Choosing the right company for affiliate marketing

For those of you that have been following my blog, you will notice that I've talked quite a bit about affiliate marketing recently. I do however want to provide a disclaimer beforehand and apologize about the video quality today due to the mic problems that I have been having. Without further due, let's jump right into the topic.

Now affiliate marketing has been the hot topic that I hear a lot of people talking about recently. Some have really made a real fortune out of it and some may get skeptical but I have personally witnessed a trusted guy I know making $12000 from it. Before you get too excited about it I want to say that it is a very lucrative field! Meaning that it will take some initial investment in it and I'm not talking about $50 or even $100. You'll probably be testing out with at least $200 or more to really see some results. I have to first say that it's not for everyone, after all there are only a few that's willing to invest $200 upfront without a guarantee return. However if you are willing to invest your time to test different campaigns out, the reward is handsome.

Let me just briefly explain how this process works. The chart below is something I've made really quickly to sum everything up in a nutshell.

Guy or company wanting to sell their product or service -> Affiliate companies -> Affiliate marketers

Each of the guys will get a split of the profit. So let's say that I'm a guy who wants to sell remote controls over the internet for $30 and however I don't have time to promote my product, I can go to a promotional companies such as an affiliate company. These companies are pretty much guys who claim that they can sell products for people for a living, in term they take a cut in the profit in every sale. So for example if I want $30 per remote control and the fee per sale was $15, then it's likely that I would like the sales price for these guys to sell them at $45.

So, in theory I will get $30 per sale on remote control and these affiliate companies will make $15 per sale at a sales price of $45 per remote control. How do these affiliate companies really make that $15 per sale? Obviously they in term hunt for potential affiliate marketers or current affiliate marketers like you and I to sale these products for them and in term split their $15 in profit with us. Now, how this split really varies between various affiliate companies. Some may split their profit with you more while others less, and there are some that just doesn't pay.

If you think you have the knowledge or is capable of selling on the internet for a product that you know really well about or the fact that you're just a good salesman, being an affiliate marketer is not a bad place to be. Having pushed sales as an affiliate marketer, below are a couple sites that I would recommend joining if you're thinking of jumping into this industry.

1. Azoogleads - These guys are probably one of the best affiliate marketing companies around in my opinion. Beside that they are one of the bigger affiliate companies around, they always pay on time! Now that may sound silly to some of you but some of these affiliate companies will actually delay payments to their affiliates. From my experience not only do Azoogle pay on time they are usually the ones offering one of the industries highest pay rate per product sales. The account rep they assign to you is usually very helpful and that's always a plus in this industry. Because if you have questions you can always call them personally or e-mail them for help. If you would like to try, here's the link to go to them

2. Clickbank - Similar to Azoogleads, Clickbank is a decent sized affiliate companies around. A lot of their products which they provide affiliate marketers to sale are usually niched toward web content based products such as Ebooks. Personally I'm not a big fan of Ebooks so I haven't given these guys a try for too long but I've heard great things about this company and their support so if you are interested in joining them, CLICK HERE!

3. Neverblueads - The guys from Neverblueads provide decent payouts similar to the top two that I've mentioned but one of the things that they specializes on is in incentivized offers. What it means is that the affiliate marketers can actually pay people to sign up for certain products. In another words affiliate marketers are able to pay users to sign up certain products to make money. Neverblueads has actually quite a bit of these products and if you are interested on incentivized offers, they're not a bad choice to go into. You can join them here!

4. Commission Junction - They are the biggest affiliate marketing companies around that I know of as to date. They promote for a lot of well known companies including Yahoo and Best Buy. They are one of the most stable companies around with a large selection of database in products that you can promote. The problem with them is that they often delay their payments due to product verification purposes. Although by nature, there's nothing wrong with this process I have talked to some folks who have had problems with them in the past on payments. I wouldn't personally recommend them because of my lack of experiences with their products. However if you prefer joining this industry with one of the biggest guys around, they will be your go to guy. You can join them here!

We'll talk about simple promotional ideas some other time, but why don't you guys check these affiliate companies out? By joining a good affiliate company makes it a good start in your journey onto affiliate marketing. With smart promotion, that's how you make money smart. -Swapw


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Auctionads

Many of you may heard about Auctionads, but do you know what Auctionads is and what it does? Auctionads is basically an affiliate marketing site for Ebay. What they do is they utilize the API from Ebay and turn it into very nice and pleasant looking ads for you to display on your site.
After you copy and paste the codes which Auctionads give you, you're live with their ads! So, let's say that you have chose to display ads about kids in your website which happens to also talk about kid related topics, the ad will display listings from Ebay based on products that are categorized with the word "kids" and display them onto your website. The looks of the ad itself is a combination of the pictures from the acutal auctioned item which the owner is selling and the name of the item which is displayed beneath the picture.

What happens is when a visitor visits these ads coming from your site and they bid and wins the product, you will then get a cut of the profit from Auctionads. Now, this part is actually not easy. Just think about how many times have you actually bid on a product but just to gave up later due to the amount of bids involved for the item? What I have found to be a more effective way to promote Ebay goods is to target your products that are cheap and is in high popularity with the general public. Personally, I have found goods that range between $0-$20 performs the best from my own experience. I think the reason behind it is that most of us don't mind spending a buck or two on a few items and most of the time, the item isn't expensive enough to really bother us at all. However, once the price is hiked up we tend to shy away or the interest level becomes target oriented. It is like buying an ice cream in the street for $3.50, sure it's more expensive but most of people would not feel uncomfortable with the price knowing that it's more expensive because they expected it. If the scenario switches to a LCD TV that cost $500, you would think twice about buying it and most of the time compare prices with other places or even brands of TV that's available for that price range.

