Top 10 Commandments of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate programs can be a big source of revenue. The key to maximizing your earnings is engaging your readers. Unlike traditional ads where you are paid for impressions or clicks, affiliates are only paid when/if a specific action is performed. The action might be a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, but regardless, you are not paid until you've compelled your readers to act.

With that in mind, here are the Top 10 Commandments for affiliate marketing success.

1. Know Your Audience

The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to anticipate and meet the needs of your readers. Consider why they are coming to your site. What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience's problems.

If you are writing about sports, don't put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get stats for their favorite teams aren't thinking about those things when they're on your site.

The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them.

2. Be Trustworthy

Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don't believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.

It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you linkbacks, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.

If your visitors don't think you're being honest, they won't read anything else you have to say.

3. Be Helpful

Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content. Give value to your content by making it helpful, useful, and informative.

Don't put up a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the books (just because you listed them), so you can cash in on a sale. Take some time to write a detailed review, and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information. That's what affiliate ads are for. If you write a great review recommending a book and readers buy the book because of it, you should get something for that.

But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors.

4. Be Transparent

Always disclose your affiliations. Your readers will appreciate your honesty, and will feel better about contributing to your earnings. If they sense that you are being less than honest about your affiliations, they are savvy enough to bypass your link and go directly to the vendor just to avoid giving you referral credit.

Honesty and full disclosure is a necessary part to building a loyal reader base. They know they are supporting you by using your referral links. Make them happy and eager to do so.

5. Select Carefully

Take the time to go through all the different options for products or services available through the programs. Put some thought into which products or services your readers may need or like. Also, change the ads around often, try different ones, and use different graphics and text to see which are the most effective.

It may take some time before you figure out the best formula, and you may also find that you need to continually rotate ads to attract more attention.

6. Try Different Programs

If one particular program doesn't seem to be working for you, try another one.

Affiliate programs don't look the same. They offer different products, services, and payment structures. Some programs will have a lifetime payout on sales while others will limit it to 30-90 days. Some programs allow much more flexibility in the types of ad units available, as well as colors and design so it fits better on your site's layout.

Also, check your favorite vendors to see if they run their own affiliate program. Sometimes you can go directly to the source.

Integrate into your strategy to maximize your profits.

7. Write Timeless Content

Your old content can still be valuable even though it's no longer on your front page. Take advantage of the long term opportunities by making sure you provide timeless content.

If visitors come across your older content first, and find that it offers dated information, they will leave right away. Of course, information moves forward, so relevant content changes quickly. You can make your content timeless simply by adding links to your updated articles on your old ones.

Many platforms allow you to show "most recent" or "most popular" or "related articles" on every page, so no matter how old the article is, it will always show access to your new ones. Your old content can make money for you indefinitely.

8. Be Patient

Affiliate revenue grows and builds up with time. Remember that some programs offer lifetime payouts. If you refer a visitor, you may continue to make money from that one visitor even if he doesn't come back to your site. Also, as long as you have referral links still active in your old posts, they may still payout for you.

Affiliate programs aren't a get rich quick plan, but it provides opportunity to make passive income in the future.

9. Stay Relevant

Keep up to date on the latest offerings of your affiliate programs. New ad units, advertisers, and tools are constantly being added to improve usability and be more visually appealing. Small changes go a long way in motivating action by readers. You may be left out in the dust by being complacent with your strategy.

Don't get lazy about monitoring trends and exploring new opportunities.

10. Content Comes First

Above all else, your content must be your highest priority.

Your content is your foundation, the life blood on which the site exists. Without valuable and helpful content, readers won't come. Focus on providing excellent content, and the strategies will work out.

Once you start compromising your content to cater to the affiliate programs or any other money making venture, you will lose your readers. Once that happens, you will lose the opportunity to receive any earnings from any of your ads, or referral based.

Plan Your Marketing Now

There are two good times for marketing planning: yesterday and now. We have no control over yesterday, but we do control "now."

Many people wait until the end of the year to plan marketing for the following year. Many put it off until the actual year starts. Regardless of your situation, the time to plan your marketing is right now. Let it begin with this column.

Since blank sheets of paper, especially for plan development, tend to be intimidating, I offer the following, worksheet-based, fill-in-the-blanks template.

Think through your answers. You can write quick answers the first time around but think them through as thoroughly as possible during subsequent reviews. Remember, this is the basis of your marketing for the year. The more thorough you are with your answers, the more effective your planning--and therefore marketing--will be.

Marketing Planning Questions

1. What marketing worked well in 2008?
2. What marketing worked partially well in 2008?
3. What marketing didn't work well or at all in 2008?
4. Are there any standout reasons for No 1. or No. 3?
5. Define your current target markets.
6. Did your 2007 customers fit your current target market definition?
7. What new markets will you target in 2009 for the following areas

1. Revise your target market definitions based on No. 7.
2. What are the following message components for your target markets:

1. Headlines?
2. Benefits?
3. Offers?
4. Calls to action?
5. Other?

10. What message components need to be enhanced, concentrated and revised?
11. What new messaging will you use in 2009 marketing?
12. Based on message delivery and the markets targeted, what marketing vehicles will you use in 2008?

1. Repeat of 2008 marketing vehicles?
2. New marketing vehicles for 2009?

13. What's the desired frequency for each vehicle and campaign?
14. Based on No. 12 and frequency, what is your budget for 2009?

1. Per vehicle?
2. Per target market?
3. Per period of time?

15. After analyzing total costs and desired frequency, what's the adjusted marketing vehicle use, including ad size, designs and printing configurations?

Given all of the above, lay out the marketing initiatives (X) on a timeline (Y) using a simple spreadsheet. You'll be well on your way to a productive year of marketing in 2009.

Inspiration

I do believe that our thoughts and attitudes play a huge role in defining our life. In his post, Tim shares several quotes:

• “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” — William Isaac Thomas
• “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts … As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.” — James Allen
• “Most of us are anxious to improve our circumstances, but are unwilling to improve ourselves.” — James Allen
• “Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re probably right.” — Henry Ford
• “Make it real in your mind first, then real in fact.” — Tim Clark

Soul Shelter is one of my favorite little self-improvement blogs. The pace (twice a week) is nice, the topics interesting, and the articles well-written. It deserves more readers.

Speaking of inspiration, No Credit Needed has a helpful post describing 10 things to do after you get out of debt. “I have been debt free for two years,” writes NCN. “After two years of enjoying life debt-free, I can state without hesitation that deciding to get out debt was the smartest decision I have ever made.” As I begin my own debt-free journey, I love to read about the experiences of those who have gone before me.

On an unrelated note, Vintek forwarded me a horror story demonstrating one advantage credit cards have over debit cards: “Imagine my surprise when I checked my bank account and was overdrawn by $3200!” Yikes!

Finally, Penny Nickel at Money and Values (another great blog) recently shared a post on the psychology of money. The happiest people don’t earn the most, she says. She quotes recent research that revealed:

People who experience the highest levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of close relationships and volunteer work, but that those who experience slightly lower levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of income, education, and political participation. Once people are moderately happy, the most effective level of happiness appears to depend on the specific outcomes used to define success, as well as the resources that are available.

While this is true of the happiest people, there’s still a very clear relationship between income and life satisfaction.