Posts Tagged ‘success’

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Client Knowledge Guru

We’ve got a fantastic new episode of ClickBank’s Affiliate Marketing Today podcast for you. In this episode, Molly and I talk with Allen Baler, who’s something of a renaissance man in the Internet marketing world. A few years ago, Allen left his high-paying corporate job after discovering Internet marketing, and has since gone on to become a top superaffiliate. He also runs a successful business publishing and fulfilling orders for physical versions of popular information products like The Diet Solution Program and many others.

You don’t want to miss this episode, as Allen shares some of the coolest tricks he’s learned over the years that any ClickBank affiliate or vendor can quickly use to become more successful! He shared some of these tips as a recent speaker at the ClickBank Exchange, and offers to share his fantastic presentation with the Affiliate Marketing Today audience. If you’ve never checked out our podcast before, this is a great episode to start!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

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!

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!

Written by: Guest Author, Nikki Young

The majority of people that start down the enticing road of Internet marketing give up soon after their first promotion. An extraordinary amount of effort for little profit sees many retire from the game almost immediately. Both affiliate marketing and online product marketing may first appear as easy ways to make money, but people soon realize that the web is not an easily tapped goldmine. Internet marketing requires commitment and hard work and can quickly become overwhelming.

The marketing processes involved span way beyond creating a web page or writing an eBook. As a vendor there are a broad range of marketing methods that can be followed, with few of them ever resulting in success. And as an affiliate, even the seemingly basic sifting through of products you might potentially choose to promote, presents a challenging task. From building a list of potential customers that trust your word, to launching a new product to market, being diligent enough to understand the multiple disciplines of online marketing is the downfall of many. However, for those with the staying power, Internet marketing is a great way to establish a lucrative online business.

For those of you just getting started with Internet marketing you will no doubt hear the following phrase many more times, and if you’ve been Internet marketing for some time you are about to hear it again: testing is critical! Internet marketers say this all the time because there are so many different marketing mediums available to be utilized in the marketing process, that it can be quite tempting to flitter back and forth trying out each one in part. Once a person doesn’t experience instant success with one, they tend to quickly switch to a new strategy, and then to another, and so on. The problem with doing this is that it means not fully realizing the potential of each marketing method. By constantly switching between strategies you aren’t giving one particular strategy a chance to flourish. Therefore it is vitally important that you test, test, and test some more with each process, strategy and theory, so you can rule out what doesn’t work and rule in what does.

By doing this you will be able to select the most valuable parts of each strategy and start to build a bulletproof strategy of your own. It is important to recognize early on is that there is no “one size fits all” in Internet marketing, and that the same strategies don’t work for every niche, or even necessarily in the same niche. What works for you might not work for someone else, and vice versa. So decipher what works for you through a continual process of trial and error. Develop a system of your own. It will take some time but will be well worth it in the end. And who knows, one day you might be able to sell your system online as a top-selling product!

Trying multiple marketing methods and only putting limited input into each will only bring frustration. Instead, focus all your energy on one or two marketing approaches. Master them and make sure you have exhausted their capabilities before moving on or adding a new approach to your armory. Don’t keep dipping your fingers in and out of a bucketful of ideas hoping that one will suddenly come to fruition.

Think long-term not short-term. Invest wisely in the short term in order to make money in the long term. And by this I mean investing in the help of some educational programs/books and the advice and help of mentor(s) to help you learn faster and get to your destination of success quicker. If you can master one or two approaches, you will be well on your way toward a successful business. If you learn only parts of a number of different strategies you will remain a “jack of all trades but master of none.”

Internet marketing can take its toll on you psychologically, especially when you have tried out a variety of marketing methods, invested financially and put in a lot of time and effort for little or no reward. But this psychological battle presents a critical stage in your development and success. This is the very point at which many who made it past the first promotion and into further learning stages give up. A knack for perseverance is so very important in Internet marketing and indeed in starting any business. Don’t give up at the third hurdle. Stick by your guns and persevere with strategies that feel comfortable and complement your strengths and ability.

