Marketing products and services through the Internet is unquestionably easier and more rewarding compared to traditional marketing methods.

With the millions of people worldwide getting online each day, there’s an enormous possibility for a merchant to sell his products and generate huge income.

However, merchandisers are not the only ones who can benefit from online marketing. A booming industry nowadays, provides great opportunity as well to individuals as affiliate marketers.

In affiliate marketing, an affiliate marketer doesn’t need to have his own products and services to sell. All he needs to do is to refer people to the merchant’s business site for them to buy the products and thereby, earn a commission.

The key to an affiliate marketer’s success is to choose a good affiliate program and to employ excellent marketing techniques in promoting or selling the products to consumers.

Why good and not the best affiliate program? There is no “best affiliate marketing program,” as one program might make one affiliate marketer a millionaire and the other a frustrated marketer. In other words, it can be a success to one and a failure to another.

But there certainly is a good affiliate marketing program to start with. How to make it best would now depend on you.

But before you think how you are going to make it best and financially rewarding, first think about how you are going to land on a good affiliate program with the thousands of affiliate marketing opportunities abounding in the Internet today.

Try to look into the following tips and suggestions on how to best select the affiliate program that’s right for you.

Information, that’s you need in order to make the right choice. It is helpful when you have already focused your search to a specific interest, which may be the theme of your website (if you already have one).

In this way, you would be able to direct yourself towards a program that really matches your needs, wants and resources. It would be easier for you to eliminate options that are not suited to your own criteria for a good affiliate marketing program.

You can join affiliate forums and learn some tips and get suggestions from experienced affiliate marketers. However, be wise enough to weigh their ideas before you buy them.

The Internet Affiliate marketing program networks are good places to look for choices. Here, merchants and affiliate marketers like you meet.

The merchants advertise their affiliate programs to interested affiliates who sign up in the network for free.

Third party affiliate program networks are helpful since they provide you with access to a large number of advertisers (merchandisers) simultaneously.

You can easily track and compare their sales records, performances, benefits, products and services.

So now you have choices, the next question is which among those options is the right one. Here are some things to consider in deciding which to take and which to reject. First is the quality of the products and services.

As an affiliate marketer your goal is not only to make visitors of your site click the link to the business site; but more importantly, to promote the product so they would buy it. If the customers are not convinced upon going to the business site, then you don’t earn.

Make sure the products you are endorsing are worthwhile or in the business context, saleable. Ask yourself: if I were the customer, would I buy it? Would I recommend it to my family or good friend?

If you can’t convince yourself or your family and friends to buy it, take a look at your next option.

Another is the affiliate program or the merchandiser’s history. Look into their previous and present sales data, their proven and tested affiliate marketing systems and their partners’ experiences with them.

Although, success of the program really depends on you, this one is still very important.

The sales records don’t only show how good the affiliates are, but they speak about the products’ reliability, market availability and the company or the merchandisers’ reputation as well.

Moreover, look into and carefully study the company’s compensation plan. Your purpose for joining the program is to earn, so make sure you’ll be paid for all your efforts fairly.

If you do not have much time to promote intensively the affiliate products by creating banners, graphics and articles, choose affiliate programs that help you create these for your web site.

It would be great if the company provides training on how to effectively market products online. Remember that affiliate marketing is a partnership, so make sure your partner is able to support you as you help him promote his products and services.

Take down all the advantages and disadvantages of each program you are considering so you can clearly see the difference among your options; then later, compare the advantages of the programs with your own checklist.

Take time to gather all the info you need to choose the right program. Remember an informed choice is the best choice.

Gilles Rais

Categories: Articles
No Comments »

A lot of people are now getting into online businesses and online marketing either to supplement their “real world” income or for it to become their primary source of income.

Why? Because online marketing just provides them a lot of benefits!

First, you can reach just about anybody in the world who has Internet access if you market your products online. That means a wider market for you, which can translate to larger profits.

Second, setting up an online business requires only a fraction of the cost required to set up an actual business establishment, which means a lot of savings for the business owner.

Another aspect that has attracted a lot of people towards online marketing is the fact that one doesn’t have to have his own products to get started.

In online marketing, one can start making a lot of money just by selling, or even by just trying to sell, other people’s products.

And getting started with this kind of marketing strategy is actually quite easy.

All that one needs to do is to set up an agreement with an online retailer or merchant, and after everything is settled, one can immediately start making money by selling the merchant’s or the retailer’s products.

