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Why Most Affiliates Fail… and What to Do About It

Sunday, September 4, 2011

It’s no secret that out of the hundreds of thousands of new people who decide to try affiliate marketing every year, only a small percentage ever make enough to quit their day job or significantly change their lifestyle. Is it because affiliate marketing is too competitive, too hard for non-techie people, or just not all it’s cracked up to be?
Having met many successful people in the affiliate marketing world, and knowing what I know from working at ClickBank, I don’t believe that any of those are the reasons why most people don’t make it as affiliate marketers.
In my opinion, success as an affiliate marketer comes down to two factors: dedication and perseverance.

 

Dedication and Desire


If you were seriously thinking about taking up a new craft or skill, something you’d never really done before, and wanted to get good enough at it to make a living, think about how dedicated you’d need to be.
Let’s take golf as an example—if you wanted to make a living playing golf, do you think you could just go out and hit 100 golf balls a few times a week and expect to be on the pro tour any time soon?
No way! Pro golfers hit literally thousands of shots a day, every single day, whether they want to or not—because that’s what it takes to be great.  They study the game, they try to identify their faults and fix them, and most importantly, they develop or find a training system and stick to it—for months or years on end. Because that’s what it takes to be great.
According to author Malcolm Gladwell, who studied exceptionally talented and successful people in his book Outliers, found that being in the top tier of almost any endeavor, whether sports, business, or the arts, requires incredible dedication and work. He found that people at the absolute pinnacle of their craft have all put in at least 10,000 hours of work over the years.
Hopefully it won’t take you anywhere near 10,000 hours to become a successful affiliate marketer, but you need to approach your efforts as if it will. Many people buy an Internet Marketing training system, read it and get really excited, then either don’t actually follow the system to the letter, or do it for a week or two and give up if they don’t see results.
People that follow marketing systems to the letter, day in and day out, are very rare. But they are often the people who really succeed, and sometimes even develop their own system that works even better.

 

Pick a System and Follow It


Over the years, I’ve seen many affiliate marketing training systems, and with a few exceptions, their advice is usually very good. However, the techniques they teach can be tedious, repetitive, and usually take weeks, if not months, to start showing results. Just like golf training, or learning a musical instrument, or anything else that requires dedicated effort and perseverance.
I’ve talked to quite a few affiliates over the years that tell me, “I’ve been doing this for months and haven’t made any money! I’m ready to give up.” Sometimes they’ll even tell me they’re using a training system I’m familiar with, and are disappointed in its results.
Whenever I talk to someone like this, I’ll ask questions like:
  • How many articles have you written and posted?
  • How many niche websites have you built?
  • How many hours did you spend researching a niche and keywords before choosing it?
  • How many backlinks do you actively try to build each week?
Typically, the answer is “Not many” or “I’ve never really done backlinking” or “I picked a niche in a few minutes.” Having seen many of the top training programs out there, I can guarantee that they don’t promise success if you don’t regularly write articles, do serious niche and keyword research, and consistently build backlinks!
It would be like a golf instructor telling you to hit 300 chip shots every day, but instead you only do 10 shots 3 times a week. Can you blame him that you’re not getting any closer to your goal? Or is it a matter of dedication and desire?

Making the Time


At this point, you might be saying, “That’s easy for you to say. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.” For a very small number of people that might be true, but according to the Nielsen Company, the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV every single day. Imagine how much you could accomplish in your Internet Marketing efforts if you used 1 or 2 of those hours each day to focus on the kinds of tasks I mentioned above!
Remember the 10,000-hour rule? Think about how much quicker you’ll get to that level of success if you dedicate your time and focus to becoming great at affiliate marketing, rather than trying it for an hour or two here and there without a real system or plan.
Fortunately for you, with a high level of dedication and perseverance, it’s not going to take a decade of practice to become great, like it does for athletes or musicians. It can be much quicker (though not overnight or in a few weeks). Depending on the amount of time you spend, it could be anywhere from a few months to a couple of years. In the grand scheme of things, to reach your goals and change your life for the better, isn’t it worth skipping some TV every day?
If you’re really serious about becoming an affiliate marketing success, maybe it’s time to ask yourself, “Have I been doing everything I can to make the dream a reality?” If not, there’s no time like the present to start!

