Making Money As an Affiliate – Can it Be Done? Part One
A big question when it comes to affiliate marketing is this. Can I make money as an affiliate? Should I join a lot of affiliate programs? Will that make me more successful? My answer to that is yes and no. Let me explain.
You can make a lot of money with affiliate programs, but it might not be as easy as most of the affiliate owners would have you believe.
First of all there are a lot of people selling the same affiliate products that you are selling and they will be using the same methods and tools that the affiliate owner has provided for you.
You will all be using the very same website sales page, the same ads and probably be advertising in the same places. Why? Because this is what the affiliate owner provided for you and how and where he told you to do it.
This is sort of a form of mass suicide. It’s like trying to win the lottery. You buy a ticket and hope your number comes up. Just like the lottery your chances are slim and none. Sadly, most affiliates operate this way.
They sign up for an affiliate program. The affiliate owner gives them their ID and shows them where they go in the link. Some will include a cloned web page. They then go to the affiliate tool box and get their ads, articles, e-mails, and maybe some banners. Now, they are loaded for bear.
The trouble is that all the other affiliates have the same ammunition as you have and you are all hunting the same bear. So, the first one to find the bear gets the prize and the others get zilch.
Now, why would the affiliate owner want to sign up all those affiliates and have them all use the same materials, knowing that only about twenty percent of them that sign up will do any business? Do the numbers.
The affiliate owner signs up one thousand affiliates. Twenty percent of them make a sale. That’s two hundred sales. Say, the product sells for fifty dollars. The affiliate owner takes in Ten Thousand Dollars.
That’s just the beginning, he also probably has a sign-up box or pop up so that he captures the visitors name (which you sent to him). This enables him to build his opt-in list and make future sales that you may or may not see any revenue from. He also gets back links from your promotional links to him which provides him a better ranking with the search engines. It’s a win-win situation for the affiliate owner.
Now, say the affiliate program is paying a forty percent commission, that means that the affiliates are getting four thousand dollars of the take. Here’s another but, and it’s a big one. That four thousand dollars in affiliate commissions is divided up among the two hundred affiliates that made the sales, meaning that they each received twenty dollars.
Some of these affiliates will make other sales, but not many. So it becomes a numbers game, with the affiliate on the short end of the numbers. Bad huh? No, not necessarily.
You remember, the question was – can I make money as an affiliate? Should I join a lot of affiliate programs? What will make me more successful? My answer was yes and no. You have just seen the no, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
You can earn money as an affiliate. A LOT OF MONEY! But you must know how. As with most anything else, there are tricks to the trade. And as with anything else – the ones that learn the tricks succeed. The ones that don’t go begging. So, how do you learn these tricks? I’ll be taking that up in my next article.
Until then, may you walk in sunshine.
Hal Archer, a 30-year veteran of marketing with the last 10 years online, is the online money wizard can teach you how to use the many ways of earning a living online, such as viral marketing to build a list of eager buyers, develop your own online product, how to earn big dollars as an affiliate marketer and a lot more information on this and many other subjects at his blog. Find out more about how you can earn a good living on line at http://onlinemoneywiz.com
Author: Hal Archer
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Awe Inspiring Pictures
Related posts: