Make Money with Affiliate Programs

Web Hosts for Affiliate Marketing.
When you’re looking for a website, these are the things you’ll want to look for:
1) The Ability to Host Unlimited Domain on One Account with now extra charges
2) Plenty of space and bandwidth to handle multiple websites and sudden traffic swells.
3) Good statistics and traffic analyzing tools

Here are our picks:

Blue Host

Blue Host is terrific for affiliate marketing. All accounts include unlimited domain names and great statistic and traffic analyzing tools. Blue Host boasts a whopping 1,500 GB Hosting Account for only $6.99. Their accounts come with a variety of helpful script and programs including ecommerce solutions such as Cube Cart and Zen Cart. All accounts some with Fantastico to easily install many scripts.

Unlimited Domains: Yes
Plenty of Web Space: +++++
Free Statistics: Yes
Free Scripts:
Base Price: $6.95

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GoDaddy

Godaddy is one of the most popular internet domain registar and webhosts. Their accounts are affordable: The Deluxe plan starts at $6.99/month and includes unlimited domains, 100 GB web space, and 1,000 GB traffic. Godaddy is user friendly and has a lot of extra features such as direct access to Google Webmaster Tools right from your hosting control panel. Google makes things like purchasing and implementing SSL certificates and setting up ecommerce solutions very easy. What Google lacks however, if good traffic reporting – you have to pay extra for this. You get very limited “free” traffic reporting with the basic account. You either need to use an outside traffic analyzing tool, or purchase Godaddy’s Traffic Facts for a small extra monthly fee. Google does not have many free included script or programs. You do get a free Google Adwords credit when you sign up for a new account.

Unlimited Domains: Yes
Plenty of Web Space: +++
Free Statistics: No
Free Scripts: No
Base Price: $6.99

Cost Per Click networks pay you every time a visitor clicks on an advertisement.  Ad are generally displayed as an ad unit or blocks and are automatically rotated. Google Adsense and Overture are leading CPC networks.

As an advertiser with Google Adwords, you can bid on and purchase clicks on Google.

Most affiliate programs are Cost Per Action. That means you are paid a commission every time someone you refer performs some action on the sponsor’s site. Generally “Action” means “Sale” or “Lead.” A sale is when someone makes a purchase — a lead is a non-sale action such as submitting a form for more information or starting a free trial. The affiliate is paid either a flat fee per lead/sale, or a percentage of a sale.

Google Adsense now has a “Referrals” program — a Cost Per Action (CPA) network. With Google Adsense Referrals, you choose the specific products in a variety of categories to promote in your Google Ad units. These ad units then earn you money per sale/lead as opposed to the traditional Adsense Per Click.

Here are some of the Top CPA Networks with High Conversions. Check them out!:

AffiliateFuel: AffiliateFuel gives you access to a wide array of individual affiliate programs covering all niches. You’ll get a monthly check from AffiliateFuel (usually around the 20th of the month) for all your affiliate activities. You’ll find all sorts of great affiliate programs here — including the seasonly appropriate affiliate programs for TurboTax, TaxAct, and TaxBrain, as well as the VistaPrint affiliate program, and Experian free Credit Reports affiliate program. Many of the offers you’ll find on this site are free sample/free trial offers — and you’ll get a commission every time one of your referrals takes advantage of the free offers! AffiliateFuel is a high quality network and does not accept all affiliates — they claim to only accept 5% of applications.

LinkShare: The Linkshare affiliate network has great statistics and great advertisers. At LinkShare, you’ll find high paying, high quality programs such as the Netflix affiliate program, as well as the Autos.com, Hotwire.com, 1-800-Pet-Meds, and Babies R Us affiliate programs.

ClickBank Clickbank is a digital products retailer. As an affiliate you can promote a wide range of products mostly including software and eBooks. You can also, very inexpensively I might add, begin to market your own digital products (such as an eBook you’ve written). If you put your own digital product on Clickbank, other affiliates will market your product and make sales. The affiliate will get a commission, and you’ll get paid.

1.Getting started with affiliate programs is simple. Here are some tips and ideas to consider as your research niches, keywords, site content and design, and ad placement. 

NiNiche sites. Niche sites tend to get higher search ranking and can develop a consistent audience. Keep your niche specific and provide useful content and you’ll see your traffic hit the roof. However, be sure that your niche has enough ads to be effective

2. Target good keywords. When determining what topics and keywords to target, consider what an advertiser will pay for space on your page. Get on Google Adwords and use the Traffic Estimator and Keyword tools. Find keywords that have high search rating, low advertiser competition, and a high estimated Cost Per Click (CPC). These keywords will provide more valuable traffic, higher search rankings and less competition.

