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In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, I go over my top 30 tips for successful affiliate marketing, which involve a wide range of topics – all the way from the approach and mindset of affiliate marketing, to the little details of where links should be placed and how often.
As many of you know, especially if you’ve recently glanced at my monthly income reports, affiliate marketing has become a major portion of my earnings over the past year, which is why I wanted to end the year with a hold-nothing-back type of session that will definitely help you and your online business one way or another – whether you already promote products as an affiliate or not.
There are 30 different tips here – all based on my own experience – so I hope you enjoy!
Oh, and you’ll notice that during the session, my voice starts to “go away” or change a bit. The reason is because I’ve been sick the last few days and I guess my vocal chords were just not ready for an hour long recording session yet. All good though – I got through it and the information is there for you.
If you’re at work and can’t listen to audio or you just aren’t into podcasts, I recommend you open up the transcript at the bottom of this post so you can read through the tips instead. The transcript is already available for you.
Right click here to download the MP3
Items mentioned in this podcast include:
- GreenExamAcademy
- Keyword Research Webinar
- SPI Podcast Sessions #10 and #22 (with Chris Guthrie)
- SPI Podcast Sessions #08 and #23 (with Corbett Barr)
- Affiliate Marketing for Beginner’s Course
- Amazon Affiliate Marketing Course
- Mark Mason from Masonworld.com
- GoToWebinar
- Article on FTC regulations and disclosure (from Social Media Examiner)
Please let me know what you think of session #30, and if you enjoyed this episode, please share it!
Thank you all for making the SPI podcast such a major success. It’s just a few downloads away from 1,000,000 downloads since session #1 and the response from you has just been incredible. I couldn’t ask for anything more. 
2011 was amazing, but 2012 is going to be even better!
Happy New Year, and look out for a lot more from me in the new year!
Cheers!
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Transcript:
Click Here to Download the Transcript for Session 30 (PDF)
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{ 86 comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below) }
That’s the first “Happy New Year” i’ve had … Just listening to the podcast now Pat, i’m sure it’ll be a corker !!
Nice Chris – hope all is well, and thanks for listening, as always!
Hi Pat,
I see you spent holidays wisely
Thanks for this tips list. Just from browsing through the transcript I took away 3 or 4 real nuggets. Tip #19 (the indirect email promotion) is golden. Will apply this technique in my next newsletter.
Thanks again – for all of the 30 episodes of the SPI podcast and the whole site (lots of knowledge shared here) and have a healthy and prosperous new Year!
Tom
Thanks Tom, glad you found some nuggets in there to help you. Cheers, and all the best to you!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Intro was great, “classical hip-hop” made me smile.
Always look forward to the podcast.
1. Trust – Totally totally agree! Most important!
Also some advice to all, if there is a product you heavily believe in, but their site looks spammy, if horribly salesy or does not convert. Offer to help! I have done this in the past and it has not only helped my conversions but also significantly increase the conversion for their product/business.
You can do this through either directly, or through providing them an alternative solution. Ask them to A/B split test and track the sales funnel. Sometimes they may allow you to create your own landing page that links directly to their cart. This is more straight forward for smaller products/business or newly launched products as they are more receptive, you have to come to some arrangement with the provider who will host the page etc.
Hope that helps. Keep up the great work.
Great addition, Darryl – thanks for that! Working with the other company is definitely something you can at least try to do, because then it’s a win-win for both parties.
Thanks again, and Happy New Year!
Happy new year, Pat. I believe affiliate marketing is the fast and proper road to success. Work hard and tenaciously and you have see the money in your pocket.
Relatively speaking, I think it’s faster than other methods, simply because you don’t have to create a product yourself, which takes time, however it still does take some time to build an audience and get to a point where you can recommend products and get paid for it. Thanks and all the best!
Happy New Year! SPI has become a daily read for me, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the archives. Thanks for the great content and inspiration!
My pleasure Brock!
Fired up to listen to your latest PodCast! I think a lot of people have been waiting for this topic! Happy New Year Pat!
Happy New Year to you too Dan! Thanks for listening!
