Affiliate marketing is valued at 1 trillion. What is affiliate marketing. Use only useful content

Affiliate marketing (PM) is one of the areas of online marketing. Allows you to increase sales and increase profits. The use of the tool presupposes knowledge of all its features.

Affiliate Marketing Concept

Affiliate marketing involves pooling the resources of two parties. One of the parties provides its sites for promoting the partner's goods; by increasing his sales, the person receives a certain percentage. For example, a specific site hosts useful content. As part of affiliate marketing, the website publishes links to the online store. As a result, the site owner can get a percentage of the sale of the online store's products. The money comes from increasing sales, attracting new customers. Affiliate marketing principles are based on the foundations of classic marketing. However, there are many differences.

Functions

Affiliate marketing is characterized by the following features:

• Formation of corporate value for clients.
• Increasing company awareness.
• Increased sales.
• Promotion of a commercial product on the Internet.

PM is an extremely common tool for online promotion. Its effectiveness has been proven.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing

Basically, there are three parties involved in affiliate marketing: the partner, the buyer, and the seller.

The benefits of affiliate marketing are clear:

• The ability to generate additional income without additional effort.
• Site monetization.
• Opportunity to develop information project for the funds received.
• Passive income without investment.
• All financial issues the seller is engaged.

ATTENTION! The main disadvantage of PM for a partner is high risks. The seller can simply close the affiliate program without paying any commission. In addition, site visitors may express dissatisfaction with the advertisements that appear.

Advantage of PM for the seller:

• Attracting new customers.
• Increased sales.
• Increase in the number of registered users.
• Increasing competitiveness.

Affiliate marketing allows you to advertise products to your target audience. But this side also carries risks. The main risk is the low effectiveness of affiliate marketing. Plus, it can be difficult for a merchant to pay high commissions.

Potential buyers also get certain benefits. For example, a person is fond of sports and constantly visits a thematic site. The resource contains a link to an online store of sports products. Man saves time searching good seller... He receives current offers. The downside is that the constant advertisements on a news site can be annoying.

Affiliate Marketing Performance Criteria

How to Track Affiliate Marketing Effectiveness? There are the following criteria:

• CTR. Displays the ratio of the number of clicks on an ad to the actual number of impressions for that material. Expressed as a percentage.
• CR. Displays conversion. That is, the percentage of direct transitions to the seller's website that ended with a purchase or registration is determined.
• EPC. This is the partner's income for 1 click on the advertising material.

Performance indicators must be monitored without fail. Otherwise, you will have to spend a lot on advertising that does not bring profit.

In addition, if low efficiency is found, you can quickly improve it. This can be done in the following ways:

• Concluding a partnership with the owner of another site... For example, the seller chose the wrong one target audience... The online store sells sports products. His ad is on a diet site. Many, but not all losing weight go in for sports, and therefore this is not quite a necessary target audience. It makes sense to place banners on a fitness website.
• Increasing the attractiveness of the banner ad... Banners are the most common affiliate marketing tool. In order for a potential buyer to make a click, you need to make the banner as bright and attractive as possible. It can contain text that clearly indicates where the buyer is going. There may be a provocation on the banner. It makes sense to experiment with banner design in order to track your response rates.

Tracking performance results and improving them is the seller's job, not the partner's.

Affiliate marketing by example

Affiliate marketing is often used in info business. For example, a person sells books and is looking for new sales sites. Referrals are attracted to increase sales. The task of partners is to find buyers for an information product. The person receives a commission from each sale. That is, the partner has good motivation to work. The seller does not have to spend money on ineffective advertising. He only pays funds on actual sales. Affiliate marketing levels vary. Each level has different costs. Consider the options for distributing an information product:

1. Attraction to sales ordinary people... Referrals can be found on thematic sites.
2. Attracting novice bloggers to sales, people with an audience. This effective method implementation, a way to attract the attention of the target audience to the product.
3. Attraction of famous bloggers, stars. This method will attract massive attention to the product. Customer loyalty automatically increases.

Some companies exclusively use affiliate marketing as a distribution channel. So, PM works as follows:

1. The seller is looking for a referral and negotiates the terms of partnership with him.
2. The referral advertises products, looks for buyers.
3. The product is on sale.
4. The seller transfers the commission to the referral.

It is not always the seller's job to find methods to attract buyers. If the referral is a blogger, he can form an advertising offer himself.

How to find a referral?

Participation in an affiliate program is not at all a guarantee of increased profits. To achieve the desired results, you must correctly go through all the stages of the marketing plan. First of all, you need to define the marketing objectives. This can be attracting customers, increasing sales, registering new users on the site. The second step is finding the right referral program. It is worth deciding through which resources the product or resource will be advertised:

• Information sites.
• YouTube.
• Bloggers' platforms.
• Attracting buyers through offline referrals.

The site for attraction is determined depending on the characteristics of the product. For example, the benefits of some products are best shown visually. For example, it can be cosmetics. In this case, you should use YouTube.

Referrals can be found on thematic resources. For example, it can be a public dedicated to online promotion. You can look for bloggers who can advertise products and connect with them through personal communication.

You won't get rich instantly after reading this guide. I am not going to give away money, but I will tell you how you can earn it. In fact, here are the answers to the most common questions about affiliate marketing. Whether to use this material or not is up to you.

A basic level of

This part of the guide contains answers to the questions most often asked by newbies. It is for those who have never worked with affiliate programs before, and are just going to try to get started.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate (affiliate) marketing is marketing based on payment for a specific action, when a partner (webmaster, affiliate, advertiser) advertises a product or service of a seller (advertiser) and receives a reward for each sale, registration or subscription. The most common types of affiliate marketing interactions are:

• PPL (Pay Per Lead) - payment for the initial action (lead). For example, filling out the registration form on the site.
• PPA (Pay Per Action) - payment for a specific action (deeper than a lead). For example, a user reaches level 10 in an online game.
• PPS (Pay Per Sale) - payment for the sale (fixed or%).

Affiliate marketing was born in the West in 1994-1996. The pioneers were CDNow and Amazon.

There are many ways of interaction in affiliate marketing that involve many levels of contributors. But it is based on a mutually beneficial partnership between two entities:

1. The owner of the product or service;
2. A partner who knows how to sell this product or service.

Foreign webmasters like to say that affiliate marketing is the art of selling a product better than its owner and making money on it. Many gold and platinum webmasters (as they are called in some affiliate networks) often really have much more experience in sales than beginner advertisers. As a result, they can provide the advertiser with such a turnover that will allow them to constantly expand their business, and the webmasters themselves - to live peacefully somewhere in Thailand on the commission they receive in return.

How Much Can You Make With Affiliate Marketing?

