Why Affiliate Marketing May Be Right For You

What exactly is affiliate marketing? Quite simply, affiliate marketing is a web based marketing method where a merchant will pay you for creating traffic to their website. Most times the visitor will have to perform an action such as buy a product or enter information about
themselves. The result for the affiliate marketer is a commission.

Most merchants will pay their affiliates a high commission usually between 50 and 75 percent. Merchants are willing to pay a high commission for attaining customers they otherwise might not have reached.

This is what makes affiliate marketing an attractive business model for many people. You simply drive traffic through various marketing methods to someone else's website and if that person buys that product, you make money.

There is no need for you to have a website. The merchant whose products you are promoting will provide you with a website that has your ID embedded. You will then receive credit for any action taken by that customer.

Another benefit of promoting other peoples products (OPP), is you don't have to worry about having a product, delivering that product, handling customer service, processing payments and refunds, etc. This alone is a big reason many entrepreneurs choose affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing has somewhat of a bad reputation due to some marketers using questionable methods of marketing. The worst is spamming. People get sick of receiving a truck load of emails telling them about the latest, greatest thing. There is also a lot of abuse in the social networks and forums. There are no real regulations in place for how an
affiliate markets other than the restrictions each merchant puts in place.

However, the upside to becoming an affiliate marketer are many. By using the internet, you can decide to start your own online business today, join an affiliate program, and literally have your own business up and running live the same day.

The investment required varies of course, but you can start off with very little capital and use the thousands of free advertising sources on the net to start building your affiliate marketing business.

The amount of money you can make is up to you. You can make an extra couple hundred a month or rise to the category of super affiliate earning millions per year. This is all determined by your level of involvement. Everyone is different with how much money and time they  have to devote to their business.

An important part of becoming a successful affiliate marketer is having the right training so you can avoid methods that don't work, and capitalize on those that do.

If you have been exploring ways to use the internet to start a business, affiliate marketing may be a good place for you to start. Opportunities for making money on the internet have never been better.

Jeff Meddings

I'm building a recession proof income. Get the best training
on the internet for making money online.

http://www.MaverickMoneyClubTour.com

Website Or No Website....What a Dilemma

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Website Or No Website…That's The Question

Do you want to make money through the Internet but you don't have enough experience or capital to start your own online business?  You don't have to worry, for a lot of online marketing options exist for you to start with.  One of these options, and shall I say the best, is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing provides first time online marketers like you the chance to market something online even without having your own product to sell.  All you have to do is to sign up with an affiliate marketing program, which is usually owned by an online merchant or retailer, and start picking the products you want to promote.  As an affiliate, you are paid by the merchant for your services on a commission basis, that is whenever you have directed a visitor to the merchant's site and the visitor actually buys something.

Becoming an affiliate in an affiliate marketing program is often quick and easy, and for most affiliate programs, signing up is also free.  But despite these and all the benefits being promised by affiliate programs, many people are still hesitant to get into affiliate marketing.  One of the reasons why a lot of people remain hesitant is the lack of a website to start marketing his affiliate products with.  This now leads us to the question of whether a website is required or necessary in affiliate marketing or not.

Many people say that one can do affiliate marketing even without a website to start with.  Actually, one can really start promoting and marketing his affiliate products even without a website; and there exist a lot of ways on how this can be done.  In fact, many affiliate marketing strategies that leads to success can exist without actually needing a website.  Among these strategies are email marketing, offline promotions, writing e-books, writing ezines and engaging in online discussions like forums, chats, message boards and others.

*Email Marketing

Email marketing, or maintaining email lists, is actually the most popular affiliate marketing strategy that doesn't require the affiliate to maintain a website.  In this affiliate marketing strategy, what you basically do is maintain a list of the email ads of your prospective customers and provide them with articles that are relevant with the affiliate products and programs you are promoting.  Articles that you provide your contacts with need not always be promotional, for many individuals find such types of email annoying.  Rather, it would be better if you provide them with something informative and just add small text ads that link to your merchant's site.

*Offline Promotion

There are many ways on how you can promote your affiliate products offline.  Among the common medium used for such promotions are classified ads, brochures and flyers.  Classified ads would generally work better compared to the other two because classified ads in periodicals often get a wider audience.

