Make Affiliate Money

I have been focusing on improving some existing sites as I said I would in my 2010 Affiliate Marketing Goals and it has paid off, the last week has seen a big change in fortune.

See my Clickbank Stats below:

The bonus is that they are not coming from just one site, but 5 or 6 different ones meaning that I am less reliant on the fortunes of one source of income.

I am currently considering my offline options and wondering if there is money to be made coaching people to do affiliate marketing, Anyone have any comments on this?

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I mentioned in my recent list of 2010 Affiliate Marketing Goals that I wanted to develop a list of potential customers to market new products to.  For some time I have been reading how “The Money is in the List” and yet I have been focusing on building websites to promote products.  Some of these sites have had over 10,000 visitors in the last year and I haven’t gathered any details.  Doh!

I recently had a wake up call and was reminded of the benefit of having an email list when a fellow Nichechopper showed us his Clickbank stats following a recent product launch, he made over $1700 in a matter of hours!

Everytime a new product is launched properly on Clickbank the Publisher provides emails and prelaunch materials to send out to your list.  I always kick myself because I don’t have a list.

So now I am taking action and setting up a list.  Stage 1, creating a free product to encourage people to opt in, is underway.  I am writing a guide which will be in the form of a pdf ebook which can be downloaded, I may try breaking it down into a 5 part email course as an autoresponder.  (This may work better for retaining people on the list and making them comfortable about my emails hitting their inbox)

Stage 2 will be to set up an email capture form on my niche sites and Stage 3 will be to set up a squeeze landing page specifically set up to gather email addresses.

I have tried free autoresponders before, but I think it is now time I spent some money and went for aweber, or one of their cheaper white label versions such as http://clients.xmailpro.com/pricing.htm  $19.95 for 10,000 subsccribers.  This is not a recommendation as I have not tried it yet.  Will let you know how I get on.

Off to finish the guide now.

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This blog can be very focused on Clickbank products and this is my personal preference when making money even with Clickbank’s known problems.  However, some of my sites from my early days on the internet continue to bring in a few dollars from Google Adsense clicks.

Google Adsense Adverts are everywhere, some of the biggest and most well known sites make the majority of their income from Adsense (and I mean Millions of $$$), these sites work on huge volumes of visitors and the % of those clicking on their ads.  Plentyoffish.com the free dating site made something like $300K/month back in 2006! 

Anyway, back to the point of this post, the choice between Clickbank and Adsense…

I look at it like this:

A Clickbank sale of $80 will take 80-100 hops to make giving an EPC of about $1

An Adsense click in the same niche may earn about $1

The benefit of Adsense is that you don’t have to make an allowance for refunds, the problem is you cannot encourage people to click on the adverts like you might with a Clickbank hoplink.

So, if you find a good high paying niche consider Adsense as an alternative to Clickbank.  It doesn’t harm to diversify your income streams to allow for changes!

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Once again, thanks must go to the guys on the Nichechoppers Forum who brought my attention to this video which show a very odd but interesting secret tip when carrying out any keyword research.

I must have mentioned before that I use the Adwords Keyword Tool when working out what domains to buy and what keywords to focus my sites on.  This video shows that once you pick a long tail keyword and then search in Google the number of competing sites might be inaccurate.  Watch this video for a much better explanation and demonstration.

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Anyone who uses ezineArticles for affiliate marketing BEWARE, they have started a WAR on you and your fellow marketeers.

Below is a post on ezinearticles blog indicating that they are making a stand against anyone using ezine to direct traffic to affiliate sites.

I have never been a huge fan of ezine, they have always ad very strict editors and silly rules and now this proves they are not willing to play the game.  Luckily there are lots of other good article directories out there, many of these were listed here last month.

Most affiliate marketers don’t write original content and if they do write their own articles… their articles are thin, regurgitated Frankenstein article spin-written by some software program… only to flip our end users to a clickbank site (ie: they added no value in the process).

Affiliate marketers fall into one of two camps:

1. ~90% who have decided to scale their craft into hundreds and thousands of articles have become highly efficient at writing keyword loaded copy while making sure that their articles seldom deliver on the promise made in the article title…because if their articles delivered on the promise they made in the title…they fear our end users would never click to their website.
2. ~10% are in it to share genuine expertise with original articles that came from their background…and they are doing this gig to explore a phase in their business life where they are trying to figure out how to convert traffic into dollars so that they can build their own products to sell. This is the type of affiliate marketer we welcome and even on some days, call “ideal.”

Our position and reason why it’s “war” and personal:

We want our million+ daily end users to leave with a positive experience. Delivering thin non-original articles only to flip the end users to a long sales letter page that further promises the moon and stars for only $49.99 does not always deliver a positive end-user experience.

Last month we cracked down on penis enlargement articles and rejected thousands of them that over promised and massively under-delivered. This month our Editors have been instructed that any article that is ‘thin’ in originality AND the end destination URL is an affiliate link; we’re going to reject for “Non Substantial or Not-Original-Enough Content.”

