Sunday

Affiliate Drop-out


Becoming an affiliate is a difficult task, especially when compared to using contextual advertising. As mentioned previously, the weight of deciding what's right for your site, rests on your shoulders. Therefore, if it doesn't work out there is only one person to point the finger at.

Pay attention to who your reader base is, learn where they are coming from, and find out what links they are following on your site. Site-Overlays are available via Google Analytics and ClickTracks. These site over-lays will give you a visual representation of where your visitors are clicking. Each link on your site will show up with a small bar graph underneath it, this bar represents the percentage of clicks received compared with the rest of the site. Using this tool to your advantage can seriously make a difference and worth checking out.

Keep in mind this is not a process that you will master overnight. Planning, changing, and planning some more is required to be successful at affiliate marketing. Remember, know thy visitors.

Friday

Affiliate Testing & Reporting, Phase 2

I'm calling on all of my BlogMad friends to help me support this statistics review of Affiliate Future. All that is required is for you to enter your email to sign up to Free iPods.

The program is simple and works like a pyramid referral system. Free iPods has been featured on such television programs as CNN, WIRED, G4, FOX, and MSNBC. You simply sign up and then start referring your friends. Even if you take the first step by signing up you are helping the project here at Dead-Man-Blogging.

So Take The First Step:

By entering your EMAIL you stand a chance to earn an original video iPOD. And your helping the cause to bring the power of referrals to bloggers. Because Google Adsense just isn't enough.

Thanks for everyones support! What else are you gonna do for 25 seconds?


Affiliate Marketing in Action, Phase 1 of 3

My intent is to start an affiliate campaign here, to show the steps involved to become successful. To do so, will require everyones help and attention, and all the results will be posted here along with the steps taken.

The first step is to work on building traffic, which has already been done. I utilize BlogMad, which is a traffic exchange site that helps send visitors to your blog. I have accumulated a number of credits, which I can exchange for visitors to my site.

The ultimate goal is that these visitors will find value in my blog and decide to stick around. In addition, hopefully they will link back here, to share what they have learned. The next step, was for me to choose a product to affiliate. Keeping in mind my target audience, I have choosen a 'service' that will provide it's users with fre iPods for joining the FreePayNetwork.

Choosing the product stems back to me learning about my target audience and their possible spending expectations. For the program to be successful, the visitor isn't required to purchase anything. Because of there is no 'purchase' required, the payout will be extremely low, but MORE than what I would receive through my Google Adsense(PPC).

Here is the product that I will be affiliating:

The beauty of this program is that, all thats required for payment is that a visitor provide an email address to join the program. I will be launching this program later on tonight and activating my BlogMad credits. Once the program has ran for a week, I will report back on my earnings and other statistics.

Tracking Affiliate Links

Becoming an affiliate and using contextual advertising are very similar in the way that they are tracked. At any given time you can easily identify how many clicks you have received and the earnings that you received from those clicks. However, when you are an affiliate there is another factor that plays a part in your report.

Remember, as mentioned previously, to earn money off of becoming an affiliate, your visitors must complete a task. The task in question could e entering an email or purchasing a product. This is where the next level of tracking comes into play.


The statistics provided by Affiliate Future allow you to track how many clicks, leads, and sales you have produced for the individual programs. As you can see from the chart, I am running 6 different programs(products) and each one pays a little differently. Depending on the site, depends on the product as mentioned in my previous article below.

What Affiliate Product is right for you?

Deciding what products to market is probably one of the most difficult parts of becoming an affiliate. PPC (Pay Per Click) programs like Google Adsense make it easy because their ads are contextual. Contextual advertising merely requires entering code and the ads become relevant to the rest of the content on your site. Affiliate programs require you, the site owner, to select a product to advertise.

To elaborate, if your blog is about traveling, no need in necessarily to become an affiliate for magazine subscriptions. It would make more sense to market a product such as travel agency services, travel gear, or products that a traveller would be likely to purchase.



For example, using the FHM magazine affiliate placement above, only viewers interested in Men's topics would be likely to purchase a subscrption. Likewise, I will only be paid if a visitor clicks on the ad and then continues to purchase a product from the site.

Becoming familiar with your target audience and knowing their spending habits will benefit you in the long run. Having an audience of teenage kids would not net you a lot of revenue, if you were an affiliate for Realtors. Keep these things in mind, even if they pay a little more, doesn't mean that you will be reaping the benefits. Remember, your typically not paid for clicks, but only for purchases.

The Truth About Adsense & Blogs


There will be over 1000 people that will start blogging for the first time today. 50% of them will start in hopes of making money off of their blog. 75% will give up after the first month and the remainder will stick around, but not for the money.

The unfortunate truth behind using Google Adsense on your blog is that it doesn't pay enough. No matter what rumors you may have heard, the average click will bring you less than $.50. Also, depending on how you display your ads and the subject matter it can be much less and even $.01 per click. It takes a lot of clicks to make money worth calling home about. Not to mention, you have to earn $100 before Google will even send you a check, tell me how long you think that will be. So the key to PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising lies in traffic and lots of it.

Needless to say, that without copius amounts of traffic just flooding through your doors, you'd be better off making money some other way. Thats where becoming an affiliate comes in. The beauty to becoming an affiliate is that it can pay much, much, much more. As long as your visitors are interested in the product, chances are your gonna make some extra money.

Typically an affiliate will make their easiest money from referrals, ie. having visitors enter an email or visit a site. Its very possible to make $1.10 per referral you make and that's not even requiring your visitors to spend any money!

I'll be covering affiliate programs more in the next post and how to best select a product that's right for your audience.

Finding an Affiliate Program thats Right for You


If you are responsible for a website and want to increase its earning potential, join AffiliateFuture's network to earn more revenue from your visitors. It works by allowing Merchants to advertise on your site, and AffiliateFuture pays you monthly when these adverts generate visits, leads or sales.

Many times a new blogger becomes anxious with their PPC(Pay Per Click) campaign, realizing how long it takes to get that $100 check from google. Well, PPC may not be right for your blog, perhaps you should look into affiliating.

Becoming an affiliate can typically earn you more, if you know your target audience. Also, selecting the proper product to affiliate can make the difference between big earnings and big waste of time. I've always stuck with a company that offers a broad line of manufacturers/services/products to offer. This enables me to focus on my blog and use my affiliate program as a tool.

To anyone looking to step it up and try out an affiliate program, try starting with: Affiliate Future

They offer plenty of programs to choose from ranging in payouts from $1.00 to $20.00 just for referring someone. Of course, often times the payouts require the ticker to actually purchase something. Therefore, it's a good idea to know your audience, if they don't have money, your not getting money. ;)