Stop Commission Thefts by Cloaking Affiliate Links

If you visit any Internet marketing forum, you will find plenty of advice telling you to cloak your affiliate links. Most serious affiliate marketers acknowledge that link cloaking is a very important part of their online success. Are you protected?

What is link cloaking?

It is way to mask or hide the URL code of the link in order to protect your affiliate commissions from being stolen by unscrupulous people. Because there are many different ways to steal, there is no 100% foolproof method of link cloaking. However, commission theft is a big enough problem to have spawned a slew of scripts and software programs for cloaking links. [Read more]

What age-old formula for big profits do super affiliates use that you should know?

Internet Marketing is considered a relatively new medium of marketing as compared to traditional media such direct mail, television, radio and print ads to name just a few. However, the basic principle of persuading people to buy still remains the same.

Creating “irresistible offers” is an important and critical step in the process of generating qualified leads and converting them to paying customers.

Successful or super affiliates have mastered an age-old formula for profits, which is:

Enticements (Free Tours) + Interest (Qualified Prospects) + Irresistible Offers (Compelled to Buy) = $$$$ (Huge Profits)

There are five key steps involved in making the above formula work in online and/or affiliate marketing. They are:
[Read more]

The REAL SECRET To Consistent Commission Checks

NOTE: The following is a guest article from one of my favorite Internet marketing mentors – Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliate Payraise”

It’s important that you understand something about affiliate marketing from the very beginning – Earning affiliate income isn’t easy for the average person.

Let’s face it, there are 50 gazillion other people out there doing the exact same thing you are doing – if you could remember what it is that you are doing.

So, that’s what I want to address. Here’s the mindset that I want you to remember: there are only so many customers out there. And each affiliate in the program is doing basically the same thing to try to reach them.

That’s why you are going to be different. Got it?

Before I jump into what I consider to be the “real secret” to earning commissions with affiliate programs, let me share with you a basic concept that is going to be important to what you are going to learn today.

Here is how the average affiliate approaches promoting their affiliate link…

A)    Send out a mailing. Purchase ezine ads. Get a few pay-per-click keywords. Post a few links. Make a small profit. Get discouraged. Move on to the next affiliate program.

Or, if they are slightly more aggressive…

B)     Send out a mailing. Purchase ezine ads. Get a few pay-per-click keywords. Post a few links. Write a few articles. Create an eBook. Do a joint venture. Swap ads. And they continue promoting that same affiliate program until they (along with a few other aggressive affiliates) have found every potential customer on the face of the earth. Make a decent profit. Where do I go now? Move on to the next affiliate program.

While I certainly agree that the “slightly more aggressive” affiliate is on the right trail with their approach, it still leaves a common problem that all affiliates have…

Finding NEW customers.

You make an affiliate sale. Great. You make another one. Great. You keep working and working and working to make another sale and another sale and another sale. Now, remember, there are a gazillion others out there trying to do the same thing. And, even if all of these other affiliates only make one or two sales each…that’s a LOT of customers that you WON’T be selling to!

For example: If there are 10,000 affiliates promoting Product A and they all, on average, sell just 2 copies each, that’s 20,000 customers that are immediately unavailable for you to sell to.

Doesn’t matter how hard you promote and how much you do, you WILL NOT sell them a second copy of something they have already bought. Even if they love it.  They won’t buy another copy.

So, here’s the “real secret.” While everyone is promoting the heck out of all of the same programs you are, you need to refine who it is that you are promoting.

Bottom line: Start FOCUSING on those affiliate programs that offer MONTHLY commissions.

Here’s why. Let’s say you promote an absolutely awesome product by Mr. Guru that sells for $29.97. And Mr. Guru gives you 50% commission. By the time all of the processing fees are out of the way, you earn about $14.00 for a new customer.

And you’re done with that customer — it’s time to move on and find the next guy.

HOWEVER, if you promote an affiliate program that pays MONTHLY, let’s say a membership site, then here’s what you would find happens…

The membership site is $27.00 PER MONTH. You earn $13.50 per MONTH for every referral you make for as LONG AS THEY REMAIN ACTIVE!

With the $29.97 product, you earn $14.00 for all of your efforts in finding a customer. One time commission. That’s it. Time to find another customer. With the MONTHLY service, you earn about the same commission for that same customer. Then, next

month you earn that commission over again! Month after that, you’re still earning that same commission from that same customer.

For each and every month that the customer continues to use the service you continue to bring in the commission without finding a new customer.

Do you see the potential here?

It makes much more sense to focus on promoting affiliate programs that bill monthly and pay commissions monthly. That way, you continue to earn profits from the…

Same customer base!

If I am going to buy ads and purchase pay-per-click keywords and create eBooks and bust my behind to get those customers, I’d sure rather get paid every month (without doing a bit of extra work, mind you!) that to only earn a one-time commission.

While this isn’t as good as MONTHLY income, choosing an affiliate program that offers you LIFETIME customers is the next best thing. For example: With some programs when you recruit a customer , they are yours for life. If they purchase future product releases, then YOU receive the commission as the original referrer. It’s a good second option, but it’s not as good as getting paid monthly!