The Power of Networking

Here are my top tips for networking and building a strong foundation before a launch:


1. Know your product or service. To start, you should write down a one-line sentence describing your product that would be easily understandable by any person you meet. For example, “A coaching programme for people who want to start a business.”
It’s also important to project product sales so you can work toward that goal. Many people write down a figure that represents the amount they want to earn in a tax year – $50,000, $100,000, $250,000 – and the number of paying customers they need to obtain to reach that figure. For instance if your product is $50 you’ll need 1,000 customers to hit your target of $50,000 in a year (plus there will be expenses on that figure to account for).


2. Build your credibility online. Find five websites in the same niche as yours. Slowly get more involved with those sites, become a regular reader and commenter and offer to write a guest post for their site. This will generate a link back to your site and help build your credibility online.


3. Determine social network targets. I’ve set a target for myself to achieve 10,000 connections on the three major social sites:
* 10,000 Twitter Followers
* 10,000 Facebook Likes
* 10,000 YouTube Friends
Your figure could be lower but it’s something to aim for before you launch your product or service. As a rule, if you plan to promote your product through social networking channels, you’ll need to get your social figures high since most people are so distracted online that only a small percentage will read and click on your links.


4. Email the experts. Make sure you have an email process in place to do so. You’ll need a plan for writing to the well-known bloggers and site owners. Keep these emails to a few lines, show enthusiasm and be as helpful as possible. You’ll be amazed by what help, advice and opportunities you might get back from the “Internet celebs.”


5. Attend industry events. Determine which relevant events are taking place over the next 12 months and make a point of going to five events. Spreading these dates out will ensure that you have a constant flow of emails to and from new contacts and opportunities from a variety of sources. Additionally, the contacts you make in “real life” can be more powerful than online.


Networking is a continual process and is a huge part of business. Scheduling networking time into your calendar is just as important as scheduling time for product or service creation, if not more!

Convert Visits to Sales with “Buyer Keywords”

Saturday, August 27, 2011

One of the biggest lessons I learned in my Internet marketing career is understanding how to find people online that are ready and willing to buy! Once I worked out how to do this, my Internet marketing efforts really started to take off. In this post I’m going to share with you some tips to help you master this vital online marketing concept.


Finding the Buyers


Keyword data is the biggest factor that distinguishes online marketing from the offline world. Before the days of Google and keyword data, businesses relied heavily on market research companies to provide insight into the mind of the consumer.
These days we can simply analyze the keywords they type into Google and base a lot of our decisions on this. You might think this is obvious, however you would be amazed at how many people fail to grasp this.


Commercial Intent


This leads me onto my next point; ‘Commercial Intent’. This is simply judging how likely a person is to buy, based on the keywords they use in their search.
Ideally, you want to be driving traffic to your sites on keywords with high commercial intent, as these keywords will convert at much higher rates than more general, information-seeking keywords.


Example Searcher


Let’s look at an example to demonstrate this point more clearly. If a person types “acne” into Google, I would consider this to be a low commercial intent keyword, the reason being that we can’t tell what their intention is at this stage. They may just want to learn about acne and how many people have it, or the main causes of acne. These searches are known as “information seeking keywords,” and they’re not likely to result in high conversions to sales for you.

However, let’s say that the person who typed “acne” into Google did in fact have bad acne and needed a cure. The next thing he/she might do, after they browsed some websites about acne, is head back to Google and refine the search a bit more.

They might start researching the kind of acne they have, and type into Google “Types of Acne.” This is not a buyer keyword, but it may reveal to the searcher that they have a type of acne known as cystic acne.
So they might now type into Google “cystic acne treatment” and read some more webpages about possible acne treatments that you can use. At this stage, the commercial intent of the keyword has increased, and the conversions to sales also increase with it. We know exactly what the searcher’s problem is and that they are looking for a solution for it.

You can take this even further by getting very specific, and get extremely high commercial intent with keywords like “buy cystic acne treatment.” When you see the word “buy” in the search phrase, the searcher is blatantly telling you that they are ready to buy.


Conversions & Profits


Essentially, the higher the commercial intent, the higher the conversion rate for keywords and the more profit you will make. Therefore, it is important to build your websites on keywords that have a high amount of commercial intent.

