Posts Tagged ‘affiliate’

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 by: Miles Baker, ClickScoop

ClickBank has several powerful features that affiliates and vendors can take advantage of in order to increase their profits. Recently, ClickBank has upgraded and added many new features that have a proven capacity to increase your sales. Below you will find 5 of these ClickBank features that are my favorites. Some of these features are new, and some have been around awhile, though all of them have the potential to rock your profits!

Feature #1: TID & VTID Tracking

Who TID & VTID Tracking is for: Affiliates and Vendors

How TID & VTID Tracking Works:

A TID is a ClickBank tracking I.D. It’s a string of letters and/or numbers up to 24 characters in length appended to the end of a ClickBank HopLink. Using a TID allows you to track your hoplinks based on the TID associated with it. There is no limit to the amount of TIDs you can use. ClickBank TID’s are also available for Vendors to use as well, the difference is the variable “VTID” instead of “TID” and that the Vendor TID is appended to the paylink instead of the HopLink.

How TIDs Make You More Money:

Using TID’s provides you with the information you need in order to determine where you should be focusing your efforts.

Tracking your sales with TID’s allows you to pinpoint exactly where sales are coming from. For example, if you want to track links from Twitter you could append the TID of “twitter” to your HopLink. Inside your ClickBank reporting you will see all the statistics associated with that TID for clicks, sales, refunds, etc.

One of my favorite uses is to use TID’s to track what specific pages on a website the sales are coming from. This allows me to focus my efforts on my most profitable pages in order to get higher rankings in the search engines.

Where to get more info:
http://www.clickbank.com/help/affiliate-help/affiliate-basics/all-about-hoplinks/#TID
http://www.clickbank.com/help/vendor-help/vendor-basics/creating-a-payment-link/

Feature #2: PitchPlus (formerly known as One-Click Upsell)

Who PitchPlus is for: Vendors (but affiliates can benefit too!)

How PitchPlus Works:

PitchPlus allows vendors to add additional products to sell to their customers after the initial purchase.  Once a customer enters their payment information and confirms their purchase they are presented with an upsell page.  With a single click the customer can purchase the additional product without entering their credit card details again.

As a vendor you create the products to sell as your upsells. The PitchPlus Advanced feature offers the ability to present up to three consecutive upsell offers as well as downsells. In a downsell scenario, if a customer decides to decline the upsell offer they could be presented with another product or the same product at a lower price.

How PitchPlus Makes You More Money:

Adding upsells to your products increases your overall earnings per customer for both vendors and affiliates. Since the customer is not required to re-enter their credit card information, the one-click upsell can convert extremely well assuming you have related and appealing offers.

Personally I’ve found PitchPlus to be one of the easiest and most effective ways at increasing income as a vendor.

Where to get more info:
http://www.clickbank.com/help/vendor-help/vendor-tools/one-click-upsell/
http://www.clickbank.com/help/vendor-help/vendor-tools/pitchplus/

Feature #3: Joint Venture

Who Joint Venture is for: Vendors & Affiliates

How Joint Venture Works:

ClickBank Joint Venture is a newer and extremely versatile feature.  This allows vendors to split their earnings with partners, promote other vendor products as upsells, and even allow vendors to offer 2^nd tier affiliate commissions.

The Joint Venture feature also works for affiliates.  Affiliates can partner together and split profits from their affiliate sales.

The Joint Venture feature allows you to set up contracts within your ClickBank account.  In the contract you can specify a range of details such as how commissions are divided, start and end dates for the contract, and much more.

How Joint Venture Makes You More Money:

Partnerships are extremely profitable because you leverage one anothers’ strengths. The Joint Venture feature makes collaborating and partnering with people much easier. With the Joint Venture feature the trust factor is increased because one partner is not relying on the other partner to pay them; ClickBank is dividing up and making the payments. Additionally Joint Venture is accurate, easy, and hassle free to split up payments between partners.

