How To Make Money With Affiliate Programs (Part 2)

By now you have probably read Part 1 of this article

Here are some juicy options that you can wrap your hands around today:

First off, it is a good idea to slap up a website or blog. You need a canvas and home base for the content and products that you plan to promote.   When I say, "slap up" a website... I say it to indicate how quick and easy it is to do. I do not mean to give the impression that it should be done carelessly. You need to do a few intelligent things while slapping up a website.



{SIDE NOTE: You will see me writing a hundred times in this blog that as long as you have good music in your ears.... even what seems like hard or tedious work can be fun and relaxing... if you love affiliate marketing as much as I do.}

So crank up some jazz and slap up your blog or website.... if you already have that, proceed with the steps below:

1) Get some good content (nicely sprinkled with keywords your audience would be searching for), or write your own articles, grab some videos from your favorite video sharing site that endorse the positions upon which your content is based.  For instance,  if you have a health blog that talks about the benefits of eating more veggies... you can grab the embed code of a video that talks about the benefits of leafy greens... that is ok.  Then you can stick your favorite clickbank products from the health category on there.  See, it is easy but you just need to make sure your content is consistent with the niche, keywords and interests of your target audience.

{SIDE NOTE: Be careful.... don't throw up a health blog that talks about how you feel that vaccination are wrong and put a YouTube video with Dr.Oz on their so it looks like he is also saying that vaccinations are wrong.} 

2) Select your affiliate programs the smart way:
    While it is not advisable (especially for newbies) to shoot for the $300 commissions right off the bat  (Yes, there are affiliate programs that have 3-figure and higher commission payouts),  you should still look to be paid at least $20-$60 per sale after your percentage is factored out. Do not accept anything less than 25% with commission.  You can find many programs with great payment structures and high percentages of pay in just about any field. We will publish an article exclusively devoted to WHERE you should go about finding affiliate programs and how to distinguish a good program from a bad one. For starters though, set up your Clickbank account and follow the easy instruction given there for setting up your affiliate links from the variety of merchants they have.

There is one exception to this rule of course....

What about Amazon.com affiliates? Amazon only pays between 8-10%.  Well this is the thing. If you want to feature Amazon products on your blog... (which can be very lucrative if you get good targeted traffic) then you will only make small commissions compared to the 75% Clickbank payouts. But, if you are selling lots of books or products then you can still make good money with the 10% commissions.  Figure, 40 sales at $15 average sale .... that equals $60 in commissions. What if you have that happen a couple of times per week? What if you have 5 lazy websites that are only making you $60 per week?   Even the worst case scenario with small commissions can still turn out to be juicy extra money if you stick with it.  Remember, with affiliate marketing, the sky is not even the limit because there truly is no limit!!

Ok, back to our steps:

    2.  Look for affiliate products or programs that offer statistic pages that list the number of click-throughs, sales, and earnings so you'll be able to see how you are doing.  This is very important for newbies and guru's alike. You want to be able to see what is going on with the link you have strategically promoted.   If you are making sales, you want to know where the sales are coming from so that you can keep milking that cow. If you have a blog that didn't get you any sales from that banner you believed in, switch the banner or enhance the content.  I once participated in a training entitled, "Set-It and Forget-It" with regard to a special type of wordpress blog. It was amazing and I cant wait to teach my new members and newbies that join our program in January 2014.  However, there is no implication that affiliate marketing as a whole works that way. You must always test your banners, check conversions, reproduce what works and learn what doesn't work. You must constantly educate yourself about trends, changes, Google updates etc. 

    3.  Always look for programs that offer a wide variety of tools to put on your web site, including banners, text links, and of course graphics.  While this point becomes obvious for veteran affiliates, it is not so obvious for newbies.  If you are going to work for ABC Company as a carpenter and they say that they will provide your tools.. Would you be happy if all they gave you was a 12-inch ruler? No, you need hammers, tape measure, ladders and more.  Enough said.


    4.  Know how much and how often you are going to be paid before you promote their products.  Once you start promoting multiple products across multiple niches (which you should be doing because you can't put all eggs in one basket), you should be keeping a spreadsheet that has rows and dates and figures in it.  I encourage all of my visitors to have multiple websites, blogs and programs going on.  How do you keep track of it all?  Use a spreadsheet or a journal.  This way, you will know if the banner that brings you the most money is from a network that pays monthly or that other product which only yields a few sales will pay you next week.   Can you imagine getting excited about your first $1100 paycheck and you accept an invitation to Busch Gardens thinking you will have some extra moolah to splurge on?... But then you find out that you wont see that money until the 15th of next month??? Meanwhile, you do have a check coming from another network next week but it will only be for $27. LOL.....

That reminds me, I need to make a post on how to find products that pay weekly and instant commissions.  Ok, coming right up.... check back tomorrow,... it will be here.

Moving right along.... to the final point for this post:
 
  5.  Be sure that top level support is included.  If they can't answer your questions in a quick and timely manner, you don't want to work with them.  In other words, if you are with a known successful network like Clickbank, chance are... the merchant who product you are considering will have legitimate email contant source.  They want you to be their affiliate so they will likely reply to your inquiries and offer help. I can personally attest to the quick reliable replies from every time I needed help from Clickbank. However, let's say that you are doing lead generation for a law firm and they are paying you for leads.  Make sure they can offer the support you need to be successful.. whatever that may be.  (That sort of reiterates point #3 above).

It takes daily effort. Once you learn what you are doing with affiliate programs, you can make lots of money and have fun doing it. Dont rush into anything and have a good resource available for guidance (like our site for instance).  You will have to put in the effort but you'll be glad you did.

LAST MINUTE TIP: Even though it may seem tempting to go for programs with the highest commissions, those programs won't pay you anything if your visitors don't buy them.  More importantly, (and this applies to earning commissions of any amount) if you have no traffic or ill-gotten traffic, you wont get any sales.  We will host an entire section in this blog devoted to getting swarms and buckets of traffic to any product you are selling.