? Im sure you know the reasons.

5. Affiliate Networks or Direct Affiliate?
Now that you have all the details with you, the next question is whether to sign up with an affiliate network of to sign up directly as the company's affiliate. There are a few things to consider here. I would not restrain you from signing up with either of the entities as both have their pros and cons.

a) If you are looking at a reasonably good tracking system and hassle free set up, then Affiliate Networks would be the right place for you.

b) If you are not quite sure of the products you want to sell, but you want to set up some affiliate banners, then affiliate networks is the best place to sign up.

c) If you think you can handle the terms & condition put forth by the company and if you are fairly adept in setting up a foolproof system on your site then sign up with the company directly. It will also help you negotiate a custom deal which will offer you much higher payouts as compared to signing up with networks.

Keep in mind that affiliate networks are nothing but sites just like yours who sign up as a master affiliate. By setting up their infrastructure, tracking, etc they allow various other people to sign up through them. What happens in this case is that the affiliate networks are the master affiliates, while you become the sub affiliate. So what this means is that the extra commission earned by the networks for the sales you bring, a part of it is used towards providing you with better service. And there are a few networks which also charge you a certain fee for the transactions.
But do not think that signing up directly will be a better deal. Because although this will provide you with direct interact with the company and in most cases, with the account manager, you will have to be 100% of your tracking and other problems that might arise.

So if you are ready to make some serious money and efforts towards marketing a product, then go ahead, there is no better way to do it than through affiliate marketing and no, I am not talking about Google AdSense here.
About the Author
John Benjamin works as a freelance consultant for Internet Marketing. His website has various articles listed at http://www.promindsinc.com

He also has a forum where you can find all the articles, discussions at http://www.promindsinc.com/bb/

2005-10-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

Affiliate Programs that Earn a Profit by Ratliff J

This information may be helpful for everyone, regardless of how long you have been in the affiliate business, or even if you are just getting started.

First, a good affiliate program can be hard to come by. It needs to offer decent commissions, accurately track sales, and most importantly, pay their affiliates in a timely manner.

Many webmasters and internet gurus are doing very well with only a handful of affiliate programs. Once you find a good one, you kind of seem to get stuck on it until you are positive you are making every penny possible.

Before spending a lot of time and money marketing an affiliate program, always check it out first. There are a number of ways to do this.

1. Search through an affiliate directory online and look for ratings or comments. I have my Affiliate Directory setup so people can rate programs, which helps everyone.

2. Ask them how many affiliate they have, and what the top earners are making, as well as the average affiliate.

3. Give the program a trial run - just enough to make a few sales that will allow you to recieve a payment from them. This will ensure they pay as offered.

4. Keep records.

To see my affiliate program directory, please visit the Affiliate Program Directory.

TO learn more about becoming an affiliate, or to join a great affiliate program, check out Make Money Online.

About the Author
J. Ratliff is an affiliate marketer since 1999. He is also the author of the Affiliate Program Directory.

2005-10-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Creating Webmasters by Jess Marion

Most webmasters know that to get paid by the sites you advertise, you need to find a way to get traffic to your site. This is because a small percentage of people that visit your site will look at your ads, and an even smaller percentage will actually make a purchase. This process takes alot of time and money.
Most affiliate programs have several forms of advertisement including banners, text links and free content. There is one in particular that is often overlooked. Many companies pay alot more for a webmaster referal than an actual sale. If not a straight forward sum of money, they usually give you a percentage of the refered webmaster's sales. These seem to be the greatest payoffs because getting another webmaster to advertise for a company that you yourself are advertising is very rare. This is because the type of traffic you are targeting does not include experienced webmasters. You would have to have a website targeted toward this target category.
So how does one get webmaster traffic to their webmaster ads? Well, why not create them?
Experienced webmasters usually pick a niche and stick with it, basing their sites around certain targets. This makes it even more difficult to refer webmasters to a very specific advertising category. The most ideal traffic would be people who want to make money advertising who haven't chosen a niche in internet marketing. So how does one attract fresh meat? Easy. Offer something for free. Now what can you offer for free in exchange for deciding to be a webmaster and advertise with your companies? Something that they don't yet have and will most definitly need: a website.
This sounds like alot of trouble to go through, considering the time you've put into developing your own site, and the cost of registering a domain name. But think about it. If you can guarantee a refered webmaster in exchange for registering their domain, you'll be making a huge profit. I register my domains with a registrar that charges $6.95 a month. If you only register their domain for the first month, thats not alot out of your pocket, considering that some affiliate programs I advertise for pay as much as $100 per webmaster referal! That's a profit of $93 for a single referal. Now for the site design. All you would have to do would be to create a one page website centered around the product or service you promote. This way, you can attract the costomer by not only a very cheap, completely set up site and domain name, but also making money in the process. Most companies provide lots of free selling tools, content, and information. Your costomer would have to sign up for the affiliate programs through your code so you can make your money, and they can make theirs. You would not have to download any materials again after this, because you can use the exact same code for the exact same site over and over again.
So basically, you are offering a complete one page web site which requires that they sign up as a webmaster through your codes, which anyone would be willing to do for cheap webpage and the chance to make money. Therefore, you can charge as little as one cent for copying and pasting html code into the free page of the domain's registrar, and make all your money from the companies you promote. You could even give this service away for free and make as much money as you want!
The best part about this system is that anyone can be a potential costomer, because everyone wants something free and easy, no matter what it is. Advertising a free website will make almost everyone who visits your page will make you a large sum of money. Even though this works with any company, I find it is easier to offer adult websites because the payout is usually higher for a webmaster referal. They also offer alot of free content which can be used as the content of the entire site. Using this method, I am finally making all the revenue that these companies promised me.
About the Author
Jess Marion is an expert webmaster. He specializes in affiliate marketing. He looks forward to a long career in advertising.

2005-10-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

10 Profit Boosting Tips To Increase The Success Of Your Affiliate Program by Ken Hill

1. Develop credible, benefit rich ad copy, along with a well designed site to increase your sign ups, and also your affiliates' conversion rates.

2. Submit your affiliate program to directories that list affiliate programs.

These directories attract lots of people interested in joining affiliate programs, and will increase your sign ups by giving you good ongoing promotion of your affiliate program.

3. Pay your affiliates well for promoting your products.

Offering your affiliates a high commission rate for their referrals of your products will increase the number of affiliates that join your affiliate program and also help you to better compete with other businesses for affiliates.

To make your affiliate program even more appealing to your visitors, pay residual commissions if you sell a product or service that your customers pay for on an ongoing basis such as webhosting or access to your private members only site.

In addition, you can increase your sign ups by making your affiliate program two-tier, where your affiliates earn commissions on their own referrals and also on the referrals of affiliates they've personally referred to your affiliate program.

4. Track the sales you get from your affiliates fairly and accurately.

Track phone orders and mail in orders. Only offer payment options to your customers that your affiliates will get paid a commission on if they refer that customer to you.

In addition, pay your affiliates promptly for the sales they refer to you. Don't make your affiliates wait months to receive their checks from you or set minimum payment requirements that are too high for the majority of your affiliates to meet.

5. Provide your affiliates with resources that they can use to get more sales of your products such as ads, banners, button ads, and sample recommendations.

Also include promotional items such as marketing courses that your affiliates can use to promote your products or ebooks that they can rebrand with their affiliate URL.

If you write articles allow your affiliates to run these in their ezines or post them on their sites with their affiliate URLs in your resource box.

6. Answer any questions you get about your affiliate program from your visitors or affiliates as quickly as you can.

Remember that nothing will turn your visitors or affiliates off of your affiliate program faster than an unanswered email. Strive to answer all your emails quickly and in a professional and friendly manner.