There’s really an unlimited variety of ways you could use this feature. Here are just a few short examples to give you some ideas…

• You could have someone write product reviews for your blog and in exchange you could give them a portion of the sales that those reviews generate.
• You could partner with someone to create a new product and split the profits.
• If you’re a vendor you could find another vendor and cross promote one another’s products as one-click upsells.

Where to get more info:
http://www.clickbank.com/help/account-help/account-tools/joint-venture/

Feature #4: Recurring Billing

Who Recurring Billing is for: Vendors (but affiliates can benefit too!)

How Recurring Billing Works:

ClickBank Recurring Billing gives vendors the ability to sell their product at an initial price, and then setup a rebill price for each subsequent payment for the duration of a rebill product. In addition, this gives vendors the ability to offer a trial period for the product as well.

How Recurring Billing Makes You More Money:

Creating Recurring Billing Products gives vendors a continuous revenue stream over time. With regular payment schedules, such as bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual, vendors can earn more per sale on average than with a standard product.

The recurring billing feature can also be used in combination with PitchPlus Advanced.  This combination can be extremely powerful in generating additional income that is also residual.

Where to get more info:
http://www.clickbank.com/help/vendor-help/vendor-guides/creating-a-recurring-billing-product/
http://www.clickbank.com/help/affiliate-help/affiliate-basics/promoting-recurring-billing-products/
http://www.clickbank.com/help/vendor-help/vendor-guides/recurring-billing-subscription-and-membership-products/

Feature #5: Marketplace Search

Who Marketplace Search is for: Affiliates

How Marketplace Search Works:

The Marketplace search capabilities were recently enhanced and now allow users to search by a variety of product and vendor criteria.  You’ll find Marketplace filters and attributes to search by on the left hand side of the ClickBank Marketplace. Additionally you can use the ‘advanced search’ link next to the search box for additional search features.

How Marketplace Search Makes You More Money:

Finding the right ClickBank products to promote will help you make more sales and increase profits. Using the Marketplace Search you will be able to find which vendors are offering higher payouts, use PitchPlus, offer rebills, offer affiliate tools, and much more. You can even find out which vendors offer $1 trials. Using this information allows you to find and promote the products that are the best match for your marketing efforts as well as find vendors who will make you the most money overall.

Where to get more info:
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm
http://www.clickbank.com/advancedMarketplaceSearch.htm
http://www.clickbank.com/blog/2011/12/08/new-and-improved-marketplace-search-capabilities/

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, a community for ClickBank Vendors and Affiliates.

 

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.

As part of our continued efforts to create new ways for ClickBank clients to make their products available to new markets and to continue to grow their businesses, we are pleased to announce that ClickBank is now supporting 2 new languages and 18 new currencies.

New Languages

These two new languages, Portuguese and Italian, are the latest additions to a growing number of languages supported by ClickBank including English, German, Spanish and French. At this time, Portuguese and Italian are supported for end customer experience only (i.e., Order Form and Customer Support) and the website and website behind the login are not yet supported for clients in these languages. We do, however, offer full customer and client support in English, German, Spanish and French. These new languages open up opportunities for you to sell your products globally to an international audience!

New Currencies

We are also excited to announce the addition of 18 new acceptable currencies to our previous total of 13 acceptable currencies, creating flexibility for both you and your customers. New currencies include Mexican Peso,
 Brazilian Real, Argentinean Peso, 
Chilean Peso, Colombian Peso,
 Russian Ruble, Korean Won,
 Singapore Dollar,
 Indian Rupee, Thai Bhat, Turkish Lira, Polish Zloty, 
Czech Koruna, 
Indonesian Rupiah, 
Malaysian Ringgit, Chinese Yuan, 
Hungarian Forint and
 Philippines Peso. For a full list of the currencies ClickBank supports, click here. With 31 currencies to choose from, you have more opportunities to sell to new paying customers and more reasons for your products and promotions to convert.