I have heard success stories about people utilizing Auctionads on an investment property or related site. Although the visitors in this case is being advertised properties that are available to be purchased in a much higher price, but most of the time these visitors are injected with the idea that it's a smart investment therefore they are more prone to do so. I have not personally tested this concept but I can definitely see it having potentials of becoming successful if it is properly marketed.

Now, the most important part of today's post. The payout! How much do you get paid by Auctionads? Well, you get paid 75% of the revenue that Ebay makes and not the ended auction price! So really, it isn't that much per listing. The good news is that their minimum payout is $10 so it's one tenth of Google Adsense. Personally I make about $150 with Auctionads per month in one of my most traffic site, so I think it's not too bad. So check them out and see how it performs for you. -Swapw


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Affiliate Marketing explained II

* Intro to a continuation study on affiliate marketing (0:00 - 0:15)

* My experiences (0:16 - 1:43)

* The importance of picking an industry of knowledge (1:44 - 2:28)

* The first impression (2:29 - 3:01)

* Click through rate (CTR) (3:02 - 3:40)

* The difference you bring (3:41 - 4:25)

* Update of my experience and wrap up (4:26 - 4:56)

Okay, after some tweaking I have finally gotten somewhere with my affiliate marketing. I have to say, the first month of affiliate marketing was not a success story. As a matter of fact, I was down in the red zone which at one point I have almost given up on the idea. However, thank God that I sticked it through and now I'm turning it around and I have to say that I'm pretty satisfied with the current results. Through my video today, I will show you in depth of what I'm doing and my own personal experience of doing it as well. Since this is a second video that I'm doing on affiliate marketing, in case you want to see my first post about it you can click it here.

Affiliate marketing is a big industry and it will only grow over time. Just think about it, how many folks do you know personally that's working hard online and making a living out of it? The chances are, very little if at all. It is still an untapped industry and there's definitely a lot of opportunity within it if you jump in early into the game itself. You can do it aggressively or passively. Like my first video which shows how you can do it passively, this video I will provide you how to do it in a more proactive manner by creating a specific web site just for it.

There are a few keys to affiliate marketing:
1. Select an industry you know - Don't jump into an industry just because you hear a lot of buzz on it, do you know the industry? What will be the advantage you have over others? What makes your campaign better?

2. First impressions are extremely crucial - Just like a real store, if the first impression is bad people run out a lot faster then you would have ever imagined. For example, if the department store is badly organized do you think you would believe it to be a good store to go shopping versus one that is well organized? The answer is clear, the better organized one will gain more customers. Be sure your online affiliate marketing site whether your blog or elsewhere look professional.

3. Click through rate - Do some experimenting, is your audience coming to your site and not converting? Be creative and place them in different spots of your page and optimize the click through rate. The bottom idea is to capture your audience the first time they're there at your site.

4. The difference you bring - Do you have something different versus your competitors? Research, research, research. Before jumping into anything, be sure to find out what your competitors are doing and what they're not doing. Crop out your spot in the field and hammer out your advantages over others.

There's a learning curve and it won't be an overnight success. So don't expect to succeed the very first time, but just like anything over the internet; if you look deep enough you'll find your own gem to make money smart! Good luck. -Swapw



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Affiliate Marketing explained

* Intro to affiliate marketing (0:00 - 0:27)

* Affiliate marketing explained (0:28 - 1:50)

* How and what to start with affiliate marketing (1:51 - 3:15)

* How does the payout work (3:16 - 3:43)

* What makes half.com good? (3:44 - 4:53)

* Wrap up (4:54 - 5:13)




Affiliate Marketing is something that many of us may or may not be familiar with and quite frankly many of us shy away from it simply because we don't really understand it. It was also the same reason why I have not been posting as I have done so on a daily basis because I have been testing and trying out different techniques which I have learned.

To really talk about the term of affiliate marketing, we need to undertand what affiliate marketing is. Is it marketing? If you think it's just another way of marketing, then you're completely wrong! It is really a simple salesman's job and you're the salesman that is either trying to sale your own product or product of others to people and the platform you are doing so is over the internet. Each sale or a person interested in the product ended up signing up, you get a cut of the profit.

Now if properly applied, affiliate marketing can become quite profitable and a very steady source of passive income. Many "bad" businessmen uses very grey practices with it and many of us may have already seen these type of banners or advertisements. These type of businesses have really tainted the world of affiliate marketing and it's sad how it is being perceived today.

What I have personally discovered is the fact that if you actually provide your customers things they they ACTUALLY need, it'll go very well. Sounds funny and basic but believe me you will be surprised on how many people that can actually grasp this very same concept. Today's video I explain what affiliate marketing and the basic steps into it. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions, and as I have mentioned if it is properly implemented it can really generate a very generous amount of reward or income!

-Swapw
"Making money smart"

PS: I am not really liking my new system with Vista right now, it's gotten a lot of bugs in it. So if you are using your Windows XP, it's probably a good idea to wait until later to upgrade after these type of problems are being hammered out.

Swapw
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