7. Provide ways for your affiliates to network with each other.

You could provide a message board or chat room where your affiliates can interact with one another, and learn more about how to successfully promote your products.

Your message boards or chat rooms will also provide you with an excellent chance to show your support for your affiliates and to help them to get started marketing your products with your own tips and advice.

8. Give special recognition to your top earning affiliates by giving them bonuses for the sales they bring you or by paying them a special higher commission based on their performance.

9. Publish an affiliates only newsletter.

Your newsletter will help you to successfully provide your affiliates with tips and techniques that they can use to get more sales of your products.

Publishing your newsletter will also help you to keep your affiliates up to date on any new products you've added that your affiliates can promote, and can help you to increase your profits by notifying your affiliates when you're running a special sale or promotion.

10.Show your appreciation of your top affiliates by mentioning them, their sites, and strategies they use to promote your products in your newsletter.

This will provide you with an effective way to increase their loyalty to your program while providing your other affiliates with excellent tips and strategies for them to use to successfully promote your products.

About the Author
Article by writer, Ken Hill. Start Your Own Profit Creating Affiliate Program! Amazing all-in-one solution includes affiliate program software, newbie friendly shopping cart, unlimited autoresponders, easy newsletter management and much more to increase your sales! Get your no cost 30 day trial now at: http://www.scstats.com/r.cfm?i=5029

2005-10-23T17:39:00.000-07:00

What You Need To Know Before Joining Affiliate Programs by Shelia Garrett

What You Need To Know Before Joining Affiliate Programs
@2004 by Shelia Garrett

An affiliate program is a revenue-sharing arrangement, whereby the affiliate (you), receive payment from the owner of a product or service that you promote on their behalf. They are also called Associate Programs, Re-seller Programs, Commission or Pay-Per-Sale, Pay-Per-Click and Click-Through
Programs.

Affiliates refer surfers to someone elses product or service, and get paid a referral fee or commission for
every sale that is made. It's a win-win situation! You get extra traffic and sales, and they get a piece of the action for their products being sold.

An affiliate makes a commission that may vary between 5% and 15% of the purchase price. Some programs offer as much as 50%.

There are two types of affiliate programs. They are Single-Tier and Two-Tier. With a single-tier you are paid a
commission for any sale that you refer and thats it. With a two-tier you are paid a small percentage of any sales
generated by affiliates that you recruit to join their program. The best tier to join is the Two-Tier.

Who should join Affiliate Programs?

- People looking to start Internet businesses that do not have a product or service of their own.

- Established e-business owners looking to diversity their income

- E-business owners who have an established Affiliate Program of their own

These are some benefits to joining an Affiliate Program:

- it allows you to start a home business immediately

- you do not need to develop a product or service yourself to sell

- it is a great way to start earning a sizeable income on the internet without many of the hassles that come with
running your own business

- They are great tools for promoting your web business

Remember to always read the Affiliate agreement before you sign up for a program. You do not want to do business with a company that has a really high pay out. These programs
require you to accumulate hundreds of dollars in sales before they will issue you the first check.
About the Author
Written by Shelia Garrett
Shelia Garrett has been on the net for two years. She has joined the number one affiliate program, The Internet Marketing Center (IMC) Affiliate.
This program can be found at this website:
http://www.marketingtips.com/sr/t.x/792559

2005-10-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

Earn a 6 Figure Income the EAS by Terah J. Logan

Business Reviewed: Six Figure Income
Price: Free To Join.
Author: Terah J Logan, Chief Critic, www.simplesteps2success.biz

My favorite business opportunity hands down is Six Figure
Income (SFI). This program has been around for many years
and there is good reason for this. Clearly explained and
realistic, if you give this business a chance to grow and
you tend it like you would your most precious garden, a
full time income with this business will, without doubt,
happen.

SFI is free to join with free promotional banners, gateway
sites, and printable flyers that you will have no problem
getting leads from. You simply generate traffic to your
site(s) and SFI does the rest. Even the most seasoned
marketer leaves the recruiting and sales up to SFI. Why
not? They do an awesome job and you can focus on one
thing.... traffic. (Even the traffic they help with through
free training, manuals, and if you are ambitious, you can
buy into the co-op advertising; I myself do this.)

The system is so complete. I simply love working this
program! Do what you love and the money just comes.... 100%
true!

How does it work?

Like I mentioned you join for free and you take a fast
start training program (takes about 10 minutes). You
quickly learn the nuts and bolts of this proven money
making system. The system clearly explains your goals and
how you work up the ladder to success with SFI. First you
become an affiliate, then Multi-Qualified, then you become
a Power Team Leader. You will have no problem reaching
these goals with the step-by-step help from SFI.

What is the product?

SFI markets alot of things! Internet Marketing products,
books, ebooks, home business associations, cleaning
products, pet products, plus the SFI business opportunity
itself. Depending on the approach you want to take, each
product has it's own gateway site, so there is still focus
despite the diversity. You can target and market this
opportunity to many niches.

Should you join?

If you are looking for a business that is complete with
impressive affiliate support and is free to try why not
give SFI a go? Visit
https://www.ezinfocenter.com/8489211/FREE

Here's to your success!

About the Author
========================================================
Are you serious about making money online? Do you want to
know what marketing products are valuable and what are a
waste of your valuable time and money?

Visit http://www.simplesteps2success.biz for Internet
Marketing ebooks, programs, and software reveiws. Find out
what's hot and what's not before you potentially waste your
time and money.
========================================================

2005-10-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

Affiliate Marketing: Make $$ on your own Website! by Gloria Cohen

So, how can you make affiliate marketing successful for you? With the proliferation of goods and services on available on the Internet, advertisers and web site owners galore are looking to individuals, companies and other website owners to help sell their products utilizing the power of other sites and companies to spread the word. Its another great form of marketing medium and heres the best part, to have the ability to make extra funds on the side. Many businesses are jumping in on the affiliate wagon to generate additional revenue in addition to their online niche. Whats even more interesting about affiliate marketing is that many people are in the affiliate marketing business without actually having a product or service to sell!

Affiliate marketing can be in a number of forms such as banner advertising on affiliate sites, text links, and reviews written by affiliates, direct email and so forth. The advertisers compensate webmasters by paying them for displaying the ads, or for click throughs sent to them, or (as is most common these days) a commission on the sales resulting as a referral from their web site or email message.

Many website owners and businesses are swapping ads in place of paying upfront for advertising on the other site. The only time money actually changes hands, is when you pay out a percentage for each time your link is clicked on, and the other website owner pays you for when his links get hit on from your site. One hand washes the other when it comes to affiliate marketing. The tricky part here is which program do you participate in. There are thousands of programs out there, all claiming to be number one. Being a successful affiliate will require a bit of work. With the nature of the web and hundreds of new websites going live each day, the competition becomes much more fierce, which means you will definitely have your work cut out for you. Understanding how affiliate marketing works and how much time will be required on your part would be a good place to start before you make any decisions before venturing out starting an affiliate business.

The question remains.

How do I make money and how do I use my website space to accommodate for affiliate marketing?

These are the two most important questions when it comes to affiliate marketing. First things first. You must have your own website, with your real domain hosted on a real web server with real features. Dont get any of those freebie sites please! Those sites will lose you money. If youre serious about having an affiliate program, then you must spend a little bit of money to get your own domain name that contains preferably your own keywords and/or keyword phrases. Dont forget the hosting company. Having a good hosting company is crucial to the success of your affiliate program. ( You can refer to one of eMA previous articles. "Web Hosting: Selecting the Right Host!" or go to WebHostingRebates). By having your own domain name, and your own affiliate website will guarantee you more traffic than a self-replicating website. Look legit and be legitimate.

