Earn Money From Your WebSite With Affiliate Links

Earn Money From Your WebSite With Affiliate Links

by: Knut Holt

If you have a website with some traffic, you can make money by having links to merchantsก online shops on your site.If someone goes through your links into the shop of the merchant, and buys something, you earn commission from the sale, between 5% and 40% depending on type of merchant. Some merchants also pay for each click or each lead. A lead is a new visitor to the shop that asks for more information or prize offers.

People or companies having these links on their websites, are called affiliates, and the links are called affiliate links. The administrative infrastructure by the merchant that the affiliate register into, in order to get the linking code, is called an affiliate program.

To register into an affiliate program is usually free, and through the program you get freely all you need to make the linking code, to monitor the traffic through your links, and to see what commission you have earned.

An affiliate program is not a MLM program, since the affiliates only earn from sales, leads or clicks.

However, in many programs you can recruit other affiliates and earn some commission from the sales made by the recruited affiliates too.

There are also common networks operated by thirdpart companies where several merchants use a common software and administrative infrastructure to recruit affiliates and monitor the traffic from affiliates. These are called affiliate networks. Both the merchants and potetial affilliates register into the network, and the affiliates can find links to the online shops of hundreds of merchants to use at their website. Examples of affiliate networks are Commission Junction and Clixgalore.

From my experience, the best affiliate programs are for merchants selling althernative health items or items for erotic improvements. I also have good experience with programs in the fields skincare, cosmetics and hobby.

What will work best for you, will however depend upon the kind of traffic you have, and the interests of people visiting your site.

About The Author

Submitted by Knut Holt

http://www.panteraconsulting.com/salg2.htm

http://www.abicana.com/affiliatenetworks.htm

Knut Holt is an international internet marketer with a focus on health items.

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 07

by Knut Holt

3 Easy Step To Locate A Real Bargain On Laptop Bat

3 Easy Step To Locate A Real Bargain On Laptop Batteries

by: Jim Panyavorachart

Looking for a real bargain on laptop batteries? How do I know the batteries are running good as advertised? Which merchants are offering quality rechargeable cells? Where can I get the bargain? Where to buy?
Many of you have some of these questions? Certainly!!. We surely want to saving our hard to earn $$ and only buy quality cells.
Here are the simple 7 ways to to locate the real bargain.
1. Shop online Why?
Most of suppliers/distributors are now targetting retail consumers themselves. The online store overheads are much less than retail stores. No store leasing, No utitlity bills and much less employee payrolls. With all these, they can pass the big savings to customers. Importantly, they have the same guarantee and warranty as retail stores..plus…itกs convenient!!! Quailty merchants offer FREE shipping!!
2. Find the saving coupons
This is the beauty!!….กsaving couponsก….Online marketting is highly competitive. They are million of stores out there. Merchants want to get noticed, they want sales…they issue saving coupons for marketting…….buying your laptop batteries using กonline saving couponก is double savings.
how to find?…here we go….
go to your favorite search engines กlaptop battery couponก as an example. you will find many coupons from many merchants…..now what…which one to buy?? ….let move to the next step.
3. Find the quality merchants (ONLY)
Now we found many merchants selling online and offering saving coupons. Let buy…?? Nope…not yet…..please make no mistake buy from the cheapest possible stores is NOT a real bargain. We also want quality. laptop batteries need to meet or exceed the original battery specification. Merchants need to own the following qualities…

Free shipping
Free handling
Free customer support
Well established in battery industry
30 days return policy
Full manufacturer warranty
Guarantee to meet or exceed the original specification
100% fully compatible with your laptops
Online FAQs for yor battery inquiries
Optional express shipping How do we know?…..Let brainstorm!!!!…Let hear from others!!!….Review customer comments….Most quality merchants are listing their customer testimonials, customer ratings from 3rd party rating system such as BizRate, epinion,Pricegrabber or Dealtime.

You can normally locate the Bizrate reviews at the merchantsก homepages. Simply click on the links they provide to review previous customersก comments.
Simply follow these 3 easy steps, you will find the real bargain comparing to local retail stores. Have a pleasant online shopping experience!!

About The Author

Jim publishes the laptop battery resource including tips, knowledge and information on cusomter reviews and merchant raintgs @ http://www.laptopbatteryresource.com Join the newsletter subscribe today http://www.laptopbatteryresource.com/laptopbatterynewsletter.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on May 10, 2004

by Jim Panyavorachart

Don’t Neglect The Humble Check

Don’t Neglect The Humble Check

by: Jason Schwartz

Internet commerce is an instantaneous purchase medium. A customer sees the product he or she likes; enters credit or debit card details; the product gets shipped. Simple. No messing around with mailing out checks, no waiting for the merchant to cash the check. For online merchants, too, the process is straightfoward and convenient. Thereกs no waiting for a check to arrive; no worrying about whether the check is good and no delays in shipping the product.

