Archive for the ‘Strategies for Success’ Category

Written By: Justin Clark, AdChop.com

Would you like a simple technique to get better results as an online marketer? Outsource. If “outsourcing” sounds daunting, don’t worry – it can be simple and surprisingly inexpensive.

If you’ve been generating revenue online for a while, this likely isn’t the first time you’ve heard that outsourcing can make your life easier and help you to boost your profits.  Rather than simply rehash what you may have heard before, I’m also going to try to give you a few specific tips that will help you outsource more effectively, whether or not you have any experience.

In A Nutshell:

First, a quick intro for the brand-newbies:  Do you have work to do that you don’t like doing, or that you don’t know how to do? You can probably solve that problem by outsourcing the work inexpensively through any one of a variety of outsourcing websites. The process generally goes something like this:

• You post a description of the work you need done on an outsourcing website (could be for a 5-minute task, a full-time job, or anything in between)
• Contractors from around the world apply to your job posting, and tell you how much money they’re willing to work for (if you live in a developed country, you’ll probably get bids from contractors in developing countries who are happy to work for far less than you’d have to pay someone from your own city)
• After a bit of interviewing and testing, you hire someone, manage them as they work, and spend most of your time on other more productive/enjoyable tasks than the one you’ve outsourced.
• When the job is done, or at certain milestones, you pay your contractor by sending a payment through the secure outsourcing site where you hired him or her.

Where To Outsource:

A few of the most popular outsourcing sites include: Elance.com, Scriptlance.com, VWorker.com, Freelancer.com, Guru.com, and oDesk.com.

They all have advantages & disadvantages, but my personal favorite is oDesk because of their time tracking feature (they record the screens of your contractors as they work) and their hiring process (they have detailed contractor profiles, and also publish the results of tests that contractor’s can take to demonstrate their skill level in various areas.)

What To Outsource

If you think you can’t afford it or that you have nothing to outsource, think again! Here are just a few of the tasks that I’ve outsourced, many for less than $2/hour:

• Designing mock-ups for a website
• Link-building for SEO
• Designing banner ads (728×90, 300×250, etc)
• Writing high quality articles
• Creating a custom WordPress plugin
• Building entire WordPress sites from scratch
• Building a custom PHP website
• Creating custom software to mass-analyze potential domain purchases
• Finding/creating 100s of images for split-testing in Facebook advertising
• On-page SEO
• Flash animation
• Analyzing various WordPress themes, and then advising me on which is best for my project
• Much more!

I’ve even hired people to teach me how to do things online – those job descriptions sounded something like: “I don’t know how to do XYZ with WordPress. I need someone to do XYZ to my website, and then teach me how you did it so that I can do it myself in the future.” Just think: Instead of spending 10 hours pulling your hair out trying to figure out the inner workings of WordPress (for example), you can hire someone for say $2 per hour who already knows how to do the job… and within 2 hours he/she will have the work done and will also have sent you a detailed explanation of how to do it yourself. Pretty sweet!

And I’ve even hired contractors for non-business tasks such as touching up an old black & white photo of my parents! If your own time is worth $20 per hour, it’s pointless to do any task that someone else will do for $1 per hour.

Tools

A couple of tools that come in quite handy when outsourcing are:

Skype – Faster communication than email! Great for interviewing job candidates as well as communicating with existing contractors. Skype also has a screen-sharing feature.

Jing - Free, super simple, and easy to use software that lets you create up to 5 minute screen capture videos. Great for giving instructions to contractors when you want to show them how to do something. A video is worth a thousand words

Time Doctor – If you’re using an outsourcing website that doesn’t have built-in time tracking to record your contractors’ screens so you can see what they’re doing, you might want to consider using a third party time tracking service like Time Doctor.

A Few Tips

Before you get started, here are a few outsourcing tips based on my own experience (some of these are specific to oDesk):

• When searching for contractors or posting a job, I recommend specifying that you prefer contractors from the Philippines because that’s where I’ve found my best contractors (on oDesk you can’t target “Philippines” specifically, but you can specify the more general “East Asia”). I’ve also had good luck with contractors in Bangladesh and Russia, although they can be a bit more expensive.
• Specify the upper limit for what you’re willing to pay (usually I set it to $3/hour, and often mention an even lower limit in the written description) – otherwise you’ll get people bidding too high which will raise the “average bid” and may encourage additional high bids. If you do get a bid that is too high, reject that contractor quickly so they no longer appear on the list for other contractors to see.
• Before hiring someone for a big job, hire a few people for a very small job first to test them out (oDesk makes this very easy to do). Hiring multiple contractors has the additional benefit of generating extra (hopefully positive) reviews for your profile!
• When you’re new to oDesk, don’t be afraid to “invite” many contractors to apply to your job instead of simply posting a job and waiting for applications. You can generate a lot more interest in your job that way.
• When a job is finished and your contractor did a good job, tell your contractor that you’re giving him/her a 5-star review (this will look good on their profile), AND ask them to also rate you 5-stars if they were happy working for you (this will look good on YOUR profile and will make it even easier to hire high quality contractors next time). Don’t be afraid to specifically ask them for “5 stars”.
• On oDesk, avoid hiring people if you’re going to pay them less than $1 for the entire job. If you hire someone for a job and pay them less than $1 in total, your oDesk profile will indicate that you didn’t hire anyone at all. So if you hire 20 people for a simple task and pay them each $0.50, your oDesk profile will indicate that you posted 20 jobs and didn’t hire anyone for the positions (even though you did). Potential contractors aren’t as likely to apply for jobs posted by employers who appear to hire no one for many of their jobs. If you need to hire a large number of people to each perform the same a simple task (like completing a 3 question survey), it’s best to use a crowdsourcing site like MTurk.com.