What This Means for Vendors

You can now translate your products, Pitch Pages and Thank You pages to earn more in these markets. Additionally, we now offer Customer Support in Portuguese and Italian to support your sales. If you have a top selling English language product and you’d like to take advantage of these new languages, we can help. To learn about how you can work with a licensee to have your products translated and promoted in these new markets, check out our ClickBank Bestseller Program. For more information on going global with your product, click here.

Additionally, accepting new currencies means that there’s a greater chance that customers who typically pay in these new currencies will purchase your products once you get them to the Order Form.

What This Means for Affiliates

If you’re an affiliate and are familiar with one of our supported languages, you can now promote translated products in these high-opportunity, low-competition markets! To find products in the Marketplace to promote that have been translated into other languages, go to the ClickBank Marketplace, click on Advanced Search, scroll down and select the product language you would like to appear in your search.

Additionally, ALL affiliates can benefit from the addition of the 18 new acceptable currencies. Even if you’re promoting an English language product, you may see higher conversion rates in the local regions of the new currencies.

For more information on languages and currencies, click here. To learn more about the ClickBank Global Bestseller Program, click here.

Written By: Guest Author, Haden de Boer

The number one question that any potential affiliate will always ask themselves before promoting your offer is “Will this thing make me money?” In other words, will this offer convert to my list (or my web-traffic)? But beyond creating a stronger product and a more compelling sales message, how can vendors improve their program and encourage affiliates to…

1. Promote their product, and
2. Promote any other products they may release in the future?

Fact is, these days it’s not enough just to put up some banners and swipe emails and leave it at that. To build a loyal group of affiliates who are motivated to promote what you have, you need to go that extra mile.

Here are 7 ideas to get you started…

1. Offer Personalized/Custom Landing Pages

No matter what your product, different traffic sources will give you varying conversion rates. This is simply because different people are looking for different benefits from your product. So if you can somehow customize your landing pages to target different groups of people you can create a much more targeted message… and convert more sales.

For example, the flagship product at SaleHoo.com is membership to a directory of wholesale suppliers. Affiliates have the ability to send traffic to landing pages that are customized based around product type, because prospects tend to be interested in finding suppliers for a certain type of product, rather than products in general. Customization can be as simple as different headlines, or even going as far as using alternate pictures and content.

Another way you might consider customizing your landing pages, is to create unique pages for individual affiliates. Now, obviously you won’t be able to do this for every affiliate, but when they have a proven track record this is something you should certainly consider to help them convert more sales.  You might even offer a special bonus or discount just for their leads.

2. Periodic Bonuses/Competitions

Another way to keep affiliates motivated is to offer incentives for top performance. This strategy is used regularly in major product launches, but there is no reason you can’t adapt it to a product that you already have on the market. The idea is simple: Just let your affiliates know that whoever sends the most leads/makes the most sales between now and a certain date will win prizes.

Don’t be afraid to get creative with your prizes, but keep in mind that most larger affiliates will be more motivated by the cash than anything else. You might choose to run these contests monthly, or even based around events such as Halloween, Christmas, or a birthday sale. (If you’re in the dating niche Valentine’s day would be a good one to use).

3. Offer Multiple Products

This one might be obvious, but it’s worth repeating. Simply put, the more products you offer, the more chances affiliates have to find something that will fit with their list/market. Plus, you’ll find that once you have one good product under your belt (that converts), affiliates will be more receptive to promoting other products that you come out with in the future. In short, it’s about giving them what they want.

A good example of this is Affilorama.com which has four main products available for affiliates to promote in their affiliate program. Each caters to slightly different segments of the market, and has a different price point (all the way from FREE membership, up to a $497 course).

4. Offer Recurring Commissions

Carrying on from #3 (above) some affiliates prefer recurring products (while some would much rather promote only a front-end offer).  But by having at least one recurring offer (for example a membership site or monthly magazine) you cater to those affiliates who are looking for this type of offer. And what if your only product is a recurring one? Consider jacking up the commission to entice those affiliates who want all the cash on the front-end until you can come up with another offer for them specifically.