3. Targeted Advertisements. The higher the relevance of your advertisers to your content, the high your click-through and sale conversion ratios will be

4. Ad Coding. If order to save time with ad placement experimention, load your advertisements from a template or an include file. By putting your banners or Adsense code in an external file, you can swap out ads site wide easier.

5. Tracking. On Adsense, use channels to track what placement strategies and sections of your site are working best. Many affiliate programs provide similar link tracking. If not, install a redirect click counting script for your affiliate links.

6. Ad Placement and Colors. With Adsense, blend your ad background color into the background of your page. If your page background is green, set your ad background and border color of your Adsense ad as green. Make your ads fit naturally into the content of your page. Square Adsense ad units tend to generate more clicks that traditional banner units.

7. Don’t clutter your page with ads. Adsense limits you to 3 ad units per page – this is a good guideline. By adding too many advertisements to your page, you discredit your site to visitors and the value of your ad inventory decreases.

8. Hot spots. Place ads above the fold. This means that an ad can be seen when the page is loaded without the need for scrolling. Google recommends certain hot spots on a page for higher clickthrough rates. View the Google Hotspot Map.

9. Diversify and experiment. Try different ad networks and different affiliate offers until you find what works for your site.

AffiliateFuel is one of our top converting affiliate network. The network provides high quality advertisers and is highly selective in it’s approval of affiliates. The affiliate offers found through Affiliate Fuel are designed to convert — and they do. You’ll also find that AffiliateFuel has some of the highest payouts in the industry.

They consistently pay affiliate by check about 15 days after the end of the month.

Visit Affiliate Fuel

Affiliate marketing companies are starting to wake up to Syntryx, the game-changing data analysis tool that's been on the scene for over a year. A powerful data collection and mining tool, Syntryx allows users to scour the web sphere for high performing existing affiliates and potential affiliate targets.

What does Syntryx do?

The great thing about Syntryx: it is actually a search engine and web crawler. It crawls the web with an eye out for things affiliate recruiters, media buyers, and SEO experts would be specifically looking for. However, that's only part of the value, once all of the data is collected in the Syntryx database, powerful data mining and analysis tools are provided that allow users to judge the force (reach/traffic/value) of a domain, identify all the domains held by a particular webmaster or company, analyze what other offers or programs are being promoted on an affiliate's site, and this is just scratching the surface.

How can users benefit from using Syntryx?

It is pretty easy to dive straight in and started mining the database for affiliate sites in particular program niches. AMs can target sites that already have affiliate links based on keywords the site ranks for, or even search for same/similar niche specific affiliate links anywhere in web sphere. All affiliate managers know the well-known top affiliate sites, but now Syntryx allows affiliate managers to see if a particular affiliate has another less well-known niche site that might fit perfectly with a particular program niche. These are just a couple uses specifically related to affiliate marketing. Affiliate managers can now also provide valuable information to clients useful in  competitor analysis, SEO and paid search campaigns.

For our own clients we certainly see the value extracted from this tool when combined with expert and experienced analysis provided by AMWSO managers. We know our investment will be quickly returned with interest.

Affiliate marketing companies are starting to wake up to Syntryx, the game-changing data analysis tool that's been on the scene for over a year. A powerful data collection and mining tool, Syntryx allows users to scour the web sphere for high performing existing affiliates and potential affiliate targets. What does Syntryx do? The great thing about Syntryx: it is actually a search engine and web crawler. It crawls the web with an eye out for things affiliate recruiters, media buyers, and SEO experts would be specifically looking for. However, that's only part of the value, once all of the data is collected in the Syntryx database, powerful data mining and analysis tools are provided that allow users to judge the force (reach/traffic/value) of a domain, identify all the domains held by a particular webmaster or company, analyze what other offers or programs are being promoted on an affiliate's site, and this is just scratching the surface. How can users benefit from using Syntryx? It is pretty easy to dive straight in and started mining the database for affiliate sites in particular program niches. AMs can target sites that already have affiliate links based on keywords the site ranks for, or even search for same/similar niche specific affiliate links anywhere in web sphere. All affiliate managers know the well-known top affiliate sites, but now Syntryx allows affiliate managers to see if a particular affiliate has another less well-known niche site that might fit perfectly with a particular program niche. These are just a couple uses specifically related to affiliate marketing. Affiliate managers can now also provide valuable information to clients useful in competitor analysis, SEO and paid search campaigns. For our own clients we certainly see the value extracted from this tool when combined with expert and experienced analysis provided by AMWSO managers. We know our investment will be quickly returned with interest.