According to the 2013 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report, webmasters earn annually from affiliate marketing within the following limits:

• 39.9% - less than $ 5,000
• 11.8% - from $ 5,000 to $ 9,999
• 13.1% - from $ 10,000 to $ 24,999
• 5.9% - from $ 25,000 to $ 49,999
• 9.2% - from $ 50,000 to $ 99,999
• 2% - from $ 100,000 to $ 199,999
• 2% - from $ 200,000 to $ 299,999
• 2% - from $ 300,000 to $ 399,999
• 2% - from $ 400,000 to $ 499,999
• 3.3% - more than $ 500,000
• 9.8% - refused to disclose the amount

Now we will give similar data for a month for Russia (research):

• 23% - up to 3,000 rubles
• 25% - from 3,000 to 10,000 rubles
• 30% - from 10,000 to 50,000 rubles
• 11% - from 50,000 to 100,000 rubles
• 7% - from 100,000 to 300,000 rubles
• 4% - more than 300,000 rubles

Unfortunately, our affiliate marketing is not as well developed as it is in the West. Therefore, the figures above are the total income of the average Runet webmaster. This includes links, context, and direct ad sales, not just affiliate marketing.

Nevertheless, analyzing foreign data, we can conclude that affiliate marketing may be no different from routine work financially. So only 17% of webmasters noted that their income is equal to or higher than the average salary in the United States.

Therefore, you should not count on mountains of gold from the very beginning. Although there are webmasters who make good money on affiliate marketing. For example, a world-famous blogger from Australia, Darren Rose (ProBlogger) this year celebrated 10 years of work with the Amazon affiliate (maybe I'll translate his anniversary post sometime later). Here's a graph of his commission:

In my previous article, I considered another foreign blogger, Glen (author of the ViperChill blog). He is in a week, merging traffic from the social network Facebook.

And in 2010 I had a post in which I talked about comrade richoffyou. He is in 2009.

From the bourgeoisie we are smoothly moving on to domestic craftsmen.

Well, a few screenshots of payments (on Webmoney):

Although many webmasters consider affiliate marketing as an additional source of income and have a formal job in parallel.

Is it 100% passive income?

Oh, how many times in 5 years of work on the Internet I have heard this phrase - "passive income". Directly, the cherished dream of most novice moneymakers: to do nothing and get money.

If under passive income you mean such a scheme in which all processes will be automated and you will only have to withdraw money from the card once a month, I hasten to disappoint you. You can automate many processes. However, given the speed with which internet affiliate marketing is evolving, it is simply impossible to create a 100% passive system. We'll have to work constantly.

What is an affiliate program?

An affiliate program is a business agreement under which one party (advertiser) agrees to pay the other party (webmaster) money according to one of the models given at the beginning of the manual. The buyer follows the affiliate link of the webmaster to the advertiser's website and for the further action of the buyer specified in the agreement, the webmaster receives money.

The webmaster receives money for absolutely all confirmed leads or orders.

The main specializations of webmasters in affiliate marketing

When working in the field of affiliate marketing, you can use almost any online marketing tool (if allowed by the rules of a particular advertiser). Let's highlight the main ones.

1. Content... In this case, the webmaster independently creates online content or stimulates visitors to his site for such activities.
2. Coupons... Webmasters on their projects aggregate and distribute coupons, promo codes, advertisers' discounts.
3. Information feeds... A webmaster creates a website using a special advertising feed for a specific offer or product.
4. Banners... Placement of affiliate banners on sites.
5. Email... Sending promotional offers through email.
6. Motivation... The webmaster invites the user to make a purchase on the advertiser's website in exchange for some virtual privileges, discounts, etc.
7. Mobile... Webmasters specialize in working with mobile traffic for relevant offers (from specific campaigns to mobile applications).
8. SEM... Webmasters use their SEO and PPC skills to redirect users from search engines to the advertiser's website.
9. SMM... Redirecting traffic from social networks (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, Facebook, My World, etc.) to the advertiser's website.
10. Video... Attracting potential buyers to the advertiser's website using video content.

In fact, most experienced webmasters do not rest on one single tool, but try to combine them harmoniously.

How and where to start?

Before taking you into the world of affiliate marketing, an advertiser will want to know where you are going to drive traffic from and what quality it will be. Therefore, first you need to create a website. I recommend choosing something as simple as a WordPress blog.

And only then feel free to register in the largest partner networks and programs.

How much money do you need to get started?

A normal affiliate system will never charge you money for registration. Therefore, to get started, you need minimum investment... A domain for your own website will cost about 100-150 rubles (per year). Well, hosting can be taken anywhere for $ 10 per month.

Although, in theory, when working with basic offers that pay% of sales and accept any traffic, everything will depend only on your free time and skills.

Can I start working without my own website?

Undoubtedly. But if you do not have any knowledge in the field of Internet marketing at all, then I would still recommend starting with the site.

You can, for example, run advertising campaign to Yandex.Direct and send traffic from contextual advertising to the advertiser's website. You can do email marketing. You can, in the end, create a cool public on VKontakte and post affiliate links on the wall.

However, search traffic is what most advertisers love. So it will be easier to work with the site. And no one bothers you to add public to it. Just do not forget to check the working conditions of this or that advertiser before you start pouring traffic. If, for example, he does not accept traffic from social networks, and you catch up with a bunch of users from VKontakte, certain sanctions may be applied to you (up to the removal of your account from the affiliate network without paying commissions).

How long does it take?

You can invest as much money and energy as you are willing to afford. Someone works 2-3 hours a week, someone a couple of hours a day, and someone devotes 40 hours a week to affiliate marketing (and even more).

The most important thing: if you, for example, work in an office, you shouldn't quit your job today and go to the Internet. Set aside a few hours on the weekend to get started. Get comfortable, gain experience, work with certain tools. And when your affiliate marketing income is at least equal to the official salary, you might consider quitting your job.

What technical knowledge do I need to get started?

Unlike programmers, designers, layout designers and other Internet entrepreneurs, in order to start a career as a webmaster in the field of affiliate marketing, you do not need any specific technical knowledge.

Yes, of course, if you have some programming skills, it will be much easier for you to get started. But, in the end, all specific points can be outsourced or use ready-made solutions, such as feeds and other tools provided by partner systems.

Can I advertise products or services of different advertisers from the same niche?

Certainly. As an ordinary free freelancer, you can freely choose the offer you want to make money on. I have never seen an advertiser forbid working in parallel with a competitor.

There are certain restrictions, for example, regarding the use of competitors' advertising materials. But all such subtleties are usually spelled out in the working conditions. Well the federal law Do not forget to observe "About advertising".

Which affiliate program should you choose?

