Super Affiliate Newsletter

When to Quit an Affiliate Program

Vinny — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:35:11 +0000

I just got an email from a merchant and it made me wonder what they were thinking. It made me quit the affiliate program asap.
————
Dear Vinny
We have made substantial changes to our Affiliate Program. Please take the time to read this article and make your own adjustments as needed.

1. We have reduced the commission rates from 20%, to 15%
2. We have changed the tracking period from 90 days, to 60 days
3. We have removed the Two-Tier commission opportunity
4. We have removed SEVERAL ad banners and changed the links on others. Please make sure you update your site appropriately
5. ALL coupons are effectively invalid as we are in the process of developing a brand new website.
PLEASE REMOVE ALL COUPONS UNTIL WE NOTIFY YOU OF UPDATED ONES
6. We will only be marketing and shipping to the USA. Affiliates should take care to make sure that we are posted as a “US Only” business
7. ALL database files are now invalid as a result of the change in our website. Please disconnect your feed until we notify you that the new database is available.

We apologize for the changes as we know it will be an inconvenience for many of you to update your site but it was time for us to redesign our website which is the cost for all of these changes.

We will keep you posted and thank you as always for participating in our program.
——————————-
So they are cutting the commission rate, shortening the cookie, removed two tier, killed banners and my links without even telling me which ones. Removed all the coupons, cut the shipping down to only the USA, and killed their own database. They claim they are using the money they would give affiliates to pay for a new website? That can’t be right. It is only a matter of time before this affiliate program has no affiliates. BTW right now their site is down for maintenance. I feel sorry for the affiliates using PPC right now.

Finding Affiliates For Your Affiliate Program

Vinny — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:09:01 +0000

There are many ways to find affiliates but actually getting them to sign up for your program is another matter altogether. Lets start with finding affiliates and then tackle the part where you get them to sign up and promote your affiliate program. This will take some time so you need to clear your schedule out for starters.

To find affiliates a good first step is to go to an affiliate forum Abestweb. This is one of the largest affiliate forums around and you can recruit some affiliates there. Sign up and make a few good quality post and some affiliates will notice you. Don’t be spammy and say “Here is my program it is the best” because affiliates see right through that stuff and you will not get anyone to sign up. Now they don’t allow signatures at Abestweb until you are a quality member so just stick it out. Affiliates like to see that your program is going to stick around and by you sticking around it becomes a good example. Join in and become an active member there and you will reap long term benefits. If you want to make the process a lot quicker you can buy an ad there for $75 and announce your program and you can also do what is called an email drop to their members.

Before you do an announcement of your program make sure that your commission rates are inline with your competition and your website has no links out to other websites on the landing pages. Affiliates like to send traffic to a converting page not a page where their traffic can go to other places and commissions are lost.

Find Your Competitors Affiliates

Take a few minutes and do a web search for your competition and your keywords and see what comes up. You may find that your competitors affiliate’s are doing well in the search engines. Send them an email and see if they would like to join your affiliate program. I bet that you can find your competitors affiliates rather easy. There is software that allows you to do this also but doing a quick keyword search can yield the same results. You are not looking to steal all your competitors affiliates just his good ones.

Set Up a Pay Per Click Campaign

You can spend money using pay per click to find affiliates. Take your best converting keywords and add affiliate program to it and you can find many affiliates looking to make money in that niche. It could be costly as your competitors may click on your pay per click ads but you are sure to find quality affiliates. The affiliates line of thinking is if you can afford a pay per click campaign you can have money to pay me also. It builds trust right away which is something your affiliate program could always use.

CorpNet Incorporation Services™ Affiliate Program

Vinny — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:46:59 +0000

CorpNet Incorporation Services ™ is a document filing service that can save you both time and money with service that is fast, reliable, and affordable. Many people want to start a business but they don’t know where to start when it comes to legal filings. CorpNet Incorporation Services™ fills that need.