5. Offer Specific Guidance to New Affiliates

Not everyone who promotes your offer is going to be an experienced affiliate. Especially as your product becomes more well-known in the marketplace, you will find more and more ‘newbies’ are interested in promoting your stuff. New affiliates are good for business because they provide new potential streams of income. However, their inexperience can mean that quite often, they do not know where to start. So what can you do about this? Well, if you consider your affiliates as an important and indispensible part of your business, then why not help them out by offering your guidance and advice for free? In reality, many of these smaller affiliates may never even make a sale of your product. But some of them will, and others will eventually grow to be top promoters in the future.

To see an example of how we do this at SaleHoo (using an email newsletter) – go here and sign up as an affiliate.

6.  Test Test Test

You’ve seen it here on the ClickBank blog before, and I’m sure you’ll see it again. Testing is one of the most important tools in any marketers arsenal. Even if you have a great product today – and you don’t think there is any way to improve conversions… you should still be testing new ideas. The truth is, people change. And markets change. Promises that worked ten years ago (or even one year ago) do not necessarily work today. You can keep on top of what works in your market by keeping an eye on the competition, but if you really want to know for sure, you need to be testing new ideas for yourself.

(Note for Affiliates: If you want to check if a vendor is actively testing, have a quick peek at the source code of their landing page(s). If there is some code there for GWO, Optimizely, or some other testing software then it’s a good sign that the vendor is actively tweaking and refining their offer.)

7. Having a Dedicated Affiliate Manager

As your business grows, and the number of affiliates promoting your product expands, the more demands running your Affiliate program will make on your time. Using ClickBank is a huge help, but eventually you’ll still be swamped by requests, offers, and obligations. Making it hard to focus on the rest of your business.

If you want to keep growing (and still want to take good care of your affiliates) then you should seriously consider hiring an affiliate manager. They will be able to take care of all those tasks that gobble up all your time – like handling email requests, sorting out landing pages, and sorting through JV offers… while leaving you free to work on the most important parts of the business – like creating high converting offers.

About the Author: Haden de Boer is the Affiliate Manager over at SaleHoo.com. Please feel free to check out the SaleHoo Affiliate Program and their newest offer SaleHoo Stores.

 

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, Mark Ling

Hey everyone,

I’m writing this blog post for ClickBank Affiliates (and this applies to vendors too for that matter) who are concerned about the impact of Google Panda‘s update has on the way in which they should be optimizing their sites for the search engines going forward.

Since February 24, Google has run several Panda updates (the most recent was Panda 2.2 on June 16, 2011). Firstly I want you to be aware that Panda is an update, not an entirely new ranking algorithm so many of the things you do to try to achieve high search engine rankings still apply as they used to.

The initial Panda update did in fact affect approximately 12% of the websites in Google, however the effects were much larger than Google has stated because most of the sites that were affected were websites that rank in the top pages of Google.

In addition, Google have also publicly stated on Google Webmaster Central Blog that Panda is not the only significant update that they’ve been running and that there will be more than 500 tweaks to their algorithms throughout the year. Furthermore, Google states “Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year.”

What’s more, Google’s representative says, “In fact, since we launched Panda, we’ve rolled out over a dozen additional tweaks to our ranking algorithms, and some sites have incorrectly assumed that changes in their rankings were related to Panda. SEO is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users.”

Google’s representative went on to list the following as questions that one could use to assess the quality of an article or a page:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

As you can see based on the questions above, Panda is an attempt for Google to assess websites that have too many low quality pages. If your site carries a Panda penalty, that doesn’t mean your site is out of Google, however it does mean that your website’s pages carry a penalty that makes it harder for them to get to the top of Google’s search results.

Also remember, if you make changes to your pages based on the information above, it may take several weeks before you notice changes to your rankings as Google only runs the Panda filter periodically to calculate the values it needs (about every 5 to 7 weeks).

Going forward, the key takeaway from this is that when you build your websites you need to start with your potential visitors in mind. This is a key distinction from those who have been creating websites based on highly searched for keywords and on securing low quality writers to throw up content based on those keywords.