No, we’re not going to over-react and make a big move here. We’re talking about the subjective decision where the article missed the mark by 5-15% vs. where we would have previously accepted the article and let it pass.

We didn’t get to our current success together this many years by thinking ’short-term’ oriented and the fact that our Editorial standards raise every single month should not be a shock to anyone. It’s the way it’s been since day one. Affiliate marketers who submit thin non-original articles are wasting their time submitting to us.

Lastly, some tips about how to get your affiliate-link-included articles accepted:

• Be sure to read section 3 if you haven’t already in our Editorial Guidelines.
• Do not increase your word count for word count sake. More words that say nothing is not better than fewer words that say nothing.
• Insist that your ghostwriters (if you use them) must blow you away with original ideas, seldom thought about solutions, unique perspectives and not the same crap every other article already says about a particular topic. RAISE THE BAR.
• Keep the spammy looking article titles to a minimum if at all. Hype does not help get your article accepted faster. Know we’re checking your article body to make certain that you deliver on the promise(s) made in your article title.
• Don’t submit 10-1000 articles on same rehashed topic with only the words and tips re-arranged. Our anti-derivative software is being continually tweaked to reject this behavior.
• Be proud of your articles. Most affiliate marketers don’t fight us when we reject their articles because they were not worth writing home to Mom about in the first place.

Hope this helps.

If you’ve got tips or advice as to how we can discourage affiliate marketers from wasting their time submitting thin non-original content to us, we’d like to hear it. Our end goal here is to raise the quality of the perception the marketplace has of the type of articles they can expect to find within EzineArticles.com. This focus also helps us look good to those who refer traffic to our members’ articles.

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I have mentioned Nichechoppers before and I really can’t stress how important this community has been to my success, on average $1000/month over the past year from scratch.  But don’t just take it from me take a look at some of the recent posts from Newbies who just cannot believe how much the Nichechopper Community has to offer:

I came accross this site
and thought that it might be interisting to give it a
try.

Hopefully I woud learn something new to give me
some success at marketing since what I am doing right
now is not working very well.

After reading a little of the content however, I was totally
shocked at how much awesome information is here.

I know I need a lot of work at marketing and now I know
I can get it here. I am from Yonkers NY, US.

and

I just recently joined Niche Choppers like you. One thing we have in common is that we are both amazed at the valuable content here. Take it slow, read the stickies, ask the questions (really, these guys, including me, want to help you), and become successful. Welcome to the best place on the web to learn about internet marketing. Let’s take the path through Niche Choppers and achieve our goals.

and

I just joined the forum, and I literally can’t believe the valuable information that’s here. I just recently began internet marketing in May 2009, and as you may have guessed, I didn’t have any results in the beginning. Ever since mid-June 2009, I’ve decided to become a “student of the game”, and I have learned plenty since then. However, although I learned some great concepts and techniques of marketing as well found some great resources for education and tools, I still felt incomplete. I felt like I was chasing, chasing, and chasing. After running so much, I saw I needed something like a “primary home” to be able to learn and network instead of running around this internet all the time. I would like to thank Norb for giving me the chance to join a very rare opportunity, and I would like to thank all the members for accepting me. I will ask my questions, contribute great content to the forum as I come across it, and help others the best way I can in the future. Lastly, I love the “small community structure” of niche choppers. I compare it to a small college vs. a big college. At a small college, you get great one-on-one support opposed to being treated like a number at a large one. I think niche choppers is that small college, and it’s a privilege to be here.

and

I just changed my mood to truly amazed. There is so much no bull info on this site that it will take me a long while to get thru it. I am just getting started making money on the web and the real problem is not getting overwelmed with the mass of information. I have learned that one of the most important thing to do is pick wisely who you listen to and learn from. Thanks for all the info and guidence I see here.

We now have live seminars on specific topics such as CPA Marketing and PPC etc to give real time advice and support, even the experienced marketeers gain a lot from these.

The owner of Nichechoppers has just leaked another launch about to happen and announced a new Forex Robot to be launched on 8th September, jump on board now and enjoy the rush of these launches.

There are more and more Publishers joining now as there is a specific section of the site to provide specific support to affiliates including free copies and trial copies of new Clickbank products.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CURRENT SPECIAL OFFER PRICE >>>>>

See you in the Forum, contact me when you get there JIMZ is my site name.

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I often see this question raised by newbies on a number of forums so I thought I would carry out a quick review of my stats and revenue from my portfolio of about 50 websites.  The findings were more dramatic than I thought.

Since January 2009 (when I properly started to use TIDs to track where sales came from) my sales have come from:

Review Sites with a number of products on offer:  81%

Product Name Review Landing Pages (i.e. forexboomerangreview.com) : 4%

Blog Review of a product: 2%

PPC Campaign either direct to Sales Page or via lander: 13%

The truth of it is, that of the 50+ sites I own, the majority of sales come from about 5 review sites, ranging from forex robots, paid surveys, wow leveling guides.

