Make Money Online
Affiliate Marketing

Make Money Online With
Affiliate MarketingSection 1: Introduction
About the Author:
This guide is written by Jonathan Volk, a super affiliate marketer making
millions of dollars each year online.
Jonathan Volk also writes a blog on new and upcoming techniques at
JonathanVolk.com.
Introduction:
Hey! Congrats on downloading my free guide to making money online with affiliate
marketing. Time and time again I am asked how I make money online and if it’s
possible for someone else. Let me say it now. It IS entirely possible to make money
online without promoting unethical programs, spamming people, or having to be a
programming / design guru. The methods I will teach in this guide are
completely legitimate methods that I have used to make millions in revenue
online.
What This Guide Is NOT:
This guide is not like many of those other systems out there claiming to get you to
earn $xxx/ day working 1 hour per day. It simply doesn’t work that way.
There is no automated system. There is no set it and forget it. There is no, “one day
of work per month to make $459 per day.” There is no “super guru” secret that you
can implement to earn unlimited money with no work. If any person or system is
claiming to do any of the above for you, I would estimate that 99 times out of 100,
you’ll end up not making anything, if not losing money.
Who Am I? What Do I know About Affiliate Marketing?
My name is Jonathan Volk and I am one of those “make money online” guys. I’ve
spent years of my life learning how to make money online and am actively doing it –
and doing it every day.
Currently I am president and CEO of Surge Marketing Inc where we generate millions
of dollars per year in sales for companies. I have been making a significant income
online since 2007 and have been actively trying to make money online since 2004.
I also run a blog on http://www.jonathanvolk.com where I have taught tens of
thousands of people new techniques and tricks for affiliate marketing. If you would
like to get new blog posts delivered to your inbox, you can click here
(http://bit.ly/cBju3c) and then enter your email to subscribe to new posts.
My Story (Briefly)
I started out, perhaps like many of you, with nothing. No super awesome websites,
no guru email marketing lists, no product to sell, nothing.
I started out trying to make money online in 2004. I failed time and time again. I
never gave up because I had (and still have) a passion for trying to make money
through the internet and took each failure as a lesson of what not to do.
I failed at business after business from web hosting to automated linking services to
arcade websites to proxy websites and more.
It wasn’t until I really started to focus on affiliate marketing that I really began to hit
some success.
It was March, 2007 (yup, 3 years of failing) that I got to leave my part time job and
work at home making money online full time – all via affiliate marketing. This full
time promotion allowed me to pour countless hours into making money online and
get to the level that I currently am at now.
Now as I write this guide in 2010, I’ve been fortunate enough to generate millions of
dollars per year in revenue online since 2008. In fact, in just a few short years, I
have generated over $4 million dollars in revenue online!
Starting 2010, my company’s goal is to hit over $5 million in revenue… and it’s
entirely possible thanks to affiliate marketing!
Section 2: What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is marketing products or services for other companies in exchange
for a commission. You are a virtual sales person of sorts. You don’t deal with
inventory, customer service, follow up, or anything like that. You simply sell.
When you successfully get a customer to the business and make a sale (or lead), you
get paid a commission.
As an example, let’s look at Zappos.com. Zappos is an online shoe retailer. Zappos
wants as many sales as possible and in order to do so, will pay you a commission if
you get someone to buy because of your advertisements. So they give you a special
“affiliate” link and when you have people go through your affiliate link and purchase
something on the zappos website, you automatically get paid a percentage of the
sale.
Now… think if you could find tens of thousands of people actively looking for shoes.
You could be placing your special affiliate link in front of them and be making money
24 hours per day.
This is just a simple example of what affiliate marketing is and how it’s done; there
is a bit more too it all, but all of it will be covered in this guide.
Section 3: What Is An Affiliate Network?
What is an Affiliate Network?
You could try to go and find each individual website you want to promote, try to
setup a deal with them and then become their affiliate but that would take a lot of
time.
This is where the affiliate networks come in.
Affiliate networks are companies that facilitate the “network” or relationship between
the companies and the affiliates (you). Affiliates (Industry term: Publishers) sign up
for the affiliate network and instantly have access to thousands of companies
(Industry term: Advertisers) that want you (affiliates) to promote their business. You
can pick through any number of these companies to promote.
This instant access to hundreds or sometimes thousands of companies is the true
power of being a part of an affiliate network. But… the benefits don’t stop there.
You never deal with the individual companies directly. Instead, you always deal
directly with the affiliate network. This way you really only have one point of contact.
Finally, the other major benefit of the affiliate network is the payment terms. Affiliate
networks usually pay their affiliates way faster than a direct company. Instead of
waiting 60+ days to be paid (net 30 or even net 45), you can often get paid biweekly
or weekly after a small earning threshold. For example, many networks will
set you on weekly wires if you start generating $1000 per week or more in
commissions.
So what does the affiliate network get out of all of this?
