Affiliate Marketing Strategy

Can  you make money from affiliate marketing, if so, how? You can start blogging and making money from affiliate marketing. But before I start I would like to make one thing clear! I do not believe in easy money or make get rich overnight and there`s no magical tips in this article that will help you get rich overnight. So if you are after easy money then this article is strictly not for you .

So can you really make money from affiliate programs? Well YES and NO, there`s money in affiliate marketing but if you can make money from it or not depends on a lot of other factors such as your  commitment, experience, site traffic, content level etc.

Now, these are important topics we are going to work on to improve our earnings.

•  Introduction  to affiliate marketing

•  How does affiliate marketing work?

• Choosing affiliate products

•  Required  mindset for affiliate programs

1.  Know your Audience
2. When and where to get targeted visitors
3. Be honest
4.  Be helpful
5.  Select carefully
6. Try different programs
7. Write timeless content
8. Be patient
9. Stay relevant
10. Level of Content

 

INTRODUCTION- What is Affiliate Marketing?

According to wikipedia “affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliate for each visitor or customer brought  marketing efforts”. Basically you as a publisher will be rewarded when you help a business by promoting advertiser`s products or services. Sign up at phabulouz .com affiliate program and promote it`s products  then you will get your a commission when the visitor you send from your site makes a purchase.

 

HOW DOES AFFILIATE MARKETING WORK/TOOLS

When you join an affiliate program and choose the products that you want to promote, advertiser provides you with unique code that you can use to refer people to the targeted  site.

Most affiliate programs will offer ready made text or links, banners and other forms of creative copies where by you only have to copy and paste it on your website to start referring traffic, when interested visitors click on these links from your site they get redirected to the product or subscribe to a service, you as the referrer makes a commission.

The advertisers can track your performance through your affiliate ID and the affiliate softwares. You don`t need  to sell products all the time to make commission. Different affiliate programs can use different payment method, such as:

•  Pay per sale or cost per action :  In this type of program a merchant pays you a percentage of the sale`s price when the purchase  is completed.

• Pay per click : in this program you get paid based on the number of visitors you redirect to the merchant`s website from your affiliate site, if a sale is made or not.

• Pay per lead :  You get paid the referred visitors provide their contact information on the target site by filling out a single contact form.

NO FEES : You don`t need to pay anything to join affiliate programs.

 

REQUIRED MINDSET FOR AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Affiliate programs can be a big source of revenue. The key to maximizing your earnings is engaging your readers.  Unlike the usual ads where you are paid for impression or clicks.

Mindset to maximizing your revenues.

• Know your audience : 

The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to anticipate and meet the needs of your readers, consider why they are coming to your site. What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience`s problems.

If you are writing about sports, don`t put up affiliate ads for food just because one has to eat and those program have a high payout. The people who are coming for sport update aren`t  thinking  about eating  when coming to your site.

The relevant the ads are  to your readers, the more like they  will use them.

• When  and where to get targeted visitors

a.       When  to get targeted visitors : example, is forum membership website. When there is hot topic/discussion whereby many people are discussing on a particular topic  on un-employment and you promoting products on where to get  job or job vacancies. So all you have to do is participate  in the discussion, after your message include the link in which the reader will be redirected to the product`s site.

b.      Where to get targeted visitors:

1.   Where the product is much needed.
2. Forum/social media website.
3.  Search engines
4. Email

•  Be honest :  

 Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don`t believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, will leave and never comeback.

Its your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give  you backlinks , spread the word, and recommend your site as the go place for valuable contents. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content. If your visitors don`t think you are being honest, they won`t read anything else you  have to say.

Must Read: how to make money selling others peoples products

•  Be helpful:   

Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content . give value to your content by making it helpful, useful and informative.

Don`t  put a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the books(just  because you listed them), so you can in on sale. Take some time to write a detailed review and use affiliate ads to point them in the right directions if  they decide to act on your information. That what affiliate ads are for. If you write a great review recommending a book and  readers buy the book because of it, you should get something for that.

But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors.

•  Select carefully :  

 Take time to go through all the different options for products or services  available through the programs. Put some thought into which products or services your readers may need or like. Also, change the ads around often, try different ones and use different graphics text to see which are most effective.

It may take some time before you figure out the best formula, and you may also find that you need to continually rotate ads to attract more attention.

• Try different  programs :  

 If a particular program doesn`t seem to be working for you, try another one. Affiliate programs don`t look the same. They offer different products, services and payment structures. Some programs will have a lifetime payout on sales while others will limit it to 30-90 days. Some programs allow much more flexibility in the  types of ad units available as well as colors and design so that it  fits better on your site`s layout.

•  Write timeless content :  

 Your old content can still be valuable even though its no longer on your front page . Take advantage of the long term opportunities  by making sure you provide timeless contents.

Many platforms allow you to show “most recent” or  “most popular” or “related articles” on every page, so no matter how old your article is it will always show a access to your  new ones. Your old content can make money for  you  indefinitely.

• Be patient :  

 Affiliate revenue grow and build up with time. Remember that some programs offers lifetime payout. If you refer a visitor, you may continue  to make money from that one visitor even if he doesn`t comeback to your site. Also, as long as you have referrer links still active in old post they may still payout for you.

Affiliate programs aren`t a get rich quick plan, but it provides opportunity to make passive income in the future.

• Stay upto date : 

 keep upto date latest offering of your affiliate programs. New ad units, advertisers and tools are constantly being added to improve usability and be more usually appealing. Small changes go a long way in motivating action by readers. You may be left out in the dust by being complacent with your strategy.

•  Level of Content :   

Above all else, your content must be your highest priority :  Your  foundation is the life blood on which the site exists. Without  valuables and helpful  content, readers won`t come . focus on providing excellent content and the monetizing strategies will workout.

Once you start compromising your content to cater for the affiliate programs or any other money venture, you will loose your readers. Once that happens you will loose the  opportunity to receive any earning from any of your  ads.