"How
to Easily Increase Your Affiliate Commissions
in Two Days or Less"
by Mark Joyner
Clearly, the people benefiting the most from affiliate programs
are the companies running them. My goal here is to help you -
the affiliate - earn more money. If you've gotten past the idea
that you can simply slap a banner up on your site and start earning
money, but you're not sure what to do next, this article is for
you.
Allow me to cut right to the chase. Here is a plan of action.
This may seem like a lot of work, but don't worry! At the very
end, I'll show you how to automate all of these steps. For now,
just read through to get a general idea of how you need to proceed:
Day 1
Step 1- Vow to organize your affiliate efforts.
Begin with organizing all contact information, payment information,
and vital statistics about your affiliate programs in one central
location. This may seem like a silly step, but believe me; you
don't want to spend your time digging through emails for contact
information and codes. You should also know, with just a few mouse
clicks, how much is owed you by the various affiliate programs
in which you are participating.
Step 2 - Select one affiliate program on which
to focus your efforts for the next 3 weeks. In order to apply
some of the various principles I will show you in a few moments,
you need to select one area of focus. It's best to select an affiliate
program that has several products, instant online tracking of
sales, instant notification of sales, and the ability to segment
your promotions. Internet Marketing ProShop has all of this and
more.
Step 3 - Select three promotion methods and
two products to promote.
This is crucial. This will make sense in a few moments. If you
can't think of three promotion methods, here are a few ideas:
- An ad in someone else's eZine
- A mailing to your own subscription list
- A text link on your site with some ad copy
- A banner on your site
- A product review on your site
- An FFA submission
Now, some of these methods are more effective than others. But
you don't need me to tell you that. I'll show you how to find
out for yourself.
Step 4 - For each promotion method and each
product, develop two ads. So, since you have three promotion methods,
two products, and two ads for each - you will have to write 12
ads total. So, for each ad, let's give it a code. If it's method
one, product one, ad one, you can
call it:
M1P1A1
For method one, product one, ad two, you can call it:
M1P1A2
For example, if you plan to promote my marketing course 1,001
Killer Internet Marketing Tactics using ads in someone else's
eZine, you will need two ads. One would be M1P1A1, and the other
would be M1P1A2. If you also plan to promote it using a review
on your site, the first review would be M2P1A1 (method 2, product
1, ad 1) and the second would be M2P1A2 (method 2, product 1,
ad 2).
This is just one way to code your ads. You can do this any way
you like as long as you can distinguish precisely which campaign
these codes refer to.
This sounds like a lot of writing. Don't be daunted by this!
Just crank it out. Don’t think too much about each ad. We'll
find out in a while which one is good and which one is bad. You
won't decide this - your customers will! Don't be afraid to try
something wild.
Now, when you promote each product, you'll need to tie each promotion
to the code you created. With the Internet Marketing ProShop Partner
program, you can segment your campaigns by adding an _code to
the end of the URL you use to promote each product.
For example, if you are promoting 1,001 Killer Internet Marketing
Tactics, you would use this URL:
..../kt.cgi?sponsorID
To segment your campaigns, you would add your campaign code on
the end of that URL for each campaign:
..../kt.cgi?sponsorID_M1P1A1 (for campaign one)
..../kt.cgi?sponsorID_M1P1A2 (for campaign two)
Note: The above method is only valid for our affiliate program,
so don't try this with any other affiliate program. We don't know
of any
other affiliate programs that allow you to segment your campaigns,
this way, so please use caution here.
Step 5 - Before you finish for the day, promote
the product using your "ad 1" for each product.
You'll need to record:
Impressions. If you're advertising on a web page, this will be
the number of times your ad appeared on the page - or the number
of times the
page was viewed if your ad comes up each time the page is viewed.
If you're advertising using some form of email, impressions =
number of emails sent.
Clicks. You should be able to get this from the affiliate program
you are promoting.
Amount Earned. Again, your affiliate program should provide this
information to you in real time.
Now, in order to do a valid test, you'll need to promote to a
fairly significant number of people. I would recommend that at
least 300 people see each ad. Otherwise, you won't have enough
information to make a valid judgment. Ideally, you should hit
about 2,000 with each ad, but your resources may not allow for
this.
*Learning point: If you're going to send an
ad via a newsletter, see if you can run a "split". That
is, get one ad sent to 1/2 of the list and
another sent to the other 1/2. That is the most accurate way to
compare the effectiveness of any pair of ads.
Day 2
Step 6 - Run your "B" ads. Now that
you have run your "A" ads and have given them a bit
of time to take effect, run your B ads. Do this first thing this
morning!
By the end of the day, you should have some good results from
both campaigns to compare and see where you stand.
By comparing and analyzing all of the information you have just
compiled, you will be able to start to have a good idea about:
Which product seems to sell more. Which type of campaign is most
effective Which type of ad for each campaign is most effective
This short bit of testing won't allow you to make clear conclusions,
but it will put you on the right track. Immediately, you should
start using the ads that sell as much as you can. If ad A is making
you 5 cents per impression and ad B is making you 5 dollars per
impression - using ad B just increased your affiliate commissions
by 9900%! OK, that's a dramatic example, but you get the point,
right? If you aren't tracking these things, you'll never know.
If you track and continue to refine, before you know it, you'll
have an arsenal of ads that you know pull well to use over and
over again. Once you do the leg work, it's easy!
As you see, though, this can get quite complex. How does one
actually analyze these campaigns? What if you have scores of affiliate
programs and quite a few campaigns for each?
Don't worry. As I told you at the beginning, there is an easy,
cost effective way to keep track of all of these things with just
a few mouse clicks. It's called Affiliate Assistant.
I highly recommend checking this out as it will, among other
things, allow you to quickly and easily implement the above plan
in one central location. With just a few mouse clicks you can
compare and analyze all of your various affiliate ad campaigns
so you'll know which are making you money and which are wasting
you time.
You could do all of the same things yourself with a good database
program and multiple spreadsheets, but Affiliate Assistant will
save you quite a bit of time and money without having to go through
all that.
Either way, you should implement some type of organizational
and tracking plan like this for your affiliate advertising efforts
immediately.
The amount of time you put into this will pay off exponentially
in terms of higher commissions.
Article by Mark
Joyner, CEO of Aesop Marketing Corporation and creator
of "1001
Killer Internet Marketing Tactics" - a *must have* tool
for anyone serious about doing business on the Internet. Do yourself
a favor and check this one out today!
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