CorpNet Incorporation Services™ offers a free corporate name search which gets users started and signed up for the service right away. A great conversion tool for traffic. CorpNet Incorporation Services™ offers customers a 100% guarantee. This also leads to great conversions.
*CorpNet will pay a commission on all CorpNet Incorporation Services™ service offerings. Commissions will be paid on Net sales. Net sales is defined as:

Gross sales less: — Any applicable State and or Federal filing fees, Publication fees, or other filing fees;
–Shipping and handling (including Federal Express or other courier charges);
–Refunds, credits, merchant service chargeback’s, and returns;

i.e.… CorpNet Incorporation Services™ will not pay a commission for the following:
– Any applicable State and or Federal filing fees, Publication fees, or other filing fees;
–Shipping and handling (including Federal Express or other courier charges);
–Refunds, credits, merchant service chargeback’s, and returns;

Program is on manual approval to keep the parasites out and has a PPC policy in place that PPC affiliates will like, as will non-PPC affiliates. We have more banners on the way, and we have pdf’s and information about filing in each state. We also will have videos available in Shareasale.

CorpNet Incorporation Services™ is founded by the same folks that created a similar site years ago that is very successful. Climb on board, let us know what you need and let’s get rolling.

Benefits of joining

** Earn a 20% commission to start and up to 30% on net sales of $15,000
** 90 return days. Gives you an advantage on conversion and earnings.
** Phone tracking for phone orders
** Great variety of creative banners, text, keyword and content links.
** We are on auto deposit
Dedicated Affiliate Support Forum at ABCsPlus.com.
Proactive Affiliate Management by Team Loxly
AffiliateABCs Podcasts to help you promote CorpNet Incorporation Services™ and other merchants.

Join the CorpNet Incorporation Services™ affiliate program.

Affiliate Summit East 2010 Dates

Vinny — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:38:05 +0000

Shawn and Missy just released the dates for Affiliate Summit East 2010 which will be back in New York City. The dates are August 15-17, 2010 and will be back at the New York Hilton.

You can see more on the Affiliate Tip Blog.

Looking forward to the event.

Have an Affiliate Plan in Place

Vinny — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:17:01 +0000

To become a super affiliate you need to become an affiliate first. To become an affiliate you need a plan. Here is a good site where you can get it all in one place. Affiliate Marketing Plan is a great site that features interviews with some of the most important people in affiliate marketing.

Surf on through and learn from some of the best.

Five Missing Pieces to Affiliate Sites

Matt McWilliams — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:35:18 +0000

By Matt McWilliams, Legacy Learning Systems

Today it seems everyone has a website. You’re not everyone though, your site is your business. Your site should be professional and encourage your visitors to buy!

Shoppers today are skeptical and have more choices than ever.

I’ve found that many affiliates are missing or misusing these five critical pieces on their websites. Are you?

1. Informational content. Conventional wisdom tells us to get to the point and eliminate clutter on our site, but you need informational content to help convert the skeptics and less knowledgeable visitors.

Informational content serves two purposes. First, it’s a great service that customers won’t forget, converting confused customers into ready-to-buy machines.

Secondly, a good article is chock-full of keyword-rich content that can vault you to the top of search engines and drive substantial traffic from links from other sites.

2. “Contact Us” Page. Often, the hardest obstacle to overcome is consumer trust. These people are about to give some serious information. You must do everything possible to earn their trust!

In Geno Prussakov’s book, “Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes,” 83% of web users say a physical address gives them more confidence than a P.O. Box. Almost all say that no address is a major deterrent.

Geno also notes that by a 4-to-1 margin, users prefer an actual email to a “contact form.”

Give them every way possible to contact you!

3. Privacy Policy. Is my information protected? What data are you collecting? Will I get spammed?

These are all questions that visitors ask themselves. Not having a clearly written privacy policy that answers important questions can cost you their business. In their eyes, you’re hiding something and must be a scam.

A good privacy policy lets customers know about things like cookies, your anti-spam policy, form encryption, etc. This page should be linked to from every page.

4. Customer Testimonials. You may not get emails often thanking you for your service, but when you do get a thank you, do you make use it?

The first thing is to thank them and show genuine happiness that you helped them. Then ask permission to use their testimonial. About 50% of people will let you.

Testimonials are priceless trust builders, so make sure you take advantage of them. Place them throughout your site and create a prominent “Testimonials Page.” If you don’t have any testimonials, ask your affiliate manager if you can use the merchant’s.

5. FAQ Page. Most people will never view this page, but the ones who do want answers and they want them fast! Anytime someone asks something, add it to the FAQ. Ask your friends to look at your site and think of FAQs. It will lead to more sales, guaranteed.