Four Solid Bits of Advice to Help You Succeed in Internet Marketing

Advice #1: Find a Mentor
Whether in business, self-development or Internet marketing, growth can be rapidly moved forward by finding a mentor. Mentoring helps you develop at a faster rate, helping you learn faster, develop skills more adeptly and avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. A mentor, like a good teacher, will help you understand exactly what you need to learn, how to learn it and the best time for you to execute the knowledge.

I seek mentors in my life because I know it’s the fastest way to learn. Not only has mentoring helped me to get to where I am today in Internet marketing, but it also continues to be very important to me in other areas of my life. By having a mentor for each important aspect of my self-development, I learn faster and succeed faster. Since starting out on my own journey as an Internet marketer I myself have become a mentor to others. It has truly been a pleasure watching those I have helped grow from online newbie to successful online entrepreneur.

Advice #2: Don’t Work on too Many Projects at Once by Yourself
A huge mistake beginners make is thinking they need to do everything alone. Focus your energy on the most vital areas of your business; the areas that encourage growth and will help you reach your goals faster. If you work on too many projects at once you will find your progress is slow and hindered by many barriers. You can’t be an expert in every discipline, so outsource work where you can. Set aside a budget for delegating work to third parties that prevent you from paying attention to more important areas of your business. Taking on more and more work yourself will see you bogged down unnecessarily in tasks that will significantly slow your progress. Outsourcing will also allow you to have more valuable time away from your computer.

Advice #3: Utilize Free Resources
When a person first decides to get involved with Internet marketing, he or she will be exposed to numerous different online money making products. These products appear as very attractive prospects, and it isn’t uncommon for people to get excited and buy into multiple products in a short space of time. The truth is, almost every marketing method you will read about is potentially a profitable one, but mastering one takes considerable time. Don’t splash out on multiple expensive products. Instead, choose one or two referred to you by your mentor(s). Learn them and utilize them to their full potential before moving onto another area.

In addition to this, make use of as much free information as you can. There is a huge amount of great reference material online that can be found in books, eBooks, video and on blogs. It is often difficult to sift through conflicting information and ideas online, but again, ask your mentor and trusted associates for help in directing you toward informative blogs, forums and other reliable free resources.

Advice #4 Maintain Persistence
You never know when the breakthrough will come, it could be next week, it might even be tomorrow, or it could take six more months. If things are getting on top of you then take a step back from your business and re-think your strategy. Ask yourself, “Am I focusing my energy, time and investment on areas conducive to leading me to my goal?” “Are there things I am avoiding, ignoring or only doing half heartedly that could better position me for success?”

Your success in business is dependent on your mental attitude, your strategy and your devotion to learning and developing yourself on a daily basis. Commit to your goal of becoming a successful Internet marketer and be persistent in your endeavours. Take these words of advice into consideration and go for it. I hope that they help you to become successful in your online venture.

About the Author
Nikki Young has been active in Internet Marketing for 4 years. During this time she has built up a successful online business, which includes the selling of her cookbook series within ClickBank. www.paleocookbook.com.

Written by: Harvey Segal, Guest Author

ClickBank tells us they have over 100,000 affiliates, but these are only the active ones.

The number of INACTIVE affiliates is far, far higher.

And do you know the main reason why these affiliates fail? For many, it’s because they think that affiliate marketing simply involves putting their link on a traffic site or in a free ad.

The reality is that if you just use an affiliate link you are very limited in your ability to get traffic from the major sources:

• You can’t use Google AdWords and most other PPC services
• SEO (search engine optimization) is not possible
• Article marketing is restricted. Most services ban affiliate links.
• Forum marketing is restricted. Most forums ban affiliate links.

The truth is that there is one thing you MUST have.

It’s a proper PRESELL page.

That’s a page where you offer a review or recommendation for the product you are promoting. Something that entices the visitor to read on and click through as you explain, for example, the benefits of the product, how it worked for you, what the results were, and so on.

But the problem is that you need to put the presell page somewhere. Typically, this is on a hosted site.

So why doesn’t every ClickBank affiliate have a site ?