Consequently, it is easy for online merchants to assume that there is no value in offering check payments as a purchase option. Indeed, in competitive industries where margins are tight, the sheer time cost and risk involved in accepting checks makes it an unprofitable choice. And, anyway, everyone uses credit or debit cards these days. Right ? Wrong.

Hereกs some facts for all you ecommerce entrepreneurs to consider:

The 2004 Federal Reserve Payments Study ( http://www.frbservices.org/Retail/pdf/2004PaymentResearchReport.pdf )shows that checks are still the most popular noncash payment method, with a total dollar volume over 20 times that of credit and debit cards added together. Further, a recent publication by the Minnesota Attorney Generalกs office indicates that 11% of Americans have no credit card at all. That figure doesn’t even include the millions more people who are maxed out on their cards.

Can you REALLY afford to neglect the 30 million plus Americans that don’t have credit cards and the millions more that prefer to use checks over any other form of payment ? After all, these are your potential customers too !

ACCEPTING CHECKS ONLINE

Even being aware of the huge numbers of new potential customers, accepting check payments can still appear problematic to ecommerce based merchants. The possibility of bad checks, the delay in receiving payments, the additional paperwork all these things increase costs and reduce profits. However, the recent Check 21 legislation and the increased availability of electronic check solutions to businesses of all sizes means that ecommerce merchants can now accept check payments online, by phone and fax easily and virtually risk free.

HOW ELECTRONIC CHECK PROCESSING WORKS

Accepting electronic check payments is a simple process. The merchant simply transmits the customersก check information to a transaction processing company. The processor then moves that information from the customerกs bank account and that of the merchant. Itกs easy, convenient and, most importantly, means that the clearing process is much faster than traditional paper check transactions. Best of all, there is no delay in receiving payment, itกs inexpensive and will increase your clicks to sales ratio dramatically.

CHOOSING A CHECK TRANSACTION PROCESSOR

There are a number of transaction processors who will compete aggressively for your business. Many of them offer easy integration into your current shopping cart or a standalone solution. One click export to your current accounts software is also a standard feature. The main points online merchants should consider when selecting a company to handle check payments are as follows:

No Application Fee Some payment processors charge a fee just to apply to use their services. For obvious reasons, these are best avoided.

No Monthly Minimums Smaller ecommerce companies should be looking for check payment processors that do not have a set monthly minimum number of transactions.

Flat Fees or Percentage of Check Value Some payment processing companies charge a percentage of the value of each check processed, while others offer a flat fee per check. While the flat fee option makes it easier to predict costs and is the best choice for many, it is worth doing the math to decide whether this is the best route for your company.

Check Verification In order to reduce the risk of bad checks, real time check verification is a must have service. The best of these is the SpeedChex ATMVerify system, which has access to over 170 million accounts. This allows users to determine whether an account is currently overdrawn, frozen or closed thus determining whether a check is likely to be returned.

Offering electronic check payments as a purchase option is the only effective way that online merchants can tap into the consumers preferred payment option and still reduce risk, receive funds fast and ship goods quickly. So, don’t neglect the humble check.

About The Author

Jason Schwartz is CEO of Creative CashFlow Solutions ( http://www.ilovechecks.com ). Established 1998, his company offers online check processing, check verification and free electronic check recovery services. You can visit the website at http://www.ilovechecks.com.

This article was posted on January 14

by Jason Schwartz

A Unique Opportunity For Affiliate Recruiters

A Unique Opportunity For Affiliate Recruiters

by: Terence Tan

If you’re a webmaster, web publisher, or web merchant, chances are you have already come across the concept of affiliate marketing.

As online joint venture partnerships, affiliate programs allows both content publishers and web merchants to maximize their online profits by working with each other.

Content publishers, including webmasters, ezine writers and forum owners, are able to focus their energies and resources on what they know best…creating great content to attract web visitors.

Affiliate merchants on the other hand, are able to focus their efforts on creating great products, receiving online payments, and getting their products to customers.

The success of affiliate marketing has resulted in an unfortunate problem:

Because they are so popular, there are now so many affiliate merchants fighting for affiliates that it has become hard for them to differentiate themselves from each other and to attract good affiliates.

Put another way, while affiliates can help merchants solve the problem of finding customers, merchants are now facing the problem of having to first find good affiliates!

This has given rise to some innovative merchants setting up affiliate programs that pay affiliate commissions to multiple tiers of affiliates, the most popular being 2 tier affiliate programs.

What this does is to create a unique opportunity for กAffiliate Recruitersก who join multi tier affiliate programs to serve a slightly different function.