In exchange for all of this, the affiliate network takes a small percentage from the
commissions you generate. Don’t worry… it is well worth it!
Affiliate networks are the best places to start in your affiliate marketing career. Even
to this day, I still use affiliate networks for a majority of my business because it
allows me to leverage my time as best as possible.
Getting Accepted Into An Affiliate Network
It can be a bit difficult to get accepted into an affiliate network (specially for people
outside the US) when first starting out. It might seem like a tough process but if you
follow the steps below, you should have no problem.
This tough process is due to affiliate networks taking on a ton of risk. In most cases
they have to pay bigger affiliates weekly (sometimes even daily) but yet only get
paid from the companies net 15 or even net 30! In some cases the companies are
late or even fight payment. If a certain percentage of leads for example are not
good, then they often don’t want to pay for the whole batch of leads.
Risk Factor
To affiliate networks it’s all about one thing. How much of a risk are you to them?
Think of the network that has 1000 applications waiting for approval.
Because of the shear number of scammers joining affiliate networks each day, the
only way to stand out is to show them you’re not one of them.
If you’re an affiliate from a major country, your risk factor is substantially lower but
still does not guarantee acceptance… You need to do more than JUST apply.
To be Accepted…
To be accepted into a network, you must get over the fear of talking to real live
human beings.
Yup, that means actually calling in. I know… I hate talking on the phone probably as
much or more than most of you who would rather pull teeth than talk on the phone
but it’s a necessary evil.
When you apply for any affiliate network, you must not sit and wait there for
approval but you should call them. If you get denied, call them and ask why.
Calling a business removes a lot of the risk factor as a majority of hackers,
scammers, and fake lead generators don’t want to call.
When you’re on the phone, the network is probably going to ask you how you plan to
promote the affiliate offers, if you have any websites, etc.
Some of the scammers have recently gotten smarter and have begun hiring actors to
call the networks. Therefore the networks are going to be asking your specific
questions about how you plan to promote their affiliate offers.
Study out one of the methods that you will learn about in this guide. Really focus on
it and become confident in that single method. That way when it’s time to answer
some questions about how you plan to promote the affiliate offers, you shouldn’t
have a problem being accepted into the network.
Application
One common question you will see on the applications for the affiliate networks is
what your website is. If you have ANY website, no matter how terrible, put it in. It
really doesn’t matter that much in the terms of approval.
If you have no website, no worries either. Put something like Facebook.com in the
website url if you plan to promote via facebook and explain in the comments section
your plans.
Website or no website, explain yourself and promotion methods in the comments
section on the application.
Word of Caution! Don’t Get Scammed!
More and more affiliate networks are popping up every day. Be wise and stick with
the tried and true affiliate networks. Until you have some experience under your belt
and know what to look for, do not try to go for just any affiliate network. You don’t
want to risk not getting paid.
In 2009, I was not paid over $22,000 from bad affiliate networks. I was fortunate.
There were others that lost even more than that.
You can read about that story here. (http://www.jonathanvolk.com/internetmarketing/
22000-in-losses.html)
Section 4: Recommended Affiliate
Networks
Affiliate networks to check out:
Now before I tell you about networks to apply to, I want you to know these are all
networks I am a member of and highly recommend.
Also know that by applying to these networks, I will be paid a small referral fee
(usually around 2% of your earnings). This ~2% comission is taken from the affiliate
network profit margins and not from your actual earnings.
This is one of the main ways that I am making money from this guide and
appreciate if you apply using the links below as a thank you to me for
writing this detailed guide.
Lastly, if you apply using my links, if you need help getting accepted into a network
or get stuck on something, I’ll be glad to help you as much as possible.
I recommend you join around 3-5 affiliate networks to start, no more than 8.
Otherwise it just becomes too much.
AzoogleAds (http://bit.ly/a0bmcA) – AzoogleAds
is my personal favorite affiliate network and the one I’ve made a LOT of money on.
I’ve been quite open about them being my favorite affiliate network for years and
they remain my favorite.
The company is on top for a reason: they treat their publishers very well. More than
just gifts (like big screen TV’s, flights, parties, etc) they also are great at building
relationship with their publishers and actually care about how you are doing as an
affiliate.
I’ve had the privilege of working with AzoogleAds since the start of my affiliate
marketing career and they have been a large key to my success.
I highly recommend you check them out no matter big or small affiliate. As of
recently, they have a whole team designed specifically for the newbie affiliates called
the AZN Advisor.
If you’re a smaller / newbie affiliate, you get access to this AZN Advisor where you
get newsletters, tips, tricks, and more! They are one of just a few affiliate networks
to offer this to the smaller publishers and that is just another reason why they are on
the top of my recommendation list. Highly recommended!
Join AzoogleAds Now (http://bit.ly/a0bmcA)
Elite Clicks Media
(http://bit.ly/bt4ktk) –Elite Clicks Media is a newer network that really has
impressed me.