Because it involves (they believe):

• the high cost of hosting
• the technicalities of setting up a site
• the need to understand HTML
• advanced SEO techniques to attract traffic

No wonder they shy away from using the one strategy which outranks all others – and consequently look on helpless as their ClickBank account doesn’t make money.

But it need not be like this.

Think ‘Blog’.

If you don’t want to get involved in creating web pages there’s a wonderful alternative. A blog.

Putting a presell page on a blog is simply a matter of writing the content of a blog post then pressing the publish button. Then seeing it automatically picked up by the search engines thanks to the in-built blog pinging services.

In addition, simple low-cost hosting is sufficient for a blog, as you don’t need advanced features.

The other great advantages of a presell page are:

• you can provide a tempting bonus for the customer to claim after the sale
• you can capture email addresses and build a list
• you can add tracking links in addition to those provided by ClickBank
• you can switch easily to a complementary affiliate program, if necessary, without affecting existing promotions

In summary, if you want to succeed as an active ClickBank affiliate, the small effort and expense to set up a blog and presell page will reward you a hundred times over.

About the Author

Harvey Segal runs the ClickBank Success Forum where over 14,000 members enjoy free advice for all their ClickBank questions and effective solutions for blog hosting and development.

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

We’ve got a great new episode of Affiliate Marketing Today for you! Dush Ramachandran and I talk to Chris Farrell, who’s managed to become a huge success in the Internet marketing industry despite only starting two years ago.

Chris shares his thoughts on having the right mindset, developing your skills, and much more. If you’re new to affiliate marketing and think you’re getting started too late, this episode will prove you wrong. Tune in now!

Written by: Mark Ling, Guest Author

Since I’ve been a successful affiliate marketer for a long time and have coached many affiliates on how to be more successful, I thought it could be helpful write about the key differences that I see between the mindsets of super affiliates and struggling affiliates.

If you have dabbled in affiliate marketing but aren’t making a killing yet, then you might find that some of the differences I mention below are issues you need to resolve first.

1. Super affiliates take action towards their goals, while struggling affiliates often procrastinate, or spend too much time overeducating or preparing themselves and not enough time DOING. Super affiliates are usually prepared to fail fast and often, learning from their mistakes, rather than not making any progress at all.

2. Super affiliates invest their money in software, marketing, and outsourcing, and then spend what is left. Struggling affiliates spend the vast majority of their money on other parts of their lives, and then invest what is left in their online business.

3. Super affiliates invest their time in networking with and learning from other successful people, whereas struggling affiliates often try to work alone, or listen to people who have a negative influence on them. In addition, super affiliates try to learn as much as possible from other successful people through books, audio, or DVDs. This is especially important when you’re not in a position or location where you can network with other successful Internet marketers face to face.

4. On a similar note, super affiliates enjoy the process of learning, even when they’re learning from their failures. Struggling affiliates often don’t enjoy having to constantly learn new techniques and ideas, and don’t appreciate the experience of failing in order to learn and grow.

5. Most super affiliates understand the power of their mind and focus on developing strong self belief and an abundance mindset, whereas struggling affiliates can get derailed by negative self-talk, focusing on what is going wrong in their lives and in their affiliate marketing efforts.

6. Most super affiliate millionaires that I’ve met in person (and I’ve met dozens) only focus on one or two niches. It’s true that most have experimented in many other niches in order to find the ‘golden’ one or two that work for them. Struggling affiliates, though, are often scattered all over the place, and even when they find a niche that makes them money, they keep moving on to the next niche without fully maximizing their potential or getting to know a niche in extreme depth.

7. Most super affiliates build a strong mailing list through email capture and make regular repeat sales to the same people. Struggling affiliates often like to skip the process of building a website to gain leads and focus on direct traffic, missing out on the chance of repeat sales and having more marketing opportunities.

8. Most super affiliate millionaires I know, including myself, make the vast majority of their money from the big competitive niches, and not from the smaller, less competitive niches. Super affiliates are not afraid of competition, whereas many struggling affiliates are. Super affiliates realize that to make big money, you have to go where the big money is. I’ll clarify this by saying that small niches are good to sink your teeth into early on and to make some sales, but in the long run, to make 7 figures or more online, you need to get good at marketing in one of the major niches where billions of dollars are being spent (e.g., diet/fitness, make money online, dating/relationships niches, self-help, security software, etc.).