The second important thing about affiliate marketing is how to utilize your website space for your affiliate program. The hottest things out on the affiliate market right now are in the form of text link ads. Text link ads are bandwidth friendly, dont require much space and can be implemented in most page layouts. The shorter the text links, the better the display in terms of stating your product or company name. By linking, the user can find further information of related articles and reviews about this particular link. Another way to generate money with affiliate marketing on your web site is to offer simple banner ads.
The key with banner ads is to go simple and choose the right one. With the large variety of banner ads out there, it can be a bit overwhelming when it comes to the decision process. Banners should load quickly and should not appear in the form of Spam. You wont get linked if it takes too long to download, or if it appears to be a junk banner. Do your research when it comes to banner ads for affiliate marketing. These are just a few forms of affiliate advertising you can use on your website. One more important factor is how easily it is to implement links or ads on your site, how quickly it can be set up and go live. Technical expertise will be required for work in this area.

There are many other forms of affiliate marketing programs you can take advantage of. Just hop online and begin your journey. Successful affiliate marketing will require a lot of patience. The major blunder that many people do when they start out with affiliate marketing is that they dont sit on it for a while to see it turn over. What they do is bop from one affiliate program to the next because they become so discouraged with the outcome in a very short period. Things will only go upward by being patient and allow it the chance to prosper. Like I always say-Good things come to those who wait.
About the Author
About the Author:
Gloria Cohen has a strong background in Internet marketing in helping businesses find new customers by using effective marketing strategies. Gloria is currently an editor of eMarketing Answers.

Reprint Rights:
You are free to reprint this article in your web site, newsletter, e-zine or ebook. However, please keep the authors section at the bottom of the article as is.

2005-10-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Mastering Google Adwords For Profit by James O'Keefe

Mastering Google Adwords?

Lets be honest here, Google is certainly one of the biggest players as far as search engines go. The results returned by Google are fairly accurate, and while we take them for granted we cannot forget about all the days of work that must have gone into the algorithms that sort the wheat from the chaf. As this must have cost them some serious money, it would have been unfair to expect Google to keep paid advertisers from their site and it was only a matter of time before paid advertising became an option.

Getting the Balance Right

One of the problems associated with adding paid for listings to search results is that you can't simply hide the paid for links into the results of a search term. In the early days of cost per click searches it was often the companies with the deepest pockets that were guaranteed top spot for a term. The only thing such companies had to prove was that the keyword was relevant to the term, if of course the advert had to be reviewed before going live.

Search engines that offer paid for and free listings should really differentiate between the two types of link. I know that whenever I've used a traditional pay per click search engine the top few paid for terms aren't always relevant to what I was looking for, so I like to know before I click on a link if it was paid for or not.

Paid for results are fine, so long as visitors are aware they are paid for. Any pay per click engine that clearly makes the distinction between the two keeps some of its credibility by declaring its interest in a particular link.

Google Adwords Select

I'll admit I wasn't surprised when I heard that Google was offering a new cost per click program (Adwords Select); it was only a matter of time. However, having read through the way the program works, I was pleasantly surprised. Google's approach to their pay per click program is the way forward, not only does it filter out the obvious spammers in real time, but it can cut needless costs to the advertisers while maximizing their own revenue!

There is a $5 setup fee if you want to use the Adwords Select program, and the minimum charge for a click is 5 cents. While this can work out cheaper than the normal Adwords program that is based on the cost per number of impressions, it is still enough to keep some of the much smaller web site owners out of the game as it were.

Having said that the Select program offers features that can help out those that are on a pretty tight budget. To begin with there is no minimum monthly charge, so once you've paid your setup fee you will only be charged for what you use. Another handy feature that will save you any unexpected costs you can't afford is the ability to set yourself a daily budget. As soon as you've reached your daily limit, Google will temporarily remove your adverts from the keywords you're targeting.

To make your Adwords money stretch even further, you are able to set the demographics for each of your keywords. So if you are looking for visitors from a specific region or in a particular language you can tailor your adverts accordingly, which makes it easier to deal with those quirky problems normally related to cultural differences.

The most striking difference is that you don't have to pay the most per click to get the top advertising spot for a particular keyword! Your eyes are not deceiving you, a company will have to have more than deep pockets to be able to keep your site away from that top spot.

In theory, your position in the order for sponsored links will depend on the amount you are willing to pay as well as your click through rate. These figures are multiplied together to produce a rank, which is then used to determine your position in the sponsored listings. So anyone fortunate enough to have a very healthy click through rate will be able to stay near to the top.

Room for Improvement

While Google's Adwords Select program is likely to prove to be successful, I can see scope for improvement; that is, assuming they have overlooked one point that seems so glaringly obvious.

Anyone who is capable of writing a convincing advert for the program can easily achieve a high click through rate. If the positions are determined by click through and maximum price per click alone, then it could still be possible for a search engine spammer to come in and take the best position simply by writing the most convincing advert. If spammers can make the system work for them, this could potentially be harmful to the way that Google's visitors perceive them.

The fact that Google Adwords has immediate advertisement rotation removes a certain level of protection in that a human editor does not have the chance to review the advert and make sure that it is suitable. Perhaps what is needed is for each advert to be regularly monitored to make sure that the keyword they bid on is deemed to be important in the page that they link to.

Surely Google will have the technology to be able to cope with such checks whenever an advert is submitted or changed, as well as to check that it is still relevant whenever Googlebot pays its regular visits. If they haven't implemented it already, then I think such checks will benefit everyone; Google, site owners and searchers alike!

Want to check out a fantastic product for Mastering Google Adwords? This is the best guide I have found on the market so far. And it can be tried risk free for 90 days.

Return to My Millionaire Friend

About the Author
Jim O'Keefe is a serial entrepeneur and the owner/webmaster of MyMillionaireFriend.com, TheParentalAdvocate.com and AboutRSD.com

2005-10-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

How cloaking your links can save you both time and money by Hannes Johnson

How cloaking your links can save you both time and money
(c) 2005 Hannes Johnson

You've most likely seen them in ezines, websites, etc. and quite
possibly clicked on a few of them. If you've been in affiliate
marketing you might have even used them yourself... or at least
you should have. Because it can save you both time and money.

What I'm talking about are cloaked affiliate links. That is,
small HTML files that hide your referral ID, username, member #,
etc... and/or shorten the full URL.

How Do They Work?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Usually the HTML file you use to cloak your affiliate URL
forwards the user to the actual affiliated website just moments
after clicking your cloaked link (or entering it into the web
browser). The HTML file can also be frame-based, meaning that it
will put the affiliate URL in an invisible frame so the user will
only see the URL to your cloaked link and not the URL of the
website you are directing the user to.

What Is The Purpose?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Many dishonest people will do anything they can to prevent
affiliate marketers from getting their commission for their hard
work. When people see a link that they recognize as an affiliate
link they might cut your username off and buy directly from the
website or even worse, they might replace your username with
theirs and take your commission.

Also, some people might be uncomfortable clicking on a link they
recognize as an affiliate link.

What link would you rather click on:
http://www.madisondynamics.com/index.php?13523.artcl
or
http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/recommended/madison.html

Tests have shown that up to 30% of all affiliate commissions are
STOLEN by people who replace with their own link to "buy at a
discount" and it's a serious problem.

