How to make money from affiliate links

[Andy]

First off, you need to associate yourself with affiliate merchants that actually pay out. You should check this via historical data provided by your provider. If no data is available then you are risking wasting your time.

You want big % paybacks for your efforts so if the product is $50 you should look for 50%+ commission. If it's $5,000 then you don't need to make anywhere  near so much commission.

Next you need to build a landing page that explains why YOU think this product is worth buying. You may have to buy it yourself to understand why it is a required purchase by your vistitors. i.e. it is a review or a strong call to action from some previous ad.

On this page, it is best to mask affiliate links by means of javascript.

Now, to get traffic to this page you can use pay per click ads, traffic exchanges or links from your own site navigation.

Then watch the $'s roll in.

[SensoVision]

Good idea, Andy, to write a HOWTO on this issue. As many people seems to be trying affiliate programs but never succeed. Do you plan continuation of this article and maybe post particular steps on how to setup program or choose one which surely works? (just like in HOWTO).

Also I'm not sure about visitors from traffic exchanges, for me they never worked, but maybe I choose wrong exchanges or didn't provide content which attract their attention...

[Andy]

Yes I can continue with this thread. Making money online is one of the most popular subjects on the web and a dream for many people.

Your questions highlighted common problems which I can help to answer. For example the "traffic exchanges". I used them alot so I know what I didn't like to see and what I responded to. So I just learnt from that experience. I guess the biggest problem is people didn't design pages especially for the traffic exchange. They tend to use big, standard pages that they cut and paste. The problem with this is that people on exchanges spend just a few seconds on each page they see and don't want to read much. Also they are seeing the same ads over and over. So you must make your own attention-grabbing add with graphics and a small amount of text to get them to click to a more detailed landing page.

When I surf traffic exchanges, I get really bored with the same old ads full of hype and ignore anything that requires me to scroll down the page. After a while I am desperate to find something interesting to get me to click and relieve my boredom or simply close the page. This is the kind of thing to have in your mind for users of traffic exchanges.

So you need to deliver targeted, simple, attention-grabbing pages. The other problem is that many surfers will be kids or people with no intention of paying out any money. Obviously, using up your credits on this kind of traffic for a commercial site is a waste of time.

Now here is an example of the kind of page I would use with a traffic exchange which I use (except it is an ad for a traffic exchange which should be great to use on other traffic exchange sites):
http://www.winningformula.ws/mav.htm

Possibly, I have too much text here but maybe it's enough to grab people's attention in 20 seconds or less and get them to click the big red button?

So I guess, I should attempt a step by step guide. I'll have a think and post again for step 1

[Andy]

Step 1

This is to associate yourself with merchants that can convert your leads to sales and actually pay out. Some of these want to check out your site and approve you so you can't start with these unless you have a related site already. Many of this kind of merchant are to be found on www.CJ.com

To get started from scratch, I suggest: http://marketplace.clickbank.net/ This is an affiliate network with 1000's of merchants that automatically accept you into their merchant program immediately after you click to get the affiliate link. All the products are digital downloads, mainly eBooks. Just surf around the market place and find a product that you would be interested to market. For example, an eBook about dog training.

You can check out the merchant's sales page to learn about the product. Also note the %commission and average payout per sale shown below the summary paragraph. The gravity value is a measure of how many affiliates were recently paid by a program (not the actual number of payouts). So go for high gravity values.

Next we will talk about how to drive hungry buyers to your affiliate link.

[Stacey]

Im with andy ... Put a review site about the product ... Sell it to your visitor first ... If the product is rather expensive make sure the review is strong ... need to really sell it to them so they want to buy ... 

[Andy]

need to really sell it to them so they want to buy

I don't agree with that. I would suggest you really enthuse about how well you liked using the product and your site visitor can place themselves in your shoes and get infected with your enthusiasm for the product. People are resistant to being sold. But if they feel they are missing out on some kind of pleasure or opportunity, they will want it.

Sometimes I find that writing a product review is not much harder than writing a forum post. What makes it much easier is if you are an enthusiastic user of the product.

What I found is that when I bought products that I needed and liked them, I effectively got my money back via affiliate commissions. For example, I recommended the hosting I use via an affiliate link and got a $100 sales commission. This covers months of hosting costs.

Another example is the Google cash eBook. I got my payment for that book covered many times over after recommending it on my site.

For my latest site idea I am going to be quite cheeky and expect to receive products for free in exchange for reviewing them. I have seen this done with digital camera sites (but I think they may only get loaned the expensive models). Maybe an idea for you Denis?  After all, a good review of a camera or book will get the product vendor many sales.

[sholing]

Try to sell to your visitors,or put ads in the site,it makes the job easier....