These affiliate recruiters, often owners of websites, ezines, and forums that attract other webmasters, focus their energies recruiting other webmasters to sign up as their กsubaffiliatesก and to sell the affiliate products.

As a result, when affiliate products are sold by their subaffiliates, these affiliate recruiters will also get paid a referral commission.

Two important points to understand are:

1) The affiliate programs must be free to join…no กsignupก fees, กsetupก costs, nor กproducttestingก fees are involved…otherwise they become traditional multi level marketing programs, and run the risk of affiliates trying to make money by กpushing productsก to other affiliates.

2) While these programs create a new role for กaffiliate recruitersก who can make money by specializing in recruiting affiliates, the products will still have to actually be sold to real customers for the merchant, affiliate recruiter, and affiliate to make any money.

If you are currently an affiliate merchant having problems recruiting good affiliates, why not consider using a multi tier affiliate program and let กaffiliate recruitersก do this work for you?

If you happen to run a webmaster related site, or happen to know many webmasters or successful affiliates, why not consider being an กaffiliate recruiterก by recommending multi tier affiliate programs?

About The Author

Terence Tan is the project manager of HugeAffiliates.com,a website dedicated towards the development of Multi Tier Affiliate Programs as an alternative system of business. Visit http://hugeaffiliates.com to learn more about how to multiply your affiliate referral commissions.

This article was posted on December 25, 2003

by Terence Tan

Affiliate Communication

Affiliate Communication

by: Sharon Housley

Communication is Key!

When building an affiliate network communicating with affiliates is important for merchants to maintain a good relationship. An affiliateกs web site targets visitors, who may not necessarily view a merchantกs web site, and therefore expands a merchants market. An affiliate may not be able to actively keep up with the merchants product, it is important for a merchant to keep affiliateกs informed about new product information, sales, new releases, links, graphics, promotions and special offers.

Keep in mind, not all affiliates are going to produce a high volume of traffic, and importantly, visitors who want to purchase a merchantกs products or services. The occasional gem makes the time taken well worth your effort. Talk with successful affiliates, find out what they are doing to effectively promote your software, and use that information to assist those affiliates who are not as successful.

Assist affiliates in understanding your product; no one knows your products like you do. For affiliates to drive traffic that will convert to sales, they need to understand the benefits of the product they are marketing. Once an affiliate knows the product, they will be better able to act as an extended sales force. In order for the affiliate to make the effort, you simply must support them!

Make Communication Easy

Many 3rd party affiliatetracking programs notify both the affiliate and merchant of a sale. This can often be automated and will create positive communication between merchants and affiliates. Making an affiliateกs role easier will help them increase earnings and further promote a merchants site.

Provide affiliates with great looking graphics and sample text. Graphics that work best are those that highlight your web site, yet fit the look of an affiliateกs web site.

Newsletters are another great way to get information to affiliates. Include tips and specific for affiliates, along with general marketing advice that helps with site promotion. If you are looking for software to manage newsletters, I highly recommend Group Mail . http://tinyurl.com/23ljy

Affiliate Taboos

An affiliate generates a sale for a product and the merchant promptly decreases the commission. This sends a very negative message to the affiliate, in many cases theyกve taken a lot of time to place links, promote products and because theyกve driven effective traffic their commission is decreased. If its necessary to decrease a commission for whatever reason, be sure to include a personal note detailing the reason and letting the affiliate know that you still support their efforts.

A Cheat?

An affiliate sale occurs, you go to their website and don’t find any links you decide they must be cheating you! This conclusion is simply a based on poor communication and reporting. Many, many affiliates have multiple sites, very few affiliate tracking programs allow affiliates to list multiple sites, and in many cases the number of sites listed do not accurately reflect the number of sites owned and managed by the affiliate. Additionally many affiliates manage optin newsletters that may result in sales, but links are not visible on a website. An example of a popular ezine often promoting affiliates is Lockergnome!

Links, Links, Links

Keep your links valid! If you update a section of the site or remove an offer provide a redirect or retain the link saying that such and such offer has expired and a new one has replaced it. It seems a waste to discard targeted traffic because a special has expired. Be sure to communicate with your affiliates, and if a link will only be good for a specified length of time tell them up front. When an offer expires notify affiliates a week prior to the expiration with a reminder. This will give them ample time to make any needed updates.

Added Incentives!

Affiliates love added bonuses for reaching goals or specified levels of sales. Many of the 3rd party affiliate vendors run contests and provide large incentives for their top performing ones. Reward and praise successful affiliates.

Affiliates tend to be experts in other areas, which relate to a merchants business; therefore, by communicating useful information, and helping affiliates increase their earnings, they will give added exposure and increase your sales. Communicating with affiliates will ultimately benefit visitors of both sites. A little effort in the beginning can mean big rewards in the long run.

