Using Affiliate Programs to Boost Web Site Traffic

I received the following advice in an email from AddMe.com and I thought I should share it more widely.

It addresses why merchants should use affiliate programs as part of their online sales drive and well thought through.

Have you ever heard of using affiliate programs to get a boost in targeted visitors to your web site? This can be an excellent web site traffic promotion to put visitors in touch with the products or services you have available on your site.

Let’s say you have a product you have created and are selling on your website for $97 (In this example the product will be an e-Book).

Visitors arriving on your site, pay $97, and can then download the e-Book. Your profit is $97 less any payment processing fees (credit card, etc).

With an affiliate program, you pay a commission for every sale of your product or service that is made by a referral of your affiliate. You pay for results only, no sales means no payment.

This means you are getting someone else to market and promote your web site for free!

What does this mean? More targeted visitors of course as more visitors are sent to you by the affiliate.

It's highly likely that a large portion of the visitors may never have found your web site, so in many ways these sales could be thought of as bonus sales, above and beyond those you would ordinarily have made.

The downside is you need to share a percentage of the sale with the affiliate but you should also remember that it is quite possible the customer will buy more from you in the future.

This is the power of affiliate programs and affiliate marketing in general. Not having an affiliate program is an area where lots of marketers fall down.

Assuming you have an opt-in in place, then not only have you made a sale, but you now have a customer you can promote more products to in the future! One of Marketing 101’s golden rule is that it’s far, far easier to sell to an existing customer than to a brand new one. After all they loved your product enough to buy it, right? You have established a relationship with them at this point, and provided that your product has great relevant content they will be hooked!

The other thing to keep in mind is that it’s likely that you will have a higher percentage of sales from your affiliates visitors because (hopefully) the affiliate has already pre-sold his customers on your fantastic product. More than likely the affiliate has built up a solid reputation with his customers (who more than likely have purchased from him in the past) and because he has recommended your product, they come to your website already pre-sold that your product is a decent and worthy one, and at this point you have a visitor who already trusts and believes in your product because of the relationship they have with the affiliate recommending your products.

You need to think beyond the commission you are paying the affiliate and look instead at the long term relationship you have the potential to build with your new customer.

Make sure you look at using affiliate programs to maximize web site traffic. Payment is only required if the visitor purchases an item, so you have no upfront costs.

Christmas Promotions

As previously posted Christmas comes but once a year and this year it comes right in the middle of a worldwide recession. Many retailers are expecting tough times and here in the UK it doesn't look like Woolworths will make it to Christmas. The result of all this is retailers desperate to shift their stock even if it means reducing their margins.

This is all good news for affiliates as lower prices usual mean more sales and more sales mean more commissions. Some retailers have realised this and started offering affiliate incentives.

Here are some examples. I'm sure to post more through December. These are things that really should sell this season.

Customers at Play.com can save 10% off any of their fantastic clothing range which includes brands such as Quiksilver, Animal, Bench, RipCurl and more! Code: CLOTHES08 , Valid until December 22nd.

BeCheeky have opened the BeCheeky Christmas Shop and at the same time are offering 20% off Chemises and Babydolls, and FREE UK Delivery on all UK orders.

PC World have extended their 5% commission offering on all Digital Photoframes until 5pm Xmas Eve (24th December 2008) for all online sales. (Standard commission 2.5%).

Batteries.com have announced their Holiday Bonus Program. From now through December 18th, each affiliate who reaches $500 in sales will receive an additional $25 in commissions. Doesn't everything need batteries at Christmas and yet never comes with any - sales here should be good.

Throughout the month of December, WBTVShop.com is holding an affiliate contest for a chance to win a $200 gift certificate to shop any of the WB sites, including WBShop.com, MGMStore.com, CartoonNetworkShop.com, MarvelShop.com, NewLineShop.com and of course WBTVShop.com! Any affiliate who generates 50 sales combined throughout the month for any of the WB accounts will be entered into a drawing. At the conclusion of the month, a winner will be picked and they will win the $200 gift certificate to shop!

So as you can see there's lots of offers to push and commissions to make.

Grace Rebecca Ellen

Close observers of Global Affiliate Programs will have noticed that there haven't been many updates in the last couple of days. This has also been true of Sleep Easy Loans and Cathie's Cars.

This is because on Tuesday 18th November at 11.45pm Grace was born, weighing 5lbs 3 ozs. She joins her sister Lucy, her brother Mark, her step-sister Abigail and her step-brothers Jacob and Toby.

Mother and baby are now home and are both doing well.

As you can imagine, my priorities have been very different in the last couple of days. If you have sent in a request for your program to be added to Global Affiliate Programs or for a link on any of these sites, don't worry, I will get back to you shortly.

George

Great American Smokeout

It doesn't matter whether you are a smoker or a non-smoker; you deserve a Free Gift in honor of the 'Great American Smokeout', which is the third Thursday of the month, November 20th. Keep reading and I'll tell you how you can actually receive over $8,600.00 worth of free gifts.

The Smokeout is the American Cancer Society's way of motivating smokers to give up the noxious habit. Unfortunately quitting smoking, losing weight, building confidence, or making any kind of change can be very, very difficult unless you can get some powerful help.