I hope this gives some insight into what works for me.

JZ

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Firstly, sorry for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. Things have been pretty mad in my offline world. The company I work for announced a redundancy program in late March and my job was at risk. Luckily I was not chosen to be made redundant this time, but two of my close colleagues were made redundant last week.

This wake up call has really made me think about what I am doing, the kind of commitments I have, both financially and emotionally. When you are faced with the possibility of losing a very good steady income you begin to think about what you are spending and what you could do without. It also made me think about the income I make online and how crucial it might be if the worst did happen. It also gave me comfort to know that I would have a way of making money, and in theory could make much more online if I had the time.

In a perverse way I was actually kind of excited about being thrown out of my comfort zone and being forced to make a go of it on my own, both with online efforts and other consultancy options (there are simply no jobs right now). I even bought a great domain name for a company and investigated the possibility of creating a limited company and checked out the cost of things like Professional Indemnity Insurance. Unless forced to or without the guarantee of income, most of us will not leap into the unknown and leave our comfort zones, the commitments we have are so great.

So back to Affiliate Marketing!

In the last three weeks I have switched CB accounts again. The last account had a period of no sales for 5 days and I created a new account, surprise surprise, instant sales! This new account has now made me $1000 in the past 17 days averaging 1 sale per day and $55 per sale.

Today I banked a check for $722 from the previous account so this account switching is definately working for me. As I have said before, I cannot be sure that those sales would not have come if I had kept the hops to the old account, but I am not willing to take the risk.

There has also been a Google update since the last post and that has again brought mixed fortunes, some sites have increased PR such as this blog and some dropped, most have increased in traffic and SERPs which is what is important, would rather be No1 for my chosen keywords than PR5! Both would be nice!

I have also been doing a bit of domaining. I bought a site in December for $25 and sold in March for $35. Now that is not a great profit, but it was due a renewal so would have started to cost me money. I also did nothing with it between buying and selling and it made me no money. It was a product name domain and that product is being offloaded by the owner so I thought it best to get rid. At the end of the day, if you can make 40% profit for doing nothing then lets do it more and more!

I am going to sell off a few other sites which are doing nothing and will start to cost me in renewals, this should raise a few $$ for PPC or to buy other sites.

Finally, I have bought fxter.com which will eventually be a Forex Blog for all things Forex, not just Forex Robots which is what most of my sites are based around. I hope to use this blog to create an opt-in list and be able to jump on big product launches etc much quicker and easier than I do currently. Also we the number of forex related sites, backlinks to this blog should be good for SERPs and traffic.

Hopefully it won’t be as long before my next post.

James

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I recently wrote about a theory that certain Clickbank Accounts are “blacklisted” and possibly have a more strict anti-fraud process here Sales on Clickbank slow? switch accounts

After a significant drop in Forex sales I had nothing to lose by trying this out.  The results are clear, I have made nearly $600 in less than three weeks.  That is nothing like I was making last year, but it is much better than the previous three weeks!

I have moved most of my hoplinks to the new account and while there is no way of proving I wouldn’t have made those sales on the old account, I am happy to go with it and will move the majority of the other hops there too.  I have now met the Clickbank Customer Distribution Requirement and look forward to receiving a check in the post soon.

Customer Distribution Requirement

ClickBank accounts cannot be used for the sole purpose of collecting rebates or otherwise extending credit to yourself or others. In compliance with US law, ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until the following criteria is met:

• Sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers and
• Sales made with two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal). Note: PayPal purchases do not count toward the minimum 5 different credit card numbers.

Other news…

I have recently been asked to review a new product “The Flipping Fool” by the publisher and now that I have received the review copy I will give it a good look over and write about it here very soon. Website flipping is something I am really getting into now, my previous experience of it has been pretty good, see previous post Domaining by Accident

Sign up to my RSS Feed to make sure you don’t miss my review.

James

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Establishing your own E-commerce site is not like what it used to be. There are thousands of competition that is all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.

We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the money. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are some who takes things lightly there are always those who would rather see profit any given day.

It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don’t get sales. Traffic represents all the people that gets a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them.

Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn’t expect profit. We have a startup capital that needs to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

Making Money out of your Traffic

The best and most proven method of making a profit out of your traffic is using advertising. The internet generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. While some are just looking for information there is also a good percentage that is looking for something that they need.

The internet has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be a very unsearchable product. The internet has made the world a smaller place; you can advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul and still find a buyer from the center of Philadelphia.

Generating traffic is not an easy task. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done successfully this could open up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. One of the benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.

So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profit. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.

When you have good traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.

This scheme is called “pay-per-click”. With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happens would spell to more profits.

Affiliate Programs

Another method of monetizing your traffic are affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.

The basic idea is, traffic generated from your site will go to another site that can offer a product that you do not carry. Many programs can keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of site linkage.

When purchases are made by customers that was led by your site to their site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetizing your traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.

There are so many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to monetize your traffic and make your site a good profit earner.

JZ

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