About The Author

Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com and http://www.smallbusinesssoftware.net

This article was posted on April 06, 2004

by Sharon Housley

Price Your ClickBank Products for Maximum Profit

Price Your ClickBank Products for Maximum Profit

by: Tim Coulter

Choosing the right price for your digital products is one of the most critical, yet difficult, aspects of your business strategy.
Most merchants understand that overvaluing a product kills sales. It is also fairly well understood that underpricing cuts the unit revenue without any guarantee of a significant gain in sales volume. But few people are aware of a third (but equally important) pricing observation; that compromise pricing can be as harmful as either of the other two blunders.
To understand why this is the case, we need to examine the principles that lie behind effective pricing strategy. In general, merchants adopt one of two key philosophies when they price a product. They either set the price at a low level (which produces a low margin but high sales volume), or they choose a high price level (which trades off volume in order to gain margin).
These two approaches are known respectively as กpenetration pricingก and กpricing for profit.ก The former strategy is typically used by new competitors in a market, or by existing retailers that need to quickly establish a position of dominance after a product launch. The latter technique is favored by established businesses with mature products, where the objective is to earn the maximum profit yield from an existing dominant market position.
It is clear that, whether the strategy is to price low or high, going too far in either direction can be selfdefeating. But midway pricing is equally ineffective, as it compromises both strategies; it unnecessarily discounts the product without doing so sufficiently to generate a significant improvement in volume.
As a vendor of digital merchandise, you are at a distinct advantage over traditional merchants, since there are no marginal costs associated with your business. Regardless of how low you choose to price your product, you are still guaranteed to show a gross profit on every sale. In contrast, a merchant of physical goods has real fulfillment costs (product manufacturing, damaged and unsold inventory, storage, shipping and handling) that impose a fixed lower price limit below which each sale represents a loss. This advantage affords you great flexibility in your pricing, but even if you use this flexibility to pursue a penetration pricing strategy, you should still be aware of the risk of counterproductive pricecutting.
Some ClickBank merchants use an experimental approach to pricing. Their aim is to establish the most profitable price through trial an error. Although this is understandable, even logical, it can be a customerrelations nightmare. You should think carefully before overpricing a product and subsequently being forced to reduce the price in order to stimulate demand. Nobody likes to return to a website and see that a product they already purchased is now being offered at a lower price.
The opposite approach is to steadily increase prices from a low level, and is usually less of a cause for concern. Some merchants launch their products with a deliberately low introductory price a benefit that they emphasize in their sales pitch. The timelimited, or volumelimited, nature of this technique can be a powerful incentive to buy, and it also allows the merchant a trial period in which to observe sales behavior before setting a definitive price to meet his longerterm strategic objectives.

About The Author

Copyright © Tim Coulter. All rights reserved.
Tim Coulter is a consultant and software developer who helps netpreneurs to harness marketing technologies.
He is also the author of กClickBank The Definitive Guideก The Ultimate ClickBank Tutorial & Reference Manual.

http://www.clickbankrevealed.com/

This article was posted on June 29, 2004

by Tim Coulter

Don’t Neglect The Humble Check

Don’t Neglect The Humble Check

by: Jason Schwartz

Internet commerce is an instantaneous purchase medium. A customer sees the product he or she likes; enters credit or debit card details; the product gets shipped. Simple. No messing around with mailing out checks, no waiting for the merchant to cash the check.

For online merchants, too, the process is straightfoward and convenient. Thereกs no waiting for a check to arrive; no worrying about whether the check is good and no delays in shipping the product.

Consequently, it is easy for online merchants to assume that there is no value in offering check payments as a purchase option. Indeed, in competitive industries where margins are tight, the sheer time cost and risk involved in accepting checks makes it an unprofitable choice. And, anyway, everyone uses credit or debit cards these days. Right ? Wrong.

Hereกs some facts for all you ecommerce entrepreneurs to consider:

The 2004 Federal Reserve Payments Study ( http://www.frbservices.org/Retail/pdf/2004PaymentResearchReport.pdf ) shows that checks are still the most popular noncash payment method, with a total dollar volume over 20 times that of credit and debit cards added together. Further, a recent publication by the Minnesota Attorney Generalกs office indicates that 11% of Americans have no credit card at all. That figure doesn’t even include the millions more people who are maxed out on their cards.

Can you REALLY afford to neglect the 30 million plus Americans that don’t have credit cards and the millions more that prefer to use checks over any other form of payment ? After all, these are your potential customers too !

ACCEPTING CHECKS ONLINE

Even being aware of the huge numbers of new potential customers, accepting check payments can still appear problematic to ecommerce based merchants. The possibility of bad checks, the delay in receiving payments, the additional paperwork all these things increase costs and reduce profits. However, the recent Check 21 legislation and the increased availability of electronic check solutions to businesses of all sizes means that ecommerce merchants can now accept check payments online, by phone and fax easily and virtually risk free.