How Can You Prevent That?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the service you are affiliated with uses cookies or other
tracking devices using a cloaked link that refreshes to the
affiliate URL should make sure that you get the commission/
referral you deserve. Because once the user clicks your cloaked
link and is redirected to your affiliate URL a cookie with your
referral ID is saved on the user's computer and the user should
be less likely to succeed in stealing your commission.

Here is a sample of the HTML code you can use to create a HTML
file that refreshes to your affiliate URL:

Loading... please wait

Loading... please
wait
If you are not redirected in 10 seconds
click here.

Just replace "http://www.YourAffiliateURL.com" with the referral
URL your affiliate program gave you.

However, if your affiliate service/program doesn't use cookies or
if you're not sure, it would be safer for you to use framed
cloaked links because then the user won't see your full
affiliate URL and won't be able to cut off your referral ID.

Here is a sample of the HTML code you can use to create a HTML
file that puts your affiliate URL into an invisible frame:

Name of your affiliate program

(Note from author: In order for the HTML code to be seen
correctly I've added "#" signs. If you intend on using this code
just remove the "#" signs.)

Just replace "http://www.YourAffiliateURL.com" with the referral
URL your affiliate program gave you. You should also change the
title to the actual name of your affiliate program or something
else you think is appropriate.

You should know though that people will always be trying to get
passed the cloaked links so there is never a 100% way of ensuring
your rightful commissions. But using cloaked links will
definitely decrease the chance of you losing out on a commission.

But How Can It Save You Time?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now that we have seen how cloaking your links can save you money
how can it save you time?

Well, I realized this recently when I decided to drop out of a
certain affiliate program. I had been promoting this program
on several places on the internet and the URL I was promoting was
a cloaked link I had created on my domain.

You can understand that I no longer wanted to promote a program I
was not affiliated with any more. So I was looking forward to at
least a half hour of searching the internet for places where I
had put a link to this program and either change it or delete it.

But that's when I realized I didn't have to hurry and delete all
these links so I wouldn't be wasting money and credits on this
program. All I had to do was log in to my website and edit the
HTML file I had created to cloak the program's URL and make the
file direct people to another URL I was comfortable promoting.

I could then later on when I had the time go find the places
where I had been promoting the program and update the information.
I could even just skip that if I didn't want to, and if the
information promoting that URL wasn't misleading, related to the
new URL. But even if you want to update the information or delete
the link sometimes you can't. For example, on certain places
where you buy text links, etc.; then instead of that link
promoting a program you're no longer affiliated with you are able
to promote another website, without any major effort.

* Tip: Even after you've gone through the websites where you had
put your cloaked link and removed it I would recommend keeping
the file on your domain because there might be a few "ghosts"
left out there on the internet who still link to this file.

Also, if the product or service you're promoting changes its
affiliate system and you have to use a different URL to get
commissions you can just easily update the URL through your cloaking
file - and you'll not lose commissions by having an old, unusable
link out there on the internet.

Resources To Help You Cloak Links
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you don't know how to create HTML files and edit them or if
you don't trust yourself to do it there are many services
available to help you:

* AdTrackz Software (highly recommended). This one creates a
frame-based cloak file automatically and javascript-encodes the
source code which makes it close to impossble for people to steal
your hard earned commission:
http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/adtracker.html
* Affiliate Link Cloaker - makes it all easy and secure:
http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/recommended/cloaklinks.html
* NameStick - cloak a link with an easy to remember domain:
http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/recommended/cloakdomain.html
* TinyURL - cloak a link with 1 click:
http://www.tinyurl.com
* shorlify - like TinyURL, but with statistics too:
http://www.shorl.com
* CJB.net - one of the many free forwarding services out there:
http://www.cjb.net
* Here.is - another free forwarding service:
http://www.here.is
* Free .tk domain - get your own domain for free, pretty cool:
http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/recommended/freetkdomain.html

Here are some places that provide you with free webspace where
you can put your cloaking HTML files:

* http://www.geocities.com
* http://www.angelfire.lycos.com/
* http://www.tripod.lycos.com/
* ...if you want more places just do a Google search.

Although free webspaces are nice I would recommend putting the
cloaking files on your own domain, where you have total control
and don't risk losing your files or being blocked by bandwidth
limits. Therefore I would recommend these hosting solutions >>

* Host4Profit - 300 MB webspace, 10 GB bandwith, great support:
http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/recommended/host.html
* iProBuilder - set up a profit-pulling website in 24 hours or
less... - unlimited storage space!:
http://www.workathomemadeeasy.net/recommended/iprobuilder.html

Conclusion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an extra bonus, while you're using your cloaked links to
promote on various websites you automatically increase your
search engine rankings because of all the incoming links to your
domain ;) Plus, you'll also be increasing your Alexa ranking
because of the extra page views.

So, to save you both time and money:

* Cloak your affiliate URL using the methods and services I
mentioned above
* Promote that cloaked link wherever you can
* Cash in those bigger commission checks
* ..and if you decide to leave the program just edit that one
file you created on your domain :)

Thanks for reading.

About The Author
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hannes Johnson is the author of the book "Residual Website Traffic"
( http://www.residual-traffic.com ) and maintains The Home Biz
Blog ( http://blog.workathomemadeeasy.net ), where this article
was first published. To subscribe to his Home Business Tips
Newsletter send a blank e-mail to:
mailto:workathomemadeeasy@SubscribeMeNow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About the Author
Hannes Johnson is the author of the book "Residual Website Traffic"
and maintains The Home Biz Blog, where this article was first
published. To subscribe to his Home Business Tips Newsletter
send a blank e-mail to:
mailto:workathomemadeeasy@SubscribeMeNow.com

2005-10-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

What is a Tier in Affiliate Marketing? by Clay Mabbitt

The word "tier" shows up a lot in the affiliate marketing industry. In a general sense a tier is a step or level, but what does this mean in the context of affiliate marketing. The answer is: it depends.

Downline Levels
The most common meaning of tier is a carry-over from the compensation plans of network marketing companies that were in place before the Internet boom. When you introduce a new entrepreneur to the program, he is placed on your second tier. If that new entrepreneur then introduced his sister to the program, she would be placed on your third tier.

If the sister brought in a paying customer, she would receive a first tier commission. Her brother would receive a second tier commission, while you received a third tier commission (if the compensation plan included a third tier). In practice, an affiliate program can offer commissions on any number of tiers, although the vast majority of online affiliate programs only pay commissions on one or two tiers of activity.

Sales Volume
You would get a different picture of the word tier from Amazon's compensation plan, where it refers to your sales volume. (The following numbers don't reflect Amazon's actual compensation plan, but they serve as an example.) On the first $500 worth of merchandise you sell, you receive a 10% commission. Up to $500 is the first tier. The second tier is for sales up to $1500. If you manage to sell between $500 and $1500, you will earn 11% commission. Each tier is an additional range of monthly sales in which you earn a higher commission (or receive other forms of compensation).

The Problem
The confusion arises when affiliate programs emphasize that they run a 2-tier compensation plan in their affiliate recruiting efforts. In most cases, this refers to the downline levels definition, and participants can expect to receive compensation based on the performance of affiliates they introduce to the program.

Occasionally, a program makes this claim when referring to sales volume tiers. This isn't inaccurate, but it is misleading. The managers of these programs are almost never intentionally trying to mislead. More often, they have thoughtfully crafted a compensation plan that rewards affiliates who perform well, and they want to announce that feature to all potential affiliates.