What you must keep in mind, though, are the traffic stats for a keyword. It’s all well and good to be targeting a super-high commercial intent keyword, but if no one is searching for it, then you won’t make a penny.
When I look at keyword figures I usually aim for no less than 500 exact match searches a month in the local market I am targeting. I then start with half a dozen keywords and build my sites from there, with the intention to grow the list of keywords I’m targeting out over time.

Also, I will often target lower search volume buyer keywords as my secondary keywords for a page. For example, if my primary keyword for a page is “cystic acne treatment” I might target “buy cystic acne treatment” as a secondary phrase to collect that extra bit of buyer traffic to that page.
Although there are several more steps to creating profitable affiliate sites, building on a solid foundation of buyer keywords is the most important thing to get right.

Affiliate Marketing: Creating A High Content Authority Site for Affiliate Sales

Getting Started

Before you begin building your website or hiring freelancers, you need to decide what your niche or subject matter will be. I would suggest selecting a niche that you are familiar with, enjoy, and that has a definite demand for continuous content.

The worst thing is to be three months into the project and realize the niche puts you to sleep. You need something that is exciting for you!

I decided to choose the mother of all niches, weight loss. I guess it’s fair to say I like a good challenge, but you have to manage your expectations and figure out what is realistic when it comes to achieving your goals, and how much effort and investment you are willing to put in.

Your content should always solve problems and answer questions that users are likely to be searching for in the various search engines. Doing plenty of keyword research is necessary so you can target long tail keywords and avoid hard-to-rank-for terms like “how to lose weight” or “lose weight fast.” As a new affiliate marketer you have to be realistic with what you can achieve. But the long term goal is one of residual revenue and an online property you can eventually sell to reap the benefits of all of your (and/or your outsourcers’) hard work!

For example, a recent article I posted is on how to make your body burn more calories, which is obviously a topic with significant search volume. Once searchers find it, strategically placed affiliate ads will take users to a weight loss or diet supplement website. See how that works? Find a market you can corner that’s not over-saturated with competition and you can start building from there.

Content Needs


The days of content farms are drawing to a close, with even EzineArticles.com losing over 30% of its traffic due to a recent update to Google’s search algorithm.

The path to the future is clear—create an authentic site with quality content and a positive user experience. Otherwise, your organic ranking days could be numbered!

Once you’ve chosen what your website will be about, it’s time to start generating some excellent content. The keys to improving the flow of traffic to your website are quality content and genuine inbound links (link farms are also on the swift decline).

Setting your website up as an authority on a particular topic ranging from auto repairs to weight loss, using unique, quality content that is well-written, will help ensure your content drives the “right” kind of customers to the websites you promote.

The goal is to get people to your site and then on to the vendor’s site, and that requires helpful information that’s related to the vendor’s content. If you’re not a writer, or if you simply don’t have time to create content for an entire website, utilize the services of a freelance writer. These services can be found at sites like Elance, where I’ve found some of the best business partners around. Try to find someone that is already familiar with your niche, who has a basic understanding of search engine optimization and who can freely post quality content onto your site without you having to.

A professional with these skills will be able to provide you with high quality content that’s sure to bring visitors to your website. Without good content that keeps readers coming back, your affiliate links and promotions may not generate any additional income.

When you choose keywords to optimize for, make sure to choose phrases that are relevant to your subject matter and related to your vendor’s subject. You should also make sure to use phrases that would actually be searched for in search engines. For example, instead of ‘how to lose weight with oolong tea,’ which is too wordy, optimize your keyword text to read ‘oolong tea health benefits‘ and create a page title around that phrase.

Posting Frequency


An important factor in building a reputable site for affiliate marketing is posting fresh content to your site often. You want your site to become an authority on a subject, which means you want readers to check in with your website often for new content. By posting content at regular intervals, your readers know when to come for new information. Think of your website like a television show—you want readers to know when to come back for the next episode.

An authoritative website has many pages of content, which you will build up over time. This can’t be done in a few days. Give your website an edge by having a large amount of content ready for posting when your website goes live, and then continue to post high quality content regularly.

Networking


In addition to paying for the services of a freelance writer, you immediately want to begin networking with other bloggers. Bloggers with similar content may be able to act as ‘guest’ writers on your blog and you can do the same for their website.
[NOTE: If anyone is looking to exchange guest posts with us, just send a message via the contact form on our site].