You now have to think about producing content that users actually want to read.

This was always a good practice, however it has become even more important for those wanting to thrive with their affiliate sites (and vendor sites) going forward.

About the Author

Mark Ling is the founder of Affilorama. Visit Affilorama to gain free and instant access to over 100 hours of easy-to-follow, step by step video lessons on affiliate marketing, plus online web based tools and a community of over 150,000 members willing to help with your affiliate marketing success. Click here to visit Affilorama.

 

Written By: Tina Lorenz, Guest Author

As a direct response copywriter, marketing strategist, and mentor, I find a lot of marketers get frustrated and intimidated when they begin writing copy for their business. Maybe you feel that way sometimes too.

The good news is–even if you are brand new to marketing, there are simple steps you can take to instantly improve the power and effectiveness of your copy.

So let’s get to it…

#1: Create Compelling Headlines The Easy Way

Your headline has to blend benefits and curiosity. And it has to pack a punch, because you only have 7-8 seconds to grab your prospect’s attention.

The whole purpose of your headline is actually quite simple—it’s to get you to read the next line. So before you run screaming into the night over headlines, remember all you really need to do is entice your prospect to read the next line.

For example, if you wanted to write a headline brimming with both benefit and curiosity for an acne product, you might start with “7 Ways To Rid Yourself Of Acne In Time For The Prom.” Or if your product worked super fast and this were true, you could say “How To Clear Up Your Acne In 7-Days Or Less.”

If that were an accurate depiction of your product, and you were a prospect with acne, a headline like this would certainly grab your attention and pull you into the copy.

Of course the headline needs to be relevant to the truth of your product. You don’t just make things up to create a headline. So how do you get started?

There is something in copywriting we call “swiping” and it’s not unethical in any way if you do it correctly. It’s not plagiarizing—it’s borrowing concepts that are proven to work as headlines, and adjusting them to make them your own.

For example, the acne headline above could be changed to “How To Lose 5 Pounds In 7-Days Or Less”—you’re taking the basic premise of a compelling headline and “tweaking” it to fit your product.

You might be wondering where you find proven headlines you can use as inspiration—and there’s a very rich resource at your fingertips: Magazines.

Every time you are standing in line at the grocery store, you are surrounded with proven and tested headlines on all the major magazines. While you might be embarrassed to be seen buying it, The National Enquirer has some of the best headline writers around. Other fantastic resources are Oprah, Prevention, Men’s Health—the list goes on and on. A fast way to have a treasure chest of headline ideas is simply to go to magazines.com and start rummaging around.

Bookstores like Barnes & Noble are another valuable resource, as are book titles and chapter titles at Amazon.com. Just dial up the volume on your marketing brain, and keep your eyes open. There are ideas all around you for compelling headlines.

#2: Reduce Hype & Increase Credibility By Slashing Exclamation Points!

I challenge you to go through your copy today and do this one thing: Remove most of the exclamation points.

People often think, “OK, I’m going to make a lot of energy in this! I’m very excited! I’m going to talk like this all the way through my sales material to make my point! And the way I’m going to do it is I’m going to put lots and lots and lots of exclamation points!!!”

Seriously, do you actually talk this way? No, not really.

So be ruthless about taking them out—slash and burn your way through your copy. Don’t worry that you’re going to take the energy away. Too many exclamation points ramp up the hype and hard sell, which ultimately increases skepticism in the mind of your prospect.

Save these tiny emphasis points for when they really count—for those times when you have an especially important or energized statement you want to emphasize.

Even if it feels weird to do it, go through your materials, take them out, and reread your copy. I promise you will soon see and feel the amazing difference of this one simple strategy.

#3: Avoid Dangerous Questions

Another often overused “small but mighty” element of punctuation is the innocent looking question mark. It is very common for people who are just starting out to ask a lot of questions in their copy as their “conversational” element. They mistakenly think they are getting right into the mind of their prospect.