Totally agree with the emphasis on trust. IMO Affiliate marketing is one of the more challenging ways to generate income online because of the trust factor. It’s not easy to gain someone’s trust, but as you have demonstrated it is possible over a period of time given certain things are executed correctly.
Once you have gained the trust of thousands, affiliate marketing can be one of the most lucrative ways to generate income online. It’s no different from having your own money printing press. But with that said, though it can be tempting to feed your list with just any product/service, it is more important to hone and maintain that trust which takes so long to develop in the first place.
As a small business owner would say, retaining an existing customer and have them keep coming back is easier and cheaper than getting new ones.
Happy new year to you as well Pat – all the best in 2012
Well said Sunil! Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Thanks for Sharing!
Another podcast from Pat, number 30! This topic is certanly very interesting to all of us doing business online. Happy new year to you Pat and to all of readers here!
The two things that have helped me more than anything else are Tip #2: Know the Product and Tip #11: Create an Epic Post.
I was recently contacted by leading manufacturers for some of the Amazon products I promote thanking me for mentioning their products. It all started from a massive post I made on “Best KEYWORD of 2011″. I wouldn’t have been able to make such an epic post if I hadn’t put in the hours researching and using some of the products to know exactly what people were looking for.
My philosophy for all future affiliate sites is Go Big or Go Home
Very cool Wesley – congrats on the success with your 2011 post, I should do one for one of my product sites for 2012 and see if I can leverage that somehow too. Go Big, or Go Home – I love it.
Cheers!
Those are some great tips, but it all does start with trust. And that takes time to build! Thanks for putting this together Pat!
Hi Pat,
Have a great year ahead
Now , going to download your mp3 to my phone.
Great podcast and excellent tips! Here’s to a great 2012!
Thanks for the PDF of the post. I always have to sit some where where I don’t have a MP3 player and I can always read Your the goods.
Have a great New Years and looking forward to seeing more of your posts n 2012.
Hi Pat
Hope you are feeling better and have a Happy New Year.
I must find time to come and go through your archives.
I am off to read the PDF, thanks for the download.
Dee
Just finished listening to the podcast Pat, amazing as usual. I also updated my entire ‘books’ page (here: http://dylanvarian.blogspot.com/p/books.html) so let’s hope the cash from the the affiliate program starts rolling in soon
Great episode, Pat! I listened to the first half on my way to work and will listen to the second half on my way home!
Wow, congrats Pat on reaching almost 1,000,000 downloads, Well Done. I just listened to the Podcast and as ever it was brilliant. Some great tips which I know I will use.
Thanks and Happy New Year
Pat, I’m on round two of listening down to ALL of your podcasts thus-far. ( great to listen while chasing my 2 yr old and 6 yr old home on school break)
You talk alot about “testing”. Testing all facets of your site for conversion etc.
Could you go into detail on HOW you do that? maybe a video that takes you through the tools to test with? I’m a little familiar with analytics like google and woopra, but I think your talking about something altogether different.
How do you test, what do you test, and for what reason do you test?
Happy New Year to you and yours, and I look forward to this next year and YOUR MEMBERSHIP SITE. (maybe?)
Great Tips. Thank you
btw: hilarious to take your Market Samurai webinar into VLC . take you down from normal one notch and you sound like your drunk. Maybe I’ll have a drink and watch it.
Hey Pat! Always love to hear your podcasts!!! Hope you do some more step-by-step videos again soon. Loved your older one doing keyword research using Market Samurai. I found it on ROKU!
Have a Happy New Years, wish you were going to Affiliate Summit!
Nice post Pat, enjoyed it and it reinforced many of my beliefs not just about Online Bizz but about life in general . I’m somewhat of a newbie at this but after four months of study of this blog and a many you have recommended , I will be jumping into the deep end of the pool in a couple of weeks with my first Niche sites . Although I can’t give back anything of value on this subject , I am the sucessful parent of two young men and I will suggest to take the advice on your post – Trust and Patience – as great guidance for your parenting journey
Whew! I finished the podcast in one sitting and got lots of notes typed. But I do have to listen to this again because I think I missed some. Time to buy a shuffle again.