I recommend you join ECM if you’re looking to get started with social media affiliate
marketing, media buying, or PPV affiliate marketing. They have some top converting
offers for those 3 marketing methods.
Besides having a lot of really great offers, the professionals behind Elite Clicks Media
is a great team of guys that are set on helping their publishers go to the next level.
For example, just recently, ECM held a free webinar on CPV/PPV Marketing. More
importantly, they have even more webinars lined up to help their publishers learn!
This, to me, shows how they are not just like any other old network.
One unique benefit of ECM is that they have a personal coaching program available
to publishers. The goal is to take them to $1000 per week (and weekly payments),
then $1000 per day, and then to $100K per month and beyond.
I highly recommend you check out ECM and once you are approved, be open and
honest about your goals and intentions and this team will help you to meet those
goals.
Last but not least, Elite Clicks Media recently partnered up with Kevin Harrington.
You know, the guy who has sold more than $4 Billion dollars worth of merchandise
via television infomercials.
Now that speaks volumes!
Join Elite Clicks Media (http://bit.ly/bt4ktk)
QwikMedia (http://bit.ly/bWkAEu) –
QwikMedia is owned by a group of experienced online marketers with specialized
experience in pay per click traffic, media buying, and lead generation.
When you join Qwikmedia, you get access to these highly experienced internet
marketers. In fact, when you join Qwik media, I would recommend being open and
honest about your goals with them, what promotion methods you plan to use and
seek their advice on how to best go about your campaign.
I know from personal experience that they will be right there to help you as much as
possible.
I recommend you focus on PPC, media buying, or doing any lead generation offer
(which, if you remember, are the offers I recommend you start with) when using
QwikMedia as these are their specialty.
Many of the offers are exclusive offers (meaning you can’t get them at another
network) that are doing really well right now in niches like dating, insurance, and
more.
Join QwikMedia Now (http://bit.ly/bWkAEu)
Tatto Media
(http://bit.ly/cfXX38) – Tatto Media is an affiliate network run by some highly
successful internet marketers. One thing I appreciate about Tatto, is they are a big
business that is run very well.
As well as an affiliate network Tatto is an advertising agency that serves tens of
millions of unique impressions per month using a proprietary ad server system. Tatto
Media is built from people who are highly successful marketers and because of this
they only have offers they for the most part have tried and tested themselves.
You don’t have 1000 offers of which 950 are making $0.
The other great thing about Tatto is that many of the offers are their own exclusive
offers that they have made and optimized themselves. They have some of the best
mobile offers. Mobile offers do really well on social traffic and media buys. If you
plan to focus on either of those methods, you should check out Tatto!
Join TattoMedia Now (http://bit.ly/cfXX38)
NeverblueAds (http://bit.ly/c0oVie) –
NeverblueAds was one of the first affiliate networks I joined when I was first starting
out and was one of the first networks that I had success on.
In fact within just a few weeks of running on NeverblueAds, I was able to get a
campaign going that was making upwards of $400 revenue per day!
Since then, NeverblueAds has continued to expand the amount of amazing offers
they have, including many exclusives. I would especially recommend you sign up for
NeverblueAds if you plan on doing social media marketing as they have many good
offers to pick from in this vertical.
NeverblueAds is one of those networks that really has established themselves as a
great network to use by always paying on time, treating their affiliates very well,
running awesome contests, and more. It’s because of this that many of the super
affiliates run a majority of their traffic with NeverblueAds!
Join NeverblueAds Now (http://bit.ly/c0oVie)
Affiliate.com (http://bit.ly/cNjzi4) –
Affiliate.com is one of the larger affiliate networks that was started by one of the
largest email marketers in the business, Scott Richter.
If you plan on doing any sort of email marketing, whether it be capturing emails via
PPV, PPC, or any other method, I highly recommend you check out the offers at
Affiliate.com.
They have a great assortment of offers designed specifically for email. Beyond just
email offers, they also have affiliate offers for just about every niche. And because
this company is run by a super affiliate, they know the business very well.
Affiliate.com puts it this way, “Our mission is simple. When you are successful– we
are successful! We provide a wide variety of benefits you won’t find at other
networks.” So, if there is one thing that sets affiliate.com apart from the rest is their
focus on providing affiliate support and I love that about this company. I highly
recommend you check out affiliate.com!
Join Affiliate.com Now (http://bit.ly/cNjzi4)
CXDigital (http://bit.ly/9IbrFC) – CXDigital is another network that is
highly regarded in the affiliate marketing industry by many super affiliates.
CX is a large publicly traded company and an affiliate network with a ton of affiliate
offers. Because of the size of this network, you can get just about any offer and get
really good payouts at that.
I’ve used CXDigital for some of my affiliate offers in the past and they have always
treated me well and the offers have converted great. Another reason people love to
use CXDigital is because of the awesome rewards program.
