Some Straight Talk on Affiliate Marketing

My wife and daughter are out of town today so I was going to get caught up on my favorite TV shows: Supergirl, Flash, Supernatural and Legion.

I definitely like the superhero shows. I grew up watching Christopher Reeve’s Superman films and reading comics.

But when I got home, I decided to take a nap…

…and that nap turned into sleeping through the night!

Remember, yesterday I gave you a taste of how Internet Marketing works. Click here if you missed it so you can catch up!

I know there’s one that’ll suit your interests and complement your skills.

In reality, the Internet can give you countless possibilities in business and earnings. I’ll focus on the most proven ones.

These are known to have launched thousands of Internet businesses all over the world and helped local brick-and-mortar businesses see profits early.

And today I’ll start examining for you the 3 Internet Marketing (IM) models for you to choose from, starting with Affiliate Marketing.

This model is all about you joining forces with an online seller or retailer. I’ll refer to them as merchants for the rest of this article.

The revenue will be shared by you and the merchant.

How does it work EXACTLY?

Well, income is usually generated through visitors clicking through to your landing page via an ad you posted. Or through purchases from clients, who have visited your landing page.

How you’re compensated, ultimately, depends on, one of three types of Affiliate Marketing you choose to work with:

1. Pay per Sale Affiliate Marketing – this will allow you to earn income from sales finalized through advertisements you post.

The merchants will monitor your activity through these sales.

Every time they close deals originating from your ad, you’ll receive a percentage of the income or a fixed commission, depending on the number of sales finalized. One example is Clickbank.com.

2. Pay Per Click Affiliate Marketing – this model is all about linking the merchant’s website to your own website. Say the merchant pays to have their ad posted on your page. Every time a visitor clicks the link that leads to your affiliate merchant’s page, you’ll earn a fixed amount.
3. Pay per Lead Affiliate Marketing – In this case, you’ll accept advertisements posted on your website. When leads originate from the ads or links on your website, you’ll get compensated.

How are payments made?

Payments are made instantly, weekly, bi-weekly or on a monthly basis. The payments you receive will be determined by the commission rate your merchant gives affiliates.

Personally, the affiliate program Dahl Integration Marketing prefers uses Click Bank for payments. I have it set up to pay us weekly.

There are several ways to get your payments:

One is via electronic banking by way of payment or financial websites.

Money can also be wired through to your personal or business bank account – this can also be done online or through direct bank deposits.

A regular check can be mailed to you.

Another popular way to receive payments is via PayPal.

What Skills Are Required to Start an Affiliate Marketing Business?

You need to know pay-per-click advertising, email marketing and copywriting.

Advantages of Affiliate Marketing:

1. Generally speaking, you don’t need to spend a lot of cash to get started. Most Affiliate Programs are free to join although they’ll ask you to apply.

That said, there are Premium Affiliate Programs where affiliates pay a licensing fee of $1,000 or more.

2. You can earn money while you sleep. Who doesn’t want to earn more cash in the middle of the night?

When this first happened to me I felt an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders because income wasn’t always dependent on my time.

3. It’s one of the easiest ways to earn income (when you compare it to creating and marketing your own products) because you shorten the time to market.

When you create your own products and services you’re on the hook to prove that it can sell. This initial test campaign can cost thousands of dollars to prove your offers’ feasibility.

Conversely, you can simply promote a popular product that’s already proven successful and skip all the trial-and-error and initial ‘cold-hard’ cash outlay.

Whether you’re in this as a part-time source of income or as a long-term business, affiliate marketing is still one of the best ways to earn income without all the typical hassles of managing a business.

4. If you’re successful, you’ll always be up-to-date with what’s going on in the world of Internet marketing. This is a great opportunity for you to find or create different products and services to feature on your website.
5. You’ll also have opportunities to work with other affiliate marketers and increase your earnings together.

The Downsides to Affiliate Marketing

Although you can make a living with affiliate marketing, there are a couple of downsides to this model that you should know.

Once you have all this information, you can devise plans to help you avoid these potentially costly problems:

1. As an affiliate, you may fall victim to shady businesses and, in turn, you may be accused of deceiving clients.

To make sure that you keep this from happening, you have to screen all your merchants. Verify their products and check if their actual businesses are legit.

A rule of thumb is to first become a client of the merchants you plan to work with. What’s more, it’s always easier to sell a product or service you believe in, because you’re a client and can speak from your own experience with the product.

You also need to read the fine print in the contract of affiliation before finalizing the deal.

2. You’ll stop earning without prior notice. This can happen if you do not regularly communicate with your merchants.

Merchants can stop or discontinue production of products without informing their affiliates (and in some cases go out of business) so be sure to stay in touch with your merchants to avoid this problem.

Today, I examined the ins-and-outs of Affiliate Marketing and tomorrow I’ll examine for you the opportunity existing in online shopping centers.

Namely, eBay and Amazon.

Stay tuned for tomorrow…

In the meantime, if you’d like to take the guesswork out of growing your business online then click here to get the ultimate shortcut.