Recently, there was a merchant who was outed on Abestweb for trying to entice affiliates into providing a non-affiliate link back to the merchant site in exchange for a 1/2 percent commission bonus. This practice was summarily criticized by affiliates, and the merchant was forced to withdraw the offer, make several apologies and replace the consultant responsible for the idea.

I think there were basically three camps of reasoning's behind the negative acceptance of this idea. 1) People were slighted at only being offered 0.5% commission increase for this valuable rank benefiting link back. 2) People felt that this idea was unethical search engine manipulation and 3) some people felt that the affiliate marketing program shouldn't be mixed in with the SEO strategy.

Reason #3 inspired me to think about how affiliate marketing will evolve in the future. I think the idea of keeping affiliate marketing as is, and not mixing it up with other online marketing efforts is going to be impossible to maintain in the near future. The perception of affiliate marketing is under assault and this assault is leading merchants to seek additional ways to gain the best value value from their affiliate programs.  The assault is coming from trademark bidders and parasitic affiliates and even coupon affiliates (not to question the overall value of coupon affiliates, just observing that SOME merchants question the value of coupon affiliates). Affiliate marketing is a great channel, it provides a measurable ROI, builds out brand presence, and employs some very creative individuals working for the benefit of a brand. Given the tremendous value affiliate marketing offers however, there will always be a trend by any business to seek more value out of a channel.

How can an affiliate channel demonstrate NEW value-add while under this constant assault from non-value adding affiliate enterprises? I think the misguided link back idea was an attempt at addressing this idea. While it was resoundingly criticized, it was an attempt at adding something new to the affiliate channel.

Can affiliates be asked reasonably to get involved in other marketing endeavors on behalf of a merchant?  Perhaps commission bonuses for helping to vote up an article on a social site? Generating comments and content to help with spin reputation management?  If it's true that the affiliates of a merchant are like an independent sales force can this sales force be employed further for the benefit of both the affiliate and the merchant?

Recently, there was a merchant who was outed on Abestweb for trying to entice affiliates into providing a non-affiliate link back to the merchant site in exchange for a 1/2 percent commission bonus. This practice was summarily criticized by affiliates, and the merchant was forced to withdraw the offer, make several apologies and replace the consultant responsible for the idea. I think there were basically three camps of reasoning's behind the negative acceptance of this idea. 1) People were slighted at only being offered 0.5% commission increase for this valuable rank benefiting link back. 2) People felt that this idea was unethical search engine manipulation and 3) some people felt that the affiliate marketing program shouldn't be mixed in with the SEO strategy. Reason #3 inspired me to think about how affiliate marketing will evolve in the future. I think the idea of keeping affiliate marketing as is, and not mixing it up with other online marketing efforts is going to be impossible to maintain in the near future. The perception of affiliate marketing is under assault and this assault is leading merchants to seek additional ways to gain the best value value from their affiliate programs. The assault is coming from trademark bidders and parasitic affiliates and even coupon affiliates (not to question the overall value of coupon affiliates, just observing that SOME merchants question the value of coupon affiliates). Affiliate marketing is a great channel, it provides a measurable ROI, builds out brand presence, and employs some very creative individuals working for the benefit of a brand. Given the tremendous value affiliate marketing offers however, there will always be a trend by any business to seek more value out of a channel. How can an affiliate channel demonstrate NEW value-add while under this constant assault from non-value adding affiliate enterprises? I think the misguided link back idea was an attempt at addressing this idea. While it was resoundingly criticized, it was an attempt at adding something new to the affiliate channel. Can affiliates be asked reasonably to get involved in other marketing endeavors on behalf of a merchant? Perhaps commission bonuses for helping to vote up an article on a social site? Generating comments and content to help with spin reputation management? If it's true that the affiliates of a merchant are like an independent sales force can this sales force be employed further for the benefit of both the affiliate and the merchant?

Lee Odden over at his Online Marketing Blog has related a story where a major bank is not allowing purchases made with it's credit card over the internet. It's not as if affiliates have enough factors getting in the way of them earning their rightful commissions. Factors including cookie blocking, parasiteware, cookie stuffers, failed tracking and other factors. However, now if credit card companies force consumers to call a company to complete an online transaction, this will certainly have an impact on affiliate sales.

Affiliates and the major affiliate networks need to be aware of this, and keep an eye on the trend. US Bank is not small, and it's a pretty narrow view they are taking in the name of "security." I certainly hope they start to see the light as they lose consumers and transactions as consumers reject this inconvenience, as Lee had done.

Just to note, I tried to contact the PR team listed on the US Bank web site for a comment and response, and sent emails to Steve Dale, Teri Charest, Amy Frantti, and Lisa Clark, but did not receive any replies.