Still on the fence about outsourcing? Just do it! A small outsourcing test will barely make a dent in your wallet and will open your eyes to a world of possibilities. It costs nothing to post a job on most outsourcing sites, so get started today. As Timothy Ferris says: “It’s time to learn how to be the boss. It isn’t time consuming. It’s low-cost and low-risk. Whether or not you “need” someone at this point is immaterial. It is an exercise… It is important to take baby steps towards paying others to do work for you. Few do it, which is another reason so few people have their ideal lifestyles.”

What can YOU outsource to simplify your life and free your time so you can make more money?

About The Author

Justin Clark is an affiliate marketer who runs AdChop.com, a growing collection of internet marketing case studies. He outsourced much of the design & development of AdChop on oDesk.

 

Written and recorded by: Guest author, Steven Clayton

About the Author

Steven Clayton is the co-founder of Blueprint Information Products, LLC and has been making a living online for the past 8 years.  Check out the “Success Stories” in his forum for an idea of what he’s talking about in this video. Also, Steve’s company is running an awesome contest right now where you can get their premier research tool free AND have a chance at winning a LARGE cash prize. Check that out right here.

For most entrepreneurs, the start of a new year means new business goals, resolutions and achievements to look forward to in the months ahead. Over the past year I’ve been honored to have the opportunity to work with some of the best and brightest in the industry, and have boiled down what I’ve learned as a ClickBank Insider to this 7 step guide to things you can do in 2012 to help you achieve riches, rewards and world domination with your Internet marketing efforts in the new year.

1. Get Specific

Set realistic but specific goals. What do you want to achieve this year? For some it may be doubling your 2011 sales, and for others it may be breaking into a new niche. Whatever your goals are, make sure they’re specific and achievable. For example, if you’re just starting out, you may want to commit to making $200 a month as an affiliate promoting products in the Health and Fitness niche (and what better time to get started than new years resolution season?). This is a specific and achievable goal, and you’re less likely to get discouraged if you’re able to reach your goals along the way. It’s a good idea to write your ideas down and share them with others to help hold yourself accountable.

2. Be a Quitter

Unless you’re superhuman, there’s a limit to what you can do on your own. If you want to get serious about growing your business in 2012, you’ve got to identify the work you can quit doing. You might be the very best in the industry at website building, backlinking, graphic design and copywriting, but that doesn’t mean your time is best spent doing ALL of these things. What can be outsourced? Truth is, it’s probably a lot more than you think. Sometimes a good third party can get the job done, and free up your time for more important things like business strategy that will ultimately make your business more successful in the long run.

The new year is also a good time to take a long hard look at your business and identify something that isn’t working for you or producing desirable returns. Not all products are going to be super sellers and not all promotions are going to crush it. It may be helpful to use the 80/20 Rule as a guide. Chances are there’s something like 20% of your efforts that are producing 80% of your results. Take a look at that portion of your efforts that are not producing results, and vow to quit what isn’t working and refocus that energy toward something that is.

3. Make a Name for Yourself

Over the past couple of years I’ve been amazed at the number of Internet marketers content to work in the shadows making a living promoting in one trendy niche to another, without really taking the time to develop a long term lasting business. This kind of existence can be exhausting, and in a way that constant struggle defeats the purpose of what’s so attractive about Internet marketing in the first place – the lifestyle. Now I’m not saying forget the short term trendy businesses, ClickBank is in the business of long tail digital goods after all, but consider building something more sustainable. Develop your personal brand. For every person in the industry who has made a name for themselves there are thousands working in the shadows. Stand for something, become something, set yourself apart. Be the expert and the money will follow.

4. Forget Your Passion

I’ve met countless Internet marketers this year whose search for a passion to which they can dedicate their life’s work has literally paralyzed their productivity. In 2012 I say produce first, passion second. Pick something, do something, and learn from that. In this continually changing, constantly evolving industry, no one stays in the same niche forever, and it’s common for passions to evolve and businesses to evolve over time. Master something, then move on to the next thing. Just start, do, create, produce and learn. Don’t let your search for doing what you love and loving what you do result in doing nothing at all. You might just find your passion along the way.

5. Connect

Make a list of people you want to meet next year. Think of people you can learn from and who can directly or indirectly help your business and cultivate these relationships. Come up with a plan to connect with each and every person on your list. Industry events are a great way to meet people. Email, phone, social media, or even old fashioned letters work too. Before you ask for help, offer to help them first. Then offer again. And again. Studies of reciprocity in social psychology and human behavior tell us that people feel compelled to respond to positive action or favors, with favors in return. These days, joint venture relationships are closely correlated with the success of businesses. So do a lot of favors for a lot of people, form relationships and JVs, and know that it will come back to benefit you in the end.