HOW ELECTRONIC CHECK PROCESSING WORKS

Accepting electronic check payments is a simple process. The merchant simply transmits the customersก check information to a transaction processing company. The processor then moves that information from the customerกs bank account and that of the merchant. Itกs easy, convenient and, most importantly, means that the clearing process is much faster than traditional paper check transactions. Best of all, there is no delay in receiving payment, itกs inexpensive and will increase your clicks to sales ratio dramatically.

CHOOSING A CHECK TRANSACTION PROCESSOR

There are a number of transaction processors who will compete aggressively for your business. Many of them offer easy integration into your current shopping cart or a standalone solution. One click export to your current accounts software is also a standard feature. The main points online merchants should consider when selecting a company to handle check payments are as follows:

No Application Fee Some payment processors charge a fee just to apply to use their services. For obvious reasons, these are best avoided.

No Monthly Minimums Smaller ecommerce companies should be looking for check payment processors that do not have a set monthly minimum number of transactions.

Flat Fees or Percentage of Check Value Some payment processing companies charge a percentage of the value of each check processed, while others offer a flat fee per check. While the flat fee option makes it easier to predict costs and is the best choice for many, it is worth doing the math to decide whether this is the best route for your company.

Check Verification In order to reduce the risk of bad checks, real time check verification is a must have service. The best of these is the SpeedChex ATMVerify system, which has access to over 170 million accounts. This allows users to determine whether an account is currently overdrawn, frozen or closed thus determining whether a check is likely to be returned.

Offering electronic check payments as a purchase option is the only effective way that online merchants can tap into the consumers preferred payment option and still reduce risk, receive funds fast and ship goods quickly. So, don’t neglect the humble check.

About The Author

Jason Schwartz is CEO of Creative CashFlow Solutions ( http://www.ilovechecks.com ). Established 1998, his company offers online check processing, check verification and free electronic check recovery services. You can visit the website at http://www.ilovechecks.com.

This article was posted on January 14

by Jason Schwartz

Can’t Find Any ClickBank Super Affiliates? Grow Yo

Can’t Find Any ClickBank Super Affiliates? Grow Your Own!

by: Tim Coulter

Affiliate marketing has become extremely popular, and ClickBank offers a large and growing network of affiliates to tap into, but only a tiny percentage of them know how to make the most of their web traffic. Countless studies have demonstrated the huge benefits of proper preselling, but most affiliates do little more than display their merchantกs banner ads.
Unfortunately, the cause of this problem lies with the merchants. Affiliate relationships are often treated as little more than riskfree advertising, with the affiliate providing the space and the merchant providing the ad to fill it. What is lacking in this approach is any attempt to leverage the affiliateกs unique relationship with her niche community.
Even some of the largest online merchants, who spend huge sums setting up the infrastructure for their affiliate programs, do nothing to coach or motivate their affiliates. Nor do they provide any of the basic materials necessary to optimize the quality of referrals.
But, by treating affiliates as a valued marketing resource instead of a riskfree ad service, you can achieve astonishing results. This means investing effort in helping your affiliates.
The most fundamental way to prime your affiliates for effective preselling is by producing a support pack that leads them in the right direction and makes the process as simple and effortless as possible.
Of course, the pack should contain all the staple advertising tools, like banners, classified ads, headlines and a variety of short and long descriptions for search engines and classified listings. But it should also include content that your affiliates can use to extend the value of their websites or distribute in their newsletters.
This content should include templates for infomercials, product reviews and endorsements (ready for customization) as well as articles, interviews and case studies (to be reproduced verbatim).
A typical product review is a mix of facts and opinions. Although you may not wish to dictate the opinions of your affiliates, you can make it easy for them to write their own personalized reviews, by setting out all the most important facts in a brief article that they can customize with their own impressions. The most effective product reviews explain exactly how and why the author uses the product, with a big emphasis on benefits. Again, you can help out here, using template paragraphs that your affiliates can tailor to describe their own experiences. The more work you do for your affiliates, the easier you make it for them to present your product in the most favorable light.
This brings us to the important issue of product ownership. The best way for an affiliate to write a credible product review is from personal experience. In other words, she should own and use the product before offering an opinion on its suitability.
So, as a merchant, it should be among your priorities to encourage your affiliates to own the products they promote. One way to do this is to allow them to buy your products using their own affiliate link. Some merchants are wary of this approach, fearing that it leads to commission theft and encourages buyers to sign up as affiliates purely to obtain a discount.
The alternative is to restrict the membership of your affiliate program to existing customers, forcing them to buy your product if they want to participate in its promotion. A number of very successful ClickBank merchants adopt this policy, although it should be noted that it carries the risk of seriously diminishing your affiliate recruitment rate.
A final somewhat drastic step is to offer your product free to registered affiliates, thus encouraging them to become familiar with it and properly endorse it. Of course, you would need to employ this tactic discreetly, or you run the risk of being overrun by freebie seekers.
If the thought of giving your product away free is too intimidating, consider making the offer conditional on a tacit commitment by your affiliates to participate in your coaching program. In other words, you get the chance to interact directly with the affiliate, mentoring her in her quest to deliver highquality targeted prospects to your sales page. This kind of onetoone relationship with affiliates can be extremely timeconsuming at the outset, but as each affiliate tunes in to the most effective preselling tactics, she becomes selfsufficient and lowmaintenance. And little by little you build a marketing SWAT team that delivers immediate results whenever you launch a new product.