Starting in 1958, The American Medical Association (AMA) recognized hypnosis as a powerful tool for eliminating bad habits and quickly modifying feelings and behaviors. Hundreds of studies have proven that the success rate for making these types of changes is many times higher with hypnotherapy, than without it.

For quite some time now, I've been following the work of a world famous hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner, Alan B. Densky, CH. This man is one of the world's foremost experts on the use of Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and NLP for stress related symptoms like weight loss and smoking cessation.

He also offers other programs that cover a full range of symptoms like: Stress; depression; headaches & migraines; pain; phobias; self-confidence; along with many more.

For over 30 years, Alan B. Densky, CH has been known for producing some of the most unique and effective programs available anywhere in the English-speaking world. His Neuro-VISION Video hypnosis technology is the only one of its kind to have ever been awarded a U.S. Patent!

As I inferred in the subject line, Mr. Densky offers a FR.EE Power Relaxation MP3, and you can download it right now with no purchase necessary.

But more importantly, in honor of the 'Great American Smokeout,' he has made a long list of powerful bonus materials worth over $8,600.00 available to everyone who purchases any program from his Neuro-VISION website.

This content came from an "A-List" of success experts, best-selling authors, pioneers, and leaders in several fields who are generously contributing their bonus gifts to support Alan in achieving his goals to create a happier and healthier world.

To receive the Free Hypnosis Power Relaxation MP3, no purchase is required. So click the following link to visit a special page on Alan's Neuro-VISION Hypnotherapy web site because there is a time limit on this offer.

http://www.neuro-vision.us/promo/pr.php?pr=9040&a_aid=1fd51b92

IMPORTANT: To receive the additional $8,600.00 worth of bonus materials, when you place your order, you must remember to type a note in the comments field on the order form: 'Smokeout - please send link to free bonuses'. This may be the best decision you will make all year!

http://www.neuro-vision.us/promo/pr.php?pr=9040&a_aid=1fd51b92

Participation in this offer will bring you a return beyond belief, but the time is limited, so act now! By the way, Hypnosis & NLP programs make great gifts for the people that you love, and this is a wonderful time to start purchasing Christmas and Chanukah presents.

George

Early Christmas Promotions

Ok, now that US election, Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes night are out of the way we can all start work on the annual celebration of spending known as Christmas. Don't get me wrong I love Christmas; I even almost never log on to find out if I've earned anything during Christmas Day - I get up early on Boxing day and check it then.

Seriously though, if you're going to run a Christmas promotion, allow for the time it can take to get new pages or updates registered with search engines and start now.

But wait I hear you say, no-one is supposed to have any money so Christmas spending is expected to be down this year. This is true so expect the more forward thinking merchants to start running their promotions early. Promotions can come in all kinds of ways, for instance the Early Learning Centre has got some great Christmas promotions including up to 1/3 off selected toys and FREE Delivery on orders over £50, PC World are offering Double commission on all Digital Photoframes (this runs out on 25th November so buy early), John Lewis have produced a RSS feed you can add to your site which list their Christmas offers, and for the more grown up amongst us Ann Summers have launched their Christmas creatives which includes of course a pretty model in a Mrs Christmas outfit.

So you see the things we're going to end up buying anyway like toys and gadgets can still be sold, with savings for your visitors and commission for you.

Another big event that's just happen is the launch of the Blackberry Storm exclusively for Vodafone. I think either this or the Digital Photoframes will be the gadget of the year this Christmas so get your order in early.

Merry Christmas (I will be back before then).

George

Well Done, America !!!!

I had been planning to blog about how the credit crisis seems to have triggered a rush by merchants to bring forward their Christmas sales programmes with many announcing promotions which include affiliate incentives, early price reductions and so forth but the events of Tuesday have forced that of the agenda until my next post.

I just want to say to anyone from the USA that it looks like this time you have chosen a president that the rest of world can welcome and with whom we can do business. You have chosen hope over fear and for that I wholeheartedly congratulate you all.

Well done.
George

PepperJamNetwork Store Builder

What would you think about a tool that could fill a virtual store with goods that priced up live and are ready to sell?

I know what you're thinking. You're think 'George lots of affiliate networks use widgets or storefronts from the merchants on their books to make selling online easier so what are you on about.'

Fair comment. It's true that Affiliate Networks such as LinkShare and AffiliateWindow use single merchant storefronts and widgits and you can see examples of their use here for Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts and Cadburys Gifts respectively. PepperJamNetwork's Store Builder tool is different because you can compile into one store items being sold by different merchants.

My example is a store selling merchandise from the recent Batman film, The Dark Knight. In theory the content of this site could come from MGM Store, New Line Cinema, or WBStore. It will however only come from the studio that made the film, but if your store was more general, say a ladies clothes store, you could easily populate it with thousands of items of stock in minutes.

The process is simple.

1. Join PepperJamNetwork.
2. Pick you merchants and apply to join their programs.
3. Go to Store Builder, select the merchants you want to include in your store.
4. Configure the colour and size of the store builder so that it fits seamlessly into your site.
5. Start selling.


This tool is so simple you could build a new store every day. The only difficult part would be thinking up new domains to host them.

George