6. Risk It

One of my favorite things about this industry is that the opportunities are endless. There so many different ways to promote and sell products and it seems like there are new tactics popping up every day. So next year, try something new, push your limits, don’t be afraid to fail. Even investing time in a new area of your existing business, say, split testing, can be a little scary. Because time is money, and we all want to be spending time on the things that generate the highest returns. Spending money can also be risky, but what better thing to invest in than yourself? In 2012, don’t be afraid to take more risks to reap more rewards.

7. Rekindle the Fire

Just like relationships benefit from newness and creativity to stay exciting, so can your business. You work hard all year and it’s easy to get caught in a rut, making it feel like Groundhog Day and putting you on the fast track to burn-out. Take a vacation, work from somewhere else, pick up a new hobby or read a fiction book. Do something out of the ordinary that can give you a fresh perspective on your business and on life. All of these are ways to enhance creativity and get you looking at your business in a new light. You’ll be glad you did.

Whether you aspire to world domination, niche domination, six figures a year or a hundred bucks a month, implementing just a few small changes in your business or approach to business could make make all of the difference for you next year. What do you want to achieve in 2012?

Written by: Guest Author, Danny Iny

Affiliate marketing is the ultimate level playing field.

Anyone can get started, and if they’re smart and hard-working, they can be making money in a matter of days.

All you’ve got to do is find a good offer, run some good ads, and watch the traffic convert into sales.

Right?

Well, maybe that used to be true, but it’s not anymore…

The Low Hanging Fruit Is Gone

It was definitely true in the early days of affiliate marketing, for several reasons; first of all, there was a lot less for sale in the online world, which meant that any affiliate marketer had a much larger share of voice just by virtue of being there.

The regulatory environment was also a lot more lenient, which means that it affiliate marketers had a lot more room to maneuver in selling their offers (it’s good that this has changed, otherwise the whole industry would have been in trouble!).

Most importantly, though, there was a lot of low-hanging fruit when it comes to advertising opportunities; keywords and phrases that had a lot of buying intent behind them, but that weren’t very competitive yet, and could be had for mere pennies per click.

And yes – when you can buy high-converting keywords for cheap, it’s hard not to make money.

But times have changed, and you can’t do that nearly as easily as you once could; most of the low hanging fruit has already been pulled off of the online tree, and the affiliate marketing game of finding the next hot opportunity has changed into a different game altogether…

It’s an Optimization Game

Now the game is about optimization – finding an offer that converts, and then optimizing every factor that you can control until you max out your deal value. Here are some of the factors that smart affiliate marketers will do split-testing on:

• Lead Sources – This is where the leads are coming from in the first place; you’ll find that your Google AdWords traffic converts differently from your SEO traffic, which converts differently from your Facebook ad traffic, and so forth. Not only that, but your cost per lead for each of those lead sources will be different. With enough testing, you can find the lowest cost per conversion.
• Ad Copy – The actual text of your ads will change both the cost of running the ad, the click-through rates on the ad, and the likelihood of the clicking-through traffic to actually buy whatever product you’re promoting.
• Landing Pages – The landing page is where the most testing is traditionally done. You can test everything, from your headline, to the page format, to the colors, to the trust seals, to your affiliate disclaimers, to when the buy buttons are presented on the screen – they can all make a difference to your conversion rate, and to your bottom line.
• Affiliate Offers – Finally, you can try swapping out the actual offer for something different. Maybe your leads are more interested in one brand of affiliate product than another, and maybe the second brand – even though the deal value is lower – will end up delivering more profits by virtue of a higher conversion rate.

When you’ve maximized your conversion rates and deal value, and minimized your cost per sale, you’ve got a smoothly humming affiliate marketing machine. And yes, doing that does take time, money, patience and skill – but once you’ve got it, boy is it a sweet deal!

That is, until Google stops liking you…

Until Google Stops Liking You

The trouble is that most of the major lead sources that most affiliate marketers rely on are owned by bodies like Google, Microsoft, or Facebook.

What does that mean for you?

You can work your way to the top of the affiliate marketing world through diligent split-testing, until you’ve got sales streaming through your marketing system at bullet-speed… until someone’s algorithm changes, and their engine stops liking you.

Then your affiliate business is dead in the water, and you’ve got to start from scratch if you’re lucky, and work your way off of Google’s blacklist if you aren’t.

So what’s an affiliate marketer to do?

The answer lies in the old adage that “the money is in the list,” but with a twist…

The Real Money is in the ENGAGED List

If you have a list of eager buyers, then you don’t have to worry about Google messing with your traffic sources – whatever happens, your followers will continue to follow, as long as you maintain the relationship, and keep on living up to your end of the bargain.

With a list of eager buyers, you don’t have to keep working off of one-off traffic, because you can sell more than one thing to the same person – and research shows that someone who has already bought something is eight times as likely to buy from you again!

You probably agree that a list of eager buyers is a good thing to have… but where can you get such a list?

The answer is that you’ve got to build that list yourself – and for that list to be as eager to buy as you want them to be, they need to be engaged. In other words, you need more than a list – you need an engaged community.

You need an audience.

How to Build an Engaged Audience, from Scratch

Building an engaged audience from scratch is part science, and part art. You don’t have to learn it all through trial and error, because others have already done that, and you can learn from their mistakes, and from their successes.