Affiliate programs can be divided into two types:

1. Affiliate system / network (aggregator of affiliate programs). For example, AD1. Here an intermediary (network) appears between the publisher and the advertiser, which provides both parties with a convenient technological platform for interaction. In this case, the advertiser does not need to spend energy on creating his own platform, and he can direct all his resources to business development. On the other hand, a webmaster does not need to spend time, effort and money on the development of the necessary modules, plugins, feeds and other tools. He can concentrate on traffic. Plus, the affiliate network makes sure that the advertiser and the webmaster do not deceive each other.
2. Own affiliate program. For example, CPAZilla, VseMayki. Here the intermediary is removed. All that remains is the advertiser and the webmaster with all that it implies.

Now in Runet, partner networks and programs open and close at an alarming rate, often leaving behind a lot of negative reviews. Therefore, I will not compile a list of all currently operating services here. You can always find current players on the market in the blogosphere or on the forums.

For convenience, I present here a list of aggregators of affiliate programs, which you can find in the annual study Monetization of Web Projects on the Runet (actual at the beginning of 2013):

• ActionPay
• Admitad
• Advaction
• Cityads
• CPA Network
• Himba
• Leadgid
• Leads
• LeadsLeader
• Myragon
• TradeDoubler
• TradeTracker
• Where is the elephant
• Mixmarket

Each affiliate network has its own terms and conditions of work. Often, the same advertisers work with several affiliate networks at once. I would recommend starting with Admitad, Cityads, AD1 or Mixmarket.

What to choose: an affiliate network or an affiliate program?

As you wish. It is convenient for me to work with networks, the list of which you can find above. Why?

• The widest range of tools for work, from a regular banner rotator to coupon or financial feeds.
• All money is concentrated in one place and arrives on the same date. You don't have to wait until the minimum wage is reached in a dozen of affiliates.
• Convenient system of statistics and conversion tracking.
• No problem signing contracts.
• Benefits for contextual advertising and advertising on social networks.
• Contests and promotions.
• Educational programs.
• Compensation.
• etc.

However, it is not always possible to find the right advertiser in affiliate networks. Some large companies prefer to develop their own platforms for interacting with webmasters. Some advertisers do not comply with affiliate network policies.

How can I receive the money I earned?

Most affiliate networks and programs pay remuneration to Webmoney, PayPal, bank card, Yandex.Money, etc.

As a rule, there is a minimum amount that must be collected before it is transferred to you. Payments can be made automatically on a specific day of the month. Or you will have to manually order a withdrawal at any time convenient for you. In addition, in the system, finances can be divided into different currencies (for example, if one advertiser pays a commission in rubles, and the other in euros).

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files in which the browser records data received from the server. When a user goes to the advertiser's website using an affiliate link, the server reads the information contained in the cookies. This is how the affiliate system and the advertiser know that the user came from you and that you need to pay a reward for his actions.

Each advertiser has a specific period for which cookies are stored. That is, for example, if a user followed your affiliate link to the advertiser's website (cookies are stored for 30 days), closed it, and then returned to it through Yandex two weeks later and made a purchase, you are paid an affiliate reward. If 2 months have passed since the first visit, the cookies are erased and the reward is not paid.

In addition to cookies, affiliate networks have many tools for tracking visitors in more detail. For example, it can be an order number, a bonus card number, an IP address, a target link with a unique code, etc.

What happens if the buyer returns the item?

If a customer returns a product (or part of it) purchased through your affiliate link, the advertiser will reduce the amount of your commission depending on what was ultimately purchased. Also, the advertiser may not pay you anything at all if something from the list below happens:

• Payment confirmation failed.
• The fact of fraud on your part or on the part of the buyer has been identified.
• The item was not claimed or returned.
• The customer has accidentally duplicated the order.
• Order cancelled.
• Test transaction.
• The webmaster purchased the product through his own affiliate link (only if it is prohibited).
• The order has not been completed.

In order to protect yourself from the above situations, an advertiser or an affiliate network sets a hold (the period during which you cannot withdraw the earned money).

Why is it important to carefully read the terms and conditions of working with the affiliate program, as well as the privacy policy?

When you register in the affiliate program, you automatically agree with all the terms and conditions of work. Usually, there is a corresponding link in the registration form. Among other things, such an agreement usually contains advertising rules, requirements for webmasters and their sites, payment system, restrictions, etc.

Before starting work, make sure that you have read this entire agreement and that all points in it are clear to you. Do not neglect such documents. They can save you from many mistakes, which sometimes hit your pocket hard.

Do not forget to check all the necessary information before starting to work with the program.

Advanced level

This part of the guide is intended for those who have already registered in the affiliate program, created their own website, installed affiliate links on it and are ready to start earning.

What is the most profitable niche / offer?

This is a very dangerous question, which sometimes even experienced webmasters burn out. There are two important points here.

For example, a new one comes to the affiliate network online game or a bank and set prices many times higher than their counterparts. Many people think that if they switch their traffic from old proven offers to this new one, then all indicators, including conversion, will remain the same, only their reward will increase. But there are many factors that affect income:

• The quality of the advertiser's landing page.
• Difficulty for the user to achieve the goal required for the commission.
• Geo targeting.
• Types of received traffic.
• The stability of the advertiser's website.
• The level of professionalism of the advertiser's managers responsible for the correct operation of statistics and its transmission.
• Coherence internal processes of the advertiser (checkout, delivery, call center, etc.)

As a result, on the same volumes of exactly the same traffic, you can get several times less money than when working with an offer that pays several times less for similar actions.

Second: “Hot” product / niche.

A product gets “hot” when there is a buzz around it. There are a lot of examples here.

Take the same 2011 arbitrage case from Wildo. After the article was published on the blog, clouds of beginners and not so webmasters rushed to pour traffic from VKontakte to the Overkings game. Also official representatives the games themselves launched a powerful advertising campaign there. As a result, the envelope fell so much that it was simply not profitable to continue pouring traffic. A lot of people were arbitrated in the negative. Some later even accused Wildo of providing them with non-existent information. I still clearly remember how the average CPC jumped in targeted ads back then.

It was the same during the recent one. When the cost per click increased 10 times during the day!

It also happens that the advertiser does not count his strengths and capabilities, and the affiliate network turns a blind eye to this in the hope of cutting down more commissions. As a result, the offer lasts a couple of months and then goes away. From the recent ones, you can take the same Onlime in the AD1 affiliate program. Webmasters were not given the opportunity to weed out houses that are not connected to the provider. Applications did not go through. Traffic was wasted.

Sometimes, the advertiser simply does not have enough money to pay for the amount of actions that webmasters provide. There are also a lot of such cases. Some affiliate networks are trying to pay off the debt to webmasters out of their own pockets, since a litigation with an advertiser can drag on for months, if not years.

What to do? Don't chase high prices and popular offers. Try different offers. Do a lot of tests. Look out for advertisers that no one else talks about. You may be surprised, but few people will talk about their goose that lays the golden eggs. So don't be afraid to work in niches that you don't have any information about at all.

Is it possible to roughly predict future income?

