Clickbank is a well known, reliable affiliate network. It is known as the best place to earn fast money as an affiliate. Clickbanks fee is very reasonable and the tools and services they provide are great. All new affiliates are recommended to join Clickbank to start their business.
Clickbank deals with digital products which are
downloadable on the internet. There is no requirement of any physical delivery. After
you are registered with Clickbank as an affiliate, you can choose any product from the pool of available products to promote. There are more than ten thousand products currently available.
The sales commission offered by the merchants on Clickbank is usually very high and affiliates can make 50% per sale.
Thousands of affiliates have joined Clickbank and are earning an income on a regular basis. You shouldn’t hesitate in joining Clickbank if you want your business to take off!
Let me give you some tips while working with Clickbank.
Promote Your Products in Forums
Search for some forums, at least three, that are related to your product with a high page ranking. Register on these forums and just start a discussion in the forum where maximum people are involved. Post your questions there or answer some questions of other members. Do not add any promotion text in the body of your posts. You are allowed to put your signature at the end of your post. Here is where you can put you name, your website link and your affiliate products link.
When you become an active member of this forum then you may get some traffic from these forums to your website. And you may know that when your website is getting the hits from some high rank website, then the page rank of your website is also increased. In this way you will get a double advantage. One is the traffic and second is the higher page rank. This will ultimately result in more sales of the products you are promoting.
Promote Your Products in E-mails
In this day and age, most everybody uses email to contact others. Your email may be personal, study related, business oriented etc. But at the end of your email text you are allowed to write you signature. Don’t neglect this signature. With your name, remember to add your affiliate link at the end. It means that with every email your affiliate links are advertised. If you send out 100 emails daily, it means 100 additional people are looking at your affiliate link everyday.
Try to expand your contact list. Use as many methods as you can to grab the email addresses of new people. Use online forums, chat forums etc to make new friends. Your email list must contain a minimum of a few hundred contacts. DO NOT spam. Don’t send email to the people who don’t know about you or who don’t want to receive your emails. Otherwise your email will be blocked and you will lose your contacts. Your emails should always be interesting to get the reader’s attention.
Promote Your Products on a Website
Most affiliates of Clickbank have their own website to promote their products. So it is recommended to upload your own website. Your website should be related to the products you are promoting. For example if you are promoting some antivirus product, then your website contents must match this theme.
Try to make your website clean and simple. Add your affiliate links in every page of your website. Don’t put big ugly banners to advertise the products. Instead use 2 to 3 lines of
text links to promote the Clickbank products.
Conclusion
Clickbank is a popular affiliate network of digital products. You should start your business with Clickbank to become a successful affiliate. Try to use the forums, emails and your website to promote your Clickbank products for better results. Remember, the fees of Clickbank are very reasonable and they offer a larger number of products to choose from.
To your success
Abraham Ekedum
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
6 Tips for Affiliate Managers
I'm not sure how many affiliate Managers put themselves in the affiliate's place when using Control Panels, when choosing what products to display, or waiting to sell for the first time. But I can tell you about some items - the things really look different depending on which side you are.
So, let's discuss about 3 essential elements in understanding the affiliate behavior:
Affiliate typology - are all the affiliates the same?
Affiliates and Control Panels
Add-ons for performance
Are all the affiliates the same?
First of all, there are a lot of misconceptions about thin affiliates, the (regular) affiliates and super-affiliates. We have the thin affiliates that just sign-up on any affiliate program because of the shinny ads on making passive income very easily.
They usually have a "just started" site, a lot of initial excitement and no experience at all. The (regular) affiliates have already some experience with affiliate marketing and they also do some sales, usually as a complementary business line or supplemental income to a full time job.
The super-affiliates on the other hand, are really a special breed of affiliates that need special conditions/services and support to sell at their full potential.
So, if they are so different, which one should you focus on? Well, on all 3.
Affiliate Marketing is an efficiency-based system to promote your products: from the thin affiliates you will most likely get free advertising (if they don't sell anything), from the (regular) affiliates you will get the steady consistent sales, and supper-affiliates will be the cash-cow of your affiliate program.
Now, actually things can be a little complicated when dealing with all the 3 affiliate types because they look for different things:
Thin affiliates: quick copy and paste some banners on their sites
(Regular) affiliates: constant help, content and efficiency based incentives
Super-affiliates: unique offers, products and special conditions to maximize peak selling moments.
Affiliates and Control Panels
What are the most dreadful issues for an affiliate when working with the Control Panel? I have plenty to report; just say when you want me to stop:
Complicated sign-up procedures
Let's say, I have converted from your site to the sign-up form. I'm very excited to have a look at the products and give it a go with the program. But wait, I have a complicated sign-up form that requires me a lot of details, some of them which might not be at hand: bank account, multiple verification procedures, or tax forms to fill in.
Of course, if I'm a regular affiliate or a super-affiliate, I will take my time to fill in your forms, but frankly it's not the best way to start an "efficiency based" collaboration.
Hard to browse products
If you have more products (for the affiliate networks we are talking about hundreds) not being able to filter/search the products on the criteria I'm interested in, is a major setback.
