Get 5,000 Visitors to Your Next Blog Post… (WITHOUT Google)

So, you’ve created an EPIC blog post, hit the publish button, and then waited for the traffic to start pouring in to see your brilliant creation.

Unfortunately, all you heard were crickets. Of course your mom visited the site and said it was AMAZING. She’s your #1 fan :)

But she’s also the ONLY fan…

Because you’re missing a critical piece of the blogging puzzle.
It doesn’t matter how great your content is. Without actively promoting your content, your blog is STILL going to be a ghost town.

* Content is not king if nobody can see it. *
So you’ve got to flip the formula on it’s head…
Spend 20% of your time creating epic content. And spend 80% of your
time promoting that content.

I can hear the whiners now…. “But Kim, it took me an entire day to
create that blog post. I don’t have time to now go out and spend hours promoting it.”
If that’s the case – you probably don’t have time to build a successful online business and this article probably isn’t for you.

But… if you want to get 5,000 visitors to your next blog post… (WITHOUT Google) – then grab some coffee and let’s get ROCKIN :)

1. Twitter Tribes.

One of the first things I like to do after I publish my content is to ‘seed’ it inside a variety of Twitter Tribes.
One of my favorite Twitter Tribes is called JustRetweet.com.
JustRetweet is a social sharing community that works together
to promote each others content.
Kind of like a ‘you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours.’
But… the cool part is that they have a ton of content that you’ll be proud to share with your tribe.
Plus, they’ve also added support for Facebook likes and Google
Plus One votes.
The site works on a credit based system. As you share other people’s content within the community you earn ‘credits’ that allow you to get shares and retweets on your own content.
You can also buy credits – which are extremely affordable as well.
This is a super simple strategy for getting your first 20-30 retweets
and Facebook likes. Which will immediately kick off your first bit
of momentum.
Two other great Twitter Tribes you can join are Triberr.com and ViralContentBuzz.com.
Additional Resources:
17 Twitter Marketing Tips from the Pros
The Ultimate Twitter Guide
List Building with Social Media
How I Got 50,000+ Twitter Followers
16 Ways to Get People to Read and Retweet Your Content

2. Google Plus Communities

Google Plus is here to stay. After many attempts at building a social network to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter – it looks like Google has finally hit upon a winner.
And… it’s a great tool for driving hundreds of visitors to your
latest blog post. Regardless of how many followers you have.
That’s the beauty of this particular strategy. All you need to do is setup a good profile on Google Plus. You can then leverage existing audiences on Google Plus via Communities.
Communities are the ‘secret sauce’ inside Google Plus.

These are basically large groups of people based around common interests. They’re kind of like mini-forums.
Plus, it’s one of my favorite ways to find cool and interesting conversations on Google Plus.
You can search for related communities here:
https://plus.google.com/communities
Once you join some related groups – you’ll find out there are
actually a LOT of interesting conversations going on within Google Plus.
In fact, it’s becoming one of my favorite social networks. Plus, it’s a LOT less crowded.
And it should DEFINITELY be part of your content promotion checklist.
First, start engaging with 5-10 related communities. By this I mean
joining in on the conversation. Adding value. Voting up OTHER people’s content.
Like any social media platform – you need to provide VALUE first.
Engage first.
Then, whenever you have a really good blog post that you’d like to
share – simply post a link to your favorite 5-10 related communities.
Then sit back and watch the traffic roll in :)
Additional Resources:
The Ultimate Google+ Marketing Guide
Google+ Communities: What Marketers Need to Know
How to Market Your Content on Google Plus
3 Ways to Boost Your Traffic with Google Plus

3. Email Trumps All.

Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus can be very powerful tools for promoting your content – but your biggest media channel will ALWAYS be your email subscriber list.
We personally use our subscriber list to generate 2,000+ visitors
PER email.
Imagine the power of being able to send that much traffic simply
by pushing the ‘SEND’ button.
Your business should be BUILT on email. Building a community of
raving fans who look forward to your next email.
This is THE #1 asset in your business.
And it allows you to build instant momentum for EVERY blog post.
Additional Resources:
Pat Flynn’s Guide to Email Marketing (Part 1)
Pat Flynn’s Guide to Email Marketing (Part 2)
DropDeadCopy.com – The BEST podcast online about email marketing.