Very rough, but yes, you can. The accuracy of such a forecast will depend on many indicators. Yes, at least on how you will advertise the offer on your website (what kind of banner you place, in which part of the page you will do it, how competent you write the text, etc.).

It is customary to analyze the following five main metrics:

1. Click-Through Rate(CTR) - click-through rate. It depends on how much you have selected the target audience, as well as on what kind of tool you are using (direct link, target link, banner, etc.).
2. Earnings per click(EPC) - Average revenue per click. Usually calculated per 1,000 or 100 clicks. In most affiliate networks, it is available even without registration. In fact, he talks about how much other webmasters are already earning on this or that offer in the system. However, you should not take it as the basis for calculations, since it is the average for the system. For instance. One webmaster gets 10 rubles per click, the second - 10,000. EPC of 1 click on the offer will be 5,005 rubles. It is very far from the truth.
3. Average Order Value(AOV) - is calculated by dividing the value of all products sold by partners by the number of orders. Distributed in the West. I did not notice (maybe I looked inattentively).
4. Conversion Rate(CR) - Everyone's favorite conversion rate. Calculated by dividing leads or sales by the number of clicks (visitors). Good conversion rates vary from niche to niche.
5. Reversal Rate(RR) - bounce rate. Measured as a percentage of orders rejected. Of course, the smaller it is, the better.

Let's consider a hypothetical example. I have a friend who runs a thematic blog with monthly traffic of 75,000 unique and 200,000 views. He would like to estimate how much money can be made on such a project by posting several affiliate links or banners without any damage to the blog itself.

We select a thematic offer for your blog in any affiliate system. Suppose he pays 12% of sales and has the following indicators:

• CTR = 1%
• EPC = $ 60
• AOV = $ 125
• CR = 5%
• RR = 10%

And now we make calculations:

• Traffic: 200,000 x 1% (CTR) = 2,000
• Sales: 2,000 x 5% (CR) = 100
• Income: 100 x $ 125 (AOV) * 12% (commissions) - 10% (RR) = $ 1,350

Now we calculate the EPC for this blog (divide the revenue by traffic and multiply by 100):

• $ 1,350 / 2,000 x 100 = $ 67.50

We compare the obtained EPC with the average for the system ($ 60) and we get a pretty close result.

However, remember: having received such an EPC on a certain offer in one affiliate network, in another, you can get significantly different numbers on it. So don't fall prey to your own wrong assumptions.

What types of sites are the most popular?

People come online for two things:

1. Solve some problem.
2. Have fun.

No more and no less. You can check on your own experience or on your friends.

When you start creating sites for affiliate programs (and not only), they should either entertain visitors or solve their problems. Only in this case people will add them to bookmarks and come again. A mix of entertainment and problem solving works just as well.

A classic example would be a website that publishes daily interesting videos... And in the sidebar or right under the video there is a rotator of thematic affiliate banners.

So, the next time you create a new site, don't forget that it should entertain visitors or solve their problems.

I used to be a regular on the online earning forums and SEO forums. Some novice moneymakers have seen sites like this:

An ordinary banner farm that doesn't make any sense at all. Even if all the banners are made on the same topic and the thematic traffic is sent to it, it will still not bring the owner a ruble. Such a site does not benefit either the visitor, the advertiser or the webmaster. Usually this is popularly called a govnosite.

To make a good website and earn good money on it in the future, first take a look at your future brainchild through the eyes of visitors.

Lead leaks

Before starting to work with a specific offer, be sure to inspect all of the advertiser's landing pages for “leaks”. By leakage, in this context, I mean a lead or action that an advertiser can take away from a webmaster thanks to a landing page. And here are some reasons why this might happen:

• The advertiser's website has a phone number.
• Live chat (similar to telephone).
• Adsense.
• Affiliate links (for example, in the letter that the advertiser sends to the buyer in response to an attempt to register).
• Links to other stores or sites in the advertiser's network.
• Links to websites of other advertisers.
• Links to partner sites.

Bad banners

• The banner should not have a phone number (unless you are working with an affiliate number). Otherwise it will lead to leakage.
• The banner should not contain the url of the advertiser's website. In theory, this leaves a potential buyer the ability to manually type the url into the address bar.
• The banner should openly call the user to the necessary action (“details here”, “learn more”, “buy now”, etc.). There is no need to assume that the user himself will guess to click on the banner. Tell him yourself what to do.
• If space permits, the affiliate banner should attractively reflect the essence of the advertised product.
• Avoid overly animated banners. Especially beware of high frame rate GIFs where it is impossible (or very difficult) to read the text.

What are the criteria for choosing an affiliate program?

In order not to shout at every corner that affiliate marketing is one complete deception, carefully approach the choice of an affiliate program. Many argue that you need to work with those who pay more. I am not a supporter of this approach. Chasing the highest cost per lead can ultimately waste your time and money.

Each affiliate program needs to be evaluated according to a number of characteristics, but not one at a time. Here are 15 of these characteristics. You can build up your list by removing or adding to these items at your discretion.

1. Site

Start right at the advertiser's site. Evaluate it from two sides: as a buyer and as a webmaster. It should be comfortable and easy to use, but professional at the same time. Try to place an order. Make sure the user is not distracted by unnecessary items from the purchase. Are there opportunities for lead leakage on the site? Is it possible for the buyer to call a free phone number or use the services of a consultant in the chat during the checkout process? Or maybe there is someone else's affiliate link in the letter confirming the registration on the site?

2. Reputation / reliability

Using a trivial search, check the reputation of the advertiser whose products or services you are going to promote. Do it, again, both as a buyer and as a webmaster. Refer to independent thematic sites: forums, blogs, communities on social networks. It is very important that not everyone can leave reviews on the site. At the very least, pay more attention to reviews from people with high reputations. If the advertiser is not clean on hand, it will be quite easy to find out.

3. Prices / competitiveness

Some advertisers create multiple copies of their main site and charge different prices for the same products. Business gimmicks like these can seriously ruin your life as a partner. The 21st century is already in the yard and buyers can easily find a profitable offer. To compete with the advertiser himself, and even with a higher price for the product, is complete nonsense.

4. Market situation

Some niches have been overflowing for a long time. If you don't have a unique product, you'd better turn your attention to freer niches. With a large number of players, it is difficult to compete, especially for webmasters. Take hosting sites as an example. Now, in my opinion, almost every second webmaster has its own hosting (though there are not so many really high-quality ones). Competing in such a market is not a task for a beginner.

5. Commissions

In your comparative table of affiliate programs (which, I hope, you will certainly do), this item should be mandatory. However, as mentioned above, you should not put it at the forefront. There are many other factors to look out for.

6. Re-payment

When you make purchases or use services that require constant replenishment (food, stationery, banks, etc.) and the quality of service suits you, will you compare these products and services with competitors' analogues next time?