Every $15,000 you earn with CXDigital (rolls over month to month) gets you a $100
prepaid Mastercard! Imagine earning cash for earning cash. : )
Join CXDigital Now (http://bit.ly/9IbrFC)
Copeac (http://bit.ly/atAgwD) – Copeac is
another great network that you can join.
A large number of super affiliates use Copeac frequently because they have a huge
number of offers that work really well.
Here is one of the best parts about Copeac. If you hit $1000 per week in earnings
you get paid weekly. While other large networks require $10,000 per week or more,
they only require $1000.
When you’re starting to grow, this is a good network to use as it will help your cash
flow quite a bit.
Additionally, if you’re looking for free trial offers, Copeac is one of the best places to
look. They regularly have top converting offers in that space.
Join Copeac Now (http://bit.ly/atAgwD)
Section 5: How Does All This Come Together?
Ok, so you now have different companies you can promote after being accepted into
an affiliate network. Great! Now what?
What about if you don’t have a website to put advertisements on?
The great part about affiliate marketing is you don’t technically need a website to
make it work. In fact, many affiliates go a large part of their career without ever
making a website.
Instead, you can buy traffic (or visitors) from many sources. Buying traffic is the key
to having huge success. Instead of having to wait for the visitors to come to a site
you’re building, you go out and find websites that will allow you to buy ads so you
can place your affiliate links! Instantly you can test multiple offers and see if it’s
going to work for you.
So the general idea for affiliate marketing is buying ads at a low enough cost that
you have a difference in your cost and the amount of commissions that those ads
generated.
That’s the basics of affiliate marketing.
Don’t Worry… You don’t need thousands of dollars to start.
Buying ads might sound expensive but you can literally start with as little as $5
dollars. And… I’ll be trying to work out some deals to get coupons for all the readers
of this guide.
If you are subscribed to my blog’s RSS feed (http://www.jonathanvolk.com) then
you’ll hear about it when it comes. If you can’t afford to risk at least $5 on
advertisements, then you probably can stop reading this guide and look up a good
SEO guide. I hear SEO Book (http://bit.ly/aLXJ65) is pretty good.
Section 6: The “Pregame”
Things To Know Before You Start Your Affiliate Marketing Campaigns
Focus On One Method:
Now, before you get started, the best advice I can give to you when starting out is to
FOCUS. Focus on one of thefour methods I teach in this guide and learn it very well.
Study this guide on that section and other resources as much as you can.
Which method you pick will be based largely on preference – all of them can make
you thousands of dollars per day and more.The main thing is to read the introduction
to each marketing section and decide which you think would fit you best. If you’ve
never used myspace, facebook, etc, social media is not for you… You get the idea.
It’s really easy to get distracted and try to put your hand in every cookie jar so to
speak. While this can be done, it’s really difficult to juggle successfully. Become an
expert at that method first and then if you feel confident in learning another method,
go to that.
Picking An Affiliate Offer:
Ok, so now that you’ve been accepted into an affiliate network, you’re probably
wondering which of these hundred of offers you should promote. It really can be
overwhelming at times having to go through the hundreds of offers that an affiliate
network offers.
In fact, one of the most common questions I get is along the lines of wanting to
know which offer to promote and how to find the good offers.
After you have decided which marketing method to focus on, finding out which offer
to run can be pretty easy. Very often affiliate networks will have spread sheets with
top offers for each marketing method and this can be a VERY helpful guide to picking
your first offer. Your affiliate manager (or email contact) will be able to provide this
type of information for you.
Ask them something like, “Hey, I’d like to know what top offers for marketing method here> you have in your network right now. Thanks.”
The thought behind this is that if there is an offer working well, it could work for you
as well. Knowing what is already performing well is a great way to begin.
As of recently, you will see more and more “free trial” offers at the top of each
promotion method. I would recommend not starting with a free trial offer but
instead a lead generation offer or sale offer. Lead generation offers often can be
direct linked to (meaning you don’t need a website / landing page) and can be a
great way to generate revenue.
Niches That Work (Picking An Affiliate Offer Part 2):
Another way for you to pick your offer is to pick an offer that is in a strong niche. I
generally refer to these niches as the “problem solving niches.”
These offers are marketed to people who have a problem and are “desperate” for a
solution.
These type of offers could include:
Foreclosure
Debt Settlement / Debt Relief
Dating
Physical appearance (acne, weight loss, hair restoration, etc)
Etc
If a large number of people are desperate (so to speak) for a solution, then you have
a niche where people will spend money. If you see a newer offer that solves a
common problem, or even a niche problem, I would highly recommend trying that
offer out. Remember, those needing a solution to a problem is where the money is
at.
Success Rate:
The other thing I wanted to talk about is success rates. It’s so easy to always read
these motivational posts about how so and so is making 6 figures per month or more
and think that those guys never fail.
Here is the one thing that they probably don’t (or rarely) mention: failing is a part of
this business – you won’t succeed at every campaign you create. Everyone fails
(meaning they are not profitable) and it’s going to be a part of your affiliate
marketing career forever.
