Affiliate Marketing

The tickets niche is a very interesting one to look at for affiliate marketers, especially if you have a new website or are just starting out.  Yes, you have huge brands for major terms, but because of the ticket industry and the red tape that exists in those large brands, you can more easily compete and win.  That is exactly why ticket affiliate programs are the perfect way to move in and start to take over.

This post will walk you through why it is a good niche, how to begin entering in and then ways to expand and grow your business based on the sub-niche you move into.

[Read more…] about Ticket Affiliate Programs, An Open Niche to Make Money In

Affiliate Management is the process of building and growing a channel of marketers to drive traffic to your store, business or offer. Affiliate programs, networks and managers are the three major components of affiliate management.

What is the difference between affiliate management and affiliate marketing?  

Affiliate marketing is a marketing channel where partners promote a store, product or offer on a revenue sharing basis.  The term refers to a marketing channel as opposed to a program or one of the key pieces.  Affiliate management is the process of making the channel work.

Now that the definitions are out of the way, below you will discover:

• what the different roles are
• what good affiliate management consists of
• how to tell if your Affiliate Manager is good, competent and what their skill levels are
• best practices for having and managing an affiliate program

[Read more…] about What is Affiliate Management?

Affiliate Summit is in less than two weeks and there are a lot of questions in different blogging and influencer groups about how to know which merchants (stores or retailers) to partner with.  Below you’ll find a series of questions you can ask to find out if the affiliate program is good for bloggers, YouTubers and social media influencers, or if you should politely pass on the opportunity.

Underneath the bulleted list you’ll find a series of detailed answers and what to listen for in the vendors’ responses.   One thing that is important to note is that even if there are issues in the program or with the manager, there are almost always solutions so don’t just say no if one of the issues comes up.  These questions also work great for other shows or just evaluating a program in general…they aren’t show specific.

Questions to ask affiliate managers before joining a program:

• Which states do you have to block for nexus?
• Do you work with coupon affiliates?
  • How is attribution set up?
• How can we track my sales from Instagram?
• Is cross device tracking set up?
  • What specific actions will track across devices?
• Can I get a product for review?
• Do you offer media buys or sponsored posts?
• How is the affiliate channel attributed with other channels?
• Do you work with adware?
  • Which adware affiliates have you declined and why?
• What network/s are you on?

(please note that all external links are my affiliate links and I’ll earn a commission if you shop through them)

[Read more…] about What to Ask Merchants Before Joining an Affiliate Program

This is a sponsored post by TerraLeads. The content and opinions are 100% my own at the time of this post (you’ll see both good and bad).  If you’re not interested in the review, there’s a bunch of strategy stuff at the end so it’s worth reading through.  I also have a cool post going live later this week or next week about how to make money with influencers by channel so make sure to check back for updates.   

TerraLeads is a completely new kind of affiliate business in Europe calling itself a hub.  They’re taking a unique approach by going with traditional CPA network styled products, but they produce them in house (they own the products), which helps to ensure quality and that their partners will get paid (no waiting for companies to send checks and fund the network).  They’ve created their own tracking technology and they also have their own call centers which employ native speakers for most European languages.  Because of these key competencies, they’ve left the traditional CPA networks in the dust and created what they’re calling an “affiliate hub”.  This is what spiked my interest and why I agreed to do the review.

Every time I work in the EU on affiliate campaigns I charge additional fees because of the backwards thinking by their networks.  That’s why I love TerraLeads approach in creating an affiliate hub.   It wouldn’t work for a traditional affiliate network in Europe that works with retail stores, but it should cause worry for the CPA networks.

As a heads up, being paid for doing a review on this site doesn’t mean I recommend a company.  In fact it’s quite the opposite, but in this case, it is a huge yes.  I would recommend giving them a shot (as of the time of this post).

They’ve passed all of my trust factors, but there are some things you should know.  You can click here to go to their homepage and then come back to find out what I like, didn’t like and then read below for some Facebook ad network, targeting goodness.

On to the review!

[Read more…] about TerraLeads Affiliate Hub, A New Affiliate Model

Niche affiliate sites are a great way to try and earn passive income.  If you build something of quality, it can become a niche leader and potentially remain a consistent and dependable form of revenue for you.  It may not be much depending on the industry you go into, but it is a great way to get started in affiliate marketing and to supplement income lost if one of your other sites ever gets penalized.

The blog post below walks you through one of the ways I recommend creating your first niche affiliate site from start to finish (and in great detail).

Note: I’d like to also note that I DO NOT recommend you pick a product and build a site around it.  Pick a topic for an under-served audience and build a resource around that topic where you have products and services that provide solutions.  

How to create a niche affiliate website:

1. Pick your topic
2. Do market research
3. Find keywords to bring in your target market
4. Discover affiliate programs that provide solutions for the content
5. Market your content geographically
6. Create a backup monetization plan

[Read more…] about How to Start a Niche Affiliate Site