To get you started, here are three things that you can do to convert your one-off affiliate traffic into a loyal list that will stick with you for the long-haul:

1. Start blogging and showing your true nature. The days of the anonymous affiliate marketer hiding behind a copied landing page are over; too many people have been burned by false claims, and for your prospects to trust your recommendation, they will have to know who you are. So tell them – start blogging, and give them a reason to keep coming back, so that even if they aren’t ready to buy now, they can start following you, and buy from you in the future.
2. Create a value-adding auto-responder sequence. People are justifiably careful about who they let into their inbox – so don’t just offer some PLR e-book and start marketing to them non-stop. Instead, give them something that they will get real value out of, and that will demonstrate to them just how trustworthy and credible you are (like we do with our free video course about how to Get More Cash Out of Any Business, Website or Blog).
3. Offer an incentive to buy through your link. Instead of just recommending your affiliate offer, why not give people an incentive to buy through your link? This is great for improving conversions, but the best part is that it gives you a good reason to keep on interacting with your prospects after they have made the purchase – which means that you retain control of the customer relationship, and you will have the opportunity to sell to them again in the future.

Of course, this is just the start, but if you start with this, you’re already three steps ahead of most affiliate marketers, and that much closer to the pot of gold at the finish line.

And if you need a little more help…

Yours Free: Engagement from Scratch!

All of these ideas are expanded with pages upon pages of details and ideas, which I compiled into my new book called Engagement from Scratch! How Super-Community Builders Create a Loyal Audience and How You Can Do the Same!

Today, the book is launching, and I’m very excited to be able to share it with you – for free!

Yep, that’s right – the book is free. You can download the entire book without paying a cent. Just visit the book’s website, click on the download link, and tell me what email address to send it to, and moments later you’ll the full-length PDF waiting for you in your inbox.

Prefer a hard copy? Spend a few extra bucks and get the paperback version so that you can read on the couch or in bed, and write notes in the margins.

About the Author

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, expert marketer, and the Freddy Krueger of Blogging. Together with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark and Mitch Joel, he wrote the book on how to build an engaged audience from scratch.

 

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Client Knowledge Guru

At ClickBank Exchange 2011, Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz wowed the crowd with his presentation on how SEO opportunities have evolved over the years, and what you need to do now to rank highly in the search engines. His presentation was so popular that we asked him to join ClickBank team members Beau Blackwell and Molly Lane to give his presentation again, with a few extra updates to talk about the latest changes.

If SEO is important to your Internet marketing efforts (which it should be!) you don’t want to miss out on the amazing tips and techniques Rand shares in this video. He shows how there’s much more to SEO these days than just plain site listings, and how you can use the latest advances in new listing types to get more traffic to your sites, increase your credibility, and much more. Check out the video now:

Download the slides from Rand’s presentation here!

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Client Knowledge Guru

We’re back with a new episode of Affiliate Marketing Today, and this week we talk about one of the most important aspects of affiliate marketing: list building. Whether you’re an affiliate or vendor, building and cultivating a list of interested prospects and buyers is the #1 step you can take to make your business successful.

To cover such an important topic, Molly and I invited Itay Paz, an Internet marketing superstar who has built lists in a huge variety of niches and uses them to bring in profits month after month. Itay shares some great insights into how to get site visitors onto your lists, how to keep them there, and how to get the most profit out of your lists. He also tells us about a revolutionary new tool he’s built called One Click Optin to get people on your list quickly and easily.

If you’ve been struggling to build a list in your niche, or still don’t understand exactly why it’s so critical, be sure to check out this episode!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN NOW!

Written by: Guest Author, Marie Forleo

Do you ever feel like you kinda suck at your business?

Despite the amount of money you make, or the amount of time you’ve been in the game, I think it’s fair to say that we all feel like failures, from time to time.

At a recent conference, I had the pleasure of hearing Russell Simmons, Ted Turner and Bill Clinton speak about business and life, and was intrigued by what I heard.

My favorite line from Russell was (I’m paraphrasing), “Many of my biggest business endeavors were failures before they became a success.  Some failed for as long as six years before they hit.  Everyone around me thought I was crazy.  You just have to stay at it.”

Interesting, right?  Loads of business “failures” coming from an entrepreneur with a multi-passionate net worth of an estimated $340 million.

At that same conference, I also had the pleasure of some ridiculously good close up magic from the incomparable David Blaine. I didn’t know that much about him before meeting him, but let me tell you, this guy’s talent is off the chain.

While I was holding playing cards in my hands he managed to make them jump, tear, flip and completely transform.   Talk about jaw-dropping. After hanging out with him, I became mildly obsessed and went online to watch everything I could about his other high-profile feats.

Turns out, David gave an amazing TED talk about his many attempts to break the world’s record for holding his breath underwater.

He pulled some pretty crazy and outrageous stunts to get there.  And, a lot of his failed attempts were very public.  Like to the tune of millions and millions of people around the world watching him fail to before he finally succeeded with a mind-blowing time of 17 minutes and 4.4 seconds.

Despite all the public disappointment, criticism and embarrassment, Blaine stuck to it.  He kept changing his strategy and eventually, achieved his goal.  He continues to be one of the most legendary illusionists and endurance artists of our time.

Then there’s my friend and fellow marketer, Frank Kern.

Turns out Frank, too, had some pretty seismic stumbles in business (he got sued by the Feds and was nearly bankrupt) before becoming one of the most highly respected, highest paid and most sought after online marketing consultants in our industry.