About The Author

Copyright © Tim Coulter. All rights reserved.
Tim Coulter is a consultant and software developer who helps netpreneurs to harness marketing technologies.
He is also the author of กClickBank The Definitive Guideก The Ultimate ClickBank Tutorial & Reference Manual.

http://www.clickbankrevealed.com/

This article was posted on June 29, 2004

by Tim Coulter

Expand Your Horizons Sell Your Professional Serv

Expand Your Horizons Sell Your Professional Services Through ClickBank

by: Tim Coulter

ClickBank allows its merchants to sell many different types of digital products, but with the proviso that they must be deliverable entirely over the internet within 24 hours of purchase.
Most merchants focus on downloadable products (especially ebooks and software applications), although ClickBank can equally be used to sell digital content delivered by email or via membership websites and other online communities. But there is one category not usually associated with ClickBank services.
In theory, the need to deliver within ClickBankกs stipulated 24hour timeframe excludes the sale of services. It is almost impossible to absolutely guarantee delivery of a service within a specific timeframe, as fulfillment invariably involves activity on the part of the merchant and may be affected by workload and other variable factors. With some services, implementation naturally takes place over an extended period (often scheduled to suit the buyer), making it even more difficult to comply.
Fortunately, ClickBankกs interpretation of the 24hour rule is somewhat liberal. A number of successful ClickBank merchants operate servicebased businesses where fulfillment takes a month or more to complete. In these cases, delivery is deemed to have taken place when the merchant makes first contact with the buyer. This flexibility allows the sale of a very broad range of digital services:

Writing services (ghostwriting, resume writing, translation, proof reading, editing etc)
Artistic services (web design, graphic design, custom art, book cover art etc)
Professional services (consulting, project planning, legal, accountancy etc)
Technical services (website optimization, software development, etc)
Marketing services (copywriting, search engine optimization, etc)
Personal services (personal coaching, wedding planning, relationship counseling etc)
Critique services (website critique, book critique, sales copy critique etc)

Despite the flexibility to sell various types of digital merchandise, every ClickBank sale involves a specific predefined offering at a fixed price. Before a sale takes place, a ClickBank buyer wants to know exactly what she is buying and how much she is going to pay for it.
So, you cannot use ClickBank to sell your services by the hour, nor can you currently establish recurring billing relationships with your clients. Whatever you sell, you need to package it so that it can be described very specifically and offered at a fixed price. For example, as an attorney, you could not use ClickBank to sell legal services using the traditional hourlybased or resultsbased pricing models. But ClickBank is ideally suited to selling a fixedprice legal service, such as writing a will or creating a simple, standardized contract document.
One of the most practical ways of selling services via ClickBank is to offer a customized version of an กofftheshelfก product. For example, a web designer may offer a custom design service, whereby the buyer selects a web template and receives a limited (and specifically defined) amount of custom modifications included in the purchase price. This packaging model enables innovative merchants to penetrate markets traditionally dominated by expensive professionals, broadening their own scope by offering better valueformoney to the buyer.
So, use your imagination and create some new and enticing digital services that you can sell through your ClickBank account!

About The Author

Copyright © Tim Coulter. All rights reserved.
Tim Coulter is a consultant and software developer who helps netpreneurs to harness marketing technologies.
He is also the author of กClickBank The Definitive Guideก The Ultimate ClickBank Tutorial & Reference Manual.

http://www.clickbankrevealed.com/

This article was posted on June 29, 2004

by Tim Coulter

The Multi Level Affiliate Program (MLAP) FAQ

The Multi Level Affiliate Program (MLAP) FAQ

by: Terence Tan

What is a Multi Level Affiliate Program(MLAP)?

A MLAP is an affiliate program that is free to join, and pays affiliates a commission when they make a sale, as well as when subaffiliates under them make sales.

How is a MLAP better than basic affiliate programs for webmasters, ezine publishers, and forum owners?

