Affiliators Blog

Affiliate program to monetize word of mouse

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Affiliators.biz tracks web traffic generated by participants and pays a commission through PayPal when a sale is made.

Affiliators allows anyone with a good internet or social media presence to get an ongoing return for directing traffic to a range of selected target websites.

Unlike Google AdSense ads which can be plagued by click fraud there is no harm with a member clicking on their own affiliators links. They can be placed on any webpage or blog.

Two special facebook and twitter applications are supplied to automate the process of posting on social media.

A range of articles is also supplied for bloggers to reuse if the subject matches the overall theme of their publication.

A variety of landing pages and weekly blog articles on each target website enhances the appeal for repetitive use.

A special cookie tracks the originating affiliators ID so that marketing efforts are not lost if a sale is not done at the first visit - an unlikely event.

Participants can monitor the results of their efforts with an activity log and a commission report.

Affiliators versus network marketing

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 +1000

The bane of network marketing opportunities has been the fact that distributors compete against each other without any mean of differentiation since they all promote the same product.

Further there is much confusion whether you should approach a new prospect with the product or with the business opportunity selling that same product.

Affiliators does not require you to build an impressive network of distributors under your care. It does not require you either to build up inventory and deliver products door to door.

The commodities at stake are purely online services and you are being paid a commission each time a subscription is sold referred through your efforts.

Affiliators allows you to leverage your internet presence by driving traffic to the websites available through this scheme.

You can write or acquire articles to post in your blogs; you can publish links on your Twitter and Facebook accounts. It's all about increasing your word of mouse!

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme - more a steady-as-she-goes endeavour. You don't have to run meetings in your home or at an acquaintance place to coax strangers to sample products they could buy at the supermarket. You don't have to drive around the suburbs to deliver merchandise and keep up the loyalty of your customer base.

All you have to do is spread the word among the people you know, the people you reach and the people who read your stuff...

You can do it whenever you are online, whether at home minding children or in the city at work during your lunch break.

Obviously some knowledge of the services you recommend will definitively help. You can be upfront about the fact that you derive a financial interest in the process. In fact a satisfied customer being the best form of advertising, the best thing you can do is publish testimonies of people you know. These referrals will add credibility to your page and highlight details of the customer experience that only a personal feedback can deliver.

There has been many expectations that the web would revolutionize our existence for the better. The downside is that we suffer from information overload. Yes the world is your oyster but now droves of people outside your village clamour for your attention too!

If you are well connected with a charismatic personality it will show online and offline. People always like to talk about the latest things (fads, trends?) Whatever you recommend can have sway with people who respect your opinion. If not it is never too late to start.

Marketing to people's needs

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

There are only a few basic needs that people cannot do without. Think of food, shelter, clothing and transport. Sorry, a new iPad app is not a basic need. In those basic 4 segments major players have claimed their stake - but is there room for the little guy?

Food - perishable goods used to mean a local market until oranges were flown from the USA to Australia... Have a few chooks in the backyard. Who will buy your eggs? Can you make goat cheese? How many carrots do you need to sell to be able to fill your car with petrol?

Shelter - there might be a real estate crash on the way but banks will just repossess properties held as security for delinquent loans and furnish their own tenants instead. Do you have a spare room in your abode? What about erecting a "bed and breakfast" sign? How much should you charge for your spare room?

Clothing - can't compete on price, what about competing on quality or style? Short of having your own label can you have your own production line? Can local markets be enough exposure or do you need your own shop? How many garments can you roll out in a week with just one sowing machine? Where do you get your fabric?

Transport - where are the local electric cars manufacturers? Are you a mechanic? Do you have access to spare parts? Can you fix what is broken? Can you teach others to do likewise and make a living for themselves? Can you use your van to operate a courier service? How many parcels do you need to deliver to break even? What about if the price of fuel doubles? Can you run your diesel on oil recycled from a fish and chips shop?

It appears that wherever you look uncertainty abounds. Making a business plan is hard enough. It is when you are about to commit your own money that you are overwhelmed by the potential risks. How comfortable it is to work for someone else and let them worry about all the issues. Many business folks have gone broke before hitting their own goldmine. They just wouldn't give up their dream. There is a market for dreamers - or rather can you dream up a market just for you?