In fact, probably not even 50%+ of the campaigns I try work out. But in the end, the
successful campaigns generate more than enough to cover all the small failed
attempts.
So keep in mind that when you first start, it can be discouraging if you don’t
immediately see success. Keep pressing forward and you WILL see success if you
continue following both the advice in this guide.
Starting Affiliate Marketing Without A Job:
Having been in the affiliate marketing world for a while now, I’ve had the privilege of
talking to a LOT of affiliates.
I get emailed often from people who are asking me to teach them how to become
affiliates because they have lost their job and want to jump into affiliate marketing.
Just like you pay for an education (and a sizable amount at that), there really are
things you won’t learn unless you pay for them yourself. You need to have a bit of
playing money that comes in steadily each month as you attempt to get the ball
rolling for the technique that you’re trying to learn.
So all that to say, if you don’t have a job, I would highly recommend getting even a
part time job (at least) FIRST and then trying to work on affiliate marketing. Focus
your efforts as much as possible and then go from there.
I wouldn’t quit your job until you have almost double what you made at your job
coming in profit each month with multiple campaigns.
Don’t put your family at risk trying to make it, because the fact of the matter is,
starting affiliate marketing takes a bit of work. (Don’t worry, it get’s easier and
easier…)
Section 7: The “Pregame” Pt. 2 – Know Your
Demographics
Know Your Demographics
Before you begin starting to focus on one specific method of buying traffic, you
should focus on the offer you have picked.
No matter what method you use to generate (buy) traffic, you should always start by
thinking about who will be interested in the product or service you want to market.
While there are always going to be exceptions, there is usually going to be one main
age group, sex, race, etc that buys (or is interested in) that product or service more
than the others. Targeting this group gives you the best chance of finding success.
For example, if you’ve picked out a fashion offer, you should know that generally the
demographic you will target is women. Sure, you can argue that there are some men
that like fashion but a much larger percentage of women will be more likely to buy
that fashion related… More specifically, women between the ages 18-49 are even
more likely than women of other age ranges.
How Can You Determine Demographics?
There are some free tools that can help us to determine what demographic to target
for each offer.
First there is Quantcast.com. This is my quick and easy method to do a preliminary
search on the topic.
Go to Quantcast.com and enter the domain name of the offer. Let’s say you are
going to promote jennycraig.com. Looking at Quantcast’s results for JennyCraig.com
provides the following results:
As you can see the information that quantcast provides is very helpful in starting
your campaigns.
You’ll see an index number next to each statistic. This index number is a comparison
among the web average. Anything over 100 is above average for that demographic,
under 100 is below average.
Another great tool to check out is the Google adplanner. Google Adplanner has a lot
more in depth information and research capabilities but is a bit more complicated to
use. Using the same method above (using the landing page / offer page URL).

http://www.google.com/adplanner

Other Ways To Find Demographic Data:
Another way to find who the target demographic is can be as simple as asking your
affiliate manager or email contact. Often times the advertiser will know what
demographic converts best and share this information with the affiliate network.
While this is the most accurate way to find what converts best, the chances of the
network having this type of information is not too common (yet).
Section 8: The “Pregame” Pt. 3 – Setting
Up Hosting / Domain Name
Although many of the methods below won’t require a landing page (your own
website), I highly recommend buying a domain and setting up hosting.
You can get a free domain + unlimited hosting for $6 bucks a month at bluehost.
(http://bit.ly/cRb67n)
But, if you are not setting up a website, why would you need a domain and hosting?
There are a couple reasons.
First, although you wont need a website, redirecting through your website will help
speed up split testing. For example, without a website direct linking happens like
this:
Ad on site -> Affiliate link -> Advertisers page (“the offer”)
Now, let’s say that you wanted to try a new offer. This means a new affiliate link.
Now you have to resubmit new ads, wait for them to be approved, and restart from
there. But, with a domain you could do something like:
Ad on site -> Your domain / redirect -> affiliate link -> Advertisers page (“the offer”)
Now, when you want to change the offer, your redirect page can be changed without
having to submit new ads.
If you’re confused, don’t worry. It will become more clear as you begin to setup
some campaigns.
Another reason for having a domain and hosting is being able to setup free tracking
software that will help you to track your campaigns in much greater detail. This
tracking software is free at www.prosper202.com. I HIGHLY recommend you get and
setup Tracking202 or Prosper202 if you are serious about affiliate marketing.
Section 9: Setting Up A Simple PHP Redirect
Setup Your Redirect: (Simple Method)
First you need a domain – it can be any domain, name means nothing in this case. It
can even be laksdjflkasjdfkas.com! You pick.
