Written by: Charles Kirkland, Guest Blogger

This is Part 1 of a three-part series.

With numerous opportunities to make money online available worldwide, one of the most popular methods these days is affiliate marketing. There are several approaches to affiliate marketing, but most marketers agree that the fastest way to start making money immediately is through Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing. Unfortunately, this is also one of the fastest ways to lose a lot of money if you do not plan properly.

In this guide, we will take a look at three critical factors that every affiliate marketer must be aware of in order to successfully turn a profit using PPC marketing without the risk of losing a large amount of money.

Factor 1 – Discovering a Profitable Offer

Generating an exceptional profit using ClickBank is still highly possible at the moment. Having said that, there is such a large variety of products and niches that it might be tough to choose the most effective income generating products on ClickBank to advertise. So what’s the easiest way to determine which products are ideal to promote so that you can make the most money without having to waste your time.

Let’s take a look at a handful of tips that when followed should put you on the right track to uncovering some of the most successful ClickBank products.

1. Pay attention to exactly how well other affiliate marketers are doing in promoting the product

It’s possible to understand a great deal about whether or not a product is profitable by looking at the sales statistics of others. A product is without doubt selling very well if there are a high number of affiliates advertising it. ClickBank has a sales statistic known as gravity, which is a number that represents the percentage of online marketers successfully promoting a specific product.

You shouldn’t make a judgment based solely on gravity, but it is useful data that ClickBank provides and can be an excellent tool in selecting a income generating product to advertise. Choosing virtually any product with gravity between 10 and 100 is usually a great start.  If the gravity is less than 10, odds are it isn’t selling very well. Likewise, if the gravity is more than 100 it may be an indication that the marketplace is saturated, although that is not always the case.

2. Monitor products that are rising in popularity

To discover successful products, it is helpful to pick one with statistics that are climbing. Restrict your choice of products to roughly 10 and track them for at least a week or two. Should you note that other affiliates are choosing one product a lot quicker than the others, then that could be a successful affiliate product.

3. Estimate the return rate

One crucial factor you should consider when choosing the top ClickBank products is the return percentage rate. When return rates are high, then a product sales rate is not indicative of your potential success with a product since you will likely end up returning your earnings in the future. Virtually any product with return rates higher than 15% probably should not be considered, irrespective of sales rates.

The only way to truly gauge return rates is to promote a product for a while and keep a close eye on the return rate. However, if you want to get a rough estimate of the potential return rate before you start promoting a product, you can do Google searches for these kinds of phrases:

“What is your opinion about PRODUCT TITLE?”

“Did you like PRODUCT TITLE?”

“Did anybody buy PRODUCT TITLE?”

The results for these searches will often give you a good overview of the quality of the product and what the general customer opinion of it may be.

4. Examine the size of the market

After you have narrowed down the products a bit more by crossing out products with high return rates, you should then check out the market size. For example, suppose you have found four different niches. Use the Google keyword tool and research the variety of keywords for each niche and determine the search volume. Google Trends is also a useful tool for analyzing the developments of a niche immediately and over time. The best scenario is to find a product with few competitors and high demand from customers.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for Part 2, where we’ll discuss how to build a great landing page where you can send your PPC advertising traffic.

About the Author

You can read about Charles Kirkland and his adventures and misadventures in affiliate marketing at his blog. He also provides free affiliate training and videos for marketers at any level there as well.

About Beau Blackwell

Beau is the Client Knowledge Guru for ClickBank and covers the latest trends, tips and techniques for building profitable Internet marketing businesses.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. Sort Your Way to Success
2. The Low-Cost Guide to Getting Started in PPC Marketing: Part 2
3. The Low-Cost Guide to Getting Started in PPC Marketing: Part 3
4. The Ultimate Affiliate Marketing Split-Testing Guide
5. Affiliate Marketing Today Podcast: SEO for Affiliates with Matt Carter

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