Who's Right?
You could make an argument for either definition of tier. If you're trying to communicate with other people in the affiliate industry, though, you need to give strong consideration to which meaning is generally accepted by most people. That is the downline levels definition.
About the Author
Clay Mabbitt writes articles about online income opportunities. He is the founder of a community of Internet entrepreneurs sharing knowledge and experience at http://www.affiliatescreen.com

2005-10-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Can you succeed marketing an affiliate based program? by Ian Bosworth

Internet Marketing can be an enjoyable and profitable experience, but it can also be very frustrating, time consuming, money draining and anti social.

So why do we keep putting ourselves through all this pain?

Well, Im sure that for everyone there is a different answer depending on your driving force, but for me its the thought that one day Ill succeed and make a tidy income. God knows how many Get Rich schemes are out there but experience has taught me that 95% of them are simply schemes for making the owner rich and not the affiliate. On the plus side, they do teach you the pitfalls of Internet Marketing and hopefully move you that little further down the line towards your ultimate goal.
You may think that this article is simply a moan about the chaos which is Internet Marketing but I assure you thats not the case. My aim is to pass on the good and bad of this type of venture and to hope that I can help someone to avoid the many obstacles and reach there goal reasonable unscathed.

Can you make money from a program which doesnt sell a tangible product?

Time and time again youll see these type of programsTheyll say pay $5 as a one off payment and well give you thousands in return. The word that comes to mind is Pyramid. Logic tells you that $5 can never become $1,000 without you sponsoring thousands of people and then theyve got to sponsor thousands of people and so on. At some point you run out of people and the system fails. You loose your money but the owner makes a tidy sum. Maybe the answer is to invent your own Get Rich scheme but then, how do these people sleep at night?
Personally, these schemes should be outlawed because all they do is serve to undermine the ethics of Internet Marketing.
So, can you make money from these types of programsMy experience tells me No
Should you avoid them?
Most certainly Yes

What about programs where you pay a monthly fee but again there isnt a product?

These are very much the affiliate based programs and do have some merits. They tend to offer the same, old same old, free resource tools, safe lists to join and a type of ad co-op guaranteeing leads and/or sign-ups. Of course, the tools are usually obsolete in todays market, the safe lists are more geared towards the owner making an advantage by you joining using their affiliate ID and the guaranteed leads are too old to be of any use. Im sorry for being a cynic but Im sure there are people out there who are reading this article and nodding there head because theyve been there.

On the plus side these programs do have a sustainable growth because of the monthly income and so getting personally sponsored affiliates can recoup your loses over time. The problem however, is that people tend to be reticent to join because of the fees and then become despondent when they struggle to get affiliates for themselves. Most of the programs offer free membership and Yes you will get tens to hundreds of people joining the free program but the ratio from free to paid is very poor.

People enter these programs believing, that by simply joining, they will be given thousands of Dollars for doing zilch! Like I said these programs do have there merits and if you stick in and spend loads of your money on advertising, hours of your time promoting to rotators and safe lists then you may come out the other side breaking even or with a small profit. Dont get me wrong I still have some involvement with these types of programsWhy?Because I believe the hype that I can be the one success story and come out the other side, a rich man!

What about the programs where you pay a monthly fee and promote a product?

If the product is unique in some way, affordable to the masses, useable and needed and you can get in on the ground floor then you could be onto a winner. In my experience, its the product which brings in the serious marketer not the affiliate program. Think back to the early days of mobile phones, when they use to be very bulky and expensive and people were saying Theyll never catch on
However, the marketer with vision saw the mass potential and stuck in. Oh how I wish Id been in this game then because now I wouldnt be here typing this article, Id be on a beach somewhere and my secretary would be typing this article. There are other types of product based affiliate programs out there which will also give you a chance for success, but finding it is like crawling through a minefield. Dont simply sign up because its free membership or the site looks professional, read all the pages and understand the ethics of the owner. Consider the product(s) on offer and think about your target audience. The product(s) should be affordable, useable, sellable, exciting and hopefully unique in its market. The affiliate program should be affordable and sustainable. Look at the Compensation plan and consider how feasible it will be for you and your potential team, to reach the profit line. Some plans may look impressive but sometimes they dazzle you with big Dollars. Look at the amount of paid sign-ups required together with the percentages paid and compare this to the cost of the program and the cost of advertising needed to reach those required sign-ups. Work out how long it will take you to break even, for instance, if the cost of the program is $20 a month and you spend $20 a month on advertising you may get 1 or 2 sign-ups a month. If the comp plan pays you $5 a sign-up youll need 8 sign-ups to break even but it may take you 4 to 8 months to get to that point. So it could cost you between $160 and $320 to get there.

Do your sums or you may never really break even?

You should look at the make-up of the down line and how it fits in with the matrix/comp plan. Some down lines have legs, in that you build so far down and then the line splits off and begins again. This usually happens when you reach another level in the comp plan, but the resulting effect can make it hard to progress to the next level. Some have a straight down line so everyone who joins will be in your line. This can be misleading in that you believe that its your sign-up and youve earned money.
However, it does allow you to assess the popularity of the program and help you decide if you should continue.

Now Image youve come across an affiliate site (Not hard to do with todays Internet) Ask yourself the following questions:-

Does the site look impressive?
Does it make you want to read on?
Does it have a product that excites you?
Could you use the product?
Could you sell the product?
Would you buy the product?
Is the product affordable?
Do I get the product as part of the affiliate program?
Can I afford the monthly payment?
Do they have a worthwhile Compensation Plan?
Do they have a matrix or a straight down line?
How quickly will I break even?
Can I make a profit?

SO CAN YOU SUCCEED BY MARKETING AN AFFILIATE BASED PROGRAM?

Find todays Mobile Phone with an affordable affiliate program, offering you a good compensation plan, workable matrix and responsive down line and the answer is undoubtedly

YES

Thanks for reading my article. If you want to subscribe to my newsletter then go to

http://www.profitmashine.com/biztipspop.html
About the Author
The author is Ian Bosworth who has 2 years experience in Internet marketing. He has put together a website and newsletter designed to help other marketers looking for a home based business
http://www.profitmashine.com

2005-10-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

Let Others Promote Your Business! by Katy Terrega

What if I told you that with very little outlay in time or money
you could get others to promote your website? And what if I
said that these people would post your banners and links on
their sites *for free* and would actively seek sales on your
behalf?

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

Luckily for those of us who make our living online, affiliate
programs are the real deal and they're helping to sell products
on all kinds of sites, from the smallest sole proprietorships to
the largest conglomerates.

People use affiliates because they're a win-win situation for
all concerned; others promote your site and get a cut of each
sale and you get more sales overall.

Let's say you sell cute products for pets on your website and
you also run a monthly ezine that features pet news and sales.
You want to increase your sales by letting your "affiliates"
promote your site.

Here's how it works...

1. You sign up with an affiliate tracking program.

2. You decide how much you're going to pay your affiliates
for each sale; it could be a percentage or a straight figure, and
it can vary for each item.

3. You work with the affiliate program to set up a system
tailored to your needs; for example, you may want to write the
checks to your affiliates yourself or you may want the affiliate
tracking company to write them.

4. You design a page on your site and write a blurb for your
newsletter that describes how your affiliates can make money
promoting your site.

5. You design some buttons, banners and text links that your
affiliates can use to promote your site.

6. You sit back and wait for the affiliates to sign up and start
selling your products!

The tracking program takes care of the rest, and you or your
affiliates can look up your stats at any time.

So, how do you find affiliates? You have several options when
it comes to promoting your program.

1. Your customer base: Your site and your newsletter are good
starting points, after all, these people already like your products.
Put a link on your homepage that says "Webmasters: Make
Money!" and talk up your affiliate program in the newsletter on
a regular basis, stressing that your affiliates can sign up for free
and start making money right away.