I can’t believe that you’re giving such content away for Free!
this is an ideal gift for the end of the year. I’ve really learnt a lot from it
Great work, Pat! This is to be studied very well as you have provided tons of information, thank you and Happy New Year!
Thanks for the info Pat, hope you’re feeling better now. It sucks to get sick over Christmas / the holidays. It happened to me last year.
Love it. Looks like I’ll be getting good use out of the Ipod on my way up north for New Years. Thanks as always, Pat.
Looking forward to listening to the podcast Pat. Take care and have a great 2012.
Great podcast, Pat. Lots of good ideas! I am going to look into affiliate marketing to help sell my movie captioning software. Would you recommend ClickBank, or some other service?
Thank you, Pat! This is an incredible resource. Affiliate marketing has been a huge part of my business, but it’s a road you have to walk carefully to ensure integrity and transparency. You’ve shown the way to achieve that with this episode.
Hey Pat, good tips in your post but one thing seems somewhat contradictory…
You say that your strategy is to recommend products that you actually use. This makes sense for your SPI blog, but what about your niche sites? It’s not realistic to first try every product that may be related to your niche site as prerequisite to becoming an affiliate.
Also, what backup strategies are you guys (& girls) using in the states that have been kicked to the curb by internet marketing tax laws? Just curious…
K.Hill – using the product is one strategy that one should try to implement, if at all possible. For niche sites, I absolutely think it should be done as well. Why isn’t it realistic? Chris Guthrie had a netbook review niche site he sold for 6 figures that reviewed netbooks, and he actually got netbooks sent to him via postmail to review from various companies so he actually did use the products. Again – not always possible, but it’ll totally help you and the site for the reasons mentioned in the podcast.
As far as internet tax marketing laws, I know there are still some sites with affiliate programs that have kept their programs open even after the new regulations in those stats – such as buy.com and bestbuy, just to name a few. It’ll depend on your niche but you’ll have to dig around a little to find open affiliate programs for whatever product you’re looking to promote. Also, try contacting companies directly – get rid of the middle man and try to work out a deal.
Thanks for the full transcripts! Being that English is not my first language I usually have to jump over podcasts or videos because even if I have little difficulties with written English the spoken one is a bit too much. Also I stick to the theory that written words remain forever.
Anyway, I begun dealing with affiliate marketing lately and it’ surely a better way to earn some money than just showing ads. But you’re surely right when you say that it has to be done in the right way. All of your advices are good, especially the first three, and surely the transcript is a great list which I’ve printed for referencing often.
Thanks again Pat and Happy Holidays!
Thanks for the super tips. Affiliate marketing involves more consideration than I’d first thought, but I’ve no doubt that it pays off in the end.
Thanks for another great post Pat! Have a great New Years!
Brilliant Tips Pat. I listened to the podcast and I must say the one that stuck out was doing an interview with the product owner. Yea, talk about social proof..
Cheers Pat
Right timing Pat.
Consuming the transcript now
How I loooove tip number 30- we all need it. And great intro. Classical hiphop made my day=D
I really appreciate your transcripts. It was so much helpful that I print it out and read twice. happy new year
Great topic Pat! Can’t wait to check it out.
Thanks for the tips, Pat! And Happy New Year to you.
just listened to it again..
One needs to jot all the points down…
Hey Pat,
Trust, trust, trust! I can definately tell you that along with knowing the product very well is key. I used your affiliate links for Bluehost and Thesis because I trusted you and did not feel that you “pushed” any products. You simply stated what worked for you and why. Thanks for some awesome tips!
I’ve downloaded this and i’m going to listen to it later tonight.
Happy New Year!
Sheyi Shobayo
The Billion Dollar Boy
Great tips, Pat! I am definitely going to implement as much as I can.
For Tip #28 – Testing offers – Besides looking at your stats, do you put the summary/report of your results somewhere to review later when you have another offer you’d like to promote? Lilke where you’re going to place your links for the next offer?
Pat,
Thank you so much for the tips. Some of these I never even thought of. You are right about the trust tip. Especially in the online world integrity is important. Thank you for sharing this information with us.
hahahahaha @Chris Green, it’s my first Happy New Year as well, Pat Happy New Year! