Affiliate Marketing Success Stories - Raising an Affiliate Program Cash Cow (Part 2)

The following interview with Shawn Collins, a prominent expert in the

affiliate marketing field, should prove instructive to the reader. Shawn

has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the field and now runs his own affiliate

program management and consulting firm. As this interview is inherently

limited in scope, one is encouraged to read more about Shawn's experiences

in the field and the advice he dispenses through his books, conferences,

blog, articles, reports, and weekly radio show. The reader can also meet

Shawn at the Affiliate Summit, a "can't miss" conference for those

interested in excelling in the competitive world of affiliate marketing.

Q. Shawn, how would you describe your initial experiences with affiliate

marketing?

A. It was back in 1997. I had a dial-up account on AOL, a 14.4 modem and

a desire to make more money. At the time, I didn't know a thing about

creating websites, marketing, etc. But I went through a tutorial at AOL on

writing HTML and picked up the basics. Then, I created a hideous, single

page site about New York City and put up some Amazon links. I never earned

a cent on that site.

Q. What growing pains did you endure at first? What were the biggest

obstacles and challenges from that period of time?

A. Back then, there was a monopoly on registering domains, and it cost

$35 a year. At the time, that was a bit prohibitive for me (I didn't

realize what a good investment a short name would be). That was a trend -

an unwillingness to invest in my affiliate efforts. I was going the free

route with tools, hosting, etc. That definitely delayed my progress.

Q. What was your first "Ah-ha" moment? How did you incorporate the

lesson learned into your affiliate marketing business?

A. The first time I got my reporting via email from Amazon with

information on commission earned. Back then, there was no option to login

to an interface - just a periodic email with affiliate stats. When I

realized it was real that I could earn money this way, I was excited and

motivated. This persuaded me that I was wasting my time working in

magazine publishing - it was time for me to get into a line of work that

was stimulating and rewarding.

With my limited affiliate marketing experience, I managed to get a job

with a start-up in 1997 called Medsite.com, and I bluffed my way into

running the affiliate program there. I've enjoyed my work ever since.

Q. Without mentioning names, have you joined affiliate programs that did

not keep their promises and/or provide appropriate compensation? What

measures did you take when confronted with this situation and what advice

can you give others to avoid this circumstance?

A. Lots of affiliate programs lie in their recruiting efforts - they

talk about how easy it is to earn commission from them. That's simply not

true - it's not easy. I just don't pay attention to most recruiting

efforts from affiliate programs. I would encourage affiliates to ignore

proclamations of easy earnings and high EPCs - the most important thing is

to test everything yourself and promote what works for you.

Q. How has affiliate marketing changed in the last seven years? What

strategies would you implement now that you would not or could not do

years ago?

A. The industry has matured greatly. Seven years ago, many affiliate

marketers were content sites which relied on 468x60 banners. The analytics

were primitive and fewer companies offered affiliate programs.

Now, the industry is so diversified. Essentially, any way to market online

is being leveraged by affiliates... including comparison shopping,

domaining, video, SEO, e-mail, social networks, PPC, rewards programs,

etc.

If I could turn back time, I would have started up multiple niche

community sites back then for popular topics. By now, if nurtured they

would have grown nicely and become lucrative affiliate sites.

Q. If one is gifted marketing an affiliate product or service, is it

likely that this individual can effectively market his/her own products or

services? Should people look into developing their own items while

marketing or instead of marketing others' products/services?

A. I'd say anything that is already selling online can be effectively

marketed through an affiliate program. Selling your own products or

services can certainly provide more rewards in the best case scenario, but

then you've got a lot more risk, too.

If somebody has the infrastructure and know-how to sell a certain product

or service, I'd say to go for it. But don't take uncalculated risks.

Q. What are crucial mistakes that newbies tend to commit?

A. Lack of investment and understanding. It's really difficult to

succeed in affiliate marketing if you are unwilling to spend the time and

money required to develop a long-term strategy. And affiliate marketing is

most certainly not a quick endeavor - it takes patience to endure and

succeed.

Q. What are some of the creative (perhaps seldom used) strategies to

employ in the affiliate marketing field?

