If one has does some research about internet marketing, the concept of becoming an affiliate should be quite familiar as it is touted as the “hands free” way to earn money.
While there are many advantages to affiliate marketing such as not having to deal with customer service, refunds, returns or all the hassles of running your own business, the flip side is you can usually only earn a fraction of what you could as being the product owner. One has to weigh the advantages and disadvantages but with the search engine “bigwigs” highly discouraging affiliate marketing, it would be smart to consider ways to strengthen your position. In this article we’ll be discussing ways to avoid these pitfalls and what to do.
Build A Relationship With Your Affiliate Manager
As you improve your skills as an affiliate marketer, one of the avenues you more than likely will participate in is CPA (Cost Per Action) marketing due to the apparent simplicity in the method. Drive some traffic to an offer that usually only requires an email or a few other bits of information which will lead to a small commission. Managing your expenses is key to success with this model but most of all finding the best offers will make a huge difference. This is where talking with your affiliate manager will be very helpful as they can direct you to what’s working for others as well as give you a general idea on which creatives seem to be converting for other affiliates. Not complete details but just enough to give you that edge and worth the investment in time.
Build A List
You’ve heard it time and time again, “The money is in the list” but for most new marketers, this may be a foreign concept. Also, affiliate models such as the aforementioned CPA marketing don’t lend itself well to list building. So what is an affiliate supposed to do? First off, it’s important to bank some commissions as soon as possible so concentrate first on that but as soon as possible, learn how to build landing pages or opt-in forms. The faster you start to build a list, the safer your whole business becomes. Yes, it is safer because with a list, you become insulated from the whims of the search engines as no algorithm can effect your list, especially if you learn to build a relationship by providing value to them.
Create Your Own Product
This might sound daunting but it won’t be hard after you’ve been learning all about what your target market needs, which any successful affiliate marketer will do. By listening to what are the complaints in forums around your topic plus feedback you can survey your list about, creating an information product focused on solving a problem will surely convert to sales. If it is possible, building a more complete product and even a membership website would be the ultimate goal.
As one can see, affiliate marketing can be highly rewarding if approached correctly with no limits on the upside, especially if you implement the steps mentioned above.
