Advanced Affiliate Training
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Advanced Affiliate Training
September 14, 2010 – 5:00 am

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Module 4 Affiliate Networks and Traffic Sources

Affiliate Networks and Traffic Sources

Choosing the Right Offers and Managers

When you’re starting out one of the first problems you will encounter is the massive information overload, it can get very noisy, sometimes you won’t know what way to turn, you stutter at the starting line not really taking off, simply because you have too many options, all going in different directions that will lead you off track, you need to minimize the noise, focus and pick the right path so you can reach your goals faster, and that’s easier said than done.

Even when you’re choosing a new market you will sometimes wonder if you should start at the network or keyword level, and by keyword level I am simply saying market research, which we rip in the next part of Advanced Affiliate Training. You should always start out by researching a market and its people, not the other way around, you need to find the problem then the solution, whats the point in having a solution to a problem you don’t understand for real, it’s idiotic.

You also need to consider your traffic sources, a market plan and possibly a blueprint with an end goal, but right now lets just focus on the basics.

Your best bet if you’re just starting out is to contact your affiliate manager (keep reading if you don’t know what this is) and ask them what offers are their highest earners and what their main traffic source is. Don’t settle for Google and Yahoo, you want specifics, whats the demographic, is there a population, region, city, income level, age, gender something unique about this offer and its market? any landing page examples? PPC or content network, PPV/CPV allowed ok what networks? any keyword ideas? your fishing for information.
You can find out traffic sources using other methods but for now it’s best to keep it simple. Once you sign up to some of the networks below you should get an Affiliate Manager and there IM details, add them to IM and start asking questions immediately, if you’re really keen then CALL them, but were treating this training as new affiliates soo we shall hold on this.

You’re interested in a few variables, conversion rate, EPC (earnings per click), payout, top offers, traffic source, forget the rest.

If you’re affiliate manager is not interested in giving you this information find another one because you need it and there is no point wasting time with someone that is not interesting in helping you, the more money you make the more money they make, its a win win relationship, they moght be scoring 5% maybe 10% plus a retainer, even more on some offers.

For example if you find an offer you want to promote that has an EPC of 0.25 and you’re finding it hard to located clicks for less than 0.25 (and you will) then you will need further information on the traffic source then start asking about email, organic, PPV and media buy details, even ask for an increase in payout as you cannot met at the CPC level, a low EPC doesn’t always indicate a low EPC for you, it’s generally network wide and gets messed up if dudes are scaling for CPM (Cost Per Impression), so it’s not 100% accurate however it does indicate affiliates are making ROI if it’s one of the more popular offers.

You must ask what the no1 earners are using as a traffic source then try and locate them inside the markets, once you locate the other affiliates you can then track and analyze their marketing methods further, like I said don’t waste time tracking bit players, track the big dudes and try to learn from the best.

A high CVR is very hard to obtain and maintain, you will find a large majority of these offers are aimed at women, weight loss, pills, diets blah blah, you will be shocked at what the women are checking online these days, women are now on par with the males in consumer online pron for example, so if you don’t do even basic demographic research on markets then your missing out, we will cover demo research in the next few modules .

So you need an Affiliate manager willing to help you by using their data to make you a smarter and more efficient affiliate, if they have that data great, if they have none of that data then move onto another network.

You will also want to research whats happening in the market before rolling out, most of the big players will GEO target on media/display after the initial testing has been done, so once you locate a big buy track down the landing page through the display/banners and use its format, tune into its message and take note of the copy being used, don’t steal, innovate and improve on what they already have in place, then target and test small segments of the market on stuff like the content network focusing on the demograpahic data you jacked while researching them.

If you’re finding it hard to locate a decent sized campaign then start tracking down high traffic sites using Attention Meter or even Google AdPlanner , you will find them on torrents, music, entertainment type sites, news, and off course PPC and PPV/CPV networks..

You’re looking for distinct variables, landing page, traffic, copy, graphics, rotation, split testing, everything to indicate the affiliate or affiliates are organized, these are the people you want to learn from, not some lame ebook with some fake clickbank stats, watching real world affiliates in the wild is how you make money, watching and learning from the better ones is how you make more money.. If you cannot locate their affiliate links then just use live HTTP headers or even LinkHopper, you can then track the offers back to the networks and possibly the media companies, not too mention you will locate any tracking servers in play.

You want to locate and learn as much as possible from the landing pages out there, type of offers, site traffic ect.. Guaranteed if its a decent affiliate there has been serious cash invested in testing the offer.

So your now focusing on locating the affiliates inside the market and using what their using, do what they’re doing if you’re just getting into it, they have already done the majority of ground work for you, you will find the bigger affiliates inside a market have already done extensive A/B and possibly multivariate testing, even though only 5% of all changes make the most improvement thats advantage… you wont find these people wasting time, they will be rolling out more and more stuff.

Another key is if you decide to go down the CPA network route first then you’re best bet is to focus on the little things, you immediately start tracking the main root keyword across as many search engines as possible then filter down into longtail keywords, once you locate the long tails then build up sites around the longtail then scale it to the moon, forget wasting time on keywords that don’t covert, you need to find the keywords that are making the money, not wasting it, however I don’t suggest you start using PPC to locate the buy words just yet.

Let’s move on because that was a little bit more info than should have been written…

The Networks

Below are the big fish, register on all of them and find the best affiliate manager, work with him/her for the majority of time or even exclusively if your just cutting your teeth, they will help you get up and running especially if you’re leaning towards CPA.

ClickBank is an affiliate and merchant network, it’s a fantastic service if you’re into the eBook or software creation side of things, AKA digital delivery.

Share a Sale is a lot like Commission Junction, but smaller however it’s cheaper to join for the merchants and allows decent tracking, you do not need to apply for programs most of the time unlike CJ.

Also sign up for E-Junkie and PayDotCom both of these services allow you to sell and promote products with less lime light.

The last network is Trialpay, an excellent way to generate income by referring your customers to trial affiliate programs for payment, if you can find the right business model for this type of system then you can make some decent pocket money.

You should also get an Adsense, Amazon Associates and Ebay Partner Network accounts.

Sign up to all the Affiliate Networks Listed

Paid Traffic Networks

You can tap into millions of leads by using the below traffic sources, but we won’t be focusing much on paid traffic in the Bogan Advanced Training.

This list grows all the time, so it won’t match the bookmarks because more and more traffic sources are being added as some of the training is still in development.

Below is a ton of noise, so dont stress, if you want to ignor the below, do it and continue with the training then come back once you have a better understanding.

PPC and Media Advertising

Social Networks

Buyers Markets

PPV Pay Per View or CPV Cost Per View

Blog Targeting

Mobile

Conclusion for Module 4 Affiliate Networks and Traffic Sources

You don’t have to sign up to anything listed above, but you should at least be checking it.

If you want to wait until you finish the Advanced Training then go for it. Move onto Module 5 Finding High Value Markets

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