Incidentally, the most popular and the fastest growing method of selling other people’s products online is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing, in its simplest definition, is a relationship between an online merchant or retailer, who has products to sell, and his affiliates, who are willing to promote the merchant’s product on their website.

In a typical affiliate marketing set up, the merchant provides his affiliates with banners and text ads that links to his site.

The affiliates will then get these ads posted on their website and they get paid whenever traffic or sales is directed to the merchant’s website.

Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other online merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee for the affiliate’s compensation.

Starting to make money online with affiliate marketing is relatively quick and easy. All that one has to do is to sign up as an affiliate for an online company that offers affiliate programs.

An alternative method, and usually an easier one, is to sign up as a member of an affiliate network—a network that hosts a variety of affiliate programs for different online merchants or retailers.

Signing up is usually free, although other companies and networks may require you to pay a particular fee.

Such fees, however, are made as payment for additional services that the company may render, like providing you with tools and assistance to jumpstart your online business.

When you sign up with an affiliate marketing program, you are usually required to fill out a form containing information about yourself.

Some affiliate programs may also require you to present the URL of your website and describe its contents. This will allow the retailers to verify that you actually have a website with contents that are relevant to their products.

Some affiliate programs, however, won’t require you to have a website. After filling out the form and all, you are then allowed to choose the affiliate programs you want to promote.

After signing up with an affiliate program and being an actual affiliate, you are now ready to start making a lot of money by selling other people’s product online.

How do you make money?

There are actually a number of ways for you to earn money as an affiliate, and most of these ways depends on the type of affiliate marketing program you’ve gotten into.

Many affiliate marketing programs compensate their affiliates in either of three ways: pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-sale (PPS), or pay-per-lead (PPL). In pay-per-click affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever he directs traffic to the merchant’s site.

PPS and PPL affiliate marketing programs work rather differently. In PPS, the affiliate only gets paid when his referral converts into an actual sale.

In typical PPS affiliate programs, the affiliate would usually get 15% to 20% commission for each conversion. PPL affiliate programs work the same way, although affiliates are paid a fixed fee whenever his referral converts into a lead for the company.

Some affiliate marketing programs are two-tier programs, wherein the affiliate is also allowed to recommend other affiliates to the merchant.

In such affiliate programs, the affiliate would not only be paid for the traffic or sales that he would direct to the merchant’s site but also for the traffic or sales directed by the affiliates who signed up with the program through his recommendation.

Yet another way of earning more profits with affiliate marketing is through residual affiliate programs.

Residual affiliate programs are affiliate programs where the affiliate gets paid a number of times for as long as the merchant keeps the customer the affiliate has referred to his site.

One form of residual program gets the affiliate paid a commission every time the referred customer purchases something on the merchant’s site.

Another form of residual affiliate program gets the affiliate paid a percentage every month for as long as the company keeps the referred customer.

With a lot of options available and a lot of ways to earn money, affiliate marketing is undoubtedly the most popular and the easiest way to make money by selling other people’s products online.

As to how much money one can get from affiliate marketing actually depends on the affiliate. A dedicated and hardworking affiliate would certainly get more from the program compared to those affiliates who would simply sign up and forget about the program later.

Gilles Rais

Categories: Articles
No Comments »

Does money equal happiness?

The truth is that we human beings require each time more
that we already have.

So, rich people complain that money has stolen their happy
days and those who are not so financially fortunate say
that only money could complete their life, that they would
surely get everything else on their own if only they had
the means to do that.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

It is not accurate to say money brings happiness, because
it doesn’t. But at the same time one can not claim money
has nothing to do with it. We are never really happy, maybe
just for the brief moment when we reach our purposes or
complete one of our dreams.

But then, very soon after that, a new totally different
problem or desire arises to take that happiness away. It’s
human nature to be unsettled and uncertain and it is not a
bad thing.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we all are happy at
certain moments in life, but all we say is that we are
never happy. There’s always something to inflict with our
self-assurance or way of living that makes us nervous, sad
or depressed.

And money is indeed one of those factors. Many people need
it just to pay for food and shelter and they are happy if
it’s enough to provide just that.

But others, and I’m not talking here about rich people,
they already have some living assurance and need more money
for other desires or things they want to buy. And the list
can go on and on as we climb social and financial levels
one at a time.

Everyone wants something, and once they have it it’s not
enough or just too much and too stressful to deal with.