Side note: one of my favorite nuggets from a recent seminar was Frank’s response to a question on how to write a sales letter:  “You sit down and f*#cing do it.”  Gotta love that kind of simplicity.

So what’s the point here?

Anyone who accomplishes great things in business and life is bound to “fail” along the way.

Feeling like a failure is a natural part of becoming a success. It’s actually a good thing and means you’re taking action and putting yourself out there.  Which is way more than most critics and naysayers have the cajones to do.

I’ll be the first to admit I feel like a failure.  Often.  I’ve burned through a lot of cash, time and energy hiring programmers, virtual assistants and designers for projects that never saw the light of day.  Of course, I learned something from each experience, but at the same time, they could accurately be considered “failures” too.

Here’s the bottom line.

Feeling like a failure is normal.  It simply means you’re human like the rest of us.  The good new is that you’re actually in the game rather than sitting on the sidelines.

Legendary success in any field requires a ton of stick-to-it-ness.

When you know you’re meant to birth an idea into existence, take it from Russell, David, Frank and yours truly:  feeling like a failure often means you’re moments away from your biggest success.

About the Author

Marie Forleo is a marketing and lifestyle expert who teaches entrepreneurs to live Rich, Happy & Hot.  If you enjoyed this article, join more than 40,000 others who get her weekly business training videos at www.marieforleo.com (It’s Free!).

Written by: Guest Author, Danny Iny

Are you an affiliate marketer? Do you want to make more money?

Yes and yes, right?

You’ve probably tried every trick in the book, right?

Google image ads, Twitter traffic, cheap Facebook ads… every possible way of getting cheap clicks to your landing page has probably caught your eye at some point or another.

Most of these tricks don’t really work, and if they do, it isn’t for long.

The real secret to making big money as an affiliate is split-testing.

And as an affiliate marketer, it’s actually easier for you than it is for a lot of other people…

Affiliate Marketers Have So Much Less to Worry About!

Affiliate marketers are already several steps ahead of the online marketing curve.

That’s because, as an affiliate marketer, you aren’t responsible for the entire chain of conversion.
All you have to do is find qualified leads, warm them up, and send them to the vendor’s landing page – the vendor will do the rest.

Not that all of that stuff is easy… that’s why some people are super-affiliates, and some people don’t make a dime.
But still, it’s the vendor who has to create an awesome product, and to tweak their landing page and funnel until it is a high-performing conversion machine. Which means that you don’t have to worry about turning prospects into customers, or keeping them as repeat customers – that’s the vendor’s job.

Which is why things are easier for affiliate marketers – they don’t have to split-test their product ideas, and they don’t have to optimize the back-end of the funnel.

But despite all that, in some ways, split testing is actually harder for affiliate marketers than it is for other people…

Affiliate Marketers Have Much Less Control

Split testing is harder for affiliate marketers because there’s less that you can split test; here’s a short list of the things that you don’t control:
• The product
• The checkout process
• The back-end funnel
• The messaging
• The imagery
• And the list goes on…

So in other words, if the offer isn’t fundamentally capable of selling itself, there isn’t all that much you can do about it.

Which is why affiliates look for tried and tested offers, with solid and proven EPC (earnings per click) rates. The trouble is that every other affiliate marketer is doing the exact same thing!

And if every other affiliate marketer is doing the exact same thing…

There’s Dramatically More Competition!

Yup, competition is a lot tougher for affiliate marketers.

Whereas people who sell their own stuff have to compete with other products and offers (which is hard enough!), affiliate marketers also have to compete with lots of other people who:
• Target the same lead sources,
• Run similar ads,
• Refer to the same swipe material, and
• Sell the exact same thing!

Yikes – what can you do to stand out?

That’s where split-testing comes in. In order to excel as an affiliate marketer, you need to constantly be split-testing the things that you do control, namely:
• Your lead sources
• Your ads
• Your landing pages
• Your incentives

Let’s go through these all one-by-one, and explore what to test, and how to do it. But first…

How do you do split testing, anyway?

Just to get us all on the same page, let’s quickly review.

Split testing (or A/B testing) is about testing two different variations of something, to see which does a better job of getting your audience to do what you want them to do. Common examples of things that you can split test include headline variations, button text and colors, and product pictures.

At a high level, that’s all there is to it.

Now, when it comes to running the actual tests, you need two things:
1. Some sort of technology to randomly serve the different variations to visitors.
2. Some way of analyzing the results to know when they’re statistically significant (in other words, to make sure that the results you’re seeing are caused by whatever you’re testing, rather than just being a random coincidence).

This may sound a bit complicated, but you really don’t need to worry about it; there are great tools that will do it all for you, like Google Website Optimizer (free), or Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer (paid, but are worth it).

And as for doing the analysis, there are lots of great free split test checkers out there that can do it for you.

Okay, are we up to speed?

Good – now let’s get into the meat of what you, as an affiliate marketer, can be testing…

Split Testing Your Lead Sources

The first thing that you can (and should) split test is your lead sources – in other words, where are you getting your traffic and prospects from.

Too many affiliates are one-trick ponies in this regard – they have their favorite traffic strategy (often the only one that they’ve been able to get decent results from), and they stick to it like glue.

Well, there are a lot of traffic sources out there, for example:
• Google AdWords
• MSN/Bing/Yahoo!
• Facebook
• Twitter lists
• CPV ad networks
• Email blasts to your list
• Email blasts to rented lists
• JVs with related products
• And the list goes on… and on… and on!

