Welcome to the Getting Started with Affiliate Performance Marketing Guide or Series or whatever you want to call it! Whew that’s a long winded title, but there is a reason for it, and we will address that reason later in the series/guide.
Over the next weeks I will be covering and presenting an introduction to Affiliate Marketing (also known as Performance Marketing to some). The point of the guide is to give you the tools, resources, and set you on the right path to earning affiliate income. By the end of this guide, you should be able to produce income on your own with your newly learned affiliate marketing tactics! Best of all, it’s all free! I’m not selling anything (least not yet!). No ebook here for you to purchase to unlock secrets or anything else! But to be totally honest with you, the information you find in this guide can be found all over the internet. It’s all there for the taking. But what I am doing, is compiling it into a single resource so you don’t have to purchase anything or go looking. I’m giving you the tools to get started all by yourself! What’s the catch, you may ask. Nothing is for free! Well that can be true. The only thing I do ask is that you pass the word around, especially to those who maybe need some extra income because of their situation (like a single mom, see note below). I will also add, that a lot of the links on this site are affiliate links (hey I got to pay the bills!)
OK, a brief side note on the nature of this site. My wife an I are the type that are considered bible thumpers, I’m not going to lie, that’s who we are. And recently I felt that the Lord wanted me to start a ministry to teach a select few at our church how to make some extended income. In particular, single moms and such. So we are starting that. This guide is similar to what that ministry is doing, except, we are mentoring and coaching those in our group. And to be honest again, I am not giving away every secret on this site, but in our ministry I am. BUT, please, do not contact me asking to be mentored and taught, even if you may fit someone who would be in our ministry. I cannot do it, I don’t have the time and I want the small group I have to be a success first before I expand. That being said, I may be open to discussion to churches who have a few individuals under them, but that another discussion another time!
Now back to the affiliate guide. First you should bookmark the permalink for this page because I will update this page with links to the different topics and subjects in the guide. Second, I highly recommend you subscribe to my newsletter and rss feed so you can receive updates and other junk I send out (Wait, I said Junk!, sorry…no junk promise). I will not be teaching about spam tactics or blackhat tactics, just whitehat. What is whitehat? We will cover that shortly, just bare with me.
So we should cover something in this introduction right? Ok how about what is affiliate marketing? Basically, affiliate marketing is commission based sales. You simply make money by referring traffic to a site and if the user purchases an item (or in some cases just fill out a form), you will get either a flat fee or a percent of the sale! So let’s give an example; You build a simple website that is about memory foam mattresses (I love those things, so squishy). And the site is much like a brochure that tries to convince the visitor that they should purchase a memory foam mattress. But wait there’s more! On this site, there is links to US-Mattress.com’s site that sells these mattresses! And when a visitor to your site follows the link to US-Mattress.com and purchases you receive a percent of that sale! Which if you are familiar the cost of these mattresses, you could make as “low” as 70 dollars a sale! So lets say you have only 10 sales (low low number) a day, that equals $700 a day. Which equals $4900 a week, $19600 a month, and hold the press….$235,200 a year for one simple site (imagine if you had a few of these!). Yes, you read that right, so stop wiping your eyes. And I can say it’s really not all that hard, but then again its not that easy. There is some work involved and a science to it also. But that’s where this guide comes in handy. Don’t go out making a mattress site without reading the entire guide first, or you will just waste your time.
In a way, your similar to banner advertisers and such, but you get paid differently. You also use different methods, even though you can technically use the same methods as banner ads. Basically, you have a deal with the company you are advertising that they (the company) will pay you for certain actions performed by visitors you send to the company. Thus, this is where the term CPA comes from.
CPA: Cost Per Action. This is the amount you are paid for the action as a publisher (industry term for “the affiliate”). If you are on the other side of the fence, this simply means the amount you will pay your affiliate for delivering someone who performed a certain action on your site. Actions can be, but not limited to; Filled out a form, purchased an item, subscribed to a newsletter, etc… And the action is part of the agreement and terms that the company set in advanced.
OK, so next we will cover some common industry terms. Until then, God Bless….
Still here? Want more information and don’t want to wait till this guide is done, or want to skip the easy beginning stuff and get some juicy “from beginning to end” affiliate marketing information. Then I highly recommend you purchase High Performance Affiliate Marketing by Jeremy Palmer. Its a great read (I have my copy, one of the few ebooks I own), and Jeremy is legit, he really is and does what he says. In fact he’s a Commission Junction Performer!
