| Ever wondered how the big boys make so much | | | | Now it's just simple maths, if you refer 100 |
| money with affiliate programs? Here's some ideas to | | | | customers to this program each day, you can expect |
| get you started on your own affiliate marketing | | | | to earn $5, 200 customers earns $10 and so on. |
| business. | | | | This is just a rough estimate of traffic, but it certainly |
| You will need to spend some time researching the | | | | helps in choosing one merchant over another, when |
| best paying affiliate programs. Affiliate programs that | | | | they’re selling the same or similar products. |
| I have used are Commission Junction and Clickbank. | | | | Also, it will depend on how relevant the advert is to |
| Commission Junction sell hard goods whilst Clickbank | | | | your site. In our example, a “vegetarian dog |
| sell information products and software. Both | | | | food” advert placed on a site about dogs is |
| programs have some high paying affiliate products. | | | | likely to be more successful than one placed on a site |
| Before you create any web pages or choose a | | | | about home cooking! |
| domain name, you need to do some research. Take | | | | Clickbank |
| time to decide what sort of product you might wish | | | | Visit to search the products that Clickbank have |
| to sell and then locate an affiliate program related to | | | | available. Again, you might search for "dogs" and |
| your chosen product. For example, if you have an | | | | come up with "dog training" products to market |
| interest in dogs, then you might choose an affiliate | | | | online. |
| e-book about “Dog Training”. Make a | | | | Then create a mini-site focused on your product. Visit |
| note of all the relevant products and what your | | | | and download Andrew’s free book on |
| commission will be. | | | | “Creating Niche Sites” for step by step |
| How to find your affiliate program | | | | instructions to creating a site which is highly attractive |
| Commission Junction | | | | to the search engines. |
| You can search their programs by advertiser name | | | | Buying traffic |
| or products. | | | | A quick way to get traffic to your site is to pay for |
| Hence, in our example of "dogs", you could search on | | | | clicks from either Overture or Google. Buying traffic is |
| the “products” box for this and find | | | | a numbers game and is only likely to be profitable if |
| merchants who are selling this. | | | | you are selling something of a high value. |
| They also have a very useful tool called the EPC, | | | | If you are selling an e-book for which you get paid a |
| which reflects how much has been earned for every | | | | $25 commission fee and you are converting 1% of |
| 100 clicks. For example, if the EPC is $5, this would | | | | your visitors into sales, you can afford to pay up to |
| mean that for every 100 clicks, Commission Junction | | | | 25 cents per click. Ideally you’d pay less than |
| has paid out $5. | | | | this so that you can make a profit! |