In fact, we should be happy just with what we have and
stop thinking about money so much. Money is an important
factor in achieving stability and eventually even happiness
because we let it, we even push it up to that pedestal.

Money does not equal happiness, it’s even worse than that:
because money exists happiness is harder to reach.

But then again, if not for money, we’d come up with
something else that we would let interfere with our life
and cause us an infinite diversity of problems…It’s just
human nature.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Featured Article
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Proven System for Finding Profitable Niche Markets!

If you’re an internet marketer, you know the secret of
success is to find a niche market and then home in on the
perfect keywords.

A niche market is a group of individuals with available
money who share a common interest, problem, enthusiasm,
need or mania and who can be easily found online.

For example…

Small plane owners comprise a niche market. Collectors of
Grateful Dead memorabilia are a niche market. People who
build their own racing wheelchairs are a niche market. City
dwellers approaching retirement to a rural area form
another niche market. People who are forced to move
suddenly are a niche market

All these people have a problem and they need a solution
right now. They are looking for help. If you are an
internet marketer, you want them to find YOU.

It’s pretty easy to think up groups of people who share a
common interest or have a common problem. What isn’t so
easy is to discover which of the many potential markets
will provide an entrepreneur the best return for efforts
and energy building a website and promoting it.

That’s where the Google Keyword tool can come in handy.

You need to have an Adwords account to make use of these
tools, but an Adwords account is free until you run an ad.
The tools you get access to are well worth the small amount
of time it takes to sign up (click the button to register):

Once you have created an Adwords account, you can then
proceed to AdWord Tools.

First, take a look at the “Keyword Tool.” You may want to
prepare a list of keywords in a text file before you go to
the tool. Then you can simply cut and paste the list into
the keyword tool box. Be sure to check the box “Use
Synonyms” to get the most complete list of keyword
suggestions.

For example, say you’d found some great affiliate programs
for dog products, but know the main dog market is
oversaturated with heavy competition. So you want to find
some nice niche markets where there will be less
competition.

So first off you type the word “dogs” into the keyword
tool. At time of writing, 128 keywords show on the returned
list, which includes most of the major dog breeds are
included, such as Pugs, Papillons, Corgis and Cockapoos.

Owners of specific breeds may form markets you could
pursue. And in addition, there are such prime niche markets
as dog tags, dog crates, dog electric fence, dog insurance,
dog costumes, dog medication, dog boarding, dog names, etc.

The only question is whether any of these niches has
monetary value.

So your next step is to go to the drop down box near the
top of the page and change “show columns” from “keywords
only” to “keyword popularity.” You do not need to run the
search again; the page display will change when you make
your selection.

Now you will see one column which shows you how much
competition there is for the keyword and another column
showing how many people are looking for that term.

The information is presented in nice graphical form so
that with a glance you can really understand just how tough
a market “dogs” really is. It is nearly totally saturated
and at first glance you may think that you’d be better off
in the ferret market, or pot bellied pigs.

However, when you look closely you see a possible opening
in “heated dog beds” and when you look even more closely
you can see a pattern emerging which might be useful.
Electronic collars, electronic fences, heated dog bed,
heated dog houses, etc. all show a slightly lower
competition factor.

But wait … there’s another option on the drop down box
for “show columns”. Now set it to show you “cost and
position estimates” and set the value for “Calculate Values
using Max CPC” to the maximum of $100. Then click the
Recalculate button.

The results you see show you how much people are bidding
to be in the top 3 positions for an Adwords ad (which is
also a good indicator of how much relatively you can make
for the percentage of revenue Google pays for Adsense ads
for the keyword used in your website’s articles and
content) .

You immediately notice that electric dog fence is a $5.10
keyword, electronic dog door is $12.26, and electric dog
collars is $5.20.

At the same time, you notice an even smaller niche with
great potential which you’d overlooked, “dog insurance”
with a bid value of a whopping $15.38.

But when you bounce back to the page with “keyword
popularity” results, your excitement backs off a bit,
because that keyword appears to be totally saturated.

More research may be in order to target this niche, but at
least you now know a possible slot and you know that to
promote it you may need to steer away from expensive
Adwords ads in favor of other advertising.

You also know that as an option you may be able to make
good money from your site’s content through placing Adsense
ads on your pages.

This is only a quick example of how to find niches using
this valuable tool. So all you gotta do is do some of your
own research to find additional niche with low competition
to begin building your niche empire.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This Week’s Trivia Answer
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Here’s the answer to the trivia question I asked earlier…

What is the Longest Roller Coaster in the World?