By acting as a guest writer on another blog, it builds your reputation, and your website’s, as an authority on a particular subject. It tells your readers that you’re not just trying to make money, but you actually know what you’re talking about too. And those back links you get by guest posting will also help give your website’s rating a boost.

Inadvertent networking is another great way to boost your ranking in search engines. By creating high quality content that provides helpful information, other bloggers will link to your website as a credible resource, which will also improve your search engine ranking. This is why enjoying your niche is important, since it will make it easier for you to keep pushing out great content and chatting with new people in the industry.
Starting an authoritative website is fairly easy, and with the right tools you can be up and running in no time. Find your niche, stockpile your content for frequent updates, build your website and start linking! It’s easier than you think, and who doesn’t need another avenue to earn income these days?
Good luck!

Google Panda Effects on Affiliate Sites

Friday, August 26, 2011

Hey everyone,

I’m writing this blog post for ClickBank Affiliates (and this applies to vendors too for that matter) who are concerned about the impact of Google Panda‘s update has on the way in which they should be optimizing their sites for the search engines going forward.

Since February 24, Google has run several Panda updates (the most recent was Panda 2.2 on June 16, 2011). Firstly I want you to be aware that Panda is an update, not an entirely new ranking algorithm so many of the things you do to try to achieve high search engine rankings still apply as they used to.
The initial Panda update did in fact affect approximately 12% of the websites in Google, however the effects were much larger than Google has stated because most of the sites that were affected were websites that rank in the top pages of Google.

In addition, Google have also publicly stated on Google Webmaster Central Blog that Panda is not the only significant update that they’ve been running and that there will be more than 500 tweaks to their algorithms throughout the year. Furthermore, Google states “Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year.”

What’s more, Google’s representative says, “In fact, since we launched Panda, we’ve rolled out over a dozen additional tweaks to our ranking algorithms, and some sites have incorrectly assumed that changes in their rankings were related to Panda. SEO is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users.”

Google’s representative went on to list the following as questions that one could use to assess the quality of an article or a page:

  • Would you trust the information presented in this article?
  • Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
  • Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
  • Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
  • Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
  • Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
  • Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
  • Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
  • How much quality control is done on content?
  • Does the article describe both sides of a story?
  • Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
  • Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
  • Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
  • For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
  • Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
  • Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
  • Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
  • Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
  • Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
  • Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
  • Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
  • Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
  • Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

As you can see based on the questions above, Panda is an attempt for Google to assess websites that have too many low quality pages. If your site carries a Panda penalty, that doesn’t mean your site is out of Google, however it does mean that your website’s pages carry a penalty that makes it harder for them to get to the top of Google’s search results.

Also remember, if you make changes to your pages based on the information above, it may take several weeks before you notice changes to your rankings as Google only runs the Panda filter periodically to calculate the values it needs (about every 5 to 7 weeks).

Going forward, the key takeaway from this is that when you build your websites you need to start with your potential visitors in mind. This is a key distinction from those who have been creating websites based on highly searched for keywords and on securing low quality writers to throw up content based on those keywords.

You now have to think about producing content that users actually want to read.
This was always a good practice, however it has become even more important for those wanting to thrive with their affiliate sites (and vendor sites) going forward.

Top 12 Insights from 12 Years on ClickBank

When I first signed up with ClickBank back in 1999 I had no idea I would eventually build a successful online business using its services. I’m sure the founders of ClickBank didn’t realize how large and successful its business platform would become either. Thanks to ClickBank I was able to quit my job over a decade ago and have since worked from home part-time while making more than a typical full-time income. Looking at my experiences over the past 12 years it’s amazing how much I’ve learned and how much has changed. It’s given me some interesting insights and definitely a unique perspective.

I’d like to share with you 12 insights I’ve gained over the past 12 years. Things I wish I had known in the beginning but took time and experience to learn. Leverage my experience and use these insights to guide you as you build your own online business over the next 12 years and beyond!

Perseverance – Overall this has been the most important factor in my online success. If you’re going to succeed online, especially in the long-term, you have to stick with it. You have to try out new things, test out different methods and never give up. I’ve seen too many people give up and quit too soon. When I started out I was determined to make it, nothing was going to stop me from making an income online, and eventually I did. Even to this day I have to continually overcome obstacles, but that’s how you have to view them, and that’s all they are. I like to think of it as climbing a mountain; if you want to get to the top you have to crawl over rocks, take detours, and sometimes head back down the mountain and take another path up. If you want long-term success there’s just no way around it, you must have perseverance.