I hope the above differences between super affiliates and struggling affiliates inspire you to upgrade your mindset and start thinking and acting like a super affiliate! Above all, make sure you follow point #1: super affiliates take action towards their goals.

All the best to your success!

About the Author

Mark Ling is the Founder of Affilorama, an affiliate marketing training portal that offers cutting-edge free video training, education, and affiliate tools to both beginning and advanced affiliate marketers. You can follow Affilorama on Facebook or read Affilorama’s Affiliate Marketing Blog.

Posted by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

Several times over the past few weeks, I’ve been asked what advice I would give to affiliate marketers who are just starting out and trying to learn the ropes. During my time at ClickBank, I’ve seen many affiliates go from knowing very little about what they should be doing to being extraordinarily successful. While every affiliate’s path to success will be different, as I’ll explain below, there are several general pieces of advice that I think can benefit every affiliate marketer. I hope they’ll be useful in helping you on your journey to affiliate marketing success.

• Treat affiliate marketing as your job- I can’t stress this point enough. While the ultimate goal of most affiliate marketers is to eventually make enough money to only have to work an hour or two a day (and there are many who do), one key to starting off well in affiliate marketing is to work as hard as you would at any other job. The most successful affiliate marketers start out by putting in long hours and doing lots of work on their promotional efforts, both in studying effective methods and actually putting them into practice. If you work 8 hours a day doing affiliate marketing, you’re going to be successful a lot sooner than if you only work 1 or 2 hours a day. Even if you’re doing affiliate marketing part-time, the more time you spend on it, the more successful you’re likely to be.
• Do what you’re good at- Affiliate marketing takes a lot of work, but one of the best parts of being an affiliate marketer is the freedom to choose how and when you work, what products you want to promote, etc. One of the best ways to avoid burnout, especially when you’re not yet making good money, is to choose promotional techniques that fit your personal style. Not everyone is a great writer, or even enjoys writing. If this describes you, you’re probably better off avoiding article marketing, which requires you to write large quantities of high-quality content. If you’re not the most social person and prefer anonymity, you probably won’t enjoy social media marketing very much. Since one of the main reasons for doing affiliate marketing is so you can work how you want to work, it’s important to figure out what suits your style and personality. Your work will be better, and you’ll be more willing to stick with it, if you’re enjoying yourself.
• Recognize that there are many ways to succeed as an affiliate- Since many new affiliates start out by reading books or following programs created by affiliate marketing experts, they think that these techniques may be the only way to make a lot of money and do well in the business. I’ve met many successful affiliates, and they’ve gotten to where they are today by many different paths. What works for one affiliate may not work at all for another, and there are always new tools, techniques, product niches, etc, being developed that can completely change the affiliate marketing game. Never be afraid to branch out on your own or try a crazy idea that you think just might work. Don’t be afraid to fail, because when you make mistakes you’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t, making you more successful in the long run. There’s a lot to learn in the business, so the sooner you start making mistakes, the sooner you’ll start learning what works!

Besides this advice, I recommend reading our Help Center article Affiliate Dos and Don’ts, which offers some more specific advice for working with ClickBank and how to avoid common mistakes.

I’d also like to welcome comments from experienced affiliate marketers who have advice to share with beginners and can offer some encouragement or guidance. Please share your advice by leaving a comment!

Posted by: Terra Goeres, Manager- Client Account Management

In my conversations with clients, I have found that most people search the Marketplace using the default “Sort by” option, Popularity. Popularity is determined by a publisher’s net sales over a recent time frame and also rewards vendors who have many affiliates promoting them.

While popularity is a useful measure of a product’s earning potential for you as the affiliate, there are many advantages to using the other “Sort by” options available in the Marketplace as well.

