A Quick and Dirty Guide for Affiliate Marketing in 2017

Why Affiliate Marketing?

The field of affiliate marketing has become one of the quickest developing ways to make money online.

After all, billions of people use the internet every day. Affiliate marketing gives you the opportunity to target potential customers regardless of their location in the world.

For this reason, it isn't surprising that many people make a considerable amount of money through affiliate advertising and marketing. Many skilled affiliate marketers end up making more money in this field than they did in their previous job, which enabled them to resign from their normal 9-5 job and pursue affiliate marketing full-time.

What are Affiliate Programs?

Affiliate programs are marketing programs offered by web advertisers or merchants that recruit website owners and bloggers. The merchants provide banner ads, links and buttons for website owners to place on their website to market the merchant's products. In turn, the website owner or blogger will receive a referral fee or commission when a customer purchases a product that is delivered via an affiliate link.

There are Three Ways to Earn Money Through Affiliate Marketing: 1) Pay per Click or click affiliate programs Cost-per-: Every time a potential customer leaves the affiliate website by "clicking" on the link leading to the merchant's website, a certain amount of money is deposited in the affiliate's account. This amount can be pennies or dollars depending on the product and amount of the commission.

2) Pay per Lead or Cost-per-lead affiliate programs: The merchant pays the affiliate a set fee for each visitor who clicks through and takes and action at the merchant's site, such as completing an online survey, registering at the site, or opting-in to receive e-mail.

3) Pay per Sale or Cost-per-sale affiliate programs: Every time a sale is made because of advertising on the affiliate's website, a percentage, or commission, is deposited into the affiliate's account.

Choosing an Affiliate Program: Back in 1994 there weren't very many affiliate programs to choose from and most of them were revolved around offensive content websites. Today, affiliate programs have a higher standard and it is a new way of doing business. There are many companies that have affiliate marketing programs like Amazon, web hosting companies, domain name registrars, and electronic websites, Apple iTunes, bit defender, panda security, PC health boost, Commission Junction, eBay Partner Network, Google AdSense, VistaPrint and the list goes on and on.

You can find an affiliate program for almost anything you want to sell. It is a good idea to sell something that is related to your website, providing you have one. Not everybody that signs up for an affiliate program has a website to run it through. There are some that write articles and direct the URLs to their affiliate program.

When you go shopping for an affiliate program, try to look for high affiliate commissions, long cookies, and of course you would want to get a great conversion rate. Two-tier programs which have the same

structure as a multilevel marketing organization can be quite lucrative. Such organizations that earn billions in multilevel marketing and direct sales are companies like Amway which has been in business for 53 years, Nu Skin started in 1984 and Nature's Sunshine started in 1972. So, multilevel marketing has been around for some time. Residual affiliate programs are the way to go. You continue to make money on that visitor month after month. The advantage here is that eventually your sales start accumulating where you're making more and more money as opposed to the individual sale where you must continuously make money to stay at the same level.

Where You Can Go: There are services out there that have a database of a lot of companies that are doing affiliate programs so you do not have to run around and seek out each individual program themselves. Companies like ClickBank, where you sign up and select the affiliate program you wish to support.

How to Choose a Good Affiliate Network: One of the largest errors new affiliate marketers make is becoming a member of nearly each affiliate network they encounter. This is without a doubt a huge mistake for several reasons‌ First, being an affiliate marketer is an undertaking which calls for a lot of awareness. So, if you try and work with many affiliate networks at the same time, chances are that none of your initiatives might go as planned and consequently, none of them might end up being very successful.

Second, focusing on just one or a few products will undoubtedly let you research them thoroughly before you start to promote them. This method also helps you refine your strategies, make the required adjustments, and make your marketing much more powerful. An effective approach will yield better outcomes, and reward you for your efforts and time.

Third, make sure you do some research on the affiliate network as there are some networks that will only pay you once a month which might not work for you. Or worse, they could not pay you at all. I am not telling you this to discourage you from being an affiliate marketer, but instead I want you to succeed in finding the correct network and products to market and make your commissions.

There are also affiliate networks that resort to "shaving", a very common exercise in affiliate marketing where the networks display a lesser number of sales than what you referred, consequently paying you drastically less in commissions.