A. Simply going beyond the banner. There are a lot of exciting

opportunities out there with Web 2.0. It's just a matter of figuring out a

unique angle.

Q. How long does it realistically take to build a full-time income with

affiliate marketing, assuming "full-time commitment"?

A. I don't think you can qualify and quantify passion. And to me,

passion is an essential ingredient in affiliate marketing success. Also,

there are so many variables, like the size of a given vertical, the

margins involved, competition, etc.

Q. Is it easier to build income from this type of marketing now or was

it easier years ago? (Please consider competition, Internet usage, advent

of Adwords and Pay Per Click, etc.)

A. It was never easy. There was certainly less competition in the past,

but also less in the way of options of advertisers to choose and methods

to promote them. Plus, there is the continuing growth of ecommerce. I

think the opportunities for success are just as healthy now as they were

years ago.

Q. While I know that you do not recommend any particular affiliate

marketing programs, in your estimation, what are the "hottest fields?"

A. The "hottest fields" are a slippery slope. They change over time. I

think the hottest field for any given person should be the area that

interests them most. You can certainly go out there as a mercenary and

promote the most lucrative thing at the moment, like ringtones or debt

consolidation, but I suggest going with a long-term plan in an area that

interests you.

Q. Is there any affiliate marketing software that is a "must" when one

pursues an affiliate marketing venture?

A. This really depends on the type of affiliate. There are software

programs that help optimize affiliate efforts for different affiliates.

For instance, if you're working with data feeds, you should check out

WebMerge.

Q. What are your views concerning affiliate marketing networks such as

LinkShare and Commission Junction?

A. I think they're the backbone of the industry. The affiliate networks

account for the majority of large affiliate programs, and they also

provide a level of convenience in that you can consolidate a lot of your

activity under a few logins.

I would like to see them work together to establish standards. For

instance, there is a lack of standards in data feeds, which is a challenge

for the folks using them.

Q. Can any absolute statements be made regarding the most lucrative type

of affiliate marketing payment system (e.g pay per sale, pay per click,

etc.)?

A. In general, CPA seems to be more profitable, especially offers for

products and services that are not physical items.

Q. What influence, if any, will blogs make on the affiliate marketing

landscape?

A. I think some are influencial in the way networks, merchants and

affiliates operate. For instance, Jangro.com is considered to have had an

impact in the decision by Commission Junction to change their plans on the

Link Management Initiative (LMI).

Q. What are, statistically, the best avenues to market an affiliate

program?

A. It depends on the vertical. Email and PPC work well for some CPA

offers, while an established web presence can be more important for

selling goods on a revenue share.

Q. Do you see any future trends in the affiliate marketing field?

A. Smaller affiliate programs. Affiliate managers are focusing on

working more closely with fewer affiliates. Also, I think we'll see an

increasing number of affiliates embrace the opportunities out there with

Web 2.0 and innovate with the new tools that roll out.

Q. What current projects are you undertaking in affiliate marketing, including

your work with the Affiliate Summit?

A. My main focus is Affiliate Summit, the largest affiliate marketing

conference. Our last show had over 2,000 this past January in Las Vegas.

We also have events scheduled in Miami (July 8-10) and London (September

28) this year.

Additionally, I provide affiliate management and consulting services as

Shawn Collins Consulting, and I publish an annual report on affiliate

marketing benchmarks called AffStat.

I also have a blog at http://blog.affiliatetip.com where I post daily

about issues in affiliate marketing. And I'm the co-host with Lisa

Picarille, Editor-in-Chief at Revenue Magazine, for the weekly show,

Affiliate Thing, on WebmasterRadio.FM.

Q. What do you attribute your affiliate marketing success to (e.g.,

building content, writing articles, following footsteps of a mentor, forum

participation, etc.)? Please include any last words of advice for one who

aspires to succeed/excel in the affiliate marketing field.

A. It's all about dedication, tenacity, and relationships. I don't look

at my affiliate marketing activity as a job, but rather a fun, profitable

hobby. Over the decade I've been involved in the industry, there are way

too many factors to list that have contributed to my success. But I'd say

the most important of all is to constantly endeavor to learn from others.