72% of the respondents answered in the affirmative. Yes, of course, new clients are important for an advertiser and he can pay more for them at his discretion. However, this does not mean that the webmaster should give him those clients who came to the second, third, etc. once. This practice is present on the market, so carefully read the terms of cooperation.

7. Service agreement

In June 2012, on 4 online resources (mixmarket.biz, searchengines.ru, maultalk.com, affnet.ru) Mikhail Garkunov, inspired by a similar study by Evgeny Prussakov, conducted a survey among webmasters working with affiliate programs on the topic: “Do you read rules and requirements of the affiliate program? ”. 132 webmasters took part in the survey. Here are the results:

Scary statistics, isn't it !? Therefore, it is not surprising that on many forums newbies write angry posts with headlines like “Admitad scammers” or “CityAds scammers”. After all, 65% of webmasters almost never read the rules.

8. Duration of Cookies

As we have already found out earlier, this is the period during which the buyer is assigned to the webmaster and brings him a commission. If the cookies are valid for 1 day, and the purchase was made a week after clicking on the affiliate link, the webmaster does not receive a commission.

9. Conversion rate

One of the most important points. On its basis are built financial projections... Let's use an example to compare two advertisers. The former pays 10% in commission and has a conversion rate of 1.5%. The second pays just 4% but has a 6% conversion rate. Let's see how much you can earn on each of them with 1,000 unique visitors. Let's say the average order value is $ 10.

• 1,000 unique * 1.5% CR = 15 sales
• 15 * ($ 10 AOV * 10%) = $ 15 commission

• 1,000 unique * 6% CR = 60 sales
• 60 * ($ 10 AOV * 4%) = $ 24 commission

As you can see, conversion rates play a very important role in affiliate marketing.

The average income per click (from 100, from 1,000) can be viewed in most affiliates even without registration. Remember, this is just the average of the system. It can mix, for example, SEO, SMM and doorway traffic. So if you see (for example, in CityAds) an EPC of 128,000 rubles or 1,800 rubles, remember that this is income from 1,000 clicks, not from one.

11. Bounce rate

You will see it in few affiliate networks. At least in the public domain. Some experienced webmasters independently calculate this indicator based on the experience of interacting with the advertiser. But if it is, watch it closely. Usually, every 1% of this indicator implies 1 return from a batch of 100 pieces of goods.

12. Technology platform for order tracking

It does not matter whether you are working with an affiliate program or an affiliate system, the main thing is that you can analyze the information provided to you by the technological platform. And not just analyze, but build high-quality forecasts based on the data received. Different partners have different not only statistics and order tracking systems, but also moral principles. 😉

13. Technical support

Contact the advertiser and personal manager in the affiliate system. See how quickly and how fully / available they will answer your question. You need to work with those who need you. In some cases, the advertiser seems to be of high quality, but does not answer the questions at all.

14. Creativity

It doesn't matter what you are working with. Banners, targeted links, feeds. For each tool, the advertiser must provide adequate advice.

15. Tools

Even if for now you are going to limit yourself to ordinary links to home page advertiser, check out all the additional tools. You never know what you may need in the future for work.

A high-quality affiliate system should have several types of links (including targeted ones), banners (and their spinners), feeds, links for reusing unaccepted traffic, coupons, etc.

Do not neglect such a comparative scheme and immediately rush into battle. It can significantly reduce your future costs and protect the nervous system.

What do affiliate program managers look at when registering a new webmaster?

When you apply for an affiliate program, make sure to follow the guidelines below:

1. Provided your real full name.
2. We added our working website. If the attendance statistics are password-protected, then you need to give guest access to it.
3. If you can specify a category for your site in the affiliate program, be sure to choose one that matches the theme of your site.
4. If the topic of your site does not coincide with the topic of the advertiser, explain exactly how you are going to attract users.
5. Carefully read the terms of work with the affiliate program. Perhaps already at this stage you have managed to break them.
6. Enter a valid email address and reply to the letter from the affiliate program, if necessary.
7. Avoid marketing mistakes, clichés and meaningless descriptions of the methods you plan to use to work with the advertiser.

If you have completed all the points listed above, but your application is still not approved, contact the affiliate program manager and clarify what the problem is. Perseverance is always rewarded.

Is there a key affiliate marketing solution?

Some experienced webmasters who decide to change their field of activity to affiliate marketing often ask if they can buy something ready-made in this niche in order to start earning income right away. Of course, but I still recommend creating something of your own. Firstly, buying an already working website for affiliate marketing will be very expensive. If you are offered a similar site for a penny, you are most likely being deceived. Secondly, in order to become a successful webmaster in this area, you will have to discover a whole bunch of chips on your own experience and create more than one site, trying different monetization schemes. Thirdly, clones always earn several times less than the original.

Can a hyphen be used in the url of an affiliate site?

When webmasters choose a domain name for their niche site, they usually try to make sure that the title contains keywords that can be used to get good converting visitors from the search in the future. For example, plasticokna.rf or bestmmorpg.com.

However, such domains are not always free. The question arises about the use of hyphens in the address.

Some say that the use of hyphens is unacceptable, since the user will not be able to remember where to put them when directly typing in the browser address bar. Others answer that this is all garbage and there is not much difference, because the user will not remember your very long address, even with hyphens, even without them.

Experiments have been and are being carried out in this area. For instance. One webmaster chose a key phrase in a competitive niche and registered two almost identical domains for it. One with hyphens in the title, the other without. A month after creating and filling the sites with content, the one without hyphens was in the top of search engines for the desired phrase. The second site was not on it even at 100.

If there is a choice between a hyphen and an underscore, definitely use a hyphen.

However, keep an eye on the search algorithms for changes. You don't even need to experiment with SEO to do this. Just subscribe to a couple of popular SEO blogs. Not so long ago, Google officially announced that there would no longer be such a strong relationship between a keyword in a site's address and a high ranking for it. A well-made website with useful content for users, albeit with a hyphen in the address, will always bypass one-page pages and other sites created exclusively for earnings in the search, albeit without hyphens in the address.

Is blogging good for affiliate marketing?

In my opinion, this is one of the best solutions! If you make money from affiliate marketing and still don’t blogging, you are losing a lot! This is one of best practices getting thematic traffic ready to buy.

Pick a topic that you are good at and start blogging today. The easiest way to do this is using the WordPress engine. Installation takes only 5 minutes. You can even put it on free hosting. Today, every sixth website on the Internet is powered by WordPress (about 60 million in total), with 100,000 new ones appearing every day.

When starting a blog, follow these simple yet powerful guidelines:

1. Write regularly. Twice a week is best.
2. Choose popular discussion topics for your posts.
3. Add value to the web with your posts. Simple chatter in LiveJournal is not good for this.
4. Don't forget to optimize your article titles and text for search traffic.
5. Respond to new comments under your posts in a timely manner. It will help you build a blog based community.
6. Be sure to add social media buttons so users can share links to your articles with their friends.
7. Optionally, you can add a forum to your blog so that users can create discussion topics on their own. But only if you already have the necessary community for this.