After you’ve got all that setup, you will need to make your PHP redirect file. Here is
an example of it. http://jonathanvolk.com/goto/redirect.txt
You can copy this into notepad, save as index.php (or whatever you want to name
the file), and replace the url with your affiliate link. Make sure that the affiliate link
ends with SUB= or the variable that equals sub id from your affiliate network.
Now in your ads you will link to your http://www.YourDomain.com/index.php?
sub=1234. Change the value of sub= to whatever you want so you can track each
different ad.
To setup another offer, simply make another redirect file, upload it to your domain,
and you’re done.
To see what converted, pull a SubId report from your affiliate network, and Bam,
instant breakdown of what is working and what is not. Simple enough, right?
This is a very simple method that can work on nearly all traffic sources. If you decide
to setup tracking202.com or prosper202.com, you won’t need this.
Section 10: The Landing Page
So by now you understand a lot more about how affiliate marketing works, have
been accepted into an affiliate network (hopefully), picked your offer, and are ready
to start making some cash!
Now before, you go and read about ways to promote affiliate marketing offers I want
to touch on the landing page.
A landing page is essentially a website that is a sales page for the affiliate offer.
Rather than linking your advertisements directly to the affiliate offer, you are
preselling the visitors the idea of buying the service or product through a website
you make.
When Should You Use A Landing Page?
I will get into the specific details of when to use a landing page for each specific
promotion method.
Some methods such as Social media ads, PPV, and Media buys can be either directly
linked to the affiliate offer or you can use a landing page. So, when should you use a
landing page instead of direct linking?
The answer is not really simple. There is no set rule of what works best. You have to
simply test and see. Sometimes having a landing page can increase conversions a
lot. Sometimes having a landing page just doesn’t make sense. The simple answer is
you have to just test.
Tip: Although your experience may vary, lead generation offers usually can be direct
linked to with fairly good success while free trial offers usually need a landing page
to work best. Per sale offers can do really well with a review style landing page but
can also work well direct linked.
Multiple Offers
One other great thing about landing pages is that you can place multiple affiliate
offers on a single landing page!
Just think if you made a landing page about auto insurance. You could also have
links to auto warranty offers, car loan offers, etc. Having these extra offers allows
you to further monetize traffic that might not have made you money otherwise.
Capturing Email – Drip Method
Landing pages are also great ways to capture emails. When you capture emails you
can market to these customers over and over with multiple offers.
Although this method can be a bit more difficult because you probably won’t see an
instant profit, it can be a great way to build a list that is of great value. Imagine
turning your campaign off and then being able to market to the email list for months
after. That’s nearly 100% profit right there.
How To Capture Emails
To capture email I highly recommend using an email service called Aweber.
(http://bit.ly/c8w9gj)
Aweber is the email service that many affiliate marketers use because of the ease of
setting up campaigns, the deliverability rate (meaning how many emails get past the
spam boxes), and the great price.
For the price, Aweber has one of the best deliverability rates and is extremely easy
to start using.
Aweber is running a special right now where you can get the first month for $1 here.
(http://bit.ly/c8w9gj)
Section 11: Affiliate Marketing Methods
(Basic Overview)
In this section, I will discuss four different methods you can use to generate revenue
via affiliate marketing. While there are quite a lot more than four methods, I will be
covering the main four methods that many people use to generate huge incomes
online.
Basic Overview:
The four main methods I will be discussing are:
Social Media Marketing (Recommended starting point)
Pay Per View Marketing (Recommended starting point)
Search Engine Pay Per Click Marketing
Media Buying
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is marketing ads on facebook, myspace, and other social
media sites. On facebook, these are the small little ads you see on the right side. On
myspace it is the ads you see scattered throughout the site.
The great thing about social media marketing is that these sites are among the
easiest to get started in and can have great potential to make some good money. In
fact, I personally make 6 figures in revenue per month using social media marketing.
It’s one of my favorites for sure.
The main problem with social media is that the campaign longevity is generally not
very long because as soon as a campaign becomes large, many people jump on the
bandwagon and copy everyone else’s ads. The competition drives down the profit.
What is Pay Per View Marketing?
Pay per view marketing (also known as CPV Marketing) is becoming more and more
common in the affiliate marketing world. PPV Marketing is essentially advertising via
popups.
These popups are triggered by adware (not to be confused with spyware) on a users
computer. These users allow the adware on their computer in exchange for things
such as games, premium content, etc.
The great thing about PPV marketing is that you can either direct link or use a
landing page. This traffic type is really starting to increase in popularity which means
that if you become an expert here, you have no place to go but up!
What is Search Engine Pay Per Click Marketing?
Search engine pay per click marketing is when you advertise on different keywords
in a search engine and pay each time someone clicks on your advertisement. The
price you are willing to pay (along with a few other factors) determine your position
in the sponsored results.
In the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) you can see these ads on the
right hand column when you search.
The major search engine advertising platforms can deliver a huge amount of traffic
and result in some major profits.
