Using Video To Explode Conversions

February 4th, 2010   posted by anthony in Affiliate Marketing

This won’t be a very long post, however, I do feel it’s important to make a note of something that I feel can really help you all increase your conversion rates. If you are building your own “landing pages” to promote your affiliate marketing offers I highly suggest using some form of “video” on your page. I know many people that will disagree with me completely on this idea, however, I am a firm believer that video is the way to go if you want to get higher conversion ratios.

The fact of the matter is people (society) is use to responding to video. Just think of the countless number of hours of TV you watch during a day, week, month, year…. see what I mean? Our society is trained to watch, listen and respond to video. Bringing that on the web where a person is more intensely paying attention to the content that is being delivered is a recipe for huge success, in my opinion.

You all know that I have used video on just about everything I have done online. I have had tremendous results and I think it’s time you all start implementing this easy and very effective strategy in your marketing. You can use any kind of camera even the webcam that comes in your computer will work just fine. If you don’t have a webcam you can grab one for like $20 so this isn’t an expensive option to test.

Just my thoughts for the night…. I hope you all follow my lead… video is where it’s at!

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Should I Promote CPL or CPA Offers?

February 2nd, 2010   posted by anthony in Affiliate Marketing

This is a great question, but unfortunately it does not have a definitive answer. In order to better understand why the question even is, well, a question you need to first know the definition of both a cpa offer and a cpl offer. A CPA offer just means “cost per action” and this is the way an advertiser (or company) defines how they pay you for promoting their product or service as an affiliate. CPA offers typically require the customer to complete some kind of “action” that normally involves purchasing something online. A CPA offer simply means “cost per lead” and is again the way an advertiser (or company) defines how they pay affiliates. CPL offers normally don’t require that a purchase be made in order for an affiliate to earn a commission. CPL offers gather information about the customer like name, phone #, email, address which that company will then use to attempt to sell it’s products or services to the customer.

Both CPA and CPL offers can make money in affiliate marketing but you have to completely understand the scope of marketing both types of products before just jumping out there and placing ads. Remember that someone going to a CPA offer has to actually PURCHASE something in order for you to earn a commission. Typically extremely targeted traffic converts best on these offers. By this I simply mean that someone who is actively “looking for” the product or service is probably a better prospect than someone who’s not actively looking for it. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.

Let’s say your promoting product X and it cost the user $9.95
You have various options when “marketing” the product. Here are 2 viable options and scenarios.

1. Let’s say you choose to do pay per click marketing and make sure that when someone searches for “product X” they find your ad. This means the traffic coming to your site was “actively looking for” product X.
2. Let’s say your friend decides to promote product X at the same time, however, your friend does not want to do pay per click marketing. Instead your friend does CPM advertising which basically means they places ads on websites “relevant to” product X. So now someone is on a website (randomly) and reading about some information (relevant to product x) and they see an ad off to the side saying “click here to get product X” so they click it. This type of person was not actively looking for product X, but they were reading information about something relevant to product X.

Option 1 is great for a CPA offer simply because the person had “intent” when looking for the offer. Option 2 is great for CPL offers because since nothing is actually purchased it’s much easier to convert them into a commissionable action. Understanding how to bring in the right customers who are in the right mindset is very important if you want to have a successful affiliate marketing campaign. There are hundreds if not thousands of places you can advertise, however, it won’t do you much good if you’re not promoting products and services to the right people at the right time.

Basically you can do really well with either type of offer. I personally have generated more revenue from CPA offers than CPL offers over the last five or so years. With the explosion of media such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter I fully expect to be able to double or triple my CPL revenue because these platforms offer such amazing targeting and reach. I personally would suggest using CPL offers and Email Submits on the social media networks as I feel those would convert the best on the social platforms. The affiliate marketing industry is changing literally every single day. It’s very important to your success that you stay engaged and educated so you can stay on top of your game.

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How To Locate The Best Offers

January 31st, 2010   posted by anthony in Affiliate Marketing

There are many things that are very important to consider and pay attention to when you begin affiliate marketing on the Internet. The Internet has allowed hundreds of thousands of businesses both small and large to really expand their reach. Typically one of the most powerful ways to do this is to have an army of affiliates pushing your products, services and offers to the masses online. For this very reason Affiliates tend to have hundreds of offers to choose from and sometimes it leaves you a bit confused on what you should be promoting.

Here are some of the best ways to determine what is best for you to promote:

1. Are you knowledgeable about the product? – Basically the more you know about the product the easier it will be for you to market it online. One of the key components of affiliate marketing is knowing HOW to locate customers. If you have knowledge of the product (maybe because you are a customer yourself) it’s going to allow you to more easily market the product to other potential customers (i.e. target audience). So knowledge about what you are marketing is very important you can even use the knowledge you have about the product to write your ads to appeal to the right people and to get higher response rates.

2. Is there a market for the product? – Almost every company wants to have an affiliate program, but that does not mean there is a huge market for every company and it’s products. You need to make 100% sure there is a market for the product before spending your time putting together a marketing campaign. If there are not people searching for it online it does not matter how much knowledge you have it’s not going to sell to customers that aren’t there.

3. How much do you get paid? – Hey this is important! How much are you getting paid to promote the offer and generate sales? Some companies pay more than others so it’s important to pay attention to this detail. You enter this industry to make money right? So it’s important to set yourself up with a good company that doesn’t mind paying you top dollar when you generate a sale for them.

These are the top 3 things I would look at when deciding on what to promote. If you can find something that has a great payout, huge market and you have a lot of knowledge about it then that is a perfect fit! If not then just look for a decent blend and I am sure you will do just fine.

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