4. Facebook Sponsored Stories (In the News Feed).

Here’s one of my secret sources… If you want to promote your content quickly WITHOUT all the elbow grease, then Facebook Sponsored Stories are going to be your new love affair :)
This is one of the best ways to ‘seed’ your content and start gaining virality.
Promote your content using Facebook Sponsored stories in the News Feed.
This has become one of my favorite ways to generate highly targeted traffic on demand.
You simply post a new story on your fan page. (a.k.a your latest blog post)
And then you setup an ad to promote that post.
Using Facebook you can laser-target your audience by choosing exactly which Fan pages you want to target. So you simply choose 3-5 highly related fan pages that your post will be promoted to.
This is the ‘audience’ that will see your post.
But there’s one small tweak you need to make to get the best results. This is the ‘secret sauce’…
What I do is I first create my ad in the traditional Facebook Ad Manager. Then from there I go into what’s called the ‘Power Editor’ and customize the audience so that my story is ONLY shown in the News Feed.
This will give you MANY more visitors for a MUCH lower price.
Facebook is quickly becoming one of the best places to build and grow your business.
Additional Resources:
My Go-To Girl for ALL things Facebook: Amy Porterfield

5. Content Syndication.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my secret spots for a quick injection of traffic. These are social communities (kind of like Digg in the old days) where you can share your content and vote / comment on other people’s content as well.
Here are my Top Picks:
BlogEngage.com
BizSugar.com
Blokube.com
Inbound.org
Kingged.com
DoSplash.com
Other Niche Social Networks where you can Share Your Content…
Care2.com
PFBuzz.com (Personal Finance)
Yakezie
Dogster
Catster
Gentlemint.com – Pinterest for men
But keep in mind the key to getting the most benefit out of any community is getting involved. (a.k.a not being a douche who just comes and drops your link.)
These are amazing communities with awesome people that you can meet. Plus, it’s great for sourcing content that you can share within your social media profiles as well.
Provide massive value to the community – and it will deliver massive value back :)
Additional Resources:
The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing

6. Content Aggregators.

If you’re publishing great content on a weekly basis – you can get hundreds of extra visitors from sites like AllTop.com, Affposts.com, AffBuzz.com, and AffDaily.com. These are content aggregators that pull in the best content from around the web.
AllTop.com is perfect for ANY blogger because they have sections for almost every topic under the sun.
So whether you blog about pets or parenting – this is a great passive
traffic pipeline you can tap into.
And the cool thing is they’re always looking for new blogs to publish.
Simply find a relevant category and submit your blog at:
http://alltop.com/submission/
Or – if you have a site related to affiliate marketing, SEO, or blogging then you can get hundreds of new weekly visitors from sites like BloggerScope.com, Affposts.com, AffBuzz.com, and AffDaily.com.

7. Scoop.it

Scoop.it is my one-stop shop for getting fresh new traffic to EVERY blog post.
Scoop.it is content curation at it’s best. With thousands of different topics and curators who collect their favorite content from around the web.
And the best part is – you can ‘suggest’ your latest blog post with just a few clicks.
You’ll see a link at the top of each Scoop.it pages that allows you to submit a suggested link. It takes all of 10 seconds to suggest your link.
If the creator of that page decides to share your link, it gets published and any followers of that page also get notified (instant backlink and high-quality traffic).
I recommend submitting your content to at least 20 Scoop.it pages for each new blog post you publish.
Additional Resources:
How To Curate Content and Build Authority With Scoop.it

8. Forum Marketing. The unsung hero.

There are currently millions of conversations taking place around the web about parenting, photography, fitness, pet care, personal finance, traveling, and every other topic under the sun.
Forums are hot spots of conversation where like-minded people get
together to talk about their shared passions.
Making it also one of the best hot spots for generating laser-targeted traffic.
Create some good content, post it on a popular forum in your market and you can start generating traffic within 5 minutes of posting.
There is simply no other strategy out there that works this quickly,
this effectively, and completely for free.
Forum marketing is an unsung hero that can drive thousands of visitors per month in ANY market.
When I first got started online, this was the main strategy I used to start building my subscriber list.
When my dad started his first website I recommended that he do the same.
But he took it to an entirely new level.
Generating 14,000+ visitors per month in a tiny, weird little niche…
‘Tennessee Walking Horses’
He found what I like to call his ‘Big Kahuna’. One big forum with rapidly passionate members who LOVED his videos.
This was his main traffic source when he first got started.
Of course I encouraged him to also build a subscriber list so now
he OWNS the traffic and can funnel it at will whenever he sends out
an email. Forum traffic is like a honeypot. But you want to collect
as much as that honey as possible and store it up for the winter.
(a.k.a getting them on your subscriber list :)
So go to Google – find the most active forums within YOUR market, and start engaging with the community. Provide over-the-top value and link to your squeeze page or blog in your signature file.
I think you’ll be surprised at what a ‘traffic powerhouse’ this can be.
Plus, what’s nice about forum traffic is that it’s generally VERY high converting. The traffic is laser-targeted and converts quickly into subscribers AND sales.
We’ve seen a 10% conversion rate into sales from our forum traffic. (tracked using Adtrackz Gold)
Average conversion rate for a sales letter is 2%. Forums got us 10% because this is some of the most targeted traffic you can get.
It just doesn’t get any better than that.
Old-School is still ROCKIN!