The downside to these search engine pay per click sites is that it is nearly impossible
to have a campaign work without a landing page. While it is possible, many of the
search engines have banned direct linking for affiliates. Therefore in order for you to
have a long term and successful affiliate marketing campaign on these search
engines, you’re going to need a landing page.
What is Media Buying?
Media buying (also referred to as display advertising) is simply a fancy word for
purchasing banner ad space on a website, a network of websites, or an ad exchange
network.
Media buying can be as simple as buying banner inventory on a website directly from
the website owner or buying banner ad space through an ad network that provides
you access to very high traffic websites.
Section 12 – Social Media Affiliate
Marketing Guide
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is marketing ads on facebook, myspace, and other social
media sites. On facebook, these are the small little ads you see on the right side. On
myspace it is the ads you see scattered throughout the site.
The great thing about social media marketing is that these sites are among the
easiest to get started in and can have great potential to make some good money. In
fact, I personally make 6 figures in revenue per month using social media marketing.
It’s one of my favorites for sure.
The main problem with social media is that the campaign longevity is generally not
very long because as soon as a campaign becomes large, many people jump on the
bandwagon and copy everyone else’s ads. The competition drives down the profit.
Social Media Advertising Sites:
Facebook Ads (http://www.facebook.com, login, click advertising) – This is my
personal favorite of all the social media advertising platforms. As facebook grows to
400 million+ users, the advertising continues to get better and better.
Myspace Myads (http://advertise.myspace.com) – This is another system I have used
and had some success on. Although myspace is declining in traffic, there is still a
TON of traffic on their site and that means a lot of money to be made.
Other Social Media Sites You Can Advertise On:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Here is a great up to date list of social networking websites. While many of these
social networking websites do not have their own self-serve advertising platform, I’d
be willing to bet that nearly all of them offer advertising in some shape or form.
There is a ton of money to be made on these other websites because for the most
part, they are fairly untapped when compared to the facebook and myspace
advertising networks.
PlentyOfFish Ads (http://ads.pof.com) – This is another “social media” type website
but is mainly a free dating website. Some of the campaigns that work on facebook
and myspace will work on POF. The main campaigns that do NOT work most of the
time (on POF) are the low commission items.
Things like $3 and below are very difficult to get to work. The great thing about POF
is they have so many targeting options it can really make even more profit than
other social media platforms.
How To – Facebook Ads
So let’s get into the how to of social marketing on the
most popular platform, Facebook Ads.
Before you read the how to, please make sure you
read the “Know Your Demographics” section.
Knowing your demographics is key before starting
your social media campaigns. This is because people
who are on sites (such as facebook) are not actively
seeking anything except for entertainment of being
on the site. Therefore your ads need to be very
targeted to your demographics in order for you to be
able to make things work.
Also, before you start, I recommend you read the
section from the chapter before that discusses how to
setup a domain and hosting for redirection.
The reason for this is that with facebook ads, if you
want to test a new offer (like two different auto insurance offers for example), you
normally would have to make new ads and wait for them to be approved. With this
setup, you will be able to test multiple offers simultaneously and see which is making
you the most money instantly. While this is not required, it is HIGHLY recommended.
Ok – so now you’re all setup, have your offers picked out, and are ready to make
ads, you need to sign up for facebook ads.
If you’re one of the 400 million people that have a facebook account, you’re already
done and can start making facebook ads. To start click the Advertising link and then
click “create an ad.”
Offers to Avoid in Facebook:
Before you start your facebook ads campaign, be sure to check out their advertising
policy guidelines. http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php
Doing so could help save you a bunch of time so you don’t go through all the trouble
of making a campaign that simply is not allowed on facebook.
Tracking Facebook Ads Profitability:
Before you setup your campaign, I highly recommend you use a method of tracking.
Tracking with facebook is super easy and does not require any sophisticated
software.
What you can do is use the subids in the affiliate links to track each ad via a number
ID. Then put that number id in the Ad name.
This way you can pull up a subid report in the affiliate network and see which ID
numbers are converting. Compare those sub id reports with your ad titles and you
instantly begin to optimize.
Ad Research:
The way most people seem to do research on ads is to look and see what else is
running. If you can find an ad that is running a similar offer, you can get ideas of
how to structure your ad.
Warning: Do not copy the ad. Doing so can lead to copyright lawsuits. Many times
people own the copyright to the images they use and will sue you if you use their
image without having the permission to use it. A good way to search for these
images is to find sites that offer royalty free images such as photos.com. You don’t
want to copy ads. Making your own ads can lead to longer term profits and a
competitive advantage.
Getting Your Ads Approved:
1. Remember, facebook ads are approved by facebook employees. These employees
can (and often do) make mistakes when marking your ad for disapproval. In fact, a
large part of the approval process is subjective to the approver. If an ad is
disapproved, read the reasons for disapproval. Try to fix it if possible and then try to
resubmit it again. If it gets disapproved again, submit it again.
