Part Time Webmaster Blog

This is the main page which describes Affiliate.com. Here, I will discuss anything you want as I dive deeper into affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate.com?
Affiliate.com is a company that facilitates affiliate marketers with retailers. For example, if you wanted to sell something, you’d sign up with Affiliate.com. You’d tell them how much you’re willing to pay for each sale or lead. Once you’re signed up, affiliate marketers can advertise the product. The affiliate marketers then make a cut. That’s my focus.

Initial benefits
First thing I noticed… you get a referral bonus for referring anyone there. Pretty cool. For any lead (at the time of this post 12/8/2009) you get $2 per lead and 3% commission on all of their sales for life! Uh, pretty cool.

Initial Contact
This is a new world to me, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Well, they’re extremely thorough and helpful. I received an email and a phone call follow up (message for me) once I signed up. A representative called me back to verify I was legitimate, and then I was in with an account manager in minutes. Very professional and enjoyed the service.

Overview of the advertisers
There’s a pretty good mix. It appears as though the advertisers are not as well known as those on other affiliate marketing companies lists. But, I did notice one thing, they do some pretty good pay per leads. For example, if you get someone to sign up for a list, you make money. Again, this is still a ton more profitable than Google Adsense or Bidvertiser. Heck, I had over 900 views on Bidvertiser and 1 click, hence the reason I removed it from the site.

Ok, I’m sold on the entire affiliate marketing concept. Since I figured out, I could make more on one sale through affiliate marketing than several months of Google Adsense, I signed up for Commission Junction and Affiliate.com. One of the things I noticed when trying to sign up for accounts, is that not everyone will let you in. But, Affiliate.com and CJ will. Thank goodness. I mean, where else would I start.

I have heard a ton of good things about AZoogle, but, they wouldn’t let me in. Specifically, they said I had to learn more, so, guess what, I am.

First, what is link cloaking? Link cloaking is creating a friendly link for an ugly one. For example, if you’re inserting an affiliate link into a site, it may look like this: http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-3741315-10437712?sid=468×60fatcow. That of course is pretty ugly, but, you can make it a more friendly link like this: http://www.parttimewebmaster.com/fatcowhostingurl

So, why would someone want to do it other than to make the link look pretty. Well, if you are using affiliate links on your site, others can somehow overwrite your links and add their own affiliate information. So, if someone clicks on your link, you won’t get credit for it. How they do it I have no idea, but, I figured I’d rather be safe than sorry.

If you’re link cloaking with WordPress, I would highly recommend using the Pretty Link plugin. This plugin was extremely easy to use and install. I was able to get links going in a matter of minutes.

Ok, I’ve been around for a while. I have recently been investigating affiliate marketing. If you’ve seen my last post on changing my Adsense ads for affiliate marketing ads, you’ll probably see that I’m a little excited. Granted, there are no quick wins in this business.

So far, it looks like there have been people doing this for years and they’re making tons of money. But, that’s not everyone. It seems as though there is a select group of individuals that have learned how to master it. It also appears as though there are a lot of individuals taking advantage of others trying to learn.

The thing that impresses me the most about affiliate marketing is the scalability. For example, if you figure out how to do it, the amount of sales is unlimited and so with the profit. And because you would have to build a site, blog whatever only once and have it bring in money, forever, it sounds great. And, you don’t have to handle shipping, customers, etc. I mean what’s to lose.

So, my mission is to figure this out. It sounds like a game. Recently, I’ve been following Shoemoney. He appears to have built a small empire doing this and has “mastered” the game. If you’re interested in his tools, feel free to visit here. This link will give you a discount on the trial offer AND the membership. You’ll actually cut the monthly membership in half. So, if you need a discount promotion code, use the link. It will save you hundreds of dollars. I have to admit, I don’t quite understand the depth of the tools yet. But, I do see their benefit. For example, finding and adding backlinks to get more links to your site is invaluable already.

He used to have a 12 week program for free, but doesn’t offer it anymore. So, if you’re looking to learn about affiliate marketing, it doesn’t look like the place to go. It may be more for advanced affiliate marketers.

I also signed up for the Wealthy Affiliate a while ago. I have to admit, it may sound cheesy, but I learned a lot from them. So, I would highly recommend their program. It is also beneficial if you own a site. The forums are the best. Granted, you can use the Digital Point forums for a tremendous amount of knowledge. A lot of the people in Wealthy Affiliate and Shoemoney use these forums. So, if you’re looking to learn, I’d suggest the “>Wealthy Affiliate program. The entire program will last about 3 months, but it was well worth it.

Ok, I’ve had this site for a while. Upon my first introduction to Adsense, I was pretty excited. I mean after all, I may make some money just because people are browsing my site. And, since this is a WordPress site, there are tons of ways to integrate Google Adsense ads easily.

Recently, I ran across affiliate marketing. For those of you that don’t know, affiliate marketing can work similar to Adsense, except instead of making money from someone clicking on a banner, you will make money from someone clicking on a banner, then buying something.

So, the first question you may think is, “With Adsense, I always make money, with an affiliate link I won’t.” This is true. But, I’ve looked at the money I’ve made through adsense and it doesn’t amount to more than $5 over a period of several months.

So, I thought wow, that’s pennies. Then it dawned on me. If just one person bought something (from links or images that look identical to Adsense ads) I would make that amount of money or even more with one sale.

So, today, I made the leap. I removed all Adsense ads from this site. Ok, I may be crazy. But, I figured it’s worth the chance.

So, the first thing I did before proceeding was figure out how I could do this easily with WordPress. And, to my smiling eyes, I found the Advertising Manager plugin.

So, how does the Advertising Manager plugin help? Well, I’ve added several of my affiliate links and banners to the plugin. It was an extremely easy process. And, I’ve set it up so they will rotate! So, they will function similar to Adsense. And the BIG bonus. I can customize which affiliate ads display with each post I write. Wow, focused ads on my own articles. Also, I had difficulty figuring out what to do. After I did it one time, everything was easy. Here are the instructions for Advertising Manager just in case

So, if you’re not doing this yet, consider it. I’ll keep you posted on how it works.

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