5 Affiliate Marketing Secrets Revealed

Per Wikipedia: “Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.”

By now you have probably seen many cases of websites selling “Get Rich Quick” books that claim you will get all the affiliate marketing secrets if you pay $29.95 or something of the like.

Well how does Free sound? Below are 5 Affiliate Marketing Secrets Revealed that will help take your efforts to the next level.

1. Choosing what Products to Promote. One of the most important facets of becoming successful at affiliate marketing is determining what products are worth promoting and which ones aren’t. It comes down to a combination of a number of factors:

• Competition – Check to see the affiliate competition for that particular product/service. Essentially go to Google and type in some relevant terms and see how many affiliates are showing up in PPC ads and in the organic listings.  Obviously the less competitive the market is the easier it is to make a splash. However one thing to consider is if a product or service is extremely competitive its most likely a sign that it is a high converting product and money can be made.
• EPC – Before you choose that product/service ALWAYS check to see the EPC of the offer. This is easy to do if you are running through one of the big 3 affiliate networks (CJ, Linkshare, Google).  They typically show two metrics, a 7-day EPC and a 3-month EPC. Look at the 3-month and disregard the 7-day. This will let you know that the product converts high on a consistent basis.
• Consumer demand/keyword traffic – Once you have found your product that converts well you will want to see if consumers actually search for it. If there is no search traffic how will you get enough volume to the offer you are promoting to make any money?

2. Communicate with your affiliate rep.– One of the most overlooked and underappreciated things a affiliate marketer does is communication with the affiliate representative. It is vital to create and develop a relationship with them on a consistent basis because they know what is currently converting and how their other top affiliates are performing. The better your relationship the more information you will get from your rep. Typically they are compensated on how well their affiliates perform, so they want you to succeed

3. Diversify promotional methods. – Previously we listed the 7 best affiliate marketing promotional methods. It is important to make sure you diversify your methods, because very often different methods perform better for different offers. Continuously test promotional methods to identify what is going to work for you. The most common form of promoting affiliate offers is PPC and with more and more competition costs are only going to go up.

4. Negotiating Higher Payouts. More than likely you applied to join a program to promote a specific offer and received their base payout. Did you know that almost always you have room to negotiate a higher payout. This is extremely important because if you are making a lot less than your competitors how do you expect to compete with them on PPC costs or any other promotional methods. You are fighting an uphill battle. Read a previous post on how to negotiate higher affiliate payouts.

5. Value Added. What makes an affiliate site something more than just another thin affiliate? Added value. A value-added site offers unique content beyond the product information provided by the sellers that adds additional value for its users. A value-added site might offer reviews or product comparisons, or just your own thoughts and opinions about the products. If a site has real content – real worth – that takes the site beyond a cookie-cutter, thin affiliate filled with duplicate content – then the site has a much better shot at ranking well in Google and other search engines. And of course, the better it ranks for many phrases, the more traffic your site is likely to receive.