Think Big – A lot of people online talk about niches and seeking out small, unexploited niches. However, I’ve seen many people go into niches that are too small to replace a full-time income. Although people can and have done well with small niches. In my experience I’ve always been more successful with larger niches. I’ve always had better success when my product, service, or website has appealed to a very large audience.

Always Keep Learning – After you achieve some success online you begin to feel like you know it all. It’s an easy trap to fall into. However, if you can humble yourself and take the attitude that you should always be seeking out new information from others (even if they’re younger or less experienced than you) you’ll continually find yourself learning new things you didn’t know.

Bi-Winning – Why be an affiliate or vendor when you can be both? Like most people, I started out on ClickBank as an affiliate. Eventually I became a vendor too. I learned very quickly that not only do you diversify and stabilize your income by being both an affiliate and vendor, but you can make more money too. Being both an affiliate and vendor allows you to cross promote. You can promote your own products through your affiliate channels and you can promote affiliate products on the back-end of your own products. It also gives you the ability to make money off your competitors! For instance,  whenever I get a refund on one of my products, I email that customer with a list of competitor products.  And yes, they are all affiliate links.

Opportunity for Income– Every page of content, every affiliate link and every ad is an opportunity for income. The more opportunities for income you have, the more money you’ll make. This doesn’t mean you should fill up your blog with as many affiliate links and ads as you can, it means you should create more blogs, more products, more services and more content, etc. Most of these methods are low maintenance once they’re set up, so you should strive to create as many opportunities for income as you can.

Fill in the Gaps – As you create more opportunities for income, you should also be filling in all the gaps for income in your current sales process. If you have a product you should be offering up-sells, setting up cross-sells with other vendors, and offering additional items for sale on your thank-you page. If you’re an affiliate you should be following up with customers that purchase through your site, using auto-responders to follow up with prospects, and up-selling wherever you have the opportunity. Filling in all the gaps was something I neglected for years but once I started doing it my income increased immediately.

Don’t Take it Personally – Early in my Internet marketing career I was very defensive. I would get into long email battles with people I didn’t even know! Looking back it was such a waste of time and my productivity suffered. What I’ve learned is that no matter how good of a job you do, no matter how much you try to help someone, there will always be negative people out there that will tear you down, criticize you, and try to sabotage your success. It’s not worth your time wasting it on these types of people. Whether someone leaves a nasty comment on your blog, sends you an email rant, or makes rude comments in a forum, just ignore them. Sometimes people are looking for a fight, do yourself a favor by not giving them what they want and don’t take it personally.

Let Others Do the Work– Your only limited resource in your online business is time. The only way to have more time is to do less of something else. There’s no other way. Delegating work through outsourcing or hiring employees will be the only way to eventually grow your business. Start outsourcing anything you can have others do, such as graphic design, blog installation, programming, etc. Outsourcing is cheap, effective, and leverages your time so you can do other things. It may be a struggle for you to delegate work you know you can do best, but it’s something you’ll need to overcome if you want to take your business to its highest potential.

Ditch Your Inner Introvert– Working at home on the computer all day can definitely make you an introvert. One huge mistake I made for years was not reaching out and meeting other Internet marketers. Once I started getting out of my office and going to conferences and events everything changed. I made connections with like-minded marketers, learned more than I had in years, and made fantastic friends as well. Internet marketing is a people business and people are your most valuable resource. Get out from behind the PC and get social, you never know what connections you will make and how it may improve your business and life as well.

Automate – When I first started marketing online I used to email all my customers their download information manually. Yes, each time I made a sale I rushed to send an email to them with their download link as fast as I could. Eventually I discovered automated ways of doing this as well as many other tasks that saved me countless hours. The great power of the Internet lies in being able to let technology do the work for you. Many things can be done automatically, such as backing up your websites, customer follow-up, posting content to you website, and so much more. Whenever you find yourself doing any kind of repetitive task look to see if it can be automated in some way. Chances are it can.