Constantly updating your blog will give you love from the search engine robots. If you discuss current issues, your audience will grow pretty quickly. Today, thanks to the Internet, you do not need to go to a publisher in order to publish your thoughts and interact with the world around you. You can start your broadcast in just a few minutes. And if you do it right, you can make good money.

Is it possible to additionally use contextual advertising to monetize the site?

It is not only possible, but also necessary. In general, according to various estimates, more than half of the sites on the Internet are monetized by contextual advertising. And many people ask whether it is more profitable to replace affiliate banners with context, as well as whether the context will reduce the income from affiliate marketing.

On this occasion, I talked with some webmasters, conducted experiments on my own sites, and this is what I found out:

• If initially the site is created for affiliate marketing, the context gives dozens, or even hundreds of times less money.
• Context works better on general sites.
• On partner sites, the context does not reduce income, but rather gives a small increase.

In any case, I advise you to experiment both directly with the addition of the contextual advertising itself to the site, and with the choice of places for placing it and affiliate banners / links.

Can email marketing be used?

Certainly! Many successful webmasters use it. Especially when, in order to subscribe, the user needs to click on the link that comes in the response letter, and not just drive in his email somewhere. Place the subscription form on your website and collect the target audience for further work with it. There are two points to consider here. First, don't buy a subscriber base under any circumstances. This may not only not bring you money, but also play a cruel joke with you when several users from this database complain about spam. As a result, you may even be disconnected from the affiliate program. Second, avoid spam. Place in a prominent place in the letter a button with which the user can unsubscribe from your mailing list.

What is an affiliate feed?

An affiliate feed (feed) is a file (with the extension CSV, XML, XLS, etc.) that contains detailed information about the advertised product: its ID, name, description, price, accessories, etc. Usually it is served in a format that is understandable to the webmaster and easy to use (with or without special software). The affiliate network creates feeds so that webmasters can place a certain product or a whole catalog on their website without any problems. In addition to the above, the feed usually includes an affiliate link to a product, its image, a category, and sometimes a referral link to an affiliate system for webmasters who are interested in the feed and want to install a similar one on their sites.

Thus, the feed allows you to create your own affiliate store (showcase). The buyer goes to the advertiser's website only when he clicks on the button “buy”, “learn more”, etc. At this moment, a webmaster's cookie is already installed for him to further track his activity and charge a commission.

Can I use advertiser coupons?

By adding coupons, promo codes, Special offers By discounts on your website you will significantly increase your sales. Sometimes people who did not intend to buy anything at all, after seeing a discount, make an impulsive purchase.

How do I contact an advertiser?

In some cases, especially when an affiliate program is launched through an affiliate network, it is more efficient to use the internal ticket system for this purpose.

Often, agency and affiliate specialists can provide more professional advice to a webmaster and much faster than the advertiser himself. And if they don't have an answer to your question, they will put you in touch with someone in the company who can help you.

There will be some interesting questions that many experienced webmasters should know about.

How and why to use link cloaking?

As Wikipedia tells us:

Cloaking is a “black” search engine optimization technique, which means that the information given to the user and search robots on the same page is different.

We use cloaking to disguise the affiliate link. Example:

Why this is usually done:

• To make the long link shorter.
• To prevent lead leakage (when a user deliberately cuts a link).
• So that your site does not look like an affiliate one.
• In order not to transfer link weight.
• To protect against intruders.
• To use our own order tracking system.

Although, in this context, the word cloaking is not entirely appropriate. Better to call this case a disguise. We are not trying to influence search engine algorithms by this.

What is Cookie Stuffing?

Cookie Stuffing (cookie dropping, forsed clicks, cookie sprinkling) is a black-and-white optimization method by which the customer replaces cookies in the browser without his knowledge. As a result, when he makes a purchase on the advertiser's website, the commission is received by the attacker, and not by the webmaster who brought the buyer.

Scandals related to this phenomenon break out on the network every now and then. In the West, you can easily go to jail for this.

If you are caught using this technology, you can forget about affiliate marketing forever, as all the major players in the market share this information with each other.

Which countries should you pay attention to?

It is usually recommended to observe the development of online commerce in countries such as Brazil, India, China (Russia also applies here). But it is advised to work actively in Great Britain, Germany and France. According to the Center for Retail Research, in 2012 these three countries accounted for 71% of all online shopping in Europe. The United States is generally a separate topic.

Find friends among the relevant professionals in these countries. Make foreign localization for each of your Russian-language partner sites. With this, you can additionally cover countries such as Australia, Switzerland, French-speaking Canada and Belgium.

Whichever additional country you choose, be sure to do some preliminary market research. And pay attention to specifics (religion, beliefs, traditions).

How can I continue my further education?

Use Yandex and search for materials on queries related to affiliate (affiliate) marketing, CPA, PPA, CPL, CPS ... Similar queries can be entered in the search bar of blogosphere digests:

• https: //site/topsape.ru/reader/
• https: //site/www.maultalk.com/forum45.html

Visit the affiliate program sections on the searchengines.ru and maultalk.com forums. Subscribe to five social media accounts of famous affiliate systems.

Keep learning! It doesn't matter who you are: a professional affiliate marketer, link marketer, doorway maker or SEO. As soon as you stop learning something new, your progress stops. Analyze information and data obtained in the course of work. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of effort to multiply your income.

Affiliate marketing, or, as it is sometimes called, affiliate marketing, is one of the main tools in. Its meaning is to promote certain goods or services of other companies and receive a percentage of the sales for this.

Affiliate Marketing Provides large companies e-commerce businesses create new ways to market products and increase sales. For this, companies are willing to pay those who help promote their products. This kind of cooperation is beneficial both for the company whose products are being promoted and for those who contribute to this promotion.

In general, this type of cooperation is beneficial to both parties. With the growth of the Internet, it becomes more and more relevant, because producing a product is only half the battle, the main thing is to be able to sell it! Believe me, the authors of this site are well versed in this topic, because they make money on it.

Unlike many other traditional offline businesses, you don't have to have any serious start-up capital to start using affiliate marketing. One of the reasons many people fail to succeed in this type of business is because they don't want to follow one proven method and try to do everything at once. If you really want to achieve high results in affiliate marketing, you should find and choose the method that is really tested by someone and works in practice. This is the only way you can get something really serious. In this article, we have prepared some tips and tricks that will help you with this.

It takes patience to succeed

First of all, you need to understand that this kind of business will not bring you millions overnight. Yes, and for this you need to have the basic knowledge that we will pass on to you in this article. If you are ready for this, then go for it, but it is important to understand that it takes time to master this knowledge in practice. It took us over a year from the site to start working before the first affiliate sales revenues began to flow.