Recently, I tried submitting a weightloss ad that was 100% compliant with
facebook’s guidelines. It got denied over and over. I talked to my rep at facebook
rep, and was told the ad was compliant.
So what was the issue? There was none. The subjectivity of the approval process
lead to getting the ad disapproved. Some niches are harder to get approved than
others. It can simply just take hard work to get approvals.
2. The facebook ads approval times range from minutes up to hours. It really
depends on how many ads need to be approved in the entire system. Ad approval
times seem to slow down on holidays and weekends but still are fairly quick. There is
nothing you can really do to speed this process up.
3. Read the ad guidelines (www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php). Read and follow
these guidelines and your ad will be approved eventually. If you have trouble still
getting your ad approved, email affiliates@facebook.com and they might be able to
give more detail on why your ad is being disapproved. If you believe your ad is
compliant with the guidelines the issue is probably your image. Images are
subjective and some reviewers might pass an image through that others would not
allow through. (Hence the possibility of needing to submit an ad multiple times)
4. The facebook approval teams can sometimes be international (meaning outside of
the USA). Therefore if you have a campaign that redirects international traffic (some
affiliate networks automatically do this), you will need to link directly to the affiliate
offer (via your PHP redirect) during the approval period. After the ad is approved,
you can change the direct link back to your affiliate link in your PHP file.
If you need help setting up a PHP redirect, I explain how to do this in the previous
chapter.
Impressions/Clicks/CTR/CPC:
1. The first few hours of a new ad will pretty much determine the performance of
your ad going forward. If you have a low click through rate, your ads will start to see
less and less impressions until they stop receiving impressions all together. If your
ad has less than 0.01% click through rate, you really need to work on creating a
better ad.
2. Your click through rate is one of the most important factors for the entire
campaign. The higher your CTR, the cheaper your cost per click will be. The image
and title have the biggest impact on your CTR so as you begin to test, focus MOSTLY
only those two items.
3. So you don’t blow a ton of money, start your facebook ads with a low daily budget
and using the CPC (cost per click) price model. Only after you have a successful ad
campaign do you switch to CPM bidding… at least when you’re first starting out.
4. Split up your ads into groups based on who you want to target (age ranges,
male/female etc.). This means smaller volume but the ability to target better. By
having more specific targets, you will be able to find specific demographics that
make more profit (and you can bid more on) and certain demographics that make
less money.
5. Once you find an ad that works well, make sure to try to find another variation.
(Read more about the WHY you need multiple ads in the section called Banner
Blindness below)
Bidding:
Facebook allows you to do both CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per 1000
impressions) advertising. The major difference here is obviously the CPM model does
not guarantee that your ad gets any clicks and yet you still have to pay. The upside
to the CPM model is that you can get clicks for cheaper if you have an ad with a good
click through rate.
A good way to get a starting place for your bids (specially if you are direct linking) is
to ask your affiliate manager or affiliate contact what the EPC of an offer is. This EPC
(earnings per click) is the estimated revenue you make for each visitor to the page.
If an offer has an EPC of 45 cents, you might start your cost per click bids at 20
cents or so.
Important: Facebook really doesn’t like you to lower your ad bids. In fact most of
the time that you lower bids you end up getting 0 impressions on that ad. Therefore
you should always start your ad bids low and move up.
Scaling Your Facebook Ad Campaigns To The 6 Figure Per Month Mark:
Here are some really helpful tips on scaling your Facebook campaigns up to the six
figure per month mark like I have:
1. More Ads – Making more ads with little changes can have a big impact. With
Facebook, you can run literally hundreds of very similar ads at the same time,
going to the same offer. This can really help to get more traffic to successful
campaigns.
2. Targeting – Targeting on Facebook is where you need to be creative. In fact,
if you’ve found a small profiting campaign, chances are, your targeting is
actually pretty broad.
In my experience, most newbies target very little. So, target more specific
things.
Remember, people in one place in life might convert differently than another.
People at one workplace might convert differently than another. Test them
all… ages, geographical location, sexual preference, etc. People at x might
convert different than Y.
Most people group them all into one large lump of demographic targeting. If
the ad is not profitable, you kill entire sub-sections, which might have been
profitable.
This might take time, but it’s worth the effort. You can put a small budget on
each test to maximize your testing efforts. (See the tool below for making
these ads more efficiently)
3. Images – Images are well known as the main factor in producing a
maximum click through rate. The higher your click through rate, (usually) the
more frequent your ads get shown.
It’s simple enough to know that you should be testing multiple images. If you
find a new image that has a much higher click through rate, you’ve instantly
scaled your campaign.
Test as many images as you can afford. Some images are so odd but work
amazingly well. Some images you think would work great, yet perform poorly.
I find images that look like a “facebook friend” would have taken perform
well. Professional photos generally perform not as well.
4. CPM bidding –Think about it… Facebook is trying to maximize revenue. If
they can get an advertiser to promise to pay a set amount regardless of clicks