Can you go over the obvious again and check what people do around you in their daily lives. Can you observe points of friction and ways to make life easier? If you can do that you have identified a need. Can something be done to address that need? Will you be the one to bring it to pass?

Marketing With a Little Help From My Friends

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

How can an affiliate program create the exposure that you need? How can people be rewarded for their contribution to your advertising efforts?

When a quick buck is to be made, abuse is not far behind. Pay per click internet advertising has been around since search engines came about. The real issue is: What is a click worth to you as a vendor? If it is a competitor hiring mongrels in India to click on your ads and run down your advertising budget it is highway robbery!

Why not reward those who drive traffic to you when a sale is made instead. This has been the business model for yonks and it's amazing it has taken all that time to emerge into cyberspace.

The issue was a technical one: How to track a sale back to the person who recommended you in the first place? The answer is called a cookie. It is a short piece of information stored in your web browser as you visit a website. If you come back a few days later that data is still there and can be matched by the page you are re-visiting. That's how websites can remember your username and password. In the case of an affiliate program that's how we can remember who to pay commission to when you purchase something from us.

How is that a better system? When you open your blog or website to advertising you have precious little control over who will peddle their wares on your page. How would you feel if you are an expert in mountain biking and your blog is being defaced by ads for tattoo parlours and psychic readings?

With an affiliate program you have total control on the quality, quantity and appearance of the links you provide for the people you wish to promote. It can be an ordinary hyperlink anchor, a clickable image or an article on your blog.

If you use social media rather than being a webmaster there are tools to insert a post on your facebook page or a tweet on your twitter account. Only when you feel so inclined do those links appear - you need to log in to your account for the process to take place.

Lastly you would want to see some statistics on how your links are performing if no sale is forthcoming yet. The ability to click on your ads to test the system end to end gives confidence as you can see the logs tally each activity.

Still peddling yesterday's marketing ideas?

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Website promotion has had a trailblazing evolution jumping from one phase to the next and leaving behind those who just caught up with the previous schemes.

When marketing folks first took over from html techies the net was thought of as just another mass media like radio and television. This was the rule of banner ads - in-you-face advertising messages with animated gif bitmaps or flash content.

Over time people developed a blindness to those ads and they became less and less effective.

Later we saw the advent of reciprocal links and the proliferation of "link farms" whose only reason in life was to show Google as many links as possible in order to build up the exposure of their clients.

Reciprocal links are the cyberspace reincarnation of the old "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine". Google caught up with that too and unsavoury operators used to cheat you by removing your link soon after or making it invisible to the search engines.

Then came the advent of the blog. As many people discovered the appeal of this cyberspace soapbox each article was open to comments as people discovered the interaction of social media. That was the perfect opportunity for planting links all over the place. Not just a kind and relevant contribution but a blatant attempt at corrupting the original message with free-for-all adverts promoting gambling, pornography and whatever else.

The clampdown was swift with the advent of no-follow links which allowed people still to include links in comments but these were deemed invisible to Google who no longer tallied these for your overall ranking.

At the same time the AdSense ads alongside organic searches on Google were taking over. People were told to monetize their website by adding a copious amount of those. To help things along it was very tempting to ask friends and relatives to click on the ads featured on your site assuming they were doing it from a different IP connection to cover your tracks.

Genuine advertisers were incensed at the poor results having to pay for each click whether it generated sales or not. It was hard to explain why people would click on the ad but barely stayed a second or two on the advertised site. Click fraud is a big issue and is threatening Google's business model.

Finally the era of affiliate programs emerged. Big names like Amazon and eBay are in it so it must be good... for them that is. Just like Google there is no need to make them any more wealthy than they already are. On the other hand you can participate in an emerging enterprise by driving traffic to it. This is what affiliators.biz is all about.

Good content going to waste

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

People don't want to hear about you until they desperately need what you have to offer. Yet they don't really know what they want until somebody tells them. So here is the catch-22. You need to be relevant but people don't tell you in advance what they are looking for.

The tyranny of the internet is that your good content goes to waste for lack of exposure. The person who suffers the most is the small business proprietor trying to gain a critical mass of backlinks for their website to receive the traffic it deserves.

The person who spoils it all for everybody else is the sleek operator who manipulates keywords to be seen ahead of everyone else. They use a crash and burn technique where by the time the search engines have figured out their scheme they have moved to another target to repeat the process.