9. Blogger Outreach.

I’ve saved the best for last :)
If you have a valuable piece of content that you want shared around
the blogosphere, the very best thing you can do is to contact 100-200
related bloggers.
You can find related bloggers using sites like:
Technorati.com
WeFollow.com
Twellow.com
FindPeopleOnPlus.com
CircleCount.com
AllTop.com
Topsy.com
FanPageList.com

Create a list of 100 influencers within your market.
You can do this within Excel or using a more sophisticated program
like BuzzStream or GroupHigh.
After you’ve built your list you’ll need to send a personalized
message to each blogger.
This works out even better if you’ve included a link to their website
in the article itself.
Here’s a sample email…
Subject Line: I Love Pat Flynn! (and your latest podcast :)
Hey Pat!
Just wanted to send you a quick note to let you know
how much I enjoyed your latest podcast with Neil Patel.
ROCKIN!
Shared it on Facebook and encouraged all of my readers
to listen in as well.
Also wanted to let you know I’ve included SmartPassiveIncome.com
in our latest blog post at:
http://mytrafficmentor.com/23-steps-to-100000-visitors/
Would love to know what you think.
Thanks so much for all that you do!

Cheers,
American Atheist

A Complete Guide To Affiliate Marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketiing?

Affiliate marketing has many descriptions, yet all have the same meaning. Affiliate marketing is a huge business piece on the Internet. It is a cooperative effort between merchants and an affiliate’s website. For many years now, affiliate marketing has proved to be a cost-efficient, measurable method of delivering long-tern results. It has become famous for Internet sites who are trying to make some extra or additional income for their site. Every day, people get interested to affiliate marketing and want to make money out of it. But in many cases, these new affiliates do not fully understand the affiliate world and make costly mistakes. In other words, affiliate marketing has often been misunderstood.

One of the common misconceptions that are being associated about affiliate marketing is “selling”, though selling is an important activity of affiliate marketing and the central function of a business operation. Another is that affiliate marketing is commonly linked with “advertising”. While the importance of advertising in marketing a certain product is not to be underestimated, the fact of the matter is, advertising like selling, is merely a part of the many functions of marketing.

In affiliate marketing, an affiliate is compensated for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. The said compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit. The most attractive aspect of affiliate marketing from the merchant’s viewpoint is that no payment is due to an affiliate until results are appreciated.

Affiliate marketing is typically being run by affiliate networks and this affiliate networks are composed of two functional bodies, the group affiliates and the group merchants. Each has their special function and role when it comes to affiliate marketing. The affiliate network acts as a third party between the merchant and the associated affiliates. The network provides the technology to deliver the merchant’s campaigns and offers. The affiliate network also collects commission fees from the merchant and then pays the affiliates which are part of the program.

The merchant is any web site owner that wants or desires to take advantage of performance based marketing. The benefits to the merchant are many. First, the merchant maintains and operates the affiliate program. If it would be extracted, the merchant needs to do their part by researching interested affiliate websites to ensure that they are a good fit for that particular website. Finding a fit for their merchandise would be the key to more generated income. The merchant has access to markets and customers without him spending valuable time searching out. Banner ads on affiliate sites are not distracting to the site user. It might produce interest for that product and drive the consumer to the merchants’ website. It is also the merchant who decides how much he is willing to pay for each sale that results from a visitor sent from an affiliate.

The affiliate or the affiliate marketer also sees a lot of benefits. The affiliate is a web site owner that promotes one or more merchants and their affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income for the affiliate. But this is not an easy task to accomplish. The affiliate needs to have a better understanding with the merchant what the commission will be, expected payment method and time involved in the contract. The affiliate has also the responsibility to stand for the merchandise their user based would be most interested in. For example, if the site has a user base of mainly stay-at-home mothers, then on-line job openings such as surveys would be a good match for them. This group would also appreciate direct links to children’s products and informational sites. Merchandisers often provide targeted, best-seller items and personal support to their affiliate. They often offer sales promotions that will benefit the merchandiser as well as the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is a great situation for both the marketer and the affiliate. If they would work together, they can be an advantage to both. Plus the fact that it seems to make sense, it is easy and inexpensive way to start, and you can be up and running within a few days. But there is one thing to consider, it is how to get traffic and make your offer different than all others.