High Gravity: Sort by ‘Gravity’->’High to Low’ if you are looking for products that have a proven track record for converting well. Gravity refers to the number of affiliates who have earned a commission by promoting a particular vendor’s product(s). Therefore, if a publisher has a high gravity score, it means that the vendor has lots of affiliates earning money by promoting their product. This, in turn, should be an indicator to you that the product sells well. The downside to promoting products with a high gravity score is that you will encounter lots of competition in promoting it.

Low Gravity: If you are looking for hidden gems and want to be one of the first to market with a product promotion, sort your Marketplace search by ‘Gravity’->’Low to High.’ This is a bit of a high risk/high reward option. Low gravity means little competition from other affiliates, so you may be able to spend less time and money promoting that product than with a high gravity product. If the product converts well, you can win big as one of the only affiliates promoting it. This is the high reward side.

However, low gravity also means that the product either hasn’t been tested by many other affiliates or has been tested by affiliates and hasn’t converted well. Either way, it’s possible that you could be spending your time and ad dollars on a product that doesn’t sell. That’s the high risk side of low gravity.

Initial $/Sale: This is a great option for people who know they need to make a minimum amount of money on each sale in order to be profitable. If you know about how much you’re going to spend on promotion for each sale you earn, you can sort by Initial $/Sale and only promote products whose payout meets your minimum threshold for profitability. For example, if you know you are going to spend about $10 in advertising per sale, you may choose to only promote products that pay at least $20 per sale.

Avg %/Sale: This is similar to Avg $/Sale, but it ranks vendors according to the commission percentage they offer on each sale. If you are looking for vendors that give a high percentage of the sale to affiliates, sorting by Avg %/Sale is your best option.

Avg Rebill Total and Avg $/Sale: Are you interested in earning recurring revenue from a single sale? Then subscription products are for you. Sort by either Avg Rebill Total or Avg $/Sale to find products that bill customers at regular intervals, such as bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. The higher the dollar amount, the more money affiliates earn from that product, on average.

Each “Sort by” option offers a different picture of ClickBank vendors and offers affiliates different ways to find great new products to promote. Try experimenting with different types of searches, and you could find the product that’s a perfect fit for your affiliate business!

In an earlier blog post, I described the Ten Habits of Highly Successful Publishers. Through my conversations with our top affiliates, I discovered that they also shared many important habits that have led to their success.

1. Promote products that address specific needs: While most fledgling affiliates tend to focus on the Internet Marketing vertical expecting to make quick money, there is a wide range of products on the ClickBank Marketplace that cater to a huge variety of needs. Products that address a specific need or answer a particular question sell extremely well.

2. Promote widely: Many successful affiliates rely on a wide range of promotional methods-e-mail marketing, blogs, review sites, and pay-per-click advertising-since each type of promotional method works well with a particular demographic.

3. Promote seasonally: Successful affiliates tend to vary the products they promote based on the season. With New Year’s resolutions being made at the start of the year, a lot of people look for self-improvement products at that time, while in the summertime products relating to outdoor recreation tend to be more popular.

4. Persevere through hardship: Many novice affiliates tend to assume they cannot be successful if their initial attempts to promote products don’t go well. Nothing succeeds like perseverance. Stick with the effort and don’t allow early disappointment to deter you. Many of our most successful affiliates have attained success after disappointing early results.

5. Broaden your portfolio of products: In general, all products don’t do well at the same time. When some products are doing well, other products are not. Promoting a variety of products will allow you to benefit by smoothing out the peaks and valleys in the life cycle of each product.

6. Test relentlessly: Since your commissions depend on the links from your site to the publisher’s site working consistently, test everything and test regularly. Simulate a visitor’s journey from your site to the publisher’s site and then on to the ClickBank order form, and make sure that the order form displays your nickname as the affiliate. You should also test and tweak the language you use in your promotions to make sure it is compelling.

7. Make realistic claims for the product: Refunds are high when products don’t meet the claims made by the promotional material. By making extravagant claims for the product you may be able to get more people to buy the product initially, but this success is short-lived when customers end up refunding the product if it doesn’t measure up.

Our top affiliates generate several million dollars worth of business each year, even in difficult economic times, by adopting these seven simple habits. Perhaps now you can too!