Synopsis on what affiliate marketing is:

Affiliate marketing, formally known as referral marketing, is when you refer or promote other people's products to make money and the affiliate (you) earns percentage of the sale. How much commission you earn depends on what affiliate program you join. A few examples of affiliate marketing programs to join are the following: Amazon Associate's program, ClickBank and commission junction. Like any program out there, they all have their shares of ups and downs. First lets look at the Amazon Associate's program. As far as their good qualities, you can see what products you are going to promote and amazon is a trustworthy site. The downside of the Amazon associate's program is that the commissions they pay are very low. On the average, they pay from 4 to 8% to the affiliates. For example, if you sell a 40.00$ Ebook from Amazon, all you get is two measly dollars. In context to ClickBank, their commissions are very high-75% at the most- but you don't know if the product is good or just a scam since they don't have a lot of people commenting on the products or give you a preview of the product. The best way to see if you want to promote the product or not is to buy it yourself. Don't worry, as a ClickBank affiliate you get a discount whenever you purchase it. Let's say you see a product that costs 7.00$ and you get 75% commission, you get it for 2.50$ since you get 75% off as an affiliate. How much commission you get also tells you how much you get of a discount when you buy a product (75% commissions = 75% off your purchase). Overall, if you are smart with affiliate marketing, you can make a significant amount of income with it.

Factors of success in affiliate marketing:

In the world of affiliate marketing, there are a couple of determining factors that can help your sales pace a great deal. The first determining factor is traffic. In order to earn sales, you need people to know what kind of products you sell; especially a blog or website. To keep some traffic, please tell your blog/website readers and/or subscribers to bookmark your site that way they can keep coming back. Another determining factor is credibility. Credibility shows how much honest character you have as a businessman/businesswoman. Overall, don't just sell crap or programs that might not work just to get a quick sale. If any of you do that, that's just hurting your business and makes your sense of character look very bad. To make this guide more comprehensive and digestive, lets go into more depth with these determining factors.

1) Traffic:

For any successful online business you need traffic. Traffic is like the blood in your veins that keep your business alive. Just like entrepreneurs need clients, online businesspeople need traffic. As far as beginners, do one specific niche to know what targeted traffic you need and want. If you do a blog on one specific niche - for example, how to lose weight - stick to promoting products that deal with losing weight. As far as which affiliate program that attracts traffic the most, do Amazon since a lot of people go there every day buying Ebooks and products from there; also because they are a legit business. In terms of traffic, make great and unique content so people can keep coming back to see what you got new. Also credibility is a good way to keep traffic since customers love honest people who care. In overall context, traffic the blood in your veins that keeps the business alive.

2) Credibility:

Another determining factor for making success in affiliate marketing is credibility and honesty. A good business is an honest business. People who do care bout their subscribers or customers researches and reviews the product before promoting them. Researching and reviewing products is something that is required for some affiliate programs, especially ClickBank because anybody can upload any Random PDF( Portable Document File) and call it an Ebook. That's why affiliates should sometimes buy and review a product before getting themselves affiliated with that product. Sometimes, the Ebook might not be that good; but sometimes business requires operating expenses and investment to keep your business in good name. For those who are cheap and just want to push crap to people, you are just hurting yourselves as far as reputation. Here's a perfect scenario to make an example for poor credibility:" Let's say Jane, a ClickBank promotes a product on weight loss without reviewing it and hopes to get someone to buy it so she can get a 75% commission. Then a buyer named John buys the product for 49.99$ and realizes he didn't get what he needed - it was just a crappy PDF file with a title full of lies. Then John tells his friends how Jane scammed him and you shouldn't buy from her. Nine tomes out of ten, Johns friends tell their two friends and then they tell their two friends and so on". To put the scenario in the shortest of terms, Jane lost credibility and her business name is dragged into the mud because she just wanted to push random products to make money. Why is credibility important? Credibility helps your traffic to work with you and not against you! To make bygones be bygones, do your research and review the products before promoting them so people can see you care and not just some greedy individual who wants a quick dollar.

3) Patience:

Patience is probably the most important determining factor of success in affiliate marketing. As the old cliché statement goes " Rome wasn't built in a day." Any successful business is not a get rich quick scheme. A person is lucky if he/she makes a sale in the first two weeks. To make some good results along with traffic, be persistent, prosper with patience and try to market daily. If you marker daily, you have a significantly higher chance of earning a sale. Also remember to either read reviews and research the product before promoting it. Moreover remain persistent and patient to make money.

Additional tips:

1. On ClickBank, the affiliate links usually appear big ugly and looks like a virus code. To shorten the affiliate link, go to http://www.tinyurl.com

2. Blog daily and don't try to sound all "salesy" to promote a product and don't be like " This is a good product, please buy!" Overall don't sound too overhyped.

3. Try to use banners to promote products instead of having a truckload of links in your web page.

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