Thin affiliates will simply look by the highest paying commission, but the rest will have to look for the product in their niche. Here I'm talking about relevant categories, keyword-based searches and conversion reports.
Products not available in the program
Affiliates that really make sales usually work on niche products- they have a targeted audience that they can approach only with specific products.
As they are not signing-up programs randomly but based on market evaluation, the approach on finding products to promote and sell is a little different: they come to your regular site, have a look at the products, then, if you have one that it's interesting they check what affiliate network of program you use and sign-up.
If the product it's not there, of course they can contact you and ask for it, but isn't this your job (having the products enrolled in the affiliate program)?
Unable to link to the pages I need
Because the process of selling online is very complex, affiliates might be using different techniques to promote the products.
That's why giving credit only to the buying links is not really effective- I might need to link to your awards page or anything else on your site and if the visitor buys, it means I did my job and I should be credited for my sale.
Useless creatives
Advanced affiliates might do their own creatives or maybe request some custom ones from you. But still, If I only need a banner, why should it be so difficult to find one that fits and looks nice?
Ineffective reports
If the affiliate wants to check the efficiency of the promotions he does, then for sure, he will need a drill down on each link he uses. It doesn't help much if you just report the number of clicks and successful sales - I need to know how each banner, text link or landing page has performed
Add-ons for performance
Talking about supper-affiliates (but not only), they use powerful mechanisms to trigger sales. They need special marketing tools to do the job, and they usually require direct human interaction with the Affiliate manager and:
Special discounts and coupons. Usually unique coupons that will give them a time limited advantage when promoting the product.
Accurate tracking systems to evaluate all the aspects of the marketing actions. A/B testing, conversion reports.
Efficient and custom landing pages on the merchant site. If your site does not convert well, then the affiliates' efforts will be spent for nothing.
Plan marketing campaigns with the Affiliate Manager. The Affiliate Manager should be available and offer consultancy on the products, targeted market, consumer profile and marketing actions.
Things really look different depending on your perspective. But no matter what's yours, affiliate marketing is hard work.
To your success
Abraham Ekedum
Copyright © 2008, http://www.avangate.com all rights reserved.
So, let's discuss about 3 essential elements in understanding the affiliate behavior:
Affiliate typology - are all the affiliates the same?
Affiliates and Control Panels
Add-ons for performance
Are all the affiliates the same?
First of all, there are a lot of misconceptions about thin affiliates, the (regular) affiliates and super-affiliates. We have the thin affiliates that just sign-up on any affiliate program because of the shinny ads on making passive income very easily.
They usually have a "just started" site, a lot of initial excitement and no experience at all. The (regular) affiliates have already some experience with affiliate marketing and they also do some sales, usually as a complementary business line or supplemental income to a full time job.
The super-affiliates on the other hand, are really a special breed of affiliates that need special conditions/services and support to sell at their full potential.
So, if they are so different, which one should you focus on? Well, on all 3.
Affiliate Marketing is an efficiency-based system to promote your products: from the thin affiliates you will most likely get free advertising (if they don't sell anything), from the (regular) affiliates you will get the steady consistent sales, and supper-affiliates will be the cash-cow of your affiliate program.
Now, actually things can be a little complicated when dealing with all the 3 affiliate types because they look for different things:
Thin affiliates: quick copy and paste some banners on their sites
(Regular) affiliates: constant help, content and efficiency based incentives
Super-affiliates: unique offers, products and special conditions to maximize peak selling moments.
Affiliates and Control Panels
What are the most dreadful issues for an affiliate when working with the Control Panel? I have plenty to report; just say when you want me to stop:
Complicated sign-up procedures
Let's say, I have converted from your site to the sign-up form. I'm very excited to have a look at the products and give it a go with the program. But wait, I have a complicated sign-up form that requires me a lot of details, some of them which might not be at hand: bank account, multiple verification procedures, or tax forms to fill in.
Of course, if I'm a regular affiliate or a super-affiliate, I will take my time to fill in your forms, but frankly it's not the best way to start an "efficiency based" collaboration.
Hard to browse products
If you have more products (for the affiliate networks we are talking about hundreds) not being able to filter/search the products on the criteria I'm interested in, is a major setback.
Thin affiliates will simply look by the highest paying commission, but the rest will have to look for the product in their niche. Here I'm talking about relevant categories, keyword-based searches and conversion reports.
Products not available in the program
Affiliates that really make sales usually work on niche products- they have a targeted audience that they can approach only with specific products.
As they are not signing-up programs randomly but based on market evaluation, the approach on finding products to promote and sell is a little different: they come to your regular site, have a look at the products, then, if you have one that it's interesting they check what affiliate network of program you use and sign-up.
If the product it's not there, of course they can contact you and ask for it, but isn't this your job (having the products enrolled in the affiliate program)?
Unable to link to the pages I need
Because the process of selling online is very complex, affiliates might be using different techniques to promote the products.
That's why giving credit only to the buying links is not really effective- I might need to link to your awards page or anything else on your site and if the visitor buys, it means I did my job and I should be credited for my sale.