Your audience is more important than a percentage of sales

Everyone wants to get high income right away, but do not forget that those customers whom you entice to buy affiliate products can potentially become your customers. Your visitors are the lifeblood of your business, so don't pay attention to just a high percentage of sales ... However, this idea is most understandable for those who are going to provide services or sell their products, not limited to an affiliate.

Do you need a website

To participate in the affiliate program, it is desirable to have your own website. You don't seriously think that you can achieve something if you just post affiliate links on all social networks? Even if you create a high-quality group on Facebook or VK with a well-organized structure, you will not have complete control over your business. Your content can be removed at any time for various reasons. That is why you should create your own website, which you yourself will manage, and create your own on it. customer base... To create a website, we recommend using a CMS platform that is optimal in many respects.

Market segment selection

Choosing the field of activity in which you want to work is not an easy task at all. Chances are, you pick an area that doesn't make a dime for you, and as a result, you're just wasting your time and effort. You don't want that, do you? So, before choosing a market segment in which you want to work, you should ask yourself a few questions.

• Are people looking for content related to this area?
• Is there any way I can solve the problems of my potential clients?
• Are there many other serious companies you can find on Google for your search queries? Will you be able to compete with them and make money?
• Am I good enough in this area to become the best in it?

The latter is very important: it is hardly worth starting a business without the desire to succeed in it, i.e. become the best. Those who succeed are those who set one goal - leadership, and constantly think about how to achieve it.

Study well and love your field

Some people create websites on topics that they have no idea about. But knowledge is sometimes not enough - we are convinced that you need not only to know what you are talking about, but also to love it with all your soul. Again, most successful people they become so precisely because they live by their own business. If you don't wake up every day thinking about what an interesting job you have and don't enjoy everything you do, you are unlikely to achieve serious results. If you recognize yourself in this, we advise you to seriously rethink and, possibly, change the topic to one that would be more interesting to you. After all, even if you succeed in this field, you will sooner or later get tired of it. For this reason, when choosing a topic for a site, you should take into account both its thorough research and your passion for it.

Affiliate Marketing: What To Sell?

If you have already decided on the field of activity that you want to do, it's time to decide what to promote and sell? This is very important question because it doesn't make sense to sell everything at once.

Here are a few questions you need to answer and tips you need to listen to in order to figure out which affiliate products and services you should be promoting.

• Most The best way to sell a product - to use it yourself. Are you ready to buy it yourself before you start selling it?
• Does the advertised product match your content?
• When promoting products of other people and companies, do not forget about your own reputation. Ask yourself if this product is really of high quality and will be able to satisfy the needs of the client.
• Does the seller / manufacturer of the product you are promoting provide after-sales services?
• Does the seller's own page seem capable of attracting visitors and encouraging them to buy a product?

Where to find affiliate products?

This is perhaps the most boring, but the most main part the whole process. There are both individual companies that offer affiliate programs and special networks for finding such programs. Let's start with the latter.

Affiliate networks are sites that control the affiliate programs of each merchant. On these sites, you can find hundreds of sellers who want to find partners to participate in their programs. Most of them operate on a pay per sale or pay per lead basis. Some networks, like Google's AdSense, pay pay per action. Some well-known affiliate networks are: Clickbank, Shareasale, Linkshare, JVZoo, Commission Junction. Of particular note is an excellent set of resources for finding templates, plugins, designer tools and much more from the Australian company Envato.

Some sellers offer affiliate programs on their own site. If you see that someone's product is being sold on a site, try going directly to the seller. It is more profitable and more convenient to work this way, but you should only trust trusted and reputable sellers.

You can also research your competitors' sites and find affiliate programs for the products they sell.

Adsense banners work on the proven principle of contextual advertising. They know very well which ads and with which content are getting more successful. Why not use their example? Add an Adsense block to your blog and see what kind of ads appear on your pages. Once you determine which pages are generating the most profit, you can remove this block from those pages.

Affiliate Marketing - Where To Start And How To Succeed

Where to place affiliate links and banners?

Affiliate banners on the sidebar are placed just for beauty. The banner will only give real results if it is placed inside the content. This is how the service recommends Google adsense... Google prefers to serve ads that are truly content-related, so that they blend in with the text and are an integral part of your site. But the most important thing is that the product that you advertise and promote is closely related to what the text is about. If a visitor spends time reading it, he is very interested in the information provided, and it would be logical to tell him exactly about the product that can interest him. This will undoubtedly increase the likelihood of buying it.

Use only useful content

If your content does not contain the information that would interest a potential client, such content will not do you any good. Every article you carefully write presents a profit opportunity, so take it seriously. The text should not only be unique; he must attract the customer with valuable information and make him want to buy the product. You have to write really to sell both your products and those of your partners.

Drive targeted traffic

To find out if your content and affiliate links are really producing results, you need to attract a certain circle of visitors to your site.

Here are a few short tips about how to your site:

- write guest articles on third-party sites where you can find potential customers;

- create a free file in PDF format(for example, a short report) that leads back to your content;

- work with subscribers via e-mail, notifying them of new articles on the site.

Use only paid hosting

If you want to successfully use affiliate marketing on your website, then you shouldn't use free hosting or blogging platforms. When choosing a web host, you need to evaluate it from a business perspective. Will your site receive quality services and work without interruptions? It is unlikely that free hosting will be able to guarantee this. We have already talked about the shortcomings in more detail earlier, so we recommend not to waste time on such a solution and choose a really worthy hosting company.

Afterword

Remember, you don't need to change your business model until you feel proficient enough in a particular way of working. If you follow this principle, you will succeed. Visitors don't really care how many affiliate links are on your site. Your main task is that you should help them in finding a product by providing a convenient opportunity to purchase it by placing the required number of affiliate links in the right places. This will help you achieve affiliate marketing success.

Monetization

Hello, friends! The article presents two video courses on the topic of affiliate marketing step by step from the famous author Alexei Polevsky. Let me remind you that Alexey is an advertising specialist in Yandex Direct. He promotes his affiliate programs through free and paid advertising.

Earnings on affiliate programs in Yandex Direct

An article on the topic of making money on affiliate programs ah did not plan to write, there are quite a lot of them written on the blog. At the same time, each of the previously written articles on this topic is unique and beneficial to the readers, no matter when it is written by date. Just a month ago, an article was written on the blog "", where Eugene shared his tips for making money in affiliate marketing.

What is the point of writing more articles on this topic, you ask. It turns out there is, because each author has his own approaches and his own methods of earning money through the Internet, including through affiliate programs. The idea to write this article came to my mind after watching two courses by Alexei Polevsky on the topic of affiliate marketing step by step.

Yesterday I added some courses by Aleksey Polevsky to my library of information products on the blog, I wrote about it in detail in the article "". At the time of this writing, there were only 62 information products in the catalog, now there are about 250 and the catalog is expanding daily.