2. Other businesses: Target business that, say, focus on pets, but
that are not your direct competition. Send an email to each
business inviting them to join and put "Affiliate invitation" in
the subject line of your email. Also mention each business
and/or business owner by name in the body of your message to
lessen the chances that it will be deleted as spam.

3. Your friends and acquaintances. Come up with a short blurb
that talks about your affiliate program and ask everyone in your
address book to send it to everyone in their address book.

4. Professionals: Veterinarians, breeders, etc. Anyone who
deals with pets is a potential affiliate.

Which program should you use?

There are so many affiliate programs that choosing one can be a
daunting task.

I use AffiliateTracking.net ( http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 )
for all of my sites, mainly because their customer service and
support is phenomenal - they had my first affiliate program up
and running in just days - and they're also very reasonably
priced. In addition, multiple sites can be promoted in the same
basic package; there's no need to spend extra for every site.

I heartily recommend AffiliateTracking.net,
( http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 ) but you can find other
similar companies by doing a simple search for "affiliate
tracking" in your favorite search engine.

No matter which company you go with, you could have others
promoting your site and making sales for you in just a couple
of days!

About the Author
======================================
Katy Terrega is a writer and webmaster who uses
AffiliateTracking.net ( http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 )
for two of her sites: The-Write-Resume.com
( http://www.the-write-resume.com ) and
Sex-Writer.com ( http://www.sex-writer.com ).
======================================

2005-10-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

Ten Tips for Affiliate Marketers Using Google AdWords by Patrick Carlow

One of the hottest ways to sell affiliate products is using Google AdWords. Follow these tips and strategies to maximize your earning potential.

1. Seek out affiliate products that generate fifteen dollars or more in commission. Anything in the twenty-dollar range works well. Paying for clicks can add up quickly and when you do make a sell, it should be profitable.

2. The vendor must present a high quality website with first-rate graphics. If the site appears to be unprofessional, any potential buyer will loose confidence and leave before the sell is made.

3. Make it a requirement that the vendor website only displays one product or service on the referral page. Nothing kills a sell faster than having to many sells messages.

4. The vendor needs to include outstanding sales copy. It's easy to realize the importance of this principle; words are what turn shoppers into buyers on the Internet.

5. When evaluating a potential affiliate program ask yourself if this product or service is something you would feel comfortable buying. Put yourself in the place of the buyer. If you wouldn't buy it, why would they?

6. It's preferable if the vendor site does not obviously advertise for the recruitment of more affiliates. An affiliate link is fine as long as it is low key.

7. The best affiliate programs will attempt to secure the email address of your referrals. Some prospects need to see a sales message at least seven times before they will buy. Make sure you still get credit for sales made during the follow up.

8. The vendor should provide testimonials. Testimonials create confidence and trust leading your prospects to make a purchase.

9. You will recognize a profitable affiliate program because at least one in fifty clicks creates a sell. Constantly monitor your expense versus profit for each set of keywords.

10. Track your keywords and delete any that do not get clicked on after two hundred impressions. The higher your click through rate, the higher position you receive in relation to your competitors.
About the Author
Patrick Carlow
Reciprocal Link Exchange Directory
Free Internet marketing resources, traffic generators and reciprocal link exchange directory.

Permission is given for this article to be reprinted by anyone as long as the entire text up to and including the author information, the link and this statement are kept intact in its entirety.

2005-10-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Why do many people fail in Affiliate Marketing! by Jonathan White

Affiliate marketing has been around on the Web for quite sometime now, but there are still a lot of people who doesn't know much or even nothing about it. Most of the people that don't know about affiliate marketing and has just discovered it normally thinks that they can make a quick buck or two. Well that's not the case.

To do well in affiliate marketing is not just a one-day task. Affiliate marketing is like an on going assignment where you have to try different things out like different advertising techniques, different ways of adding affiliate banners and text links to your site, etc. You may even have to join a number of affiliate programs just to see which ones performs the best with the other content that you already have on your site.

Another thing is that many affiliates expect to do well from just having a list of about 20 affiliated banners on one page of their site. Well thats not exactly true as people will see your web page and won't even bother clicking on any of the banners to go to your affiliated sites as your web page just looks like a link farm. How people think they can make money this way, I really don't know as affiliate marketing takes time and effort before any results can be seen.

If you are adding affiliate banners or text links to your site, then the best thing to do is for you to add affiliate links or banners to your site that is on the same topic as the other information on your web page. By doing this, you will not want to add too many affiliated banners or text links as it will just look like a page of links and will only turn your visitors away, about three affiliated links should be enough depending on how large the web page is.

Another important aspect in affiliate marketing is advertising. You can't expect to add affiliate material to your site and expect to receive sales straight away. If you have no traffic coming to your site, then you will not get any sales. Infact, directly advertising the affiliate links or adding the affiliate links to your website and advertising that is probably one of the most important things that you will need to do to have any chance of succeeding. This is because the more you promote your affiliate link or site that contains the affiliate links, then the more clickthru's your affiliate links are likely to receive, which is then most likely to result in more sales.
About the Author
Jonathan White has been doing affiliate marketing on the Web for over three years now and is the Webmaster of http://www.affiliateseeking.com - a categorized affiliate programs directory that lists over 700 programs.

The above article can be reprinted as longs as the bio line stays in place. If the article is reprinted on a website then the urls must also be hyperlinks.

2005-10-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

"AdWords + ClickBank" Breaks PROFIT Records by Fazly Mohamed

The latest trend in online marketig today is running Google AdWords campaigns to market ClickBank products. This article explains everything in layman style, so if you are familiar with some concept, please skip that section. Make sure you save this valuable article to refer later.

What are AdWords? Can you picture the small rectangular boxes that appear next to Google search results? If you cannot, goto Google now and make a search to find out related advertisements to that particular search in small boxes next to the search results. These are called AdWords. Goto http://adwords.google.com to get an idea about this, before you read the rest of this article.

What is ClickBank? It's one of the major eBook and Software companies in the market today and known to pay very high commission rates to its affiliates. With their huge catalog, it's not difficult to search a product to suit any target market, and the average profit you can make per item sold is around $10 mark. They pay you bi-weekly with a minimum payout of $10, to any country in the world. Which simply means, if you can search and recommend a product to some of your friends by email with a special link ClickBank gives you, and if only one person buys, you can get a paycheck addressed to your home. If you don't have an account with them, get one for free and browse the site to get an idea. Goto http://zzz.clickbank.net/r/?hfahadh

Why ClickBank and AdWords? ClickBank products are easily sellable and AdWords gives you the chance to meet a target market. Whats the difference between targeted and untargeted markets? If there are 100 click throughs to a motor parts website and if the visitors are sent in from a Humor site, the sales ratio would be much lesser compared to a visiotor stream from a Vehicle site. More related the product to the visitor is, a better sales ratio you can expect. Highly targeted market means there is a very close relationship between the user's interests and the product.

Google AdWords can give you a very cost effective way to reach highly targeted markets. Your ads have a great exposure, as they will also be shown on Google partner search engines and in many websites, while making sure that the ad will only be shown to targeted visitors. You will only pay for the clicks, not the impressions - you don't pay for showing your ad. As an example, if you pay $0.20 per visitor and if it takes 20 visitors per sale (since it's highly targeted traffic), and if you average profit is $10 per item, you spend 20 * $0.20 = $4 dollars per sale to make a $10 profit. A very good return on investment.

The results can be so much better or can be the worst, depending on how you manage the campaigns. If you have a great knowledge on how google AdWords works, optimizing techniques, how to manage your budget and how to keep the costs low while maintaining a good click through ratio (thus in turn the sales ratio).