Different lead sources will work differently for different offers, so test them to see what works best. Also, when testing, make sure that you aren’t comparing absolute conversion numbers, but rather conversion relative to the cost of the traffic!

Split Testing Your Ads

The second thing that you should split test is the ad or call to action that you are presenting to your leads. Here are some things that you can test:
• The headline of the ad. Try featuring different pain points or benefits, to see what works best.
• The body of the ad. It may be short (like on AdWords) or longer, but either way, you’re communicating what you’re offering, and why it’s valuable. Change that up to see what makes a difference.
• The call to action. Experiment with more and less explicit calls to action (“click here” vs. “learn more”, for example), and experiment with a focus on action versus results (“buy now” vs. “get instant access”).
Just one thing – when you’re testing different ads, make sure you’re tracking the right thing, and that is sales (not click-throughs)!

It’s not hard to write an ad that will get lots of people to click, but what you want to do is write an ad that will get few people to click, many of whom will then buy. Consider adding barriers to interest (like a listed price) on the ad, to deter people who aren’t likely to make a purchase.

Split Testing Your Landing Pages

Yup, direct-linking to an affiliate offer is a sucker’s bet, because you’re giving up way too much control over the sales process.

Which is why your landing page is where most of your split testing is going to happen – and so it should be! Your landing page, realistically speaking, is what will make the most difference to your bottom line.

Here are some of the most important things that you should test on your landing page:
• Your headline. Yes, you’ve heard this before, but it’s true – the headline determines how many of the people visiting your page actually read the first paragraph, as opposed to clicking away. So test, and test, and test, until you get it right.
• Your page format. In other words, short vs. long copy, and text vs. video.
• Delayed button introduction. You’ve probably seen this – a button that only appears after a video has been running for a certain amount of time. Test it out – it might work for you.
• Your colors. Different colors prompt different behaviors (this is called color psychology), and you should test different combinations to see what works best for your offer and audience.
• Your button placements and text. This can make a huge difference on click-throughs and purchases, so test, test, and test!
• Your trust seals. These are the seals from Trust-E, Verisign, the Better Business Bureau, and other organizations, that let the reader know that they can trust you and the merchant that you are representing.
• Your affiliate disclaimer. This is one that many people overlook, but it can make a big difference. Sometimes you’ll get better results with the small print in the footer-style, but sometimes you’re better off working it into your text (“Hell yeah, I’m an affiliate – I’m proud to stand with this offer!”).

This can take a lot of time to do properly, but believe me, the results are worth it!

Split Testing Your Incentives

The last thing that you should be split testing is something that many affiliates overlook altogether, and that is your incentive offer.

An incentive is something that you offer so that people buy through your affiliate link, as opposed to going directly to the merchant, or going through somebody else’s link. This is particularly valuable during a launch, when your prospects are likely to be hearing about the offer from a lot of other people.

Here are some of the things that you could consider offering as an incentive to people who buy through your link:
• Free or discounted access to one of your products
• Some free consulting time with you
• Access to an exclusive webinar that you will put on
• A portion of your affiliate commission, thereby reducing the effective price of the offer
• There are many other ideas… use your imagination!

The importance of an incentive can’t be over-stated – especially in an affiliate-saturated market, it can make all the difference.

Now, after reading this post, you should be ready to go out and split test to your heart’s content. But before you do that, I have two warnings to leave you with…

Warning #1: Testing Shouldn’t Be Random…

Some people think of split testing as being akin to panning for gold – you grab a big chunk of dirt, and hope there’s something valuable in there.

So they test every random thing without any rhyme or reason, until they arrive at a combination better than what they’re already running.

This might work if you’ve got the traffic of a Google or Yahoo!, but I’m assuming that you don’t (and even if you did, it isn’t the smartest way to do things).

Your split testing should be planned and intentional; think about what is likely to have the most impact on your audience, and there for yield the best results.

If you’re not sure where to start, then use a framework to track your audience through the conversion process, to see where you need to start first – or ask someone you trust to weigh in and give you some advice.

Warning #2: Only Test ONE Thing at a Time!

After reading a post like this one, you might feel the urge to make a long list of things you want to test, and then create a new campaign implementing all of those tests.

Resist that urge!

The key to split testing is to isolate variables – in other words, you want to test one thing at a time, so that you know what is responsible for any changes that you observe.

Order your list by priority of what you think will make the most difference, and then test one thing at a time, until you are confident that the results are statistically significant (as described above – you can use free split test checkers to make sure that this has been accomplished).

So plan out your tests. Rank them by priority.

And start testing!

About the Author

Danny Iny is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, and proud co-founder of Firepole Marketing, the training program that turns non-marketers into expert marketers. Visit his site today to download a free split test checker, or follow him on Twitter @DannyIny.

Written By: Guest Author, Miles Baker

When I first signed up with ClickBank back in 1999 I had no idea I would eventually build a successful online business using its services. I’m sure the founders of ClickBank didn’t realize how large and successful its business platform would become either. Thanks to ClickBank I was able to quit my job over a decade ago and have since worked from home part-time while making more than a typical full-time income. Looking at my experiences over the past 12 years it’s amazing how much I’ve learned and how much has changed. It’s given me some interesting insights and definitely a unique perspective.