Any one of these missing components can cost you conversions and ultimately money. Check your site and make sure that you have all of these important pieces. If you have them, make sure they are complete and you’re using them to their fullest!

About the Author: Matt McWilliams is the Affiliate Manager at Legacy Learning Systems in Nashville, Tennessee. Legacy’s ‘Learn and Master series’ has a mission of “Bringing Personal Dreams Within Reach,” making difficult skills, such as guitar, piano, drums, ballroom dancing, and more accessible through multimedia self-education courses. Full Bio >>

Affiliate Summit Las Vegas

Vinny — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:56:40 +0000

Affiliate Summit is the best show show for affiliate marketing on the planet. There is no other convention where you can get so up close and personal with affiliate managers and share ideas with your collegues.

I have been impressed so far with the Affiliate Summit show in Las Vegas. Here is a Affiliate Summit Recap from Las Vegas. There are many affiliate programs here that have made this show for the first time. The number is too high to list them all but let’s just say there are many that have not been to previous Summits. You can also check out the video on the right for a recap from someone at the show.

I have spoken to many affiliate managers that I have had dealings with in the past and I am currently working a few deals that could not have been made without face to face conversations. One of my main goals was to get a merchant that sells bedding products, although it is not a main niche for me I have been ranking very well for without working for it. When you have a lot of pages online that just happens.

Many affiliate mangers just love talking to affiliates face to face, it is good that you know who and what methods are being used to promote their programs. They want to know if you are using PPC and/or natural SEO. Sure you can put that in an email but face to face is the way to go. There is no alternative to meeting with an affiliate manger and get to know them. One affiliate manager that I use to work with was running a program that fits one of my other sites perfectly. If not for the Shareasale program sheet that Carolyn put together I would have had no idea.

I have had a great breakfast with James and Arlene Martell who I have had numerous conversations since I have been here, mostly about the industry and where it is heading. Once again there is a lot of talk about mobile marketing, it is fascinating to see people thinking outside the box with that in mind. Everyone here is either on their Blackberry or their Iphone so this conference is filled with tech minded people.

Speaking of food I also had a great dinner with Todd Crawford who I have been wanting to meet for years.

There are many people that I have known for years here at Affiliate Summit some working for the same old programs and some with other merchants. Many affiliate managers just love talking to affiliates face to face, it is good that you know who and what methods are being used to promote their programs. Being at Affiliate Summit can and will improve your bottom line if used correctly. Being serious about affiliate marketing without coming to Affiliate Summit is a mistake. Can’t wait to attend Affiliate Summit in New York in August.

Pajamas Affiliate Program

Vinny — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:05:55 +0000

One of my favorite affiliate marketing programs

You always want to join an affiliate program for a product that is used by everyone and always gets replaced from time to time. It just makes good business sense to have a program like this on your sites especially if you are already in the niche.
I call programs like this a Proctor and Gamble affiliate program as it is always a staple in peoples life and no matter what the economy is doing people still need these items. People don’t stop buying things like toilet paper or toothpaste when the economy is bad. The same goes with pajamas.

The CrazyforBargains.com Affiliate Program is my favorite bell weather program because the site converts very well and people need pajamas.

Some highlights of the program is

12% commission all sales
• 365 day tracking cookie
• Well-categorized datafeed updated weekly
• Monthly promotions, coupons and pre-coded content
• Telephone sales affiliate tracking
• No reversals on customer returns – Yes this is correct!
• Special incentives for top performers
• Parasite-free program
• Online affiliate forum on Abestweb.com to facilitate two-way communication
• Sleepwear affiliate blog, up-to-date program news for affiliates. Dedicated and responsive Shareasale.com affiliate management team

What I like most is that the program is run on Shareasale which is my network of choice. If you have any pages on your site dedicated to apparel this program needs to be up on your sites. Take a look at the CrazyforBargains.com Affiliate Program

Duplicate Content is a No No

Vinny — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:58:50 +0000

Quick lesson from Portalfeeder

Super Affiliate Newsletter

Vinny — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:36:14 +0000

After years on the internet making money with affiliate programs and other ways of making money I have decided to share some knowledge. The newsletter is all about making money like the big guys on the internet do.

There will be plenty of tips on the many ways of making money online. These will be PPC and of course SEO.