This is a whole new business and comes with an initial investment with an operating cost while gaining a very good profit in return. The investment is really low, considering an investment for an offline business, and even the break even time is much smaller, while the profit is very good.

Your full investment is shown below.

1. Account at ClickBankFree
2. Account at AdWordsFree
3. AdWords Activation$5
4. AdWords Initial Budget$50
(Payable later)
5. A Good Book on AdWords$50
(Variable)

** NOTE: You must refer a good AdWords report / guide before spending a penny on it, since it can be extremely successful if operated properly or can be disastrous otherwise. The price can vary, but an average estimation is shown.

** AdWords Initial Budget is not payable right now and it is not a set amount. You may use AdWords after activating for $5 and may set your campaigns to any budget you wish, even for $10. We reserved $50 so you can get a decent return on investment initially, which will motivate you to carry the business on. It's payable only at the end of the month. If you did the things right, you may pay these operating costs off after you get the profits every month.

So your initial investment is,
$50 for the book
and after you buy,
$5 for AdWords activation

for a TOTAL of just $55 to start a BIG BUSINESS.

This isn't a get rich quick scheme or an illegal money making program, but a big business, which can be very profitable if managed successfully and can be a real waste of money if it goes wrong, as the case with any other business. But the advantage is, that the initial investment for this is really low, can expect a very good return on investment, can become an established business quickly and no great risk.

I highly recommend you to read a very good book on AdWords even before you activate the AdWords account, so you can make every penny count. There are many great books on this subject, but the best one I found is located at http://fzgoogle.cjb.net, which is good for its price and is very informative.

In summary, the steps needed to establish this business is as follows:

1. Open an account at ClickBank (http://zzz.clickbank.net/r/?hfahadh)
2. Open an account at AdWords (http://adwords.google.com)
3. Buy a good book on AdWords (http://fzgoogle.cjb.net)
* Then you need to start advertising campaigns with Google. Your AdWords reference book should contain everything you need to know, optimization tips, etc. and you should be able to start and manage campaigns like a pro.

4. Activate the account
5. Get the paychecks
6. Pay for advertising in AdWords (operating cost)

This is all you need to do to get your business started and rolling along.

My final piece of advice is, plan all your expenses and expected minimum return on investment out. This will keep you to your budget and is the most essential to succeed as an online marketer. Spend less, less and less, BUT earn more, more and more..

Make sure you save this valuable article to refer later.

Thank You
About the Author
Fazly Mohamed is a successful Internet Marketer and is currently an undergraduate of BSc in Computing & IT at the Staffordshire University, UK.

2005-10-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

5 top things that set off my BS Alarm by Rick Hendershot

The web is overflowing with scams. Thousands and thousands of otherwise normal people are looking for ways to make big money by doing NOTHING.

Still, we have faith that there are some legitimate opportunities on the web. But how do you tell the scams from the real things?

Here are five things that set off my BS Alarm.

Number 1 BS Alarm Tripper

"You can make thousands of dollars a week, almost immediately."
There are thousands and thousands of sites that make claims like this. But this kind of BS is not limited to the web. The other day I saw a TV ad where the testimonial guy said he was soon going to be making $20,000 per week. Think about that for a minute. That is more than a million dollars a year, selling products of questionable value. This guy is going from zero to a million dollars in just a few weeks. Maybe Donald Trump can pull that off (at least in his own mind), but not your average Joe Trump.

Click!

Number 2 BS Alarm Tripper

No actual product is being sold.

This is not always easy to detect. Many "marketing" schemes claim to be selling "valuable information", but in fact are only selling you the "rights" to resell the same program (ebook, etc.) to other suckers. This is what you might call "the 24 hour plan": I'll sell you a "report" for $5, then you sell it to all your friends and relatives, then they can do the same. You aren't buying my report because of the information in it. You are just buying it to resell it. The actual content of the report is irrelevant. It could just be a blank report or a page of nonsense.

Click!

Number 3 BS Alarm Tripper
"We will throw in a bunch "e-books" worth "thousands of dollars"

Generally speaking, nothing of value is ever given away free. This is an immutable law of the universe. But web "entrepreneurs" are always telling us they will throw in a valuable set of info products, worth thousands, if you just buy their $50 product.

Does this make sense? No it does not. These info products are usually available many other places for free. And the chances are you will download them and then forget about them completely. In fact the whole concept of the "valuable e-book" has been so corrupted by this practice that it devalues ALL e-books. Giving away worthless stuff is not necessarily a bad thing. But it tells me the seller is a hustler and cannot be trusted.

Click!

Number 4 BS-Alarm Tripper

Any time I see the term "downline" I immediately think "scam".

Why? Because this is a term used in the MLM (multi-level marketing) "industry", and generally indicates you will not be selling products, but rather, trying to get other people to sell stuff for you.

This is the dream of every salesman and would-be entrepreneur: "To make money by getting other people to do all the work." I'm not saying MLM schemes never work. Some real world MLM schemes are notoriously successful. But these schemes generally sell real products that we all need -- stuff like toilet paper and whiz wipes. Aunt Minerva is going to buy this stuff somewhere, so she might as well buy it from you (or your "downline").

But by its very nature an MLM scheme runs out of suckers very quickly. And since most web schemes like this are not selling real products -- that would be too complicated -- the sucker pool is even smaller. The only people interested in buying into these things are suckers like you -- you know, other "opportunity-seekers" prepared to sell their friends and relatives $5 "memberships". And most people (not surprisingly) are not interested in doing that.

Click!

Number 5 BS Alarm Tripper

"We will do all the work for you."

I've already implied it a few times, but in case you've missed my main point it is this: There is no free lunch on the web or anywhere else. If somebody tells you they can make money for you without ANY work on your part, they are either nuts or simply lying to you. Think about it. Why would somebody set up a website, stick your name on it, and then start sending you checks just because you let them use your name? Wouldn't it be a lot more profitable for these guys just to make up names and send the checks to themselves.

Yes, it would. What they really want is get you on board so you can start buying their "products" (more BS), and promoting the system as a member of their "downline". Sorry. Not interested.

Click!

I can think of many more BS Alarm stimulators, but these five eliminate at least 90% of the "opportunities" I've run into. If you have any comments, I'd be pleased to hear from you. Check out my website and drop me an email.

About the Author
Rick Hendershot is based in Conestogo, Ontario, Canada. He spent many years as an advertising consultant, and small business owner. He currently publishes several small business websites and ezines, and provides web design and online marketing services to small business owners wanting to jump start their online marketing efforts. He can be reached at rh@small-business-online.com.

2005-10-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

The Problem with the Affiliate System by Rick Hendershot

I've recently been reminded that product reviews and recommendations from "affiliates" are completely unreliable and untrustworthy.

Anybody who has dabbled in web marketing knows that a prime source of revenue for web marketers is selling "affiliate" products. If you don't have your own productand many of us do notthen all you have to do is get your web visitors to click thru to "gurus" like Jim Daniels, Cory Rudl, or Ken Evoy, and they will gladly give you anywhere from 25% to 60% of the retail price just for the click thru.

Everybody in the business seems to think this is a wonderful system. What could be better? You build traffic to your site and gradually gain credibility as a reliable source of marketing information. And you leave the product development to the guys who really know what they're doing.

You send them the prospects. They send you the checks. Cha-ching.

Just another "marketing expert"

Unfortunately the only products worth selling are "info-products" that pay large commissions. Companies that sell "real" products like golf balls, computers, and books pay such a small commission it is hardly worth your while sticking their link on your site.