I’d like to share with you 12 insights I’ve gained over the past 12 years. Things I wish I had known in the beginning but took time and experience to learn. Leverage my experience and use these insights to guide you as you build your own online business over the next 12 years and beyond!

Perseverance – Overall this has been the most important factor in my online success. If you’re going to succeed online, especially in the long-term, you have to stick with it. You have to try out new things, test out different methods and never give up. I’ve seen too many people give up and quit too soon. When I started out I was determined to make it, nothing was going to stop me from making an income online, and eventually I did. Even to this day I have to continually overcome obstacles, but that’s how you have to view them, and that’s all they are. I like to think of it as climbing a mountain; if you want to get to the top you have to crawl over rocks, take detours, and sometimes head back down the mountain and take another path up. If you want long-term success there’s just no way around it, you must have perseverance.

Think Big – A lot of people online talk about niches and seeking out small, unexploited niches. However, I’ve seen many people go into niches that are too small to replace a full-time income. Although people can and have done well with small niches. In my experience I’ve always been more successful with larger niches. I’ve always had better success when my product, service, or website has appealed to a very large audience.

Always Keep Learning – After you achieve some success online you begin to feel like you know it all. It’s an easy trap to fall into. However, if you can humble yourself and take the attitude that you should always be seeking out new information from others (even if they’re younger or less experienced than you) you’ll continually find yourself learning new things you didn’t know.

Bi-Winning – Why be an affiliate or vendor when you can be both? Like most people, I started out on ClickBank as an affiliate. Eventually I became a vendor too. I learned very quickly that not only do you diversify and stabilize your income by being both an affiliate and vendor, but you can make more money too. Being both an affiliate and vendor allows you to cross promote. You can promote your own products through your affiliate channels and you can promote affiliate products on the back-end of your own products. It also gives you the ability to make money off your competitors! For instance,  whenever I get a refund on one of my products, I email that customer with a list of competitor products.  And yes, they are all affiliate links.

Opportunity for Income– Every page of content, every affiliate link and every ad is an opportunity for income. The more opportunities for income you have, the more money you’ll make. This doesn’t mean you should fill up your blog with as many affiliate links and ads as you can, it means you should create more blogs, more products, more services and more content, etc. Most of these methods are low maintenance once they’re set up, so you should strive to create as many opportunities for income as you can.

Fill in the Gaps – As you create more opportunities for income, you should also be filling in all the gaps for income in your current sales process. If you have a product you should be offering up-sells, setting up cross-sells with other vendors, and offering additional items for sale on your thank-you page. If you’re an affiliate you should be following up with customers that purchase through your site, using auto-responders to follow up with prospects, and up-selling wherever you have the opportunity. Filling in all the gaps was something I neglected for years but once I started doing it my income increased immediately.

Don’t Take it Personally – Early in my Internet marketing career I was very defensive. I would get into long email battles with people I didn’t even know! Looking back it was such a waste of time and my productivity suffered. What I’ve learned is that no matter how good of a job you do, no matter how much you try to help someone, there will always be negative people out there that will tear you down, criticize you, and try to sabotage your success. It’s not worth your time wasting it on these types of people. Whether someone leaves a nasty comment on your blog, sends you an email rant, or makes rude comments in a forum, just ignore them. Sometimes people are looking for a fight, do yourself a favor by not giving them what they want and don’t take it personally.

Let Others Do the Work– Your only limited resource in your online business is time. The only way to have more time is to do less of something else. There’s no other way. Delegating work through outsourcing or hiring employees will be the only way to eventually grow your business. Start outsourcing anything you can have others do, such as graphic design, blog installation, programming, etc. Outsourcing is cheap, effective, and leverages your time so you can do other things. It may be a struggle for you to delegate work you know you can do best, but it’s something you’ll need to overcome if you want to take your business to its highest potential.

Ditch Your Inner Introvert– Working at home on the computer all day can definitely make you an introvert. One huge mistake I made for years was not reaching out and meeting other Internet marketers. Once I started getting out of my office and going to conferences and events everything changed. I made connections with like-minded marketers, learned more than I had in years, and made fantastic friends as well. Internet marketing is a people business and people are your most valuable resource. Get out from behind the PC and get social, you never know what connections you will make and how it may improve your business and life as well.

Automate – When I first started marketing online I used to email all my customers their download information manually. Yes, each time I made a sale I rushed to send an email to them with their download link as fast as I could. Eventually I discovered automated ways of doing this as well as many other tasks that saved me countless hours. The great power of the Internet lies in being able to let technology do the work for you. Many things can be done automatically, such as backing up your websites, customer follow-up, posting content to you website, and so much more. Whenever you find yourself doing any kind of repetitive task look to see if it can be automated in some way. Chances are it can.

Test For Success – I never ran an official split-test for probably the first 7 or 8 years I was marketing online. Mostly because it wasn’t easy to setup like it is now, but also because I was just lazy. After running numerous split-tests over the last 5 years, I’ve realized I must have left loads of money on the table by not split-testing. Split-testing gives you instant results to improve your website and it will provide you with definitive answers as to which versions to keep and which to get rid of. Just about every successful marketer I know split-tests and it’s available to anyone for free using Google Website Optimizer.

