Commission Junction, LinkShare, e-Junkie, Clickbank; these are just a few of the popular affiliate marketing networks. From airlines to bloggers selling ebooks, you can find any product you want, market it, and earn a commission.
- Image via CrunchBase
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can blog about the product your marketing, thus creating your own sales copy and selling in your own words. You can also start making some money before your blog is big enough to attract direct advertisers.
I’ve been promoting products via banners in my sidebar for years now. I haven’t done much blogging about the products, but I have been careful to only promote products and services I believe in, and things related to my niche. While I haven’t made a fortune I have observed a thing or two:
Just throwing up a banner is pretty much a waste of space.Very few people see an ad and decide they need the product. They have to be convinced first.
This is why I have created a resources page where I link to several affiliate products I recommend. If the product or service is particularly fabulous, I blog about it often and also include it in my sidebar. The few items I have treated this way have brought me more income than all of my other links put together.
What I’d like to know is, what’s worked for you?
Do you blog about products and services, talk about them in your email newsletter, promote them on Twitter? What’s your recipe for success?
If you haven’t tried affiliate marketing, Murray Newlands has a fantastic marketing blog you should check out. He recently spoke at an affiliate meetup near me and I was sorely disappointed to miss it!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=54e0975a-8184-4815-8e14-645ed4f084b3)
I have tried TrafficSynergy and OfferForge and my humble experience is that affiliate marketing is frigging difficult and anybody who plugs it as being an wasy way to money is sorely mistaken.
Agree with you that throwing up banners is next to pointless and the conversion ratio of these is about 0.5% (if that).
I think this whole recession has thrown it out as well because the click throughs you do generate have turned people into online “window-shoppers” rather than dedicate buyers and you've then created brand awareness for the company you are marketing but little or no benefit to you as the marketer
I could not agree more about the banner ads. They make cute decorations I suppose, but you've really got to have a ton of traffic for them to pay off, and if you had that type of traffic, why bother with the banners, just sell your own stuff and make even more.
I've made some nice sales with affiliate marketing and your point about writing your own copy is one of the things I find most attractive. At least the pitch is in your own voice and tone.
Like you, I'm mighty picky about what I recommend, only top quality stuff that I have tried or comes from a really reputable source. Ruining your reputation for a $22.00 commission is surely not worth the heartache.
Of course there are some who would sell their own kid's train set, but that's a story for another day. LOL
Funny you should mention a train set… my son has two of them. I am
pretty sure he would pay me everything in his piggy bank to keep me from
selling them. haha I could never do that. He loves his trains!
Thank you for the mention, hopfuly see you next year!