10 Affiliate Marketing Networks For Beginners

Many new affiliates have trouble finding products to promote. Believe me, I have been there and done that. When you are trying to find your feet in this business, you hear a lot of things from the gurus that don’t make sense. The problem is, a lot of these gurus have no idea how to convey information to beginners in this industry. A guru may be making millions of dollars from PayDotCom, but that doesn’t mean you can too. For example. a super affiliate who has 500,000 e-mail subscribers and a couple of products of her own can sell high-end products easier. After all, she can always give her own products for free in exchange for folks using her affiliate links to buy those $1997 or more affiliate products. A newbie may be great in SEO and all other technical things, but he/she is still going to struggle to sell those high-end products without a good bonus and a decent plan.

In reality, there are many networks that beginners and intermediate affiliate marketers can use to make money and take their game to the next level. There are many products out there, and as long as you find the right product in the right niche, and you know what you are doing, there is no reason you can’t make things happen. With that in mind, here are 10 networks that can help you get started with affiliate marketing fast:

1. Amazon: Amazon’s Associates Program is still one of the best affiliate marketing programs out there. There is a lot of money to be earned here. And you won’t have trouble making people want to buy from Amazon.
2. eBay Publisher Network: eBay’s affiliate program is another one of those programs that keeps making you money even if you don’t want to. It’s just not that hard.
3. ClickBank: ClickBank is the place to grab digital products and promote them. Who doesn’t like getting 50% or more in commission?
4. LinkShare: LinkShare is a great place to start for newbie affiliates. There are a lot of merchants available. LinkShare folks keep things simple too!
5. PepperJam Network: this network is growing fast, it’s not even funny. You are going to have a lot of fun promoting some of these products.
6. Hydra Network: Hydra Network is a great CPA network that makes it easy to earn money from sign ups and all kinds of actions.
7. Google Network: Google Affiliate Network (Performics) is another great place to get started and make money online.
8. ClixGalore: ClixGalore is another one of those CPA networks that helps you make money online fast!
9. Shareasale: Shareasale is similar to LinkShare and CJ and provides you with lots of advertisers to work with.
10. aZoogleAds: aZoogle Ads is a great place for sign ups and other cool CPA offers. There is a lot of money to be earned here, and these offers can keep you busy for a while.

As you can see, there are many places that you can look to find products to promote online. But you can have the best products at your disposal, but if you don’t promote them right, you are not going to make money. If you are not too advanced in this business, take your time and get the basics down. You don’t want to waste time searching for products when you don’t know how to properly promote them.

Your take: what’s your favorite affiliate network?

What’s Your Favorite Affiliate Program?

One thing about the affiliate business is that you are never out of options as far as programs to promote and networks to join. Networks such as CJ, LinkShare, Clickbank, and Pepperjams provide you with everything you need to promote products online and make money. Personally, Clickbank and CJ have been the best networks to work with but a lot of guys have had success with those other networks. So here is my question for you:

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Is your decision based on conversion rate, customer service, or easy of use? Please share.

Google Affiliate Network Comes of Age

It seems like yesterday that Google bought Performics and made it into Google Affiliate Network. But till yesterday, Google Affiliate Network was completely separate from other products by Google (Analytics, Adwords, …). But the big network maintenance has made Google Affiliate Network a part of Google product family. Here is what Google is displaying on the front page of its affiliate work:

This may not sound like a big change, but Google Affiliate Network was never really a part of Google family until now. It had Google branding all over it, but you couldn’t switch between Google products without having to keep signing-in. Now, you can link your account to your Adwords and Adsense accounts. Is that cool or what?

My Experience With Hydra Network

CPA offers are very attractive to most affiliates. You get all kinds of offers from these networks, and sometimes all you have to do is get people to enter their age and e-mail address to get your commission. Now there are simple CPA offers and complicated ones. The more complicated the action is, you can expect to get paid more. At least, the reasonable offers follow that trend. I decided a few months ago to get my hands wet with a new network after getting tired of playing with Azoogle.