Website Or No Website…That's The Question

Do you want to make money through the Internet but you don't have enough experience or capital to start your own online business? You don't have to worry, for a lot of online marketing options exist for you to start with. One of these options, and shall I say the best, is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing provides first time online marketers like you the chance to market something online even without having your own product to sell. All you have to do is to sign up with an affiliate marketing program, which is usually owned by an online merchant or retailer, and start picking the products you want to promote. As an affiliate, you are paid by the merchant for your services on a commission basis, that is whenever you have directed a visitor to the merchant's site and the visitor actually buys something.

Becoming an affiliate in an affiliate marketing program is often quick and easy, and for most affiliate programs, signing up is also free. But despite these and all the benefits being promised by affiliate programs, many people are still hesitant to get into affiliate marketing. One of the reasons why a lot of people remain hesitant is the lack of a website to start marketing his affiliate products with. This now leads us to the question of whether a website is required or necessary in affiliate marketing or not.

Many people say that one can do affiliate marketing even without a website to start with. Actually, one can really start promoting and marketing his affiliate products even without a website; and there exist a lot of ways on how this can be done. In fact, many affiliate marketing strategies that leads to success can exist without actually needing a website. Among these strategies are email marketing, offline promotions, writing e-books, writing ezines and engaging in online discussions like forums, chats, message boards and others.

*Email Marketing
Email marketing, or maintaining email lists, is actually the most popular affiliate marketing strategy that doesn't require the affiliate to maintain a website. In this affiliate marketing strategy, what you basically do is maintain a list of the email ads of your prospective customers and provide them with articles that are relevant with the affiliate products and programs you are promoting. Articles that you provide your contacts with need not always be promotional, for many individuals find such types of email annoying. Rather, it would be better if you provide them with something informative and just add small text ads that link to your merchant's site.

*Offline Promotion
There are many ways on how you can promote your affiliate products offline. Among the common medium used for such promotions are classified ads, brochures and flyers. Classified ads would generally work better compared to the other two because classified ads in periodicals often get a wider audience.

*Writing Free e-books
If you have a knack in writing, writing an e-book can be the best way for you to promote your affiliate products in the absence of an actual website. Just like in emails and newsletters, your readers would better appreciate your e-book if it is not too promotional but rather informative. Be sure, however, to make the contents of your e-books relative to the actual affiliate products you are promoting. And just like in email marketing, you can just place text ads or banners somewhere near the end of your e-book that links to the merchant's site.

*Writing Free Ezines
Ezines are publications or articles that aim to inform individuals about a particular topic. If you don't have a website and yet want to be an affiliate, you can well use ezines to promote your affiliate products or to insert links to your merchant's site. If you have a website, your ezine article may actually work well as content for your site. But since you have no website, you can just submit your free ezine articles to various websites that hosts ezines, like goarticles.com, ezinearticles.com and others.

*Online discussions (Forums, Chats, Message Boards, etc.)
With or without a website, you just can't ignore online discussions because they are great venues for marketing your affiliate products. In chats, forums, message boards and discussion boards with topics related to your products, you can easily find people who may be interested with the products you are promoting.

With all these strategies, it may appear that one really doesn't need to have a website to start marketing his affiliate products and promoting his affiliate programs. Well, starting in an affiliate program without a website may be easy, but getting successful in affiliate marketing without a website is another thing. While one can actually gain enormous success in affiliate marketing even without a website, it is a rare instance that "newbies" like you can reach the same levels of success.

Having a website is not really a pre-requisite in entering into an affiliate program, unless otherwise the program owner would require you to have one. But while this is so, I would still recommend that you have for yourself a website, if not now, then maybe at a later time. Having a website creates a lot of advantages in affiliate marketing. For one, it provides you a place where you can creatively promote not only one of your affiliate products but all of your affiliate products. With a website, you can also advertise your affiliate products to a wider market.
Again, having a website is not a requirement in affiliate marketing. But with the advantages that a website can provide, I'd rather have one for myself and make affiliate marketing a lot easier for me.
I use www.000webhost.com They offer an amazing package of completely free Web Hosting Services. (They also offer a nice $5 per Referral)

Why So Many People Fail In Affiliate Marketing

More and More people are lured into affiliate marketing and you might be one of them. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the most effective means of generating a full-time income through the Internet. It’s a fair deal between the merchandiser and his affiliates as both benefit from each sale materialized. Like in other kinds of business, a great deal of the profits in affiliate marketing depends on the affiliate’s advertising, promoting and selling strategies. Everyday, as affiliate marketing industry expands, competition heightens as well so an affiliate marketer must be creative enough to employ unique and effective ways to convince potential buyers to purchase or avail of the products and services offered.