_____________________

Conclusion - Do's and Don'ts of successful affiliates

Analyzing the success stories, we may conclude the following do's and

don'ts of being a successful affiliate:

Do's

Build a useful website. Visitors must gain some benefit by visiting

your site.Retain visitors through unique content or adding your "personal

touch." Provide something unique / personal on a consistent basis so that

visitors will be motivated to revisit your site.Sign up with a known and established affiliate program. They have

their tracking systems updated and so you can be rest assured that you

will get your payments.Market your affiliate program so that you can increase the number of

visitors who see your affiliate offering.Optimize your website so that you get a high ranking in natural search

engines.Know your competition. You have to provide something better than

them.Choose the advertisement model that is in line with your overall

business model.Launch your site for some time, before joining any program. Good

affiliate programs may like to see your site and study the traffic before

enrolling you.Look for outside help. You may employ skilled people.Use blogs and RSS feeds for promotion.Remain active in your industry. You must know the latest trends and

needs of visitors.

Don'ts

Join just any affiliate program. Many affiliate programs are outright

frauds.Ignore your competition. They are the best evaluators of your

products/services.Get obsolete. Update your content regularly.Rely only on banner ads. Experiment with all types of

advertisements.Waste time. Be the first to capture any new opportunity.Encourage spamming. You will get blacklisted.

With successful identification of customer needs, providing a way to

fulfill those needs, and collaborating with established affiliate

programs, it is possible to create your own affiliate success story. You

just need to manifest a methodical, patient approach and perform lots of

hard work. But raising an affiliate program cash cow is certainly worth

the effort!

Author, Andy Lax, is an account manager at IntelliCollect ? a merchant account company that provides merchants with credit card processing and electronic check processing capability. This credit card processing company, http://www.intelli-collect.com, offers the best rates, exemplary service and their own potentially lucrative merchant account affiliate program http://www.intelli-collect.com/affiliates.html

Affiliate Marketing Success With the Blueprint of Success

Many people jump at affiliate marketing and are hoping to make all this money and some of them aren't successful and eventually quit and decide that you can't make money online through affiliate marketing. They are given all their affiliate tools and all instructions of how they can use these affiliates but like with most things in life we try to adjust them to our lifestyle and not the other way around. As an affiliate marketer we are given all the tools necessary from our affiliates to make money, these are tried and tested systems that have worked for others, so why can't they work for you? It's because you are making it too much about you and not enough about using the system given to you.

"People FAIL, Systems never FAIL"

You want to work with the system and not against it. The systems within these affiliates is not just something they learned yesterday, its tried and proven and other people within these systems are earning money from it. So it's up to you to figure out how they are making money online through the same affiliates you are using yourselves. You want to remember that affiliate marketing is an internet marketing business. For you this is a business and you are given the blueprint to a business and told "hey this is how I make money from affiliate marketing and it works well for me, try it for your self and see how much money you can make"; but if you don't work exactly with that blueprint there is no way you can achieve the same results.

"People DON'T Plan To FAIL, They SIMPLY Fail To PLAN"

When you are given somebody's blueprint to success it is for you to try their system, test for yourself what seems to be working well for you and tweak the system to be better than the blueprint you received. In order to achieve internet marketing success with affiliate marketing you have to make a plan and stick to the plan in order to accomplish your financial goals. The amount of money you desire from marketing any affiliate online is about picking the number you want to earn and doing the math to figuring out how many people you have to sign up or how many products you have to sell in order for you to make that happen. After you know how much you want to earn its then a matter of putting your plan together to earn that money. Figure out how much you want to earn per year, divide that by twelve and figure out the monthly income it would take to accomplish that, continue to break that down into weeks and days. When you have your long-term goals and you have your short-term goals as well, you can utilize those short-term goals as progress points to encourage you to accomplish your long term goals. You have to think of the amount of money you want to earn as a financial goal, it's just a goal like any other goal in life and you have to put work in to achieve that goal.