Test For Success – I never ran an official split-test for probably the first 7 or 8 years I was marketing online. Mostly because it wasn’t easy to setup like it is now, but also because I was just lazy. After running numerous split-tests over the last 5 years, I’ve realized I must have left loads of money on the table by not split-testing. Split-testing gives you instant results to improve your website and it will provide you with definitive answers as to which versions to keep and which to get rid of. Just about every successful marketer I know split-tests and it’s available to anyone for free using Google Website Optimizer.

It’s No Secret – When I first started out with ClickBank I was convinced I had to either have some original amazing idea or know some secret marketing technique or loophole to make a lot of money. Eventually I realized none of that was true. You don’t have to promote the perfect ClickBank product, you don’t have to know special affiliate secrets and you don’t need a huge marketing budget to be successful. One thing I’ve seen over and over again is that taking consistent action leads to results and over time leads to success. There’s really no secret. I think Lyle Lovett says it best… “It’s funny, but the biggest secret to success is that those at the top just seem to work the hardest. The reason it’s a secret is because nobody wants to believe it.”

The Ultimate Affiliate Marketing Split-Testing Guide

Are you an affiliate marketer? Do you want to make more money?
Yes and yes, right? ;)
You’ve probably tried every trick in the book, right?
Google image ads, Twitter traffic, cheap Facebook ads… every possible way of getting cheap clicks to your landing page has probably caught your eye at some point or another.
Most of these tricks don’t really work, and if they do, it isn’t for long.
The real secret to making big money as an affiliate is split-testing.
And as an affiliate marketer, it’s actually easier for you than it is for a lot of other people…

Affiliate Marketers Have So Much Less to Worry About!


Affiliate marketers are already several steps ahead of the online marketing curve.
That’s because, as an affiliate marketer, you aren’t responsible for the entire chain of conversion.
All you have to do is find qualified leads, warm them up, and send them to the vendor’s landing page – the vendor will do the rest.

Not that all of that stuff is easy… that’s why some people are super-affiliates, and some people don’t make a dime.

But still, it’s the vendor who has to create an awesome product, and to tweak their landing page and funnel until it is a high-performing conversion machine. Which means that you don’t have to worry about turning prospects into customers, or keeping them as repeat customers – that’s the vendor’s job.
Which is why things are easier for affiliate marketers – they don’t have to split-test their product ideas, and they don’t have to optimize the back-end of the funnel.
But despite all that, in some ways, split testing is actually harder for affiliate marketers than it is for other people…

Affiliate Marketers Have Much Less Control


Split testing is harder for affiliate marketers because there’s less that you can split test; here’s a short list of the things that you don’t control:

• The product
• The checkout process
• The back-end funnel
• The messaging
• The imagery
• And the list goes on…

So in other words, if the offer isn’t fundamentally capable of selling itself, there isn’t all that much you can do about it.

Which is why affiliates look for tried and tested offers, with solid and proven EPC (earnings per click) rates. The trouble is that every other affiliate marketer is doing the exact same thing!
And if every other affiliate marketer is doing the exact same thing…

There’s Dramatically More Competition!


Yup, competition is a lot tougher for affiliate marketers.
Whereas people who sell their own stuff have to compete with other products and offers (which is hard enough!), affiliate marketers also have to compete with lots of other people who:

• Target the same lead sources,
• Run similar ads,
• Refer to the same swipe material, and
• Sell the exact same thing!

Yikes – what can you do to stand out?
That’s where split-testing comes in. In order to excel as an affiliate marketer, you need to constantly be split-testing the things that you do control, namely:

• Your lead sources
• Your ads
• Your landing pages
• Your incentives

Let’s go through these all one-by-one, and explore what to test, and how to do it. But first…

How do you do split testing, anyway?


Just to get us all on the same page, let’s quickly review.
Split testing (or A/B testing) is about testing two different variations of something, to see which does a better job of getting your audience to do what you want them to do. Common examples of things that you can split test include headline variations, button text and colors, and product pictures.
At a high level, that’s all there is to it.

Now, when it comes to running the actual tests, you need two things:

1. Some sort of technology to randomly serve the different variations to visitors.
2. Some way of analyzing the results to know when they’re statistically significant (in other words, to make sure that the results you’re seeing are caused by whatever you’re testing, rather than just being a random coincidence).

This may sound a bit complicated, but you really don’t need to worry about it; there are great tools that will do it all for you, like Google Website Optimizer (free), or Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer (paid, but are worth it).