Compared to traditional advertising practices, affiliate programs are more effective, risk-free and cost-efficient. But why do many people still fail in affiliate marketing? There are a lot of reasons and a lot of areas in the program to look into. The most critical aspect in the affiliate program is advertising. Many affiliate marketers fail in this aspect because they lack hard work, which is the most important thing in affiliate marketing and in all other kinds of business as well. Although it pays to be lucky, you cannot merely rely on it. Affiliate marketing isn’t as simple as directing customers to the business site. If you want to earn big, of course, you have to invest time and great amount of hard work in promoting the products. As earlier mentioned, the competition is very high and customers nowadays are very wise, too. After all, who doesn’t want to get the best purchase—that is, to pay less and get more in terms of quantity and quality.

Lack of preparation is also a reason why one fails in affiliate marketing, whether he is a merchandiser or an affiliate. Part of the preparation is researching. On the part of the merchant, he has to be highly selective in choosing the right affiliate websites for his affiliate program. In order to be sure he has the best choices, he must have exhausted his means in looking for highly interested affiliates whose sites are sure fit to his products and services. The affiliate site’s visitors must match his targeted customers. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer must likewise research on the good-paying merchandisers before he signs up for an affiliate program. He must ensure that the merchants’ products and services match his interests so he can give his full attention and dedication to the program. He can get valuable information by joining affiliate forums, comparing different affiliate programs and reading articles on affiliate marketing where he can get tips from experienced affiliate marketers on how to choose the best merchants and products with high conversion rate.

A website is a very important tool in the whole affiliate program. As an affiliate marketer, you should plan how your site is going to be, from domain name to the design, the lay-out, the content, and ads. Some users are particular about what they see at first glance and thus when they find your site ugly, they won’t read through the content even if your site has many things to say and offer. On the other hand, there those who want information more than anything else. Affiliate marketers with “rich-content” web sites are usually the ones who prosper in this business because the content improves traffic to the site. Websites with high quality contents—with relevant keywords and more importantly, right information about the product and not empty hyped-up advertisements—allow you to earn big in affiliate marketing even when you’re asleep. If you won’t be able to sustain the interest of your site visitor, you won’t be able to lead him to the merchants’ site. No click-through means no sale and thus, no income on your part.
Selecting a top level domain name is also crucial to the success of the affiliate program. Lots of affiliate sites don’t appear in the search engine results because they are deemed by affiliate managers as personal sites. Major search engines and directories would think of your site as transient ones and thus, they won’t list it in the directory. Before you decide on the domain name, know first what you are going to promote. Many fail because their sites are not appropriately named, so even when they feature the exact products the customer is looking for, the customer might think the site is not relevant and thus, won’t enter the site.

Above all, an affiliate marketer must be willing to learn more. Certainly, there are still a lot of things to learn and so an affiliate marketer must continue to educate himself so he can improve his marketing strategies. Many fail because they don’t grow in the business and they are merely concerned about earning big quickly. If you want long-term and highly satisfactory results, take time to learn the ins and outs of the business. Continue to improve your knowledge especially with the basics in affiliate marketing ranging from advertising to programming, web page development, and search engine optimization techniques. Likewise, study the needs and wants of your site users and how different merchandisers compete with each other.

Keep on trying; don’t get disappointed if your first attempts did not pay off. Thousands are attracted by the possibility of generating skyrocketing incomes through affiliate marketing and so they sign up in any affiliate program without carefully understanding every aspect of the business. When they don’t get instant results, they quit and sign up for another program and repeat the process of just copying links and referring them to others. When you sign up for an affiliate program, don’t expect to get rich in an instant. Work on your advertising strategies and be patient. You’ll never know how much you can get if you don’t persevere.