But what you end up with is something like this…

“Do you feel like this? Has this ever happened? Are you spiritual enough? Do you want this one or do you want that one? Do you want more money? Do you want less anxiety? Do you want me to quit asking you questions?

It is question after question after question. And quite frankly, it’s irritating.

There are several reasons not to ask numerous questions unless you are extremely skillful in writing copy, and you know your target audience like the back of your hand.

For one thing you cannot afford the wrong answer. If you’re saying “Do you ever feel like this?” And they say “NO!” you’re all done right there. If you needed “Yes” and they said “No”—they are already gone.

It can also feel like you’re the guest of honor at a painful inquisition. Your reader starts feeling nervous or anxious—“I have to answer this; I have to answer that; I might get it wrong and I hate being wrong.”

I call them dangerous questions because you can’t afford the wrong answer. So if you already have copy riddled with question marks and you’ve been quizzing people up one side and down the other—here’s the solution. Turn the questions into powerful statements.

For example, instead of saying, “Do you have lots of painful headaches?” You can turn it into a powerful statement like this: “If you are sick and tired of painful headaches, here is the solution.” You turn the question into a powerful statement.

#4: The…Dot…Dot…Dot…

A handy little tool for smoothing out your copy is the ellipsis; the dot-dot-dot can bridge the gap in your copy and keep your reader moving forward.

Unfortunately, the ellipsis is often overused, creating a choppy “stop and go” rhythm to your copy. You don’t want that to happen, because your goal is a smooth flow to the sale.

The correct use of an ellipsis is as a little “cliffhanger” to the next concept in your copy, or as a connector. Used correctly, the ellipsis increases the conversational tone of your copy.

Here are some effective connectors where your ellipsis shines…

In other words…
Let me explain…
Here’s what this is about…
Here’s what to do next…

#5: Talk Your Copy

Talk to one and you talk to all. So act like you’re talking to one person. If you have to put a picture of your Aunt Martha next to your computer because you’re writing about a solution for arthritis and Aunt Martha has painful, swollen knuckles–you talk directly to Aunt Martha.

And when you do that, you talk to all the rest of the Aunt Martha’s out there too. You do not talk to a crowd. When you write “we all,” “they all,” “everybody” and “everything” you’re talking to the masses. And there is no personal connection when you do that.

It’s “you and me baby”–I’m talking to you and you’re talking to me. That is exactly how you write it.

Be real. Be authentic. Be transparent.

But if you have trouble getting from Point A to Point B with a conversational tone, here is a very powerful tip for you.

Talk your copy. Speak it, record it, “talk it” to someone else. Pretend you’re going to tell your mom about this fantastic widget you have that gets people on track or motivated or gets rid of their headaches–whatever it might be. Say it exactly like you would chat with a friend or family member about the product. Share why you’re excited about it, and what it is going to do for them.

A lot of times people get very self-conscious in their copy, which kills the conversation. It’s almost like you’re standing over to the side watching yourself write this epic sales letter and feel pressured to make it very meaningful from the get-go.

Forget all that. Just say it straight out, write the darn thing, and don’t self edit. You can always fix it later. Let it go, talk it, write it and then fix it. It’s always easier to tone down your copy and bring the energy level down if you’re too hypey, have too many exclamation points or “shouting”. It’s a whole lot harder to try and breathe life into dull copy. So just go for the gusto and then fix it later.

#6: Tell Em’ What To Do & How To Do it—Nicely Of Course

Always remember you need to spell out what you want your prospect to do. This is your “call to action”. Quite simply, it is called “direct response marketing” because we want them to respond with a specific action.

Keep in mind this is not an exercise in creative writing. You are SELLING. You want them to DO something.

But keep things simple—both for you and your prospect. Too many choices clutter people’s minds. And confused minds do not buy.

So don’t say “We have it in pink, purple, yellow, white, and green—and we have platinum, silver, gold, bronze levels, and then there’s the freebie…and you can pay in one payment, 3 payments, 6 payments, or on lay-away!”