When affiliates promote products using their affiliate links on their sites,only a small percentage of visitors/members/subscribers will end up buying the products.The other กimpressionsก are wasted. Because MLAPs are free to join, a proportion of these กwastedก visitors will sign up as subaffiliates to sell products to their freinds and contacts. As a result, when they subsequently make sales (or recruit further subaffiliates), the original affiliate member gets paid a leveraged, passive income through no further effort on his part. Depending on the number of levels the MLAP incorporates, the potential for profit could be HUGE, at no risk!

How is a MLAP better for merchants than traditional affiliate programs?

While basic affiliate programs are a wonderful no risk, cost per action way for merchants to make sales, their popularity has resulted in a huge abundance of different programs, each competing for the same, limited number of affiliates to promote their products.In fact, recruiting affiliates has become almost as hard as making sales for many merchants. MLAPs offer merchants a way to make their programs and products stand out from the crowd, to recruit new affiliates much more quickly and effectively, thereby boosting their กsales forceก and eventual sales and profits.

How is a MLAP better than MLM for affiliates?

While MLAPs have the huge income potential of MLM programs due to the use of the leveraged downline concept, because they are free to join, they present a zero risk alternative to people wary of losing money in poorly executed MLM programs.

How is a MLAP better than MLM for merchants?

MLMs, while a very effective and profitable means of product distribution, have been getting a bad reputation because of the poor execution by some companies. The need to first buy a product or pay a joining fee has drawn some criticism, as well as hampered many would be กsalesmenก from joining these programs. MLAPs allow merchants to much more effectively win affiliates, without the risk of being labelled a กMLM companyก.

Where is the best place to find MLAPs to join?

As MLAPs are still relatively uncommon, it is very hard and time consuming to find them online. An effective way would be to go to a specialised MLAP directory, like Hugeaffiliate.com , which continuously combs the web for such programs to list in an organised manner.

Where can I get affiliates for my MLAP?

While it is possible to sign up affiliates by listing your MLAP in normal affiliate program directories, it is also very useful to list your MLAPs in specialised directories like Hugeaffiliates.com . This is because this is where most affiliates interested in MLAPs go to locate new programs to join.

Where can I learn more about MLAPs?

Go to our extensive resource bank and discussion forum designed specially to help both affiliates interested in learining how to make money using MLAPs, as well merchants thinking of setting up their own MLAPs.

How popular are MLAPs?

While still relatively new, these programs are quickly gaining popularity because of the distinct benefits they offer to both affiliates and merchants.

About The Author

Terence Tan is the founder of HugeAffiliates.com, a website dedicated towards the development of Multi Level Affiliate Programs as an alternative system of business. Visit http://hugeaffiliates.com to learn how MLAPs can multiply your affiliate referral commissions.

(Please feel free to to freely reproduce and distribute this article, so long as it is reproduced in full, including the hyperlinks, and no modification is made).

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 12, 2003

by Terence Tan

How Are Affiliate Programs Organized

How Are Affiliate Programs Organized

by: Edvard Halupa

There are few variants how affiliate programs are organized:

I. Networks

Are more convenient way for businesses to start their affiliate programs. Merchants are listed in searchable database to be found by potential affiliates. This means huge savings for startup merchants as they can rely on the promotion in the network directory.

Affiliate networks gather all different types of affiliate programs and all share same network infrastructure. They are the easiest and fastest way to find suitable affiliate program. The network is also a guarantor in case of any problems. Under affiliate networks, any action done by affiliates is tracked and reports are generated for the use by both affiliate and merchant. Even the big players (Disney, Dell, Sony) use a.n. because of their features.

See network reviews below.

II. Specialized networks

These networks gather sites with same topic but few different (variants of) services, e.g. Personals sites, where there are different language and interest sites, to suit every target group.

See match.com network review below.

III. Individual affiliate programs

Are programs with their own tracking and reporting solutions. Websites promote their program for themselves and they collect all the profit for themselves. There is no third party involved, affiliates get paid directly from the seller of the product/service. Their products might be great but their reputation considering affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be. That’s why it is smart to find reviews and read their terms and conditions before joining.

Affiliate networks reviewed

Commision Junction (www.cj.com)

Leading in online affiliate solutions, CJ has over 1700 registered merchants. CJ provides very competitive pricing for merchants and increasing benefits for affiliates. Some of the merchants include: ……

CJ is a twotier network, which means you refer both advertisers (merchants) and publishers (affiliates) and earn 5% the commission, those earn for themselves. CJ was the first network that applied ขone check per monthข policy that included commissions from all merchants on one check.

