Adding
Your Affiliate Programs
How
Do I Get Started?
This
Quick Start Guide will answer many questions for you and point you in
right direction for success! Remember - this is just a Quick Start,
you'll want to take some time to talk with your merchant and learn about
additional Affiliate resources and eBooks designed to help you make
the most out of joining Affiliate Programs.
You've signed up for an Affiliate
Program, you're ready to make money - but you may be stuck on a few
important questions:
Here are a few definitions that may help you better understand Affiliate Marketing
and the information you'll be learning throughout this guide:
• Merchant -
A merchant is a person or a company that markets their products and
services on the web. Your merchant is the person/company whose program
you joined.
• Affiliate -
An Affiliate is a person or a company that assists the merchant in
marketing products and services in return for a commission. This
is you!
• Merchant-Affiliate Relationship -
In the Merchant-Affiliate relationship, the Affiliate acts as an
independent "salesperson" who promotes the merchants products
and services. The merchant tracks the incoming visitors to determine
which Affiliate sent them the sale - if any.
• Tracking and Management Solution -
In order to track the incoming Affiliate-referred traffic to their
sites, merchants need to purchase or create software to Track and
Manage their Affiliates and their activities. Since you're here at
The Affiliate Training Center, your merchant most likely chose My
Affiliate Program Software or a custom program provided
by KowaBunga! Technologies.
• Click-through -
A click-through is the action that takes place when a visitor clicks
on a banner or a link on your site to go to your merchant's site.
• Impression -
An impression occurs when a page containing your Affiliate code is
loaded on your site or in your HTML email messages. Impressions are
also called page views.
• Two-Tier -
A two-tier commission structure pays you commission on each sale
(or lead or click-through) you refer and a commission on each sale
referred by any Affiliates you have referred to the program.
For example: If Bob comes to your site, clicks on your link,
goes to your merchant's site and purchases, you earn a first tier
commission.
However,
let's say Jane comes to your site, clicks on your link, goes to your
merchant's site and signs up for the Affiliate Program. When Harry goes
to Jane's site, clicks on the merchant's link, goes to the merchant's
site and purchases, Jane earns a first tier commission (because she
referred the sale) and you earn a second tier commission (because you
referred Jane).
You'll
need to check with your merchant directly to see if they offer a two-tier
program. You can do so by checking your administration screen and looking
for a "Second Tier Commissions" stat or by contacting your merchant.
• Link - A link
is a hyperlink (http://www.yourdomain.com) or
an image or text that contains a hyperlink. A link is placed on one
site and when clicked on leads the visitor to another. In the Affiliate
Marketing industry, you, the Affiliate, place links on your site
that points to the merchant's site.
• Entry Page -
An entry page is the web page that you direct traffic to. Visitors
coming from your site will "enter" merchant's site at this
page. In most cases this is the "home" or "index" page.
However, you may want to link to a specific page on a merchant's
site - you can check with them for information on linking directly
to a specific page.
Getting
Started - Where to Place Links
Your
main objective as an Affiliate is to send traffic to your merchant.
Once the visitors get to the merchant's site, the merchant takes
over. It's up to you to "pre-sell" the visitor on what they
will see, and what you'd like them to do once they get to the merchant's
site (like Buy or Sign
up).
You'll be sending traffic using your Affiliate-ID encoded links. These links
can be placed virtually anywhere you can think of! This
includes:
• On your site
• In
your email messages
• In
your online advertising efforts like ezine ads and newsgroup
postings
• In
your offline advertising efforts
On your administration page, you should see a banner code, text link and/or
a link to your own self-replicated page. These links are encoded with your
unique ID number. All you need to do is copy them from your administration
page and paste them wherever you'd like to use them.
All banners and images must be placed on a website or in an email message formatted
in HTML. Text links, on the other hand, can be placed anywhere online or
offline.
Getting
Your Own Website
You
don't HAVE to have a website to promote your merchant's products and services.
But - it is a great tool to have.
You have several options in getting started with your own
website. We'll look at a few here:
Free Site
You can get your own website and have it hosted free of charge. The free webhosts
usually offer some kind of template to start with.
Though "free" may sound good - there are some drawbacks to free
sites. For one, the hosts will limit the amount of pages and page size
you host with
them.
You may also be limited to the templates they offer and not allowed to create
your own look and feel.
In many cases, a free website hosts do not allow you to have your own domain
name. So, instead of a URL like http://www.yourdomain.com, you'll end up
with a URL like http://www.tripod.com/members/~yourdomain
Paid WebHosting
Your other option is to pay for your own domain name and pay to have it hosted.