It’s too many things for them to think about, and people don’t like to make the wrong decision. So if they are confused, they simply won’t make any decision at all.

Be very concise about what you have for them and give them a clear path to the sale or action. If you have more than one option to choose from, number them—list them sequentially. This isn’t the time to get creative or leave anything to doubt. This is all about an organized offer, laid out as literally as 1-2-3.

Use formatting to set your offer components apart. For example, you can use bold font for each number, bullet points, and spacing between elements.

You want a smooth flow to the sale or lead generation. Whatever your goal is, you want to clear away any obstacles and make it very easy for your prospect to successfully take action.

#7: Find Your Voice–Read All Your Copy Out Loud

I do this for every single element of copy I write. And you should too.

Here’s why. If you cannot successfully read your own copy aloud without stumbling over the words, feeling confused about what you just said, or even falling asleep at the wheel—something is wrong with your copy.

As you read it to yourself, or even better to a willing participant, you will definitely find the rough spots, points of confusion, and even typos. Keep a pen in hand as you go, mark the copy as you find the problem areas, and keep going. Then go back and smooth things out.

I even print out everything I write (yes, I recycle!), literally holding the pages in hand to read aloud. Keep in mind your prospect may do this too—and you want to see what THEY see.

Not only will you find the weak spots in your copy—you will also have a complete visual of how the copy flows. If there is too much dense copy on a page, you can break it up with bullet points, subheads, and more “white space” making it easier to read and comprehend.

Creating compelling copy is an art, and there is so much more we could discuss.
But even with these seven simple strategies, you can instantly power up your copy and effectiveness. If you already outsource your copy, this will also help you gain more clarity about the necessary foundation you want for all of your marketing.

About the Author

Tina Lorenz is called the “Queen of Copy” and “Millionaire Maker” because of her multi-million dollar online launches. Watch her free marketing videos at www.authentic-copy.com

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Client Knowledge Guru

We’re back with another great episode of Affiliate Marketing Today for your listening pleasure! In this episode, Dush and I interview Mark McRae, a successful ClickBank vendor in the foreign exchange niche.

Mark recently had an extraordinarily successful launch of his new product, Forex Master Method, and he shares with us some great tips on planning and executing a successful launch, selling higher-priced “premium” products, working with physical products, and delivering a fantastic customer experience that keeps customers coming back for more. Mark even gives tips for affiliates on how to successfully promote these kinds of products and earn big profits!

Whether you’re a vendor or an affiliate, Mark’s advice is useful for anyone who wants to take their Internet marketing game to a higher level and stand out from the competition.

Click here to listen!

ClickBank is excited to announce and invite you to the first ever ClickBank Exchange! The ClickBank Exchange is an Internet marketing conference that will take place on August 19th-20th at the Crowne Plaza Times Square in New York, NY. Our event will be action packed, with two days of high level educational content and networking opportunities.

An amazing collection of speakers and panelists has been assembled to teach you the strategies and shortcuts to building your digital empire. We’ve gathered a mix of industry leaders and under-the-radar marketing “ninjas” to share the specific tricks, as well as the business philosophies, that have helped them dominate the Internet marketing industry. Here are some of the many topics we’ll be covering at the Exchange:

• Keynote panel: How to build your Internet marketing empire
• The latest SEO tips & tricks from the CEO of SEOMoz
• The secrets of killer copywriting that really converts
• How to drive massive amounts of free, qualified traffic through Facebook
• How to be a marketing rockstar and get raving fans
• And much more!

In this day and a half of inside information guests will get real time cash creation secrets from the top Internet marketing millionaires that ClickBank has assembled. The speaker line-up includes:

• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Yanik Silver
• Joe Polish
• Chris Farrell
• Rand Fishkin
• Ryan Lee
• Marc Ostrofsky
• Jeff Siegel
• Mike Hill
• Joe Sugarman

And the list doesn’t end there! Discover the full lineup here.

ClickBank Exchange attendees are sure to learn more money-making techniques at this event than at any other event this year.

Click here for more information and to register today!