Useless creatives
Advanced affiliates might do their own creatives or maybe request some custom ones from you. But still, If I only need a banner, why should it be so difficult to find one that fits and looks nice?
Ineffective reports
If the affiliate wants to check the efficiency of the promotions he does, then for sure, he will need a drill down on each link he uses. It doesn't help much if you just report the number of clicks and successful sales - I need to know how each banner, text link or landing page has performed
Add-ons for performance
Talking about supper-affiliates (but not only), they use powerful mechanisms to trigger sales. They need special marketing tools to do the job, and they usually require direct human interaction with the Affiliate manager and:
Special discounts and coupons. Usually unique coupons that will give them a time limited advantage when promoting the product.
Accurate tracking systems to evaluate all the aspects of the marketing actions. A/B testing, conversion reports.
Efficient and custom landing pages on the merchant site. If your site does not convert well, then the affiliates' efforts will be spent for nothing.
Plan marketing campaigns with the Affiliate Manager. The Affiliate Manager should be available and offer consultancy on the products, targeted market, consumer profile and marketing actions.
Things really look different depending on your perspective. But no matter what's yours, affiliate marketing is hard work.
To your success
Abraham Ekedum
Copyright © 2008, http://www.avangate.com all rights reserved.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Affiliate Resources Shortlist
Forums, Blogs, Conferences and More for the Affiliates
When you are just starting up as an Affiliate Marketer and decide you want to make money online, it's very easy to get distracted by get rich quick scams, hyped e-books or false assumptions about the affiliate business.
That's why I decided to make a shortlist of hand picked resources to guide your Internet Entrepreneurship path through Affiliate Marketing:
Forums
5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums by Linda Buquet. Not sure why your site is not converting? Still waiting for the first sale? Not enough visitors to your site? Feeling down? 5 Star Affiliate Forums it's the "Affiliates doctor", ready to heal you up and guide your path through the help of the great community around it.
AssociatePrograms Affiliate Marketing forum by Allan Gardyne. It's a friendly, helpful affiliate forum where you can find answers about getting started, how to earn more, affiliate networks, blogging and many more.
The #1 Affiliate Marketing Forum :: ABestWeb - probably the largest forum about affiliate business.
Blogs
Shoemoney . There are plenty of Internet Entrepreneurs out there but Shoemoney has an unbiased view on making money online and he got famous for showing his over 100k earnings Adsense check
Problogger by Darren Rowse. Making money with your blog, best online money makers, and lots of tips and resources to run your online business.
E-books
If you haven't already bought an affiliate marketing e-book, well, that's good as you can get most of the information for free anyway like Allan Gardyne's "77 Ways To Get Traffic nearly all FREE"
Conferences
Affiliate Summit is the place to be. It happens several times a year in different locations in USA, including the first Summit in Europe in London this year.
Magazines, trainings, statistics
E-consultancy - a generous list of studies, statistics and facts about almost everything that happens online
Affiliate Classroom - Step-by-Step Training For All Levels of Affiliates
Revenue Magazine - a revenue magazine which delivers the most integrated and personally relevant information to today's online marketers
What do you think, is the list short enough to be relevant?
To your success
Abraham Ekedum
When you are just starting up as an Affiliate Marketer and decide you want to make money online, it's very easy to get distracted by get rich quick scams, hyped e-books or false assumptions about the affiliate business.
That's why I decided to make a shortlist of hand picked resources to guide your Internet Entrepreneurship path through Affiliate Marketing:
Forums
5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums by Linda Buquet. Not sure why your site is not converting? Still waiting for the first sale? Not enough visitors to your site? Feeling down? 5 Star Affiliate Forums it's the "Affiliates doctor", ready to heal you up and guide your path through the help of the great community around it.
AssociatePrograms Affiliate Marketing forum by Allan Gardyne. It's a friendly, helpful affiliate forum where you can find answers about getting started, how to earn more, affiliate networks, blogging and many more.
The #1 Affiliate Marketing Forum :: ABestWeb - probably the largest forum about affiliate business.
Blogs
Shoemoney . There are plenty of Internet Entrepreneurs out there but Shoemoney has an unbiased view on making money online and he got famous for showing his over 100k earnings Adsense check
Problogger by Darren Rowse. Making money with your blog, best online money makers, and lots of tips and resources to run your online business.
E-books
If you haven't already bought an affiliate marketing e-book, well, that's good as you can get most of the information for free anyway like Allan Gardyne's "77 Ways To Get Traffic nearly all FREE"
Conferences
Affiliate Summit is the place to be. It happens several times a year in different locations in USA, including the first Summit in Europe in London this year.
Magazines, trainings, statistics
E-consultancy - a generous list of studies, statistics and facts about almost everything that happens online
Affiliate Classroom - Step-by-Step Training For All Levels of Affiliates
Revenue Magazine - a revenue magazine which delivers the most integrated and personally relevant information to today's online marketers
What do you think, is the list short enough to be relevant?
To your success
Abraham Ekedum
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