Picking the offer to promote is an essential part of affiliate marketing. Some offers convert and some don’t.

Remember Seth Godin’s “purple cow”? Well, in affiliate marketing, it doesn’t always work this way. You CAN make money by doing what everyone else is doing. You CAN start running what everyone else is already running for years. In affiliate marketing there is always place for competition.

There are serveral ways of determing what others do.

1. Ask your affiliate manager. Ask your affiliate manager what are other affiliates succesful with and you’ll get some suggestions of that have proven themselves to convert. I usually ask multiple affiliate managers from multiple affiliate networks and I pick the common offer(s) they’re suggesting me.
2. Check Google Trends. Pick an offer you believe would convert and come up with an obvious keyword list which you would promote that offer on. Then go and check the trend. If it’s increasing, it generally means that more and more affiliate marketers are promoting that offer.
3. Network. Communication and networking is another essential part of affiliate marketing. Establish connections with affiliate marketers and ask them what are they running! Some will say, some won’t. As long as you aren’t a lurker and you actually share some informations with them too, they’re going to return the favour.
4. Sign up with many affiliate networks. Most affiliate networks send weekly emails to their affiliates with offers that convert. Sign up with an affiliate network even if you don’t intend to run offers with them just to make sure you’re subscribed to their ‘offers to run’ email

Now go out and there and do it. Pick an offer to run and wait for the next post.

Pay per click (PPC) is an internet advertising model in which the advertiser (you) pay only when their (your) ad is clicked. PPC advertising is the easiest (but not the cheapest!) way to deliver targetted traffic, because your advertisment is only displayed on a page with content relevant to what you’re looking for. Usually, your ad is displayed if a keyword query matches your keyword list or when the user’s demographic characteristics (age, gender etc.) match to what you’re looking for.

You are paying a certain amount for every single click delivered.

Personally, I’m using the following PPC engines:

1. Google AdWords. AdWords is the most commonly used PPC platform by ppc advertisers, because of the volume and the quality of traffic and multiple targetting options. Contrary to popular belief, advertising on AdWords is NOT easy. If you aren’t making money already, AdWords is not for you. I’ll come up with more details within the next posts.

2. Yahoo Search Marketing I’ve spent nearly $2000 in advertising with Yahoo then dropped it. Their interface is pretty buggy and the content network never converts. The quality of search traffic is good, sometimes better than Google’s, but the bids are accordingly high as well. Yahoo! SEM is easier than Google AdWords, but it’s not really recommended for newbies.

3. Facebook My most important source of traffic, my best converter, my highest earner.  The traffic is expensive, but it’s all about your ads. The biggest problem with Facebook is getting your ads approved, because Facebook employes really hate their jobs and they’re randomly disapproving ads. With Facebook, you can target your ads by country, age, gender, relationship status, education, keywords etc. Wait for my next posts, I’ll give you my bidding strategies and even a sample campaign that I’ve done in the past and brought a profit.

4. 7Search Cheap traffic, cheap users. Doesn’t really convert. Give it a try, but don’t put much hopes in it.

That’s about it. Yes, I know there are many other PPC engines and yes, I know I missed Microsoft AdCenter, but I never used so I can’t give you my opinion on it. Stay tuned for the next posts.

First of all, I want to apologize for my absence.  I’ve been doing affiliate marketing mostly within the last month and I wasn’t able to post due to lack of time.

I’m back here to share my knowledge! I’ve had over $1,000 days and I’ve also had $-300 days. Affiliate marketing is unpredictable and hard. It’s not easy money, but from your first success, it becomes easier and easier. I’m planning to make some posts about my affiliate marketing  journey, so stay tuned.

If you want to connect with me, I’m always on Facebook and always accepting friend requests