Using An Ad tracker Is Key To The Affiliate Marketer

There’s a lot of money in affiliate marketing. This is true, however, only to those are seriously and zealously working on his affiliate program. Success in affiliate marketing varies in every individual affiliate and for the most part, it depends on his will and perseverance. No matter how good an affiliate program is, it will not prosper if the affiliate marketer does not pay the price of hard work. One must exert extra effort especially on the aspect of promotion. Nothing will happen if the links or banners would just lie idle in a web page, an affiliate must be able to convince the visitor to click it and proceed to the business site to buy the products. No click-throughs means no income for an affiliate marketer.

You can actually generate a full-time income by means of affiliate marketing and you can do it at home, and yes, even while you sleep. You must have a good web site to begin with. It must have good promotional and informative contents, pleasing design, inviting banner ads and all other important elements in an affiliate marketer’s web site. It would be great if you have exhausted other means of advertising such as newsletters, email marketing, message boards and ad listings such as Google AdWords. You just have to go online once in a while to check your site and update it and to watch over the development of your marketing program. Does this sound so easy? It can be this easy if you have planned your affiliate program well and have taken all the steps towards success carefully and diligently.

Now, there’s a tool you can use to help you go through the program with ease and confidence, the Ad Tracker. For many experienced and successful affiliate marketers, the Ad Tracker is a key to a successful affiliate marketing program. What precisely is an ad tracker? It is a marketing tracking software or program that allows you to trace and take note of every click-through made by visitors of your site and by other customers who got your referral link. There are ad tracking service providers as well, so you will just have to pay them to do the tracking for you. With the ad tracker, you can keep an eye on the progress of your marketing campaigns even offline. This tool or program is especially helpful if you are engaged in several affiliate and pay-per-click programs and have placed ads in emails, pop-ups and pop-unders, message boards, auto responders, Ezines, forums, several web sites, surveys and various ad service providers.

Of course, you don’t want all your efforts to be put to waste so you want to make sure you are getting paid for your hard work. Likewise, you want to make sure every dollar or cent you disburse in your advertising campaigns is wisely spent. With the help of the ad tracker, you will know accurately how many and which of your links where clicked on, how many clicked on your links, how many of your emails were opened and how many of those who opened your email clicked through the business site and purchased a product, how many products were purchased, which of your banner ads or links brought the most leads and sales and many other pertinent facts and figures you need.

Sales records and all data stated are necessary in any business as this could determine if your affiliate program is still worth continuing. This would also help you determine which of your marketing strategies is most effective and which is most beneficial for each product or service you are promoting.

Every decision and plan you make must be well grounded on facts. That decision or plan of action may not be the best, but it is something not to regret about when you had valid reasons for coming up with such decision or plan. You cannot just decide to terminate your affiliate program, just because you don’t earn big in an instant.

If you are serious with affiliate marketing, again and again, keep in mind that your success lies mainly on promotion and your hard work. If you don’t seem lucky enough to convince many of your site users to buy the products, don’t be disheartened and jump into a conclusion that your affiliate program is a failure. If it works for others, it could work for you, too. Know whether your advertising techniques are effective or not, which works best for your program and which doesn’t. Get an ad tracker to help you know all these and you’d surely be on the right track towards success!

The Different Types Of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing programs has never been as popular before as it is today. Why? There can be a number of reasons. The most probable reason, however, could be the fact that the benefits of affiliate marketing have become clearer to a lot of people now than they were before.

Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them. The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost. The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.

Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has shifted into greater heights, so has the people's outlook about it changed. No longer is affiliate marketing considered today as an alternative method for the merchant to advertise his products, or as a source of additional income for the affiliates. For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a main source of profits and revenues.

So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? Are all affiliate marketing programs the same? Are the benefits the same? Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?

There are actually different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one will classify them. The most basic affiliate marketing programs, however, falls under two categories: pay-per-click (PPC), and pay-per-performance (PPP).

• Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small websites, and probably the easiest way for them to earn money. In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant's banner or text ads. The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant's site. However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click.

• Pay Per Performance (PPP)

 

GoTo.com, NetFlip.com, FindWhat.com, SearchHound.com, and RocketLinks.com
PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchants and is also the most lucrative type for affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action—that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant's site or when the visitor becomes a lead. This means a lot of savings for the merchant. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.

Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types:

o Pay Per Sale (PPS)

In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant's site actually buys something from the merchant's site. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.

o Pay Per Lead (PPL)

The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant's site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.
Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant's site.

• Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing
These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made. In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. All the previously mentioned affiliate marketing types

• In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant's site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation. Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

• Residual Income Affiliate Marketing
In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant's site. Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product. Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.

The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits. Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? It is not really for me to tell. Rather, it is for you to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit your needs and characteristics best.