*Writing Free e-books

If you have a knack in writing, writing an e-book can be the best way for you to promote your affiliate products in the absence of an actual website.  Just like in emails and newsletters, your readers would better appreciate your e-book if it is not too promotional but rather informative.  Be sure, however, to make the contents of your e-books relative to the actual affiliate products you are promoting.  And just like in email marketing, you can just place text ads or banners somewhere near the end of your e-book that links to the merchant's site.

Different Types Of Affiliate Marketing

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The Different Types Of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing programs has never been as popular before as it is today.  Why?  There can be a number of reasons.  The most probable reason, however, could be the fact that the benefits of affiliate marketing have become clearer to a lot of people now than they were before.

Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them.  The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost.  The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.

Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has shifted into greater heights, so has the people's outlook about it changed.  No longer is affiliate marketing considered today as an alternative method for the merchant to advertise his products, or as a source of additional income for the affiliates.  For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a main source of profits and revenues.

So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you?  Are all affiliate marketing programs the same?  Are the benefits the same?  Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?

There are actually different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one will classify them.  The most basic affiliate marketing programs, however, falls under two categories: pay-per-click (PPC), and pay-per-performance (PPP).

•    Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small websites, and probably the easiest way for them to earn money.  In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant's banner or text ads.  The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant's site.  However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click.

•    Pay Per Performance (PPP)

PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates.  In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action—that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant's site or when the visitor becomes a lead.  This means a lot of savings for the merchant.  On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.

Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).

o    Pay Per Sale (PPS)

In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant's site actually buys something from the merchant's site.  Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee.  But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.

o    Pay Per Lead (PPL)

The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow.  In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant's site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company.  Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.

Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist.  If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing.  There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant's site.

•    Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing

These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made.  In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant.  All the previously mentioned affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS< PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier classification.

•    In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant's site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation.  Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

•     Residual Income Affiliate Marketing

In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant's site.  Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product.  Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.

The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits.  Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for you?  It is not really for me to tell.  Rather, it is for you to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit your needs and characteristics best.

If you would observe the company that delivers the daily paper to your doorstep for a business case study, you will come to learn that the newspaper publisher hires reporters, writers and other important staff to create the contents and deliver the papers to their readers.
In addition to the above mention, the publisher has to invest regularly in heavy duty machineries and tons of papers in printing tons of newspapers on a daily basis.
And in order to ensure that the newspapers are delivered on time, the publisher appoints agents at every part of the covered territory.
So, how does the newspaper company make money? It is obvious that selling a copy of the papers at less than a dollar would not even be able to even fund the operations.

The answer? Selling advertising spaces! You have definitely seen lots of advertisements in the newspaper. The publisher simply sells advertising space in the papers to advertisers who want to leverage their advertising efforts on the paper’s high readership.
On the same analogy, you can make money the exact way from your newsletter: simply by selling advertising space to prospective advertisers!
If your mailing list size exceeds 1,000 (5,000 is recommended) subscribers and beyond, you can start selling advertising space for say, $10.00 per sponsor ad.

In this manner, you turn every issue you send out to your subscribers into a profit-pulling device. And since there is virtually no end to the stream of advertisers as products, services and businesses are cropping every single day in every industry imaginable, so are your money making opportunities. Such as these
acne skin care product


Aside from pre-selling your products and affiliated offers, the other purpose of your free viral report should be to build your mailing list of your chosen niche
signs of stress and anxiety.

This is because if you are unable to pre-sell, let alone sell, the products and services featured in your free report, the last ditch effort should be to collect leads. In short, if you cannot convert the reader into a ready buyer, you should then attempt to convert him or her into your subscriber.
In that manner, you can still follow up with your reader on future offers and have a chance at converting him or her into your customer, preferably lifetime.
You can do so by offering a lifetime update to your report or a unique notification list your reader will be interested in subscribing to, which leads to having him or her subscribed to your mailing list.
One of the few success factors in viral marketing of your free report is quality. If your readers find your information worth sharing, and you encourage them to do so by giving them the right to give your report away for free, you will be able to have your name, status and links within the report passed around without any effort on your part – simply because others are willing to do so for you!