To avoid being a victim to any of these negative actions, I would suggest that you stick to known and trusted affiliate networks. In any case, they only way you will succeed with a network is if you are comfortable with them and the products you are promoting.

Guaranteed Path to Success: To guarantee your success in affiliate marketing, I recommend working with a mentor, and or a team. It

is also highly recommended that you immerse yourself in training tools and programs. Remember first and foremost, this is a business. You would not rent a storefront with hopes of opening a successful store without the proper training, help, guidance, etc. This business is no different. Therefore, I recommend using a fantastic tool- Affilorama. You can open a free account- here.

With this free account, you will receive: A “quick-start guide” that will help you avoid common mistakes when starting your business. A downloadable “roadmap to success” that shows you exactly what steps to take to be highly successful in this business. Best of all, you will also receive 120 very easy-to-follow video lessons to show you exactly how to build your business. Of course, Affilorama also has fantastic upsell items and a premium membership, as well as several other resources and programs. But, I will let you discover these on your own. As a successful affiliate marketer, I would suggest you give Affilorama a try. You owe this to yourself and your future success. I would say that most, if not all “super affiliates” use or have used a system like Affilorama in their business.

Rising to the Super Affiliate Level - What Constitutes a Super Affiliate?

A super affiliate is a marketing affiliate that has created a network that provides a high volume of traffic to affiliate products and a high percentage of completed sales from that traffic. The super affiliate is not one who reaches this level once, or even once in a great while. Creativity is a hallmark of a super affiliate. The ability to present the same old information is new ways will keep people interested. Super affiliates know how to look at products from a variety of different angles, determine a series of ways to present the product, and then go out and find an audience to match up with each one of those ways.

For the super affiliate, there is always one more way to draw attention to a product, and find a larger audience than ever before. Another characteristic of a super affiliate is the desire and ability to master technology. This does not necessarily involve becoming an expert in information technology. But it does involve learning enough about existing technology to make good use of avenues already open on the Internet to promote products. Making the most of your status as a super affiliate means enjoying the opportunities that come to you through word of mouth; additionally, it means taking matters into your own hands and promoting your status in such a way that you increase your visibility.

How to Become a Super Affiliate: What is it that allows a super affiliate to make hundreds or even thousands of sales when you struggle to make 5 sales of the same product? Why is it that super affiliates rake in the cash while you struggle to get by? Think about this carefully: you are both selling the exact same product. The only possible differences are the tactics you use to market it, or your “system� you use to run your business. If you want to become a super affiliate making a six and possibly seven-figure income, then you must do something that is truly different than what you are doing now. The big question is "how can I do this"? Again, might I suggest Affilorama.

Conclusion: We may conclude that choosing an Affiliate Program that is right for you might be time consuming but a worthwhile process. Going through the entire process will also be a learning curve for new entrepreneurs who are serious about starting a successful home based business. A system like Affilorama will be a HUGE help going through the whole process, and will cut down your learning curve time. Finally, there is no single path to affiliate marketing riches, and that's a good thing. Instead, there are many pathways through which you can make your millions. So, scout carefully, look for functional methods you can use, and implement them in your own efforts. You may be surprised with the results.

But whatever you do, don't continue to use strategies that haven't worked in the past. Always think like super affiliates because they use a range of tactics and adopt different ways to consistently outperform other affiliates. Super affiliates also use several paid systems to keep up to date with new information, and specific methods for success that the average affiliate will deem unnecessary, such as:

tracking programs, affiliate management networks, webinars (A LOT of them!), research keyword programs, investigating backlinks programs, and the list goes on. This is again why I must suggest you give Affilorama’s free online tools program a try. Making money with affiliate programs can be a highly rewarding experience if you know where to go to find the right affiliate program, how to do the research needed, proper marketing techniques, marketing channels and more.

References: Article: http://EzineArticles.com/7956607 Book: “Creating a Winning E-Business", 2nd edition Article: http://EzineArticles.com/1844710 Book: "Super Affiliate Marketing Secrets: Gain the Edge You Need to Become a Super Affiliate Marketer" Article: http://EzineArticles.com/1844710 Article: http://EzineArticles.com/9333819