The Great Wall of China wasn't built in one day, one week, one month or even a year and that structure today stands as one of the wonders of the world. Don't believe that your goals are going to be achieved over night or in one week or even one month. Everything has a process and that process cannot just switched on fast forward, having a system and having a plan are the first steps but you have to learn and acquire the knowledge and the wisdom necessary to achieve the goals that you are setting for yourself. You must first become the student before you can become the leader; open your mind to learning and gaining as much knowledge in the area you are seek as humanly possible. Be a student of success and not just another person learning, we must learn from those who have been successful before us in order to attain their success or better.

Model Your Success On The Blueprint Of Success

When one joins an affiliate program or a network marketing program you are suppose to have a sponsor, which is the person who invited you into the program and its your responsibility to learn as much from your upline as possible. Many of us go in it only focusing on the fact that your sponsor has the sole responsibility of training you and that's just ludicrous. It is as much your responsibility to learn from your sponsor as it is their responsibility to teach you how to use the program to earn money. If your sponsor doesn't reach out to you it is still your responsibility to find out who in your complete upline was a big earner with the program you have been invited into, your upline consists your sponsor, his sponsor and their sponsor and so on. All these people have signed up people to this program already and that's the beauty of this network marketing business or affiliate marketing business.

Somebody in your upline has done this before you and you have an opportunity to reach out to them and find out how they marketed their affiliates and networking marketing programs to success. Get email addresses and phone numbers and contact them and I am sure they will be happy to tell you how to earn money with the program, especially because they are probably going to make money when you make money. Model your success from anyone in your upline who has been successful before you and test their blueprint to success for yourself. You must first learn how to walk before you can run. Take the necessary steps to learn how to be successful and put in the work needed to achieve that success.

I said it before and I am going to remind you, affiliate marketing is a business like any other business. You form a business plan, calculate your possible earnings, execute your business plan and you learn as you go along how you can earn more money. Pay attention to what is successful and what is not and make the necessary changes to your plan so that it can be as effective as possible. If you have the opportunity to learn more about your current field then soak up all the knowledge you can and utilize that information to help achieve your own success. Its not rocket science, follow the system, work with the proven formula, follow the blueprint and you will be successful. You must seek knowledge, make a plan and then take action. Hard work is the key to success, remember that because nobody said it was going to be easy but be determined to achieve success and be diligent and you will find your own success.

Alexander Day, I advise Internet Marketers on how to market their own business and products on the Internet for little or NO out-of-pocket cash. Find out more about Affiliate Marketing Success With Alexander Day

Affiliate Marketing Success - Find Out What All it Takes

To achieve success with affiliate marketing, one must have the right knowledge and perseverance to always stay one step ahead of the competition. As with any other career, training and learning must be undertaken in order to prepare for the job. Some mistakenly believe that they can jump right into the internet business and make money right away. What they need to realize is that it takes time to achieve affiliate marketing success. As with any job, they need to first learn and prepare, and THEN go on to make money.

That being said, affiliate marketing isn't for just anybody. It's for those who are truly determined to be their own boss and to succeed no matter what. It's for those who refuse to work for anyone other than themselves. And, most importantly, it is for those who want to take charge of their own lives and the future. With qualities such as self-determination, optimism, and even some ambition, affiliate marketing success can be achieved.

Patience is also a virtue when it comes to affiliate marketing success. Direct results may not be seen instantly, in fact they rarely are. Affiliate marketing isn't a job that pays an individual for his or her hard work at the end of each day; it's a business that first needs to be built. And then, in time, affiliate markers will begin getting paid for their efforts. Many people don't have the patience needed for for success in this business. They want money NOW, even if they don't want to work now. It essentially comes to this: the more hard work and effort that is done today, the more money an you can expect in the future.

Knowledge about internet marketing is also a must for achieving affiliate marketing success. Knowledge equals power on the internet, and power equals money. The more knowledgeable one is, the more opportunities he or she will have for making money. Researching the market and understanding how affiliate programs work is a must. It's also advisable for anyone trying to achieve success to participate in forums, blogs, social networking, and other interactive communities. There are many successful internet marketers willing to offer advice to beginners.