Email is no longer a reliable form of communication because you never know if some keyword in the subject or even the body of your text has been intercepted by some zealous anti-spam filter. We now live in a world where machines are telling us what we can and can't do!

Affiliate programs are a stench to most blogging platforms. Again the concept is sound but the application has ruined it for all. After the blatant cheating for pay-per-click advertising it was thought that a better reward was to pay a commission for each sale a third party would refer to your website. But suddenly we were inundated with poor articles planting links to some other dubious offers.

There are three favourite fields for marketing exploits: health, wealth and lifestyle. Besides wondrous slimming pills, crazy eat-all-you-want diets we are now to deal with get-rich-quick schemes and New Age connect-with-your-inner-guide wizards.

Another method which had its days was link exchange. A website A would promote a website B and B would somehow return the compliment. Again, a good idea which was soon to be abused. People never bothered to carry links that would be relevant to their visitors. Instead they had a rebirth as a link farm, channelling ever diminishing traffic to all manners of people. If you were involved, you reputation would soon take a hit because of your website being seen in a bad neighbourhood.

Next bookmarking was the go. Unless you belong to an unseen clique of conspirators you will never make it to the front page of Digg or Stumbleupon or Reddit You desperately need people to retweet your story, quote your blog and write (good) reviews about you.

So it seems the spin doctors are still very much active online and their clients don't care how it's done as long as they get the results.

Affiliators nuts and bolts

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1000

How much commission can I make?

It is entirely at the discretion of Affiliators management. It is better to over deliver on our promises than to make wild claims and not keep our word. As you battle it out for exposure and visibility in cyberspace we may reward your first sale with a larger commission to show you that this thing is real and that it works.

Once we have enough background history to rely on we will settle the average commission between 20% and 50% of the subscription sold.

How is my commission paid?

You need to register an account with PayPal and tell us the email to which we can send funds to. It doesn't need to be the same email used to open your affiliators account.

How often is my commission paid?

We will wait 30 days after the sale went through in case the customer is unhappy and claims a refund.

Can I advertise my pages with affiliators links on Google?

There is nothing to stop you from doing that. If you have made your sums by all means go ahead. Remember though that the whole concept of affiliators is to operate outside of Google's monopoly and to provide an alternative marketing channel. If you have a significant internet presence you can get a financial return through affiliators. That presence was most likely established through your interaction in social media and your reputation as a blogging expert in a given field.

What products/services can I promote through affiliators?

The list is available on affiliators products page.

Where can my affiliators links be displayed?

In short, anywhere you have the right to publish content. Typically that would be any of your websites and blogs. It can also be your facebook page (this process is automated through our facebook affiliators application) it can be your twitter account (affiliators targets featuring a regularly updated blog can be posted through our StreamPublish Twitter application). Your affiliators link can be in an email or a blog comment but unless you have valid reasons to do that it will be considered as spam and will result in you being blacklisted - not a good idea.

Are there any other income opportunities?

Through aptitude-test.info you may design tests in a field where you have some expertise. Each time people sit for that test and pay for it you will get a commission.

Will my friends find out I have a financial interest in promoting through affiliators?

Both Facebook and Twitter place a link back to our application at the end of the post. This is not something we can control but why be shy about it? Unlike many network marketing opportunities where you have to be overbearing to promote the scheme to people, affiliators is all above board - you do not have to recruit anybody. Web surfers will click if they want to find out more. They will appreciate you for sharing a good idea if it seems good to them too. They will check out the products/services involved or open an affiliators account on their own will - not being pressured by anybody.

How often will affiliators write on my Facebook wall or Twitter page?

Affiliators does not write on your social media pages by itself. Only when you go to the affiliators website and choose a target to promote will it get your account credentials and perform the post of your choice. There are several landing pages for each site to offer some variety. For the sites which offer a regularly updated blog the latest article will be posted.

What happens if the visitor I direct to an affiliators target site does not buy straight away but revisits the same website a week or so later?

Affiliators uses a technology called cookies to remember your affiliators ID. You can check this out by clicking on one of your links (there is no penalty for doing this unlike with Google AdSense ads). Close the browser and revisit the site, setup an account if required and go all the way to the PayPal page where you will see your affiliators ID at the top left under the banner logo. (This is easy to check with photoexhibition.biz where visitors do not need to setup their own trial account first.)