So this means that in order to make money as an affiliate, you have to become another of the thousands of Mini Marketing Gurus out there. And because there are so many of us, your chances of actually making any money are pretty slim.

Mini Gurus are just lemmings

Even worse, while you build your business and (maybe) develop your own products and services, you must prostitute yourself to the gurus who already have the products.

Because as far as I can tell the "affiliate" relationship turns us into lemmings.

It encourages newly created Mini Gurus to latch onto affiliate products in an absolutely uncritical way. Many of these products are nothing more than glorified "how to" manuals, but intense hype by experienced marketers turns them into "super products". And a bevy of willing affiliates cannot offer objective information about them because they think their livelihood depends on selling them.

For instance, Ken Evoy has thousands and thousands of affiliates for his SiteSell products -- including his flagship product called Site Build It. Do you think the fact that someone stands to make money by selling a product affects his or her objectivity about it?

Is there any question? The truth is, I have never read a critical review of Site Build It from someone who sells it. Why would you be objective about a product if you stand to make money every time it is sold?

In fact, this is an unwritten rule about web marketing products. No criticism. Ever. I'm sure just the fact that I dare mention "critical review" and a product name in the same sentence will draw gasps of disbelief. But, the truth is I think Site Build It is a really good program. Not perfect (gasp!). But a lot better than than almost anything else I've seen.

As a result of the Mini Guru's utter dependence on sales of products like this, it is virtually impossible to get objective third party information about them.

Do you see what a beautiful system this is for enterprising marketers? Create a product. Make it available to affiliates. Offer a handsome commission. And no one (except the poor suckers who buy it) will ever say a negative word about your product again.

Do affiliates mislead their own customers?

In fact, it gets worse. Not only are affiliates uncritical about products, but they can be downright misleading in their praise of them.

For instance, I was recently searching for an autoresponder program, and because I was an affiliate for Cory Rudl's products, I thought I would try his much-hyped program called "My Email Manager". One of the reviews I read about the product praised it up and down and gave it a glowing "five star" rating.

After struggling with My Email Manager for a week or so I concluded it was a turkey. It just didn't do the things it claimed it could do. The product promotion was clearly misleading, and the review I had read bore no resemblance to my experience. I doubt very much whether this person had actually tried the program.

But that's how the affiliate system works.
About the Author
Rick Hendershot is based in Conestogo, Ontario, Canada. He has spent many years as an advertising consultant, and small business owner. He currently publishes several small business websites and ezines, and provides web design and online marketing services to small business owners wanting to jump start their online marketing efforts. He can be reached at rh@small-business-online.com.

2005-10-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

AMAZING INCOME by Howard J. Riemer

$1000+ Monthly 100% Risk Free for only $35, 1-800-605-8482 #11589 or visit www.HJvitamins.com
About the Author
None

2005-10-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

Let The Market Choose Your Price? by Stuart Reid

This article is available via Autoresponder at:
pricing@netpreneurnow.com

And is available on-line at:
http://www.netpreneurnow.com/articles/pricing.html

Or in plain text at:
http://www.netpreneurnow.com/articles/pricing.txt

Let The Market Choose Your Price?

By Stuart Reid

Setting the correct price is hard for any on-line business, and there are plenty courses and manuals dedicated to this delicate subject.

You want to have a price that will make you a profit, obviously. But you also want to have happy customers who feel you've charged a "fair" price.

The problem is too low a price will make your product seem inferior. Give-away products suffer even more from this "perceived value".

Conversely, if you charge too much (even though the price may well reflect the time and effort put into the product) you may get many disgruntled customers and many complaints which can have disastrous knock-on effects.

So is there a middle ground?

I'm sad to say not really, but there are a few methods you could try including a "crazy" trial I'm currently testing myself...

The most obvious way to decide your price is to see what the rest of the market is charging. This is not as easy as it sounds, since the "rest of the market" will vary widely.

Standard prices for e-books centre around the "magic" $27 figure, going up to around $47. Most ClickBank Merchants, for example, have a $50 selling limit - hence this price.

Seminars, Courses and one-on-one training services usually go for FAR HIGHER prices, up to (and over) a thousand bucks. This is out of the league of most marketers.

There are two ways to look at the problem. A Seller can either earn his daily bread by selling many copies at a low price, or selling a few copies at a high price.

10 x $40 = $400 and $4 x $100 = $400

I've kept the numbers simple, math is not my strong point!

You can see a lot from that comparison. You will probably put in the same effort to make those four sales as you would ten, right? It's what marketers have told you for a long time.

You'll find many high-ticket items are sold through affiliate programs. This is so the merchant and the affiliate can have a good cut - and the increased exposure from the affiliate army usually outweights lost sales due to the higher price.

Now here's the "crazy" system I'm trying:

Over at http://www.productpacks.com I've introduced "Pick Your Own Price"

Basically, a buyer can pay as much as they want for the item, and be allowed to take it guilt-free. It's like a donation, but it's paid in advance.

Using PayPals "donate" feature it's easy to implement in this in any site.

Why not give it a go on some of your lower-priced items? You may be surprised at the result!

----------------------------------------------------------------

About the Author
Stuart Reid is webmaster of http://www.productpacks.com and currently sells many Product Collections of ebooks, tools, reports and guides, many on a "Pick Your Own Price" basis.

2005-10-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Affiliates, 3 Things You should Own though You don't Own a Product. by Radhika Venkata

Affiliates, 3 Things You should Own though You don't Own a Product.

Radhika Venkata (c).

1. Your Own web site:
=============================

Most affiliates put a redirect link directly to their affiliate
product. It is not such a good practice.

*Register a domain that closely resembles your affiliate product
website. For example, if you are an affiliate for affiliateproduct.com
web site, try to register affiliate-product.com or affiliateproduct.net.

*Follow the lay-out of your affiliate product web site.

*Put content on your web site (minimum of 10 pages). Like articles
and reviews related to your affiliate product. No need to say to put up
links leading the visitor to your affiliate web site.

*If you have a multiple different affiliate products, don't mix them up
and put all of those links on same web site. Choose a multidomain host
and host your different affiliate web sites for cheap.

2. Your Own opt-in list:
=============================

You need your own opt-in list **no matter** what you sell and your own
or your affiliate product.

Start giving free ecourse or an ezine related to your affiliate product
and collect email addresses.

You need a follow up autoresponder or a maling list manager to manage
this process of collecting emails, follow up, sending promotional emails
etc. etc.

Here is a cgi script that you can use as BOTH follow up autoresponders
and mailing list managers:

http://www.scripts4webmasters.com/arpproadv/index.shtml

3. Your Own Ezine articles:
=============================

Yep! You have to spread the word about your affiliate product. Don't You?
Write articles related to your affiliae product and publish them on your
web site, send them to publishers, submit them to content sites.

Do a search on Google or Altavista like 'submit+article', you will get a
big list of sites. Keep your favorites on your Favorites folder and submit
to them on regular basis.

Few tips in writing ezine articles in the affiliates perspective:
=Don't expose your affiliate link directly in your resourcebox.
=Usually affiliate links comes as long URLs. These tend to breakup.
So use some kind of redirection.
=Only promote one product in one article.

More on hiding affiliate links:
http://www.webmasters-central.com /siteprotection/affiliatelinks.shtml

About the Author
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Radhika Venkata
Subscribe to 'iNet Marketing Ezine' which is completely focused on
Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights!
http://www.webmasters-central.com/subscribe.shtml
FREE Ecourse :: 30 days Solid work out to increase your online profits!
http://www.ebooks-world.com/ecourse/index.shtml
-----------------------------------------------------------------------