It’s No Secret – When I first started out with ClickBank I was convinced I had to either have some original amazing idea or know some secret marketing technique or loophole to make a lot of money. Eventually I realized none of that was true. You don’t have to promote the perfect ClickBank product, you don’t have to know special affiliate secrets and you don’t need a huge marketing budget to be successful. One thing I’ve seen over and over again is that taking consistent action leads to results and over time leads to success. There’s really no secret. I think Lyle Lovett says it best… “It’s funny, but the biggest secret to success is that those at the top just seem to work the hardest. The reason it’s a secret is because nobody wants to believe it.”

About the Author

Miles Baker has been marketing online since 1997 and has been a ClickBank client for over 12 years. He currently resides in Fort Collins, CO where he runs ClickScoop.com, an up and coming community for ClickBank Vendors and Affiliates.

 

 

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Client Knowledge Guru

What if I told you that, as a ClickBank insider, I knew of a huge shortcut to Internet marketing success? Something that allows you to quickly overcome a lot of the roadblocks to success that many Internet marketers (especially new people, but even some veterans) face in building their businesses? Is that something you’d consider investing in?

What I’m talking about isn’t a new piece of affiliate software, a training course, or even a new traffic technique used only by Internet marketing “ninjas.” Nope, it’s much simpler (and a lot more fun) than any of those.

OK, I won’t leave you hanging any longer. The biggest “shortcut” to IM success that I’ve found in years of working at ClickBank is: attending industry conferences.

There are quite a few reasons why conferences are such a great place to jump-start your marketing business or reach the next level of success, but I’ll share a few of my favorites here:

Connections

One of the toughest parts of being in the Internet marketing industry is trying to meet the “right” people who can help you grow and succeed. With the anonymity of the Internet, and how bombarded everyone is by email, IMs, and more, it can be incredibly tough to get through to people and get them to help you. At face to face events like conferences, though, I’ve found that it’s much, much easier to meet even big names in the IM industry and become friends with them. I’ve met and become friends with some huge names in our industry over the years, and almost every one of these relationships has started at a conference.

Besides having access to people you can’t normally reach, there’s a level of trust that only comes from meeting people face to face and showing them that you’re a person they want to work with. Trust is really hard to achieve with an anonymous communication method like email, but a 5 minute conversation at a conference can overcome that barrier and get people to trust and like you, and be willing to share valuable tips or otherwise help you out. This alone can make a huge difference to your marketing success!

Knowledge

Another great thing about industry conferences is that they typically attract some great speakers- people who are already successful in Internet marketing and are willing to share some of their secrets. One of the things I love about attending conferences is that you end up hearing the same kinds of great tips and techniques you would normally have to get by buying IM products, but one conference ticket can get you the same amount of information as 10 high-priced programs!

The information shared in these sessions is usually the most cutting-edge stuff, since speakers like to share the latest techniques they’ve just learned and are secretly competing with the other speakers to be the most interesting and impressive. At a show I attended last year, Ryan Deiss’ Traffic and Conversion Summit, I learned about all kinds of cool tips and tricks I’d never heard of before despite being an Internet marketing veteran and ClickBank insider. Investing in an industry conference can be one of the best ways to make sure you’re up on the latest techniques and staying ahead of the competition. You can use this advantage to really boost your Internet marketing earnings.

Accountability

As I’ve said in an earlier blog post, two of the biggest keys to Internet marketing success are dedication and perseverance. Since Internet marketing is usually a business where you’re working alone, it’s easy to get distracted or discouraged and give up before you’ve hit the big time.

One proven way to counteract that is to be accountable to other people. If you tell other people what you’re working on, you’re a lot more likely to stick with it even when the going is tough.

With that in mind, one powerful byproduct of conferences is that friendships and Mastermind-style groups tend to form during and after the show. Being in one of these groups can help provide that accountability, as well as introducing you to kindred spirits you can get help from or ask questions of when you can’t figure something out for yourself. A show I attended recently has a lively “alumni” group that formed after the event, where people have supported each other’s projects and offered a ton of helpful free advice that would have otherwise been much more difficult or expensive to get. That’s just another example of how the initial investment in the show can keep paying dividends long after it’s over.

So Now What?

Hopefully by now you recognize what a HUGE shortcut to success conferences can be! If you’re ready to make an investment in your Internet marketing success, you’re in luck. Coming up on August 19-20 (just a few short weeks away), ClickBank is hosting our first-ever industry conference called the ClickBank Exchange.

We’ve lined up one of the most impressive lists of speakers ever seen at an industry conference, including social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk, direct response marketing geniuses like Joe Polish and Joe Sugarman, Internet marketing superstars like Yanik Silver, Russell Brunson, Marc Ostrofsky, and Ryan Lee, and top-selling ClickBank clients like Jeff Siegel, Chris Farrell, Jon Benson, and over a dozen more!

No matter what aspect of your business you want to grow like never before, the Exchange is the place to do it. Remember the connections I mentioned earlier? The people you’ll meet at the Exchange will be some of the highest-caliber Internet marketers on the planet, and will give you insider access to marketing secrets and shortcuts that you really cannot get anywhere else.

To get on the fast track to success through industry conferences, you NEED to sign up for the ClickBank Exchange today! It’s less than 3 weeks away, and won’t come around again for another year, so do not miss out! I’ll be there, of course, and I hope to see you there too.

BONUS: Want to save $100 on your ticket? Just enter the coupon code shortcut at the first step of the registration!