I tried a bunch of CPA offer networks (e.g. Adfish), but so far Hydra is my favorite network. Here is why I recommend Hydra CPA offers:

• International Reach: hydra has offers for both U.S. and UK affiliates. Not bad if you want to go international.
• Offers: I got to admit that I have been impressed with the number of new and exclusive offers from Hydra network. There are just so many offers to choose from so don’t get overwhelmed if you want to give these guys a try.
• Interface: I don’t know about you, but Hydra has the most intuitive interface among CPA networks that I have seen. I could be biased here though.
• Prizes: got to love affiliate networks that send you goodies when you hit a certain mark in a month or a year. Hydra prizes are simply too attractive for anyone to look away! But it won’t be easy to get them
• Payments: my payments came on time, and that is great. After having to wait months to get payments from some other affiliate networks, it’s refreshing to see Hydra paying me for my hard work fast.
• Support: this is the best part. You get an account representative with Hydra, and these guys send you best CPA offers and conversion tips. Always helps to get someone else’s perspective on your future campaign.

Your take: what’s your favorite CPA network? Why?

Should You Get Paid for Off-Line Sales?

I am personally a big supporter of affiliates getting paid for their efforts. I don’t know about you but getting 5% conversion rate from some of these merchants on CJ or LinkShare has been difficult to achieve for me. I am talking about brick and mortar offers of course. Let’s say you promote Walmart deals. If someone can just take 30 minutes and buy something from Walmart directly, why would they buy it online?

Amazon’s associate program has been successful as Amazon does not really have a physical presence. It obviously does help that Amazon is a price leader too, but in general, your leads can’t get the same deals that they can get from Amazon from their local stores. However, merchants that have physical presence can be extremely attractive to your leads. So you spend money on PPC and other costs, and you pre-sell folks just for them to go to the stores and pick up what you have spent money on to sell to these guys.

RevTrax is a new solution if you are working with brick & mortar merchants. I think if you are working with these guys, you need to be realistic about the situation. You simply can’t afford to spend money on folks and get a conversion rate of 0.5%.

The issue of off-line tracking in the affiliate marketing world is real, and a few merchants are issuing offline coupons to help affiliates get paid for their efforts. But all these solutions are not perfect. One way to get around this issue is by offering folks bonuses to buy thing from the online store. Another way to go is just to ignore these hybrid stores (which I don’t recommend). At the end of the day, you shouldn’t be shy about talking with your affiliate manager for a higher payout to offset the lower conversion rates.

Most Innovative Affiliate Program

I know this is old news, but Amazon has officially reclaimed the title of most innovative affiliate program in the world. As someone who at one time considered working for Amazon, I can tell you that these guys have a vast pool of talent, and they have utilized their talent to the maximum by coming up with new features after new features for Amazon Associates Program.

Amazon is all about providing affiliates with tools to make them succeed. They have thousands of ways that affiliates can link to Amazon products. If you are looking for something simple, you can just grab a banner. If you want to go a bit more advanced, you can grab a widget. There are many widgets to choose from, and depending on real-estate on your website, you can have multiple ways of making money.

Let’s not forget that Amazon is one of the best places to shop, which means you can expect to get a lot of sales if you do your homework. Not only that, Amazon will credit you for any sales that are generated as a part of your effort. So if I put a link to a laptop on my page, and you decide to buy a book, I am going to get credit for it regardless.

Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the oldest affiliate programs on the Web, and it has one of the most generous tiers around. Paying 4% of sales to affiliates may not seem that lucrative, but Amazon does offer performance incentives, which means you can get higher percentages on non-electronic purchases. Amazon is not going to make you a millionaire with their affiliate program, but they provide you with enough tools to make your mortgage payments.

How’s been your experience with Amazon Associates Program? Please share them here.

The Truth About Commission Junction’s Network Information

If you have used Commission Junction, you have probably seen the network EPC numbers that they show you to illustrate the effectiveness of their affiliate programs. For instance, the below program is getting a very high network earning grade from Commission Junction.

Here is how the Network Earnings rating is calculated:

Network Earnings: The advertiser’s network earnings rating shows how the advertiser rates with other advertisers in the network based on the volume of commissions paid. Advertisers are ranked in an “apples to apples” comparison with all advertisers by taking each advertiser’s total commissions (regardless of currency), and then converting that total (if necessary) to US dollars. After each advertiser’s commission total amount has made this conversion to a common currency (USD), the rating is established. The advertiser’s EPC is then converted back to your functional currency (provided it differs from USD).

In essence, you can say that CJ’s network earnings ranking is sort of similar to gravity numbers provided to you by Clickbank (though there are some major differences). Now here is the thing. But these numbers have proven to be not effective when it comes to choosing the right affiliate program. You can log on to CJ and find the program with the highest rating and highest 3-month or 7-day EPC. That doesn’t mean you are going to make a ton of cash.