And as for doing the analysis, there are lots of great free split test checkers out there that can do it for you.
Okay, are we up to speed?
Good – now let’s get into the meat of what you, as an affiliate marketer, can be testing…

Split Testing Your Lead Sources


The first thing that you can (and should) split test is your lead sources – in other words, where are you getting your traffic and prospects from.
Too many affiliates are one-trick ponies in this regard – they have their favorite traffic strategy (often the only one that they’ve been able to get decent results from), and they stick to it like glue.
Well, there are a lot of traffic sources out there, for example:

• Google AdWords
• MSN/Bing/Yahoo!
• Facebook
• Twitter lists
• CPV ad networks
• Email blasts to your list
• Email blasts to rented lists
• JVs with related products
• And the list goes on… and on… and on!

Different lead sources will work differently for different offers, so test them to see what works best. Also, when testing, make sure that you aren’t comparing absolute conversion numbers, but rather conversion relative to the cost of the traffic!

Split Testing Your Ads


The second thing that you should split test is the ad or call to action that you are presenting to your leads. Here are some things that you can test:

The headline of the ad. Try featuring different pain points or benefits, to see what works best.
The body of the ad. It may be short (like on AdWords) or longer, but either way, you’re communicating what you’re offering, and why it’s valuable. Change that up to see what makes a difference.
The call to action. Experiment with more and less explicit calls to action (“click here” vs. “learn more”, for example), and experiment with a focus on action versus results (“buy now” vs. “get instant access”).
Just one thing – when you’re testing different ads, make sure you’re tracking the right thing, and that is sales (not click-throughs)!
It’s not hard to write an ad that will get lots of people to click, but what you want to do is write an ad that will get few people to click, many of whom will then buy. Consider adding barriers to interest (like a listed price) on the ad, to deter people who aren’t likely to make a purchase.

Split Testing Your Landing Pages


Yup, direct-linking to an affiliate offer is a sucker’s bet, because you’re giving up way too much control over the sales process.
Which is why your landing page is where most of your split testing is going to happen – and so it should be! Your landing page, realistically speaking, is what will make the most difference to your bottom line.
Here are some of the most important things that you should test on your landing page:

Your headline. Yes, you’ve heard this before, but it’s true – the headline determines how many of the people visiting your page actually read the first paragraph, as opposed to clicking away. So test, and test, and test, until you get it right.

Your page format. In other words, short vs. long copy, and text vs. video.

Delayed button introduction. You’ve probably seen this – a button that only appears after a video has been running for a certain amount of time. Test it out – it might work for you.

Your colors. Different colors prompt different behaviors (this is called color psychology), and you should test different combinations to see what works best for your offer and audience.

• Your button placements and text. This can make a huge difference on click-throughs and purchases, so test, test, and test!

Your trust seals. These are the seals from Trust-E, Verisign, the Better Business Bureau, and other organizations, that let the reader know that they can trust you and the merchant that you are representing.

Your affiliate disclaimer. This is one that many people overlook, but it can make a big difference. Sometimes you’ll get better results with the small print in the footer-style, but sometimes you’re better off working it into your text (“Hell yeah, I’m an affiliate – I’m proud to stand with this offer!”).
This can take a lot of time to do properly, but believe me, the results are worth it!

Split Testing Your Incentives


The last thing that you should be split testing is something that many affiliates overlook altogether, and that is your incentive offer.
An incentive is something that you offer so that people buy through your affiliate link, as opposed to going directly to the merchant, or going through somebody else’s link. This is particularly valuable during a launch, when your prospects are likely to be hearing about the offer from a lot of other people.
Here are some of the things that you could consider offering as an incentive to people who buy through your link:

• Free or discounted access to one of your products
• Some free consulting time with you
• Access to an exclusive webinar that you will put on
• A portion of your affiliate commission, thereby reducing the effective price of the offer
• There are many other ideas… use your imagination!

The importance of an incentive can’t be over-stated – especially in an affiliate-saturated market, it can make all the difference.

