Best Way to Get Started with Affiliates and Marketing

[Matt Wilson]

So I'm new to all this and was wondering what all your top tips are for someone like me, sort of like:
what did you wish you knew when you started out?
what do you look for in a vendor?
what commission do you expect?
how many hops will you expect before a sale etc?
how long will you promote a product before giving up?

Any help would be great!!

Thanks!

 

[jcorkern]

I may not be the best person to answer this, but I will take a shot at it.


1. What did you wish you knew when you started out?

I wish I had known the extent of the learning curve to becoming a true expert in the chosen field within affiliate, or online marketing in general. This is not a negative and you can still make money relatively quick compared to most business models.

2. What do you look for in a vendor?

I look for their ability to convert. I've already researched the products before I even look for an affiliate program because they are actual interest of myself, my wife, or one of my team members or we just don't work in that niche.

Learning to judge a merchant site is a huge factor and it only comes with experience.

3. What commission do you expect?

I always look at a combination of factors; commission rate is just one of them. Let me give you an example.

Let's say I have a page about red widgets and want to push some red widgets and make some commissions.

Company "A" pays 25% and sells their red widgets at $49.95. They have average red widgets. This site only converts 1% of your traffic via your affiliate link.

Company "B" has an extremely high cost and boast outstanding quality.

They only pay 6% and their red widgets are $349.00, but because of the higher quality product, you convert at 2% of your traffic from your page's affiliate link.

Which is the better deal?

What if company "C" pays you 2 bucks for an opt in only and you can get 45 opt-ins per day with that page's current traffic. Your conversion rate is over 35%.

Now which one's the winner?

There are too many variables to carve that in stone. You must be able to adjust based on your circumstances.


4. How many hops will you expect before a sale etc?

You just added 100+ other factors to no 3's explanation.

Page title, page content, theme, design, colors, demographics of your visitors, intent of keywords they use to enter your site or from sites with your ads on social media or other ad locations.

We have yet to cover these same issues on your ads if you use them and then you have psychological and sociological issues and factors.

Then we still have no 3 to deal with in concert with these factors.


5. How long will you promote a product before giving up?

I never give up. There is always a way to convert a sale for any content you have as long as it adds value for the customer. It may take some adjustments on different merchants, different copy, content, titles, intro's, videos etc... but you can always convert a page that has targeted traffic into money.

Sometimes you have to get creative, but you can always get to the point of conversion.

I have some of these "impossible" niches and they still convert, just not as well as other products/services.

It's not a failure if it is extremely low conversions, it just takes longer to recoup your investment with some online marketing methods.

Learn copy-writing, story telling, split testing (also known as A/B testing) and much much more.

This will get you started in conversions. Just reading these case studies can give you some insight into the possible conversion possibilities of any given merchant. It will also give you some insight into the other factors as well. VWO Blog - A/B Split Testing Ideas and Conversion Optimization Tips

Hope this helps.

 

[Matt Wilson]

Thats some really great words there! i suppose alot will depend on various factors. Thank you for your post, posts like these do help someone new like me alot I think the main thing I learnt here was that I cant put a number on what is a good commission/ conversion I suppose it does depend on a lot of factors!