ClickBank (www.clickbank.com)

ClickBank could be used as an outsourced credit card processing gateway. Without monthly fees and low transaction costs it is inexpensive solution for websites to accept credit cards. Itกs also a broker for hundreds of websites offering own affiliate programs. Easy to implement, and real time stats also bring to ClickBankกs popularity.

Befree (www.befree.com)

Affiliate tracking service that had some of the largest clients on the net (Barnes and Noble) is now part of Commision Junction network.

Match.com (www.match.com)

Match.com has one of the oldest affiliate programs (launched in april 95) and by Media Metrix is #1 rated service on the Internet. Match.com has more than 6,5 million registered and 925 000 active users. This is the only dating site offering keyword search (searches profiles and returns results matching keyword). On this program 2tier can earn up to $40.

About The Author

Edvard Halupa is editor of the http://www.AffiliateBusinessGuide.info, Complete Guide to Internet Affiliate Marketing business with online articles, tips and resources.

This article was posted on December 22, 2004

by Edvard Halupa

Affiliate Marketing Using Commission Junction

Affiliate Marketing Using Commission Junction

by: Jason Gazaway

Affiliate Marketing is currently one of the most popular and lucrative business opportunities online. It is an agreement between the merchant, or the one with the product to sell, and the website owner or the affiliate, or the one who allows the use of his site to promote the merchantกs product or service. Thus, affiliate marketing is a relationship between the merchant and the affiliate.

Meanwhile, an affiliatemarketing network is a program that involves a network of individuals and organizations with the purpose of helping each other through affiliate marketing. There are many affiliatemarketing programs where both merchants and affiliates can go to find what they need. In such affiliate marketing networks, affiliates can choose from thousands of products to advertise. Similarly, the merchants can proffer their products and look for affiliates who will advertise their products.

The Commission Junction Affiliate Program is, one of, if not the largest affiliate marketing networks in the internet today. It is a leader in performance based online marketing offering excellent opportunities for both merchants and affiliates. The company serves millions of clients making it one of the largest ad networks today.

It facilitates the relationship between advertisers and affiliates and leverages its expertise in the affiliate marketing business to ensure the best results for its clients. Commission Junction has affiliate programs mostly for physical goods. The company excels in niche markets, as most niche markets require physical goods as affiliate products.

As the market leader in affiliate marketing solutions, Commission Junction offers many advantages for both merchants and affiliates. The Commission Junction system is excellent and full of good features for both parties. As a Commission Junction merchant, you only need to sign up and have your affiliate program available to thousands of potential affiliates. New merchants are listed on the homepage of the Commission Junction Account Manager. Affiliates will be able to see this listing upon log in, ensuring maximum exposure for the merchant. In this manner, the merchant has the opportunity to attract the best affiliates to carry his product or service.

Another advantage that Commission Junction offers to merchants is the promotion to the Commission Junction affiliate network upon sign up via the Commission Junction email newsletter. Being in the Commission Junction affiliate network provides excellent opportunity for the merchant to find quality affiliates who can bring in more clients and more sales.

Since the key to affiliate marketing success for merchants is finding the right affiliates, Commission Junction offers the best way for merchants to succeed, by bringing merchants and affiliates together. The merchantกs affiliate program will also be listed in the Commission Junction Account Manager for life giving you more exposure. You can also purchase special listing for higher affiliate exposure.

Commission Junction also has many advantages for affiliates. It has more merchants than any other affiliate marketing company today. An affiliate of Commission Junction has access to the largest directory of affiliate programs encompassing thousands of products and services. Affiliates have the luxury to choose what product they will advertise.

Commission Junction has an excellent record of accomplishment in the affiliate marketing business, so it makes sense for any affiliate to be a Commission Junction affiliate. The company offers a huge number of affiliate programs in every category of products and services. In addition, affiliates of Commission Junction receive notices via email whenever new affiliate programs are added. Commission Junction offers the best opportunities to make a profit for both merchants and affiliates. It combines resources to further the sales or profit of each party.

However, Commission Junction also has its downsides. For one, the commissions are relatively lower, being in the 7% to 20% bracket. Yet, despite of the lower income potential, Commission Junction is still one of the best options for affiliate marketers. Commission junction has also had its share of setbacks such as during the early part of 2002 when merchants dropped out because of the hike in prices.

All the same, Commission Junction remains as one of the best choices when it comes to affiliate marketing. It offers the best features and opportunities for merchants and affiliates. Its marketing solutions help marketers increase their profits. Indeed, there are many reasons why any affiliate or merchant who want to succeed should join Commission Junction.

About The Author

Jason Gazaway

Discover how you can create a turnkey internet marketing system that builds massive downlines for you,attracts hungry prospects automatically, and generates income nonstop, 24 hours a day!

Find out how, here: http://www.HowToBecomeSuccessful.com

This article was posted on August 08

by Jason Gazaway