Using a bar instead of real number for network earnings simply makes the result look less accurate. In addition, unless CJ is comparing affiliate programs “apples to apples” in niches, you are not going to get real useful information from this information. The EPC numbers are also averages really. If you have a master affiliate who’s bringing 2000 sales a month for a program, then average EPC could be overstated.

The data provided by Commission Junction can be used to spot trends, but you shouldn’t make a judgement on affiliate programs by using these information only. At the end of the day, you should be always testing to increase your revenue. Your own data are the only numbers that matter at the end of the day.

Should You Deal Independent Affiliate Programs?

That’s the question many ask in forums about affiliate marketing. Obviously, the big boys of affiliate marketing are CJ, LinkShare, Google, and Shareasale. But many smaller companies have their own affiliate programs with their own interface and a dedicated affiliate management team. Does that mean that these guys are not worth working with?

Absolutely not! Based on my experience, some of these independent affiliate programs are way more successful than their counterparts on CJ and LinkShare. Being affiliated with a network does not necessarily make you a good or bad merchant. There are many useless merchants on CJ and LinkShare that do not really perform for affiliates. So at the end of the day, you should work with smaller affiliate networks and independent advertisers, if possible. I have had phenomenal success with affiliate programs such as Yugster. And they are not listed on CJ, LinkShare, or anywhere else for that matter.

Highly regulated industries will not have many independent advertisers as companies in these industries rather deal with a third-party to reduce legal risks. But if you are working in the Internet industry or a similary loose industry, you should absolutely consider working with independent affiliate programs. You’d be surprised how well some of these programs perform…

PayDotCom or ClickBank: My Favorite Affiliate Network

If you have promoted digital products before, you are probably familiar with both PayDotCom and ClickBank. Both of these networks are excellent in providing a selection of digital products that not only sell but also give out super high commissions. In fact, in the digital affiliate marketing world, 50% commission is very much the norm (unlike the low percentages that you get on CJ or LinkShare). But which one is better? PayDotCom or Clickbank?

Having worked with both ClickBank and PayDotcom, I’ve got to admit that the competition is really close. Both marketplaces strive to be the best in this market and both come with great products. The key for affiliates is to do their homework and choose products with a proven track record. You can use APS and Gravity numbers provided by these networks to figure out which products are selling and which ones are bombing. I personally go for products with gravity numbers over 80. These Clickbank products have a proven track record of high sales and their landing pages are, more often than not, optimized to deliver high conversion rates. The same concept applies on PayDotcom (with APS). 

The problem with high gravity, APS products is that there are too many affiliates promoting them, and the market may be saturated. But overall, these products are solid and if you do your homework, you can make decent bucks out of them. Both markets are great in providing high gravity products. However, I find ClickBank to offer more options to affiliates than PayDotCom. There are simply more products that are marketable on ClickBank, and most digital super-affiliates make it with Clickbank and not PayDotcom. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore PayDotCom or other digital marketplaces. But I highly recommend starting with ClickBank first.

So which marketplace is your favorite, and why? Is it because of higher conversion rates, or commissions? Please share your thoughts.

Is LinkShare Affiliate Network Overrated?

If you have been around the circles in the affiliate marketing community, you know by now that not many people make it in the affiliate marketing through CJ or LinkShare services only. The facts are that LinkShare and CJ have agreements with the top companies in the world across multiple verticals. So having access to big corporations such as American Express, Buy.com, and Yahoo! should be a big plus, right? Not necessarily. While these affiliate networks tell you about all these superstar companies that they have on board, the truth is that not many make money with CJ and LinkShare. Here is why:

• Competition: CJ and LinkShare are the first places that most affiliate marketers start. But you are most likely doomed in those market unless you have a very innovative service. But most newbie affiliates often stay for too long and have to cash out without making it in the affiliate marketing business.
• Flexibility: Bigger affiliate networks are less flexible in offering you customized solutions. And besides they are dealing with so many affiliates just like you with demands, so they can’t be everything to everyone. Smaller niche affiliate networks are surprisingly more flexible.
• Basics: making it in the affiliate marketing comes down to how you can work with merchants to optimize landing pages. Big companies are notoriously slow in changing things up so you often end up with landing pages that look cool but are not necessarily optimized for conversions.

Working with LinkShare and CJ is a good learning process. But with commission rates in 1-8% range then how many $10 can you make a day to make it in this business?