Article by James T. Maxwell
Affiliate marketing has gotten competitive over the last few years. Thousands of marketers have hopped on the bandwagon, hoping to make a quick buck. Fortunately, very few marketers really know what theyre doing or are willing to do it. If you follow these 7 tips, youll quickly put yourself in the top 1% of all affiliate marketers who actually make money.
Tip #1 Test Multiple Affiliates
Most people only test one affiliate when they setup an affiliate campaign. Instead, to maximize your payout, its important to test multiple affiliates.
Try selling physical products as well as informational products. Try CPA offers as well as pay per sale offers. In short, test to see what gives you the highest return.
Tip #2 Build a List
Its been said again and again. The money is in the list.
If you dont build a list, 99% or more of all your visitors will simply leave your page without buying. However, if you get 30% of them to sign up for your email list, you can continue to market to them until they buy.
Even if they dont buy, you can sell them products from all kinds of other affiliates.
Tip #3 Try Affiliate Mini Sites
Instead of trying to build a huge website marketing affiliate products, people often find that affiliate mini sites work very well.
A mini site is a small website used to increase conversions between your traffic and your offer. For example, if you bought a PPC ad and tried to funnel it straight to your affiliate link, chances are it wont convert.
However, if you forwarded the traffic over to just a one page website then over to the merchants page, often times it will convert.
Tip #4 Expand Your Traffic Sources
As the web develops, more and more traffic sources will surface. For example, most affiliate marketers are still stuck playing just the PPC game. On the other hand, marketers are making millions by marketing on Facebook or other social networking sites.
Get creative. Dont stop learning about and trying new sources of traffic.
Tip #5 Dont Just Look at Payouts
Payout actually isnt the most important number. Conversions are important too, but its not the most important number either.
The most important number is your Earnings Per Click, or EPC. For example, if you make for every 100 visitors you send over, then your EPC is .20.
The higher your EPC is, the better your affiliates are performing. The EPC is the perfect gauge of how much money youre making and it takes into account both the payout and conversion rate.
Tip #6 Look for Continuity or High End Products
You can get paid for selling a product or you can get paid for selling a ,000 product. Which would you rather put your work into?
You can do your affiliate work and get paid once, or you can do your work once and get paid many times. Which would you rather do?
Look for high ticket items or items with continuity to promote. It will pay off.
Tip #7 Keep Testing
Never get complacent. The top marketers make all their money by continually testing and testing their products and offers.
Keep testing your ads, your landing pages, your offers, etc.
If you follow these seven tips, youll quickly find yourself among the top 1% of all affiliate marketers who make money. Most marketers just dont put in the work to really make money in this business. If you do the work, youll take home the paycheck.