So, what should you promote? Your eyes have been opened. You’ve seen the light. You realize that what you’ve just read does make sense. And you want to get paid monthly!

So, what should you promote? While you definitely need to check things out yourself and make that determination on your own, let me give you a short list of TYPES of offers

that you can promote that bill monthly and award monthly commission checks.

• PLR and resale rights clubs
• Membership sites
• Web hosting
• Autoresponders and list management tools
• Coaching clubs
• Paid newsletters
• Services (ad tracking, legal docs, management, etc.)

The important thing is for you to identify at least one really good affiliate program that offers residual income possibilities for you.

Once you find the right program to promote, it’s a matter of getting as many different people to click on your link as possible. How would you like to have someone teach

you ONE simple way to promote your affiliate links every week? Read on for details…

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliate Payrise”, teaching you a whopping 27 ways to increase your affiliate commissions! Tired of “tiny” commission checks? Grab your copy today.

PPC Affiliate Marketing

Have you heard of pay per click (PPC)? What about affiliate marketing? The two work well as a part of a marketing strategy to increase traffic and sales. What about putting both of them together for a double whammy? Learn what PPC affiliate marketing is and how your affiliate programs can benefit.

The basics of affiliate marketing are simple. A site implements an affiliate program to increase sales for their products or services.    As such, they partner with other website businesses to gain visibility.    The website business is looking to reap some financial reward from the partnership as well.    Top affiliate programs generally pay well for sales and provide incentives for top sellers.

You can advertise on a website that you have set up especially for your affiliate marketing purposes. Besides the product ads, you will need to add other content to the site that will interest potential clients.    Many affiliate marketers use SEO content, product reviews and testimonials to keep customers coming back.

Another marketing strategy some affiliate marketers have employed is pay per click. Search engine ads have become popular. When search results are displayed, appropriate keyword ads are listed in the sidebar area of the page. Buying keywords and the chance to be ranked here can be a bit costly as a business owner.

Pay per click affiliate marketing uses some of your profits from affiliate marketing and invests them in advertising to bring more traffic to your affiliate site. You create ads for the affiliate products using keywords that would be used when searching for that type of product.

There are some pros and cons to this strategy.

Pros:

• You are making money in two ways.    One, you are earning commissions on every conversion that results in a sale for the affiliate program.    Secondly, with the search engine PPC ads, you pay to rank and bring more traffic to the site for increased affiliate sales.
• If an affiliate allows you to use their product names in your ad and to use other programs to advertise, PPC affiliate marketing is perfect.

Cons:

• You could be losing website ranking to the affiliate site.    If your PPC ads link back to where the ads exist on your website for the customer to click on through, this can boost their website and not yours.
• Using programs like Google AdSense along with other affiliate ads on your website can reduce the performance of all of your programs. This means fewer sales and money for you.
• PPC affiliate marketing can be expensive in the beginning and not pay off as much as you think if you don’t have the proper keywords to do the job.

What are your goals with affiliate marketing? Pay per click affiliate marketing could be an option for you to increase traffic to your affiliate website.

Are You Earning a Decent Living from Affiliate Marketing?

95% of all affiliates make $0 – $100 a year. I don’t know about you, but in my books, that is not making a living. On this page, I will give you a quick overview on how to become a successful affiliate marketer and be a part of the 5% who ARE making their living online. I’m not guaranteeing that you’ll make a fortune overnight, but I will point you in the right direction if you’re interested in making a living as an affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money and work for yourself. However, affiliate marketing does take work. You need to build it up like any other business. You determine your success as an affiliate marketer. 95% of the people that read this page will do nothing with what they learn. Only 5% of the people will put all the pieces in place and start making a living as an affiliate. I’m sure you want to be among the small minority that is making a very good living from affiliate marketing.

10 steps to successful affiliate marketing

1. Mindset: Program your mind with positive thoughts. If you truly believe it, you can achieve it.
2. Long-term View: Commit yourself to making affiliate-marketing work for you. This is your business, every decision you make affects your bottom line.
3. Learning Curve: Expect it. It takes time to learn how to run your home-based business successfully.
4. Budget: It will require time and money. Spend both wisely and maximize your ROI on every hour and every dollar that you invest in your business.
5. Goals: Set realistic goals. You can modify and refine them as you progress but do write them down.
6. Details: The saying is “the devil is in the details.” For affiliate marketing, the “money” is in the details.
7. Homework: Do your homework before jumping into affiliate marketing but avoid “paralysis by analysis” where you do nothing out of fear of the unknown.
8. Hit the “ON” button: It’s time to act. If you freeze now, you make no money and all your hard work is flushed down the toilet.
9. If you build it – they will come: Okay, not really, but you do have to actively promote your Website or send out e-mails regularly to your list to generate traffic and sales.
10. Automated Follow-up: Only 2% of your visitors will sign up or buy on their first visit. 98% of your sales will be made from your follow up.