Though it doesn't have the "Free" appeal, it does offer you the
highest level of control and gives your visitors the impression that you
care enough about the products you are promoting to actually pay for a
website.
You can either start by finding a webhost or start by picking a domain. Since
choosing a domain is kind of fun, try starting there.
You can purchase the rights to the domain name you find - or wait and have
your webhost do it for you. I would suggest letting the webhost do it for
you but BE SURE that you maintain ownership of the domain name. If you
don't, you'll be stuck with a domain name that you've marketed and someone
else owns.
Some of the More Reputeable Hosting Companies
are:
ThirdSphere
HostRod
ServerYard
Adding Banners and Links
to your Website
If
you have a website and you'd like to add banners and links to it, you'll
need to do some editing. You have two options in editing: Hire a Pro or
Do it Yourself.
Hire a Pro
You can hire a web design company to edit your webpages for you. If you're
currently working with a web designer, this may be a viable option for
you. However, if you're trying to go-it on your own, hiring a web designer
to make a few small changes can be very costly.
Do-It Yourself
Doing it yourself is a great way to learn and to save money. If you already
have a website, all you have to do is access it, edit it and upload the
changes.
See http://www.traffic-n-more.com/uahe.htm for
more information on doing it yourself.
First, gain access to your webpages. You'll do this either by using a program
like WSFTP to login to your site - or by using a web-based program that
allows you to access and make changes to your pages.
See http://www.traffic-n-more.com/htuafp.htm for
more information on FTP programs.
If you're using a program like WSFTP to download your pages onto your hard
drive, you can open them in Notepad, or in a web-editor like Dreamweaver,
Homesite or FrontPage.
All of these programs will give you two "views". One will show you
what the page will look like when you upload it - complete with colors and
formatting. If you've heard of the term WYSIWYG (wiss-ee-wig), it comes from
this "view" and is an acronym that simply stands for What You See
Is What You Get. The other "view" will show you the HTML coding.
Using the WYSIWYG view, find the area where you'd like to add your banner.
With most programs, you can paste the code in right there. A little grey
box will appear denoting the image. The banner won't show until you view
it online.
If you program doesn't allow you to paste the code in the WYSIWYG area,
you can try "marking" the spot with something like "zzz". Then,
go to the HTML view. Perform a search or find using the commands on the new
window to find the "zzz" you inserted. Paste your banner code over
the “zzz” and go back to the WYSIWYG area.
When you are finished, upload the updated page to your site. Test it to be
sure that the banner shows and that the link to the merchant's site works.
Getting
People to Click on Your Affiliate Links
Like
it says above, your main objective is to get people to click on your links
to create traffic for your merchant. This takes some clever planning,
a persistent attitude and a little luck! Here are some tips to help generate
traffic:
Post Several Links to your
Merchant
Don't stop at banner advertising! Look to see if your merchant offers additional
linking methods like articles, email ads, signature files, rotating images,
product images, guest books and so on! The more links you post - the better
your chances are of making a sale.
If you simply place a banner on one of your web pages and expect the commission
checks to come rolling in - you're going to be disappointed! In order to
earn commissions - you have to become an active Affiliate. Place a few
banners on your site, an article and a guest book in your resource section,
another article and an ad in your newsletter and a testimonial wherever
you can fit one!
If your merchant doesn't offer extra linking methods -- tell them you want
more. No merchant will argue with an Affiliate that wants more ways to
promote their site!
Start Collecting Information
from your Visitors
Study after study shows that following up with prospects is the best way to
make the sale. As an Affiliate -
it can mean the difference in getting a commission or not.
Do your best to get information from your visitors while they are at your site.
Offer them a contest entry, a "FREE
Report" or other information in exchange for their
email address. Then, use their address to follow-up with them with information
about your merchant's products and services. Ask your merchant - they may
have just the right tools to help you get addresses.
You should also consider starting your own ezine. This
will allow you to consistently get in touch with your contacts with
any messages you choose. Ezines are easy to start, cheap to run and
a GREAT way to get and keep prospects.
Don't Be Afraid to Pay
Being
an Affiliate - even a successful
Affiliate - doesn't have to cost a ton of money. But,
it doesn't hurt to pay for a few targeted placements in ezines, on websites
and so on. Figure out your costs for placing the ads and then estimate
the amount you think you can make from the ad. Do a few test ads and
compute your profits.
Download the Traffic
Toolbox v1.0 to give yourself an excellent start with where
to place ads and how to gain free visitors from the Search Engines.
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