Once a budding internet entrepreneur begins to get the hang of affiliate marketing techniques, he or she needs to become persistent. At least two or more hours a day need to be spent on website development, promotion, content authoring, link campaigning, social media networking, search engine optimization, and so forth. All of these are popular, well known techniques that will bring about affiliate marketing success. Some techniques work better for some people than others; it all depends on an individual's personal talents and preferences.

In summary, affiliate marketing success can be achieved, but it takes a willingness to learn, study, and practice. Putting time and effort into everything is a must. It's not a job that pays immediately, but a business that begins paying off after weeks of investing time, energy, effort, and persistence. It is these things, in the end, that lead to ultimate success.

Matt Henderson, owner of MyOnlineSuccess.com, is an affiliate internet marketing coach. As an affiliate marketing guide and coach for beginners, let Matt show you the same system he uses to make money with affiliate programs when you visit http://www.myonlinesuccess.com

Affiliate Marketing Success - Using Niche Marketing As Your Success Tool

Affiliate marketers come and go with the seasons, sometimes they even change like the weather. Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme and it does not promise over night success. If this was the impression you were under then I suggest you run for it right now. Affiliate marketing is a business, better yet it's your business and you call the shots. Your success with affiliate marketing is solely up to you and it's the amount of effort you put into achieving your goals that will determine how successful you are. The success rate with affiliate marketing is about 98% failure to about 2% success and I am sure you would rather be within that 2% success rate. That 2% may sound small but in the large scheme of things but 2% success rate is actually a large amount of people when compared to the 100's of millions of persons using the internet to market their business online. So knowing that there are maybe 100's of thousands people who have done it successfully before you, doesn't it comfort you knowing that you can model your success from their blueprint.

Most of the people who fail at affiliate marketing never even took the time out to learn how to market their affiliate business properly. You must first be a student before you become a leader. Be a student of success and learn as much from person's who were successful before you and model your success on what they did to be successful. The blueprint was laid out before you and its there for you to learn from and apply to your life so that you too can reap success. Effective internet marketers don't just rely on their knowledge the utilize systems, systems that are proven to work. Effective internet marketers utilize systems to execute their plans.

To be effective with internet marketing it would be wise for you to utilize a system when executing your place. I learned that SYSTEM can actually be a very neat acronym and this has really stuck with me throughout this past year and it goes like this.

S ave Y ourself S tress T ime E nergy M oney

Systems are designed for you to save yourself, stress, time, energy and money. As an affiliate marketer there are already systems in place to help you with affiliate marketing and there are successful individuals who are willing to help you achieve that same success. When working within a tried and proven system, you cut out the useless work by just focusing on what actually works already. Somebody already tried it and tested it out and made note that this works and that doesn't work. So it's wise to go out there and do your research to figure out what has worked for affiliate marketers before you and if that same plan can work for you. I want to introduce you to one of the systems that the internet marketing guru's use to their advantage all the time. This technique is called Niche Marketing.

Using Niche Marketing As Your Affiliate Marketing Success Tool

"Online niche marketing, an often used technique for affiliate marketers. By seeking out smaller segments of larger markets, a website can be developed and promoted quickly to uniquely serve a targeted and usually loyal customer base, giving the affiliate a small but regular income stream. This technique is then repeated across several other niche websites until a desired income level is achieved." - defined by Wikipedia

So this really is a powerful tool you can use to help achieve your success with affiliate marketing. When deciding what market you want to focus on you want to take the time out to do the keyword research necessary to find what people are searching for in that respective market. You want to compare different markets you could be interested in trying to find the most in demand keywords and phrases for each niche. You are going to want to make a note of 5 main keywords and 25 sub-category keywords, all in high demand and low supply. You know a keyword is in high demand by how many times per month it is being searched and you know if it is low in supply by checking the search engine's results for those keywords and seeing how competitive the websites in those results are. When checking how competitive these website really are you need to understand how well their site is optimized for the search engines, so that you can optimize yours better.

Optimizing Your Website For The Search Engines

Search Engine Optimization is a matter of setting up your website for optimal performance on the search engines. There are 3 major search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN. With Google being one of if not the biggest search engine there is I feel it would only be appropriate to use Google's page rank system to model our search engine optimization campaign from and you can also download Google's toolbar which tells you the Google's page rank of every website you visit by displaying a green bar. With Google it seems their search spiders crawl their indexed pages and high rank pages first before anything else because it's based on popularity, link popularity. They also rank pages on their relevancy based on keywords and overall content relevancy. So I believe we should focus on these two key things when optimizing our website for search engines; link popularity and content relevancy.

