Mailbag: Do Affiliate Programs Really Work?
Thursday July 5, 2007
Anonny Moose asks:
Wrong. For every affiliate marketing success out there, literally thousands have failed.
How to Improve Your Chances for Affiliate Marketing Success
There are a few things you can do to improve your chances for making money with affiliate marketing programs:
It takes time, knowledge and considerable effort, but there's no reason you couldn't make money with an online affiliate marketing home business. Just don't believe the outrageous claims and I wouldn't plan on quitting your day job any time soon.
Related topics:
I've read some of your articles on About.com and you seem to know your stuff. I have a question though; I want to start a web business to supplement my regular job income. I'm not looking for a get rich quick scheme, or to make $50,000 a month online (thought if it happened I certainly wouldn't mind! :) ). I've seen the claims about affiliate marketing making x bazillions per month, etc. What I'm trying to find out is; do any of these 'programs' really work?We've all seen the claims - make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month while doing absolutely nothing. Sure, there have been a few big-time affiliate marketers who have made lots of money through hosting affiliate ads on their websites. When visitors click through and make a purchase (convert), the home business affiliate marketer makes money. How easy is that? No product inventory to stock or ship, no customers to service. Piece of cake right?
I want something that I can work on in the evenings while I still have my 9to5. An Internet biz seems like the perfect fit for my circumstances; I just don't want to waste time and money on a load of crap. I don't have a physical product to sell so I guess the whole affiliate thing is what I need to focus on unless you have another suggestion.
If you've read this far I thank you very much! I'm just looking for an objective opinion from someone who doesn't have a stake in trying to sell me something. Any advice or tips would be very much appreciated!!
Wrong. For every affiliate marketing success out there, literally thousands have failed.
How to Improve Your Chances for Affiliate Marketing Success
There are a few things you can do to improve your chances for making money with affiliate marketing programs:
- Get lots (and lots, and lots) of traffic visiting your website.
- Associate only with good affiliate programs who offer products or services or information that your website visitors will actually want to purchase. Honest affiliates that pay you high commission rates on time and who keep their customers happy by providing actual value. Would you buy the product or service? If not, why would you expect your site visitors to click through? If you are linking out to scam artist affiliates, eventually the word will get out and you'll lose credibility. People won't want to come back to your site and they may not click through to other affiliates who may very well be legitimate.
- You need to provide content on your home business website that is related to what your affiliates are offering. For example, if you write about figure skating, it's not likely your visitors will be looking to buy a book on motorcycles or a new set of saddlebags.
- Ideally, your affiliate links should blend in with your content - not deceptively, but so that they don't disrupt the flow of your web pages. In general, text affiliate links seem to convert better than image links. Most affiliate programs don't require you use the exact text they provide in the code. (Unfortunately, some of these links are pretty terrible and most seem to want to use click here for the text that creates the link.)
- If you also use ads on your website, such as Google AdSense for making money, be advised that having both affiliate links and AdSense links may result in poor performance of both. I've seen actual cases where AdSense revenues fell after adding affiliate links.
It takes time, knowledge and considerable effort, but there's no reason you couldn't make money with an online affiliate marketing home business. Just don't believe the outrageous claims and I wouldn't plan on quitting your day job any time soon.
Related topics:
Comments
This is the most honest answer i have ever seen for this question. I have been looking for a good answer to that same question. I’m broke, so it’s even harder for me to make money.
Thanks, Zavier. It’s really easy to get sucked up into pie-in-the sky promises. It’s like MLM - overhyped with a low likelihood for success. And, if you’re broke, you don’t want be wasting money, that’s for sure.
Hmm. I hadn’t heard that about adsense and affiliate programs on the same web page detracting from each other’s performance. There’s one more thing to test!