My new website only generates a trickle of traffic and is far from optimized, it is what i might call a future project that i may or may not get round to realizing. So far in 532 affiliate clicks i have generated 15 sales. Not amazing admittedly, however of these 15 sales only 4 were actually for products i am actively promoting. I have sold guitars, television equipment, sofa covers and the obvious books and stuff all from a website that is totally 100% not related to any of these– impressive.

The Pros

Amazon is a well known brand and i am not sure a person exists that has not bought something from them at one time or other, therefore the thought of purchasing from them again shouldn’t cause too much of a problem.  Amazon may also show them other products they may also require and wish to purchase.  My test as stated above (however limited) shows that people may browse for one thing but actually decide to purchase another adding to your revenue.

The Cons

Amazon is certainly not the best affiliate program out there, they offer you a starting commission rate of 5% and only provide a 24 hour cookie — very poor at best. The disappointment however does not end there, they also cap earnings per product at £7.

In my opinion there is a time and place for using the Amazon Associates Program. In my test as detailed above i was selling a pretty low priced product and the average commission rate offered by Amazons competitors was just 5% flat with no chance of increase. In this situation i am more than happy to sell for Amazon and count myself lucky that Amazon will up sell other products on my behalf with no extra work required.

Building links is tough and never more so than in the early days when you have no exchange capital ie. you have two websites that are PR F*ck all and it feels you cant give your links away. Fortunately this feeling will pass, how quickly depends on your approach.

If you are smart and you have used a ‘mapped approach’ to your site building your link exchanges will get easier quickly, and maybe even to the point where you no longer have to hunt good exchanges down, you are now the prey (in this particular example that’s a good thing). If you are less smart (like me which is probably why i didn’t use the term stupid) you will have niche websites all over the place and the original problems will continue for some time longer. Just one reason you shouldn’t spread yourself too thin.

In my experience it is at this point (basically the second hurdle after building the website) that most affiliates will give up and move onto something else. Others will just watch their stats daily in the hope that as the website ages the traffic will come — sorry amigo this aint going to happen.

Affiliate marketing in my experience has to be a long term venture and i am personally pleased that it is, if it was possible to create a success story overnight everybody would be doing it and the competition would be way too tough. Link building is hard because you are doing something for tomorrow and not only that you have no idea as to what affect it will have anyway.

When i began affiliate marketing the whole link exchange concept to me was alien and it was hard to believe that it would make any difference anyway– only after you have successfully implemented a link building strategy over a period of time do you realize/believe what a huge effect it can have.

My advice is to get over the fact that you are going to have to work for your money by creating content and building links, it is the only way to carve out a successful long term career in affiliate marketing.  This is not an alternative to work IT IS WORK and you will have to work hard  to make it a success.

Maybe once it is an overwhelming success you can sit with your feet up and pay others to do what you had done, but until then.….…(fill in the blank).…..you know what you gotta do!

Having read this article i bounced the ideas around in my head for a number of days and established almost nothing except an early thinking process reminding me somewhat of the conversation you would have as a child, but this time it was  not who would win in a fight between a shark & a polar bear? but who is the best celebrity affiliate? I have decided to put my early findings forward and beg you to ‘Top Trump’ me!

Everyone knows that Stephen Fry is a twitter freak and probably spends most of his life online, whether it be his i-pad, i-phone or any other means, so he seemed the obvious place to start, and guess what — he is an affiliate.

The New Adventures Of Mr Stephen Fry (his blog) not only contains advertisements served by Fox Networks, his store (which sells his products) is fully monetized with Amazon & Itunes affiliate links. Perhaps we may see Mr Stephen Fry at the A4U Expo yet (maybe an idea for a guest speaker).

Can you Top Trump Me? Do you know of any secret celebrity affiliates? Then get in touch with your stories!

When considering blogs discussing affiliate marketing you would be excused for thinking that they must all be similar, however this could not be further from the truth. True they are all discussing, in one way or another, the same topic, but Affiliate Marketing is a wide and varied subject and cannot be summed up by one person. I am happy to link to other affiliate blogs on condition they compliment my writing. It is ideal for instance if they discuss techniques that i do not personally use, or if their approach towards their readers is different to my own. I like to introduce my readers to alternative affiliate blogs, this is but one reason that my readers may keep returning to read what i have got to say.

I personally believe that many affiliate blogs do not offer too much in the way of education and instead concentrate on discussion — this is normally written for those already quite successful in their own right as affiliate marketers! I have recently become quite a fan of such blogs but am aware that even a year ago i may not have fully understood what was being discussed.