Content relevancy would refer to the content of your website and how relative it is to your niche market. Your content relativity is going to be determined based on how well you have placed your keyword and keyword phrases around your website. Since search engines display first the title of your website and then your website description it is wise to have your keywords in both your title and your description. After placing keywords in your title and description it is now time for you to focus on actual website content and placing the keywords you found from the research you did about your niche market. When writing content you want to write content with your keywords in mind so that you can place them within your content but allowing your content to still remain legible with correct grammar.

Link popularity refers to how many websites are linking back to your website. Links can be broken down into two groups; two-way links and one-way links. Two-way links are when you and another website exchange backlinks and they are often called reciprocal links. One-way links are when you don't have to link back to the website that is linking to you. One-way links carry more weight than reciprocal links and are view as more important. The relevancy of the reciprocal links or the one way links also help search engines know how important your website is to your niche. Also getting links from websites with a high Google page rank are also important, especially for optimizing your website for Google. It would be a good idea to try and get one-way links from websites with a high Google page rank and that will help your website to get indexed in search engines quickly as their search spiders crawl higher ranked pages often. Building your link popularity is extremely important as it dictates to the search engines how important your website is to your niche but link popularity without content relevancy is pointless and vice versa. Both your content relevancy and your link popularity need to be done properly and I suggest starting with content relevancy first and work on your link popularity every day.

Successfully Build a Passive Residual Income Through Niche Marketing

The key to building a residual income through niche marketing online comes with learning how to monetize your website. Monetizing your website is essentially turning something that is non-profit into something profitable, in this case turning your website into a cash machine. Setting up your website and optimizing it for the search engines is the first step and now monetizing it will almost complete your online cash machine. You have a couple of choices when trying to monetize your website; choosing to sell advertising space, using pay-per-click ads and/or selling products through affiliates. Since our focus is on affiliate marketing then selling products through affiliates is essential but it isn't necessarily the most lucrative way to go about utilizing your traffic from the search engines. I suggest using all three ways to earn money from your website. Sell about 3 advertising spaces from your webpage by joining ad networks that will sell your ad space for you. Place PPC ads within your content, articles or blog posts, they are more likely to be clicked if they are within your posts and you get paid for each click. Place affiliate products relative to your niche around your content or at the end of your posts.

Affiliate marketing is a tool that can aid you to becoming an internet marketing success but it is essential that you do it correctly. Utilizing PPC ads on your website as well as selling advertising space gives you leverage and a lot of leverage. PPC ads allow you to get paid for every single click to those ads and if spread correctly within your content they will get clicked all the time. When selling advertising space you have the opportunity to sell space ahead of time and get paid in full and that is cash in hand and you don't have to rely on somebody clicking your ads to get paid. The beauty of affiliate marketing is that by placing your ads given to you by your affiliates around your content and throughout your page you will have an opportunity to earn more commission when you make a sale through your affiliates. Instead of earning a couple dollars here and there, you can earn up to 70% commission making sales through your affiliates. With the potential earning power of all three monetizing opportunities you can really earn a passive residual income through this method.

All that is left after setting up your website, optimizing it and monetizing it is simply continuously adding content to your website. Search engines love new content and taking advantage of your traffic from the search engines because you have optimized your website for the most searched relevant keywords to your niche and earning as much money as possible from that traffic can provide up to a couple thousand dollars a month. $3000 a month may not be something to retire on but when this process is repeated over and over in different niches it will add up and can really put money in your pocket every month. This is the success tool that niche marketing brings to affiliate marketing. Become an internet marketing success, any amount of income you desire can be achieved just keep building profitable websites and optimize them for search engines.

Alexander Day, making money online with affiliate marketing is easy. Learn how to market their own affiliate business and products on the Internet for little or NO out-of-pocket cash.

Affiliate Marketing Success With Alexander Day.