Super Affiliate Strategies Part 3
by: Rich Hamilton, Jr
In our previous Super Affiliate Strategies articles, we went over ways to increase your web site's click through ratio. Today we are going to take an entirely different approach, this time we are going to be promoting affiliate programs outside of your web site.
I realize that there are a lot of affiliates that don't have their own web site and are looking for effective ways to promote their affiliate programs. You don't need to have your own web site to send targeted traffic to your affiliate program. In this article we are going to go over a few ways to effectively and profitably promote any affiliate program. In order to generate large affiliate commissions you need to send targeted traffic to your affiliate program, here are a few ways to do so:
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay per click advertising is a great way to send targeted traffic to your affiliate program. Before you start promoting an associate program with pay per click advertising, you need to make sure that it offers a high commission percentage and has a conservation rate of 2% or higher. If your associate program doesn't offer either one, then you shouldn't be using pay per click advertising. If the associate program you are promoting doesn't offer a high commission percentage nor have a high conservation ratio, then you won't make any money with pay per click advertising. There are plenty of associate programs out there that offer high percentages and have excellent conservation rates.
If you are considering promoting more than one affiliate program, which many people do, including myself, then you should promote products that are not in indirect competition with each other. If you promote products that are in indirect competition with each other such as online marketing books, you would be using the same keywords, which would mean one ad is going to do better than the other. When you're using the same keywords for more than one ad, your visitor could favor one ad over the other. Basically, your click through rate will be evaluated between the two ads instead of one. Instead of having one strong click through rate, you could have two weak ones. Your click through ratio plays a major role in your ads position.
The trick to having success with pay per click advertising is writing a killer ad and selecting appropriate keywords. When selecting your keywords, you shouldn't pay more than $0.05 per click. Instead of increasing the cost per click of your ad and chance losing your shirt, you can find very cheap high traffic keywords that product excellent results. If you're considering using pay per click to advertising for your associate program, then I recommend that you get Adword Analyzer. Adword Analyzer is an amazing piece of software and it will help you locate those overlooked and neglected high traffic keywords.
Ezine Advertising
Advertising in ezines is one of the best and easiest ways to send targeted traffic to your affiliate program. Even though pay per click may accurately target your market, they cannot target it precisely link ezines can. I'm not trying to discourage you from pay per click advertising, but with a great ad copy and carefully selected keywords its capabilities can be too broad. Ezines on the other hand, are precise in targeting a market and have a list of pre-qualified subscribers. A pre-qualified subscriber is when someone has voluntarily subscribed to receive additional information about a particular topic, making them qualified and easy to market to.
With so many ezines to choose from, it makes it hard to select a quality ezine to advertise in. The best way to find quality ezines to advertise your affiliate program in, is by using Directory of Ezines. There are free ezine directories on the web, but you get what you pay for. Most of the free ezine directories are saturated with discontinued ezines or are outdated. Moreover, with the Directory of Ezines, the ezines are always kept up to date, providing you with the latest information and new ezines everyday, making it a valuable resource.
Targeted Opt-In List
Another way you can promote your affiliate program is by renting targeted opt-in mailing list. Renting a targeted opt-in list is a quick access to expose your affiliate program to hundreds, even thousands of people that have opted-in to receive more information in that field. By renting a targeted opt-in list you will have to use a third party source. If you decide to use a third party source it is imperative that you find out how they are gathering the email addresses for their list. You want to use a third party opt-in list that has been gathering their email addresses properly. That way you know that the people have given permission to receive more information and didn't use a email extracting software to harvest them.
I'm going to be straight with you, renting targeted opt-in lists can get expensive. The bigger the list is the more it's going to cost you! It's a good idea to start small and then gradually increase if you are successful. The reason you want to start small is because you want to see how successful your campaign is going to be. You don't want to go with a large list, if the campaign isn't going to do well, that's a good way to lose money. You will need to conduct some tests before you start your campaign. Here are a few third party list providers you can use, Postmaster Direct, List Universe, and E-Target.
About The Author
Rich Hamilton, Jr is the CEO/President of http://www.ElitesMarketing.com and the Author of Inside Internet Marketing. His book will show you how to ignite your sales by unlocking the absolute truth to marketing online and how you can turn your web site into a moneymaking powerhouse without paying a cent for advertising. http://www.InsideNetMarketing.com.