Now, after reading this post, you should be ready to go out and split test to your heart’s content. But before you do that, I have two warnings to leave you with…

Warning #1: Testing Shouldn’t Be Random…


Some people think of split testing as being akin to panning for gold – you grab a big chunk of dirt, and hope there’s something valuable in there.
So they test every random thing without any rhyme or reason, until they arrive at a combination better than what they’re already running.
This might work if you’ve got the traffic of a Google or Yahoo!, but I’m assuming that you don’t (and even if you did, it isn’t the smartest way to do things).
Your split testing should be planned and intentional; think about what is likely to have the most impact on your audience, and there for yield the best results.
If you’re not sure where to start, then use a framework to track your audience through the conversion process, to see where you need to start first – or ask someone you trust to weigh in and give you some advice.

Warning #2: Only Test ONE Thing at a Time!


After reading a post like this one, you might feel the urge to make a long list of things you want to test, and then create a new campaign implementing all of those tests.
Resist that urge!

The key to split testing is to isolate variables – in other words, you want to test one thing at a time, so that you know what is responsible for any changes that you observe.
Order your list by priority of what you think will make the most difference, and then test one thing at a time, until you are confident that the results are statistically significant (as described above – you can use free split test checkers to make sure that this has been accomplished).

So plan out your tests. Rank them by priority.
And start testing!

5 Ways to Promote Affiliate Programs

Sunday, May 8, 2011

After having chosen several programs to join, you probably realize that customers won't knock on your door - you have to come to them. By promoting your affiliate programs successfully, you build your own success!

So what should you do to promote your affiliate programs? Here are five methods which have succeeded for millions and can succeed for you, if you choose to follow the same steps as those millions before you!

#1 Create your own marketing affiliate program materials.

Many people use the marketing materials provided by the program they signed up for. Guess what? Thousands of people are using those same materials, those same ready-made websites and those same advertisements. People are easily bored and those ads get old really, really fast. Create something brand new and all your own!

* Create your own promotional website instead of using a stale, pre- packaged website. This is not very expensive and the returns can be huge!

* Create your own brochures and pamphlets. Whether using email or mailing materials to prospects in the old-fashioned way, be sure your material is fresh and new.

* Create compelling business cards. The business cards you hand out to contacts that you network with should also be fresh, new, and cause the person reading the card to feel compelled to contact you. A simple byline such as "Information on Becoming an Overnight Success" can be all it takes to make that person call you for more information.

* Write original articles and submit for publication to ezines for exposure of your fresh material.

#2 Generate Leads from an Opt-In Email List

Sure, you can buy names from email lists, but are those people even interested in the type of product you have to offer? Probably not! Create an opt-in mailing list by allowing prospects who come to your website to choose to receive a free newsletter. This gives you the opportunity to include information in the newsletter about your products. Why is this the best way?

* Allows contact with people who have at least some interest in the product you are promoting on your website
* Generates mailing list for future products you may promote
* Saves tons of money compared to buying mailing lists!

After all, think of all those flyers that come in the newspaper. What do you do with them? If you are like most people, you throw them away because they don't pertain to you. If all the flyers in your newspaper were placed there because you, personally, had expressed interest in them, you probably would read them all! This is the difference between random mailing and mailing to prospects that share an interest in your product type!

#3 Network, Network, Network

Never miss an opportunity to network with others who may have an interest in your products, or even be interested in joining the affiliate program under you.

* Share your own success story with others you encounter. Many will be interested in joining you in your endeavor.
* Offer to mentor new prospects to ensure their success.
* Exchange business cards and make follow-up calls to encourage them to talk with you further about your programs.

#4 Use Blogs to Promote Your Programs.

In the past year, blogs have become extremely popular. You can use this forum to your advantage in promoting your affiliate marketing programs.

* Generate top-quality content to place on the blogs.
* Be sure that the blogs you choose are not over saturated by affiliate marketers already. Locate fresh blogs to use in your promotions.
* Content should compel the reader to action. Make them HAVE to check out your program.

#5 Use banner exchanges to your advantage.

Most marketers know that banner exchanges can help them promote their products, but there are a few tricks to success.

* Make sure your banner is placed on sites that will attract the same client base that will desire you product.
* Create attractive and compelling banner content. Plain-Jane banner ads won't attract, those that send acompelling message to act will!
* Always look for new places for your banner to appear. Don't become complacent because you have three or four sites showing your banner. There are new websites every single day!

These five tips will help you successfully promote your affiliate programs. There are many other ways to promote products, but these are proven to work for people who dedicate themselves to ensuring their programs get the necessary exposure to succeed.