With Demons Lounge i have attempted to create a blog for those seeking information that may not have quite discovered where they should be heading with affiliate marketing, for those with some knowledge but maybe without a full understanding of the core concepts and practices that are required to be successful. If i attempted a high brow affiliate blog i fear i may fall flat on my face as i am still learning, i learn something new everyday and when that stops i’m sure my interest in such concepts will also.

So what makes a good affiliate blog?

The truth is i still don’t know! I think as long as people blog about stuff that interests them it will interest others. I have in the past been guilty of writing for the sake of writing and some of my older posts make me cringe, but i have decided not to delete these as it is who i was at the time of writing.

I may not know what makes a good affiliate blog but i sure know what makes a bad one. An affiliate blog should be about your experiences, results & recomendations and not a purely money making exercise. You should be thoughtful about what you write (something i have not always adhered too) and i promise to in the future.

Please check out my “Great IM Blogs” section on the sidebar and read some other interesting blogs. Please also feel free to bring my attention to Affiliate Blogs that i may not have read — as long as you enjoy them!

The poll conducted at A4U appears to have concluded that there are many reasons affiliates do not want to use these, however at no point does anyone mention the fear of being viewed as  ‘selling out’. I create and run my sites for a specific audience and am very conscious about my advertising– it is only this week that i have added any form of advertising to this site  and am still not 100% sure that i will keep it! I am worried that subconciously my readers will not trust my reviews and feel that i am only here for profit. Even without advertising i would still be writing my drivel.

Anyway, this made me think of my own personal experiences with websites. I really like the website ‘The Art of Manliness’ and have found it a very funny and interesting read, however last week i visited the site and they had added a video advertisement that started as soon as the page loaded (for mens shaving products i believe) — my immediate thought was this is a sell out. *possibly other people had this same view as the video has since been removed*

I suppose that if your sole purpose is to sell products, this form of advertising may be useful. I would prefer returning visitors becoming involved with what i am writing and perhaps buying something because i believe it is useful and have in turn convinced them it is by openly discussing the benefits and questioning any negatives rather than just shoving it in their faces.

Now let me get something straight, afterall i am an affiliate marketer and by definition want to sell, i just believe that sales today should not be your only focus, if you create something worth reading and paying attention to then when the trust has been built up the sales will come naturally.  I for one wont be using this intrusive form of advertising anytime soon — maybe its just me and anyway they are not yet available within my niches.

If you are interested the following merchants provide video advertisements:

NPower – within the flash links section, 250 x 250 labelled “Juice TV ad”

Blue Chip Vacations – go to dynamic, then text links, they are 300 x 250, various holiday videos (the labels end with “video”), you may need to scroll down the page for these

eHarmony – go to dynamic, then text links, there is one 320 x 270 labelled “VIDEO-eHarmony”

Prezzybox – go to dynamic, then text links, there are a wide selection of vidiboxes, 540 x 340 and 300 x 300

Red Letter Days – go to dynamic, then text links, selection of videos for different experiences all in 320 x 270

Having launched in May 2007 sunshine.co.uk set themselves ambitious targets in a fiercely competitive market and decided to host their affiliate program through Affiliate Future.

In an inspired move sunshine.co.uk decided to break with the norm and  provide affiliates with exceptional resources and tools to help them achieve their goals in a proactive manner. To start the program off with a bang they offered good incentives and commissions to get the affiliate community buzzing, many top affiliates saw this as a great challenge and an opportunity to compete with and against their fellow affiliates.

Five months after launching their affiliate program Sunshine.co.uk had attracted no fewer than 444 affiliates, who drove 452,477 unique visitors to the site. These affiliates sold 1,470 holidays generating in excess of £700,000.

Although there were many weapons to the Sunshine.co.uk affiliate arsenal i personally dont think there was any bigger weapon than the bespoke sunshine.co.uk wordpress plugin. This plugin enabled even those with limited wordpress experience to open and promote their very own holiday superstore and receive 7% commission on all sales. The functionality could be used on any blog and even non travel sites were achieving good returns.

I think that Sunshine.co.uk is a great example of a company embracing affiliate marketing, listening to affiliate marketers and achieving great success because of there efforts! When will other merchants look at and take notice of the right way to do things — maybe they already have!

This is when i began to think about other possibilities (i am not a programmer of any sort so apologies that i cant get technical). Many people design good useful plugins with no financial reward, why do they not choose a program with a good 2nd tier commission and create a sunshine-esq plugin that helps others promote programs (without having to get into the complicated world of datafeeds) and pocket their 2nd tier commissions for their trouble — im sure you could even negotiate a higher 2nd tier, especially if you achieved anywhere near the success of sunshine.co.uk’s plugin