The Steel Dragon, which opened on August 1, 2000, at
Nagashima Spaland in Japan, is an out-and-back roller
coaster with a total track length of 2,479 m (8,133 ft).

Designed by Morgan Manufacturing of La Selva Beach,
California, USA, the ride begins with a fall from a 95-m
(311-ft 8-in) lift followed by two further hills and dips.

At the top of the third hill there is a maze-like spiral
section. The return run has a further eight bumps and seven
dips.

Now that’s a serious ride

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Healthy Body… Healthy Mind
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Time is the most precious value we have. Time is the
greatest equalizer of human beings. It doesn’t matter if
you are rich or poor, healthy or sick, you will only have
24 hours a day either way, and you should try to use them
wisely.

Most of the time we waste our time and energy worrying and
thinking about things like how to win more money and how to
live a better life. When you do this you usually forget
about the most important thing - the time to live your life
in.

As a wise man once said: “You can always make more money,
but you can never buy more time”.

How many times are you aware of the ways you invest your
time?

And the word “investment” is the most accurate because the
way you choose to spend your time is a true investment in
yourself and your own life. And you will never find the
true value of time in the way people around you act and talk.

People usually spend time for hours in front of the TV, or
they spent a lot of time browsing the net with no purpose
whatsoever.

Everyone always says things like: “I’m just counting the
hours to go home” or “I wish it were Friday” on a Monday
and so on. These are just signs that those persons usually
waste their time.

If you organize your time efficiently and if you choose to
do only activities that motivate you, then you will find
yourself able to work everyday without feeling tired or
sleepy.

At any moment that you just let time pass you by, think
about what the Romans phrased “Carpe Diem” - which means
“live the day” or better said - “organize your day”.

So make more time to analyze the way you invest or waste
your time. And never forget that you can’t tell anything
about tomorrow so “Carpe Diem!”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Have You Got Any Comments?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

This is your chance to speak out.

Comment on articles I’ve run in the newsletter, give me
your thoughts on changes or your ad testing results or
questions relating to your business, etc.

In other words, just talk to me about what you think I
need to do to improve the newsletter.

Be sure to include your website address too, because if
I use your comments in a future issue of the newsletter,
I’ll thank you by posting your address so that you can get
additional free traffic to your site!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
That’s a Wrap for this Week
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
That wraps up another week’s newsletter and I hope you
enjoyed this issue.

Don’t forget to send me any comments or questions you
may have to the Feedback Loop. I would be only too happy to
help you in any way that I can.

From time to time I’ll send you important updates
that will provide information that has the potential to
greatly improve your online business… and of course
your profits!

However, you can rest assured that I will only ever
recommend products that are considered to be of HIGH value
and will provide indisputably benefits to help you grow
your business… that’s my guarantee!

Your friend,

Gilles Rais

Categories: Newsletter Issues
No Comments »

Affiliate marketing programs has never been as popular before as it is today. Why? There can be a number of reasons.

The most probable reason, however, could be the fact that the benefits of affiliate marketing have become clearer to a lot of people now than they were before.

Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them.

The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost.

The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.

Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has shifted into greater heights, so has the people’s outlook about it changed.

No longer is affiliate marketing considered today as an alternative method for the merchant to advertise his products, or as a source of additional income for the affiliates.

For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a main source of profits and revenues.

So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? Are all affiliate marketing programs the same? Are the benefits the same? Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?

There are actually different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one will classify them.

The most basic affiliate marketing programs, however, falls under two categories: pay-per-click (PPC), and pay-per-performance (PPP).

• Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small websites, and probably the easiest way for them to earn money.

In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant’s banner or text ads.

The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant’s site.

However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click.

• Pay Per Performance (PPP)

PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates.

In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action—that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant’s site or when the visitor becomes a lead.

This means a lot of savings for the merchant. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.

Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).

o Pay Per Sale (PPS)

In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant’s site actually buys something from the merchant’s site.

Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.

o Pay Per Lead (PPL)

The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow.

In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant’s site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company.

Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.

Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing.

There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant’s site.

• Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing

These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made.

In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant.

All the previously mentioned affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS< PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier classification.

• In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant’s site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation.

Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

• Residual Income Affiliate Marketing

In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant’s site.

Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product.

Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.

The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits.

Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? It is not really for me to tell.

Rather, it is for you to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit your needs and characteristics best.

Gilles Rais

Categories: Articles
No Comments »