So, before placing Alexei Polevsky's video courses in the catalog, I noticed that he adheres to the technology of promoting affiliate programs - making money on them without a website. Alexey himself makes money on affiliate programs in Yandex Direct, that is, without a website. And earnings in affiliate marketing without a website are of interest to many people, I myself was asked a lot of questions on this topic. This is how the idea was born to make a small review of information products from Alexei Polevsky, and the reader will decide for himself whether he needs it or not.

Affiliate marketing step by step according to the methodology of Alexei Polevsky

So, most of the people on the Internet do the promotion of an affiliate program through their blog, their subscriber base. Alexey Polevskoy is an expert in the field of advertising in Yandex Direct, as they say, a directologist. Agree, it's a sin for him not to use earnings on affiliate programs in Yandex Direct. So he uses, does not waste strength and energy to promote the blog.

So, Alexey Polevsky has two courses - free and paid. If you are a completely newbie, then it is better for you to use the free course, which is called "Internet Partner Plus", if you are ready to immediately implement the acquired knowledge and chips, then it is better to purchase the paid course "Earning on affiliate networks, the formula for monetary success." The final video course introduces affiliate marketing in a step-by-step manner with virtually advertising alone. You can also build the promotion of affiliate programs using an advertising method.

In order not to list the sections of the free course, see them on the screenshot below:

As for the paid course, it will have to be described a little. It consists of 22 blocks, each block contains several video lessons, a total of 81 video lessons. I will not list all the blocks, I will show only those that highlight this video course in front of the rest:

• important information about affiliate programs that you need to pay attention to;
• a step-by-step plan for making money on affiliate programs;
• places for free advertising;
• creation of advertising offers;
• Yandex Direct, preparation;
• Yandex Direct launch;
• Launch of advertising in Begun;
• launching advertising on Google;
• teaser advertising systems;
• paid advertising on social networks;
• additional space for paid advertising;
• advertising;
• formula for success in affiliate programs;
• secrets from training on Infobusiness;
• secrets from our advertising trainings.

If you are interested in looking at the rest of the blocks, you can familiarize yourself with them by going to the video course page. As you can see, the main emphasis in promoting affiliate links is on advertising, and it must be done correctly.

Many people are interested in working on the Internet. Indeed, there is great amount earning opportunities. And one of those is affiliate marketing.

What it is, what types of affiliate marketing are, and most importantly - how to make money on it, will be discussed in this material.

What is affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a method of online promotion in which traffic to a website is attracted to webmasters for a reward. This is one of effective internet marketing tools, which does not require much effort from the advertiser.

Affiliate marketing today is a whole industry with its own laws and characteristics. Affiliate networks work here, individual managers and performers - webmasters, affiliate marketers, freelancers.

Everyone who makes money from affiliate marketing applies their tools and methods to drive traffic. Someone uses their personal website to advertise partner products, someone - social networks or contextual advertising, someone - email newsletters... The essence of affiliate marketing is for the contractor to work with those goods and products that you choose yourself; for the customer, this is external Internet marketing with payment for the result.

Affiliate marketing technology has its origins in online marketing. It all started with placing banners and links to other people's sites back in the 2000s. Now partners use a whole arsenal of tools to achieve main goal- bring more high-quality traffic to the advertiser's website. After all, the partner's earnings depend on the quality and quantity of traffic.

Cost Per Click (CPC)- the advertiser pays for clicks on his ad on your website. To track that clicks are coming from your site or application, you are given a special code. As soon as the user goes to the advertiser's website, you get a reward. Affiliate programs with pay per click are contextual, teaser and banner advertising.

Payment for impressions (CPV, Cost Per View)- payment is made for 1000 ad impressions. This is a rare type of affiliate programs, as it is not profitable for an advertiser - there is a great chance of getting a lot of inappropriate traffic. But if final goal- increase brand awareness and reach, then such a model will work well.

Payment for targeted action (CPA, Cost Per Action)- the advertiser pays for the fact that the user attracted by you will take a useful action: install the game, buy the product, subscribe to the newsletter, download the book, etc. The publisher receives a reward after the visitor takes the agreed action. This is the most profitable and beneficial type of affiliate programs for both parties.

Affiliate programs with this model, in turn, are divided into types:

• Cost Per Lead (CPL)- the advertiser pays for the generation of leads (filling out forms, questionnaires).
• Payment for purchase (CPS, Cost Per Sale)- payment is made for each paid order. This is the most profitable type of affiliate program.
• Cost Per Install (CPI)- often used in the gaming industry. You pay for the installation of a game, application or program.

There are other models (types) of affiliate programs, but these are the most common on the Runet.

So, you've decided to start making money on affiliate programs. Where to begin?

Step 1. Choose a niche.

You need to choose which niche you want to work in. It is not about the product - products change, they appear and disappear, the subject matter is important.

If you are a webmaster, and you have your own site with a constant audience, then it is best for you to focus on your own topic. You will be able to offer your audience those products that could potentially be of interest to her.

For example, you have a blog about beauty and cosmetics. Choose your affiliate programs from manufacturers decorative cosmetics- and you can earn. But advertising concrete mixes to young girls is useless.

If you do not have your own site, you want to use other advertising tools, choose the topic from which you are "rushing", what interests you. This will make it easier for you to promote your products.

Step 2. Analysis of competition.

Study search results in your niche for popular keywords (you can find such words through Google Planner or Yandex Wordstat). Rate your competitors. See what advertising methods they use and how. Do you have a lot of competitors? If so, then you won't be able to earn much, and the promotion will be difficult. This is called "the niche squeezed out". But, perhaps, you will be able to come up with some kind of trick, some kind of your own trick to attract traffic.

Step 3. Choosing an affiliate program.

A good affiliate program is one where they pay stably and there is no deception. But you will get confidence in your partner only when you work with him for some time.

To begin with, try to find information about the partner, and feedback on working with him. Ask the webmasters on the forums. Maybe someone has worked with this advertiser and can confirm or dispel your doubts. Check the authenticity of contacts on the site of a potential partner, try to call and chat with managers. Such a call often clarifies a lot.

Pay attention to what materials the affiliate has provided you. Do you have Personal Area where you can track statistics? How good are the promo materials? Is the landing page good? If so, you can start working.

Step 4. Work

During work, spend A / B tests... It is impossible to guess the first time what exactly will work. Try different texts, different teasers.

Constantly check and analyze data, check statistics.

Choose new affiliate programs - to access interesting offers, you can register on special platforms that act as intermediaries between partners and advertisers, for example, on Admitad.

Conclusion

Professionals and affiliate marketers earn a lot on affiliate programs. For you, earnings on affiliate programs can become an additional, passive source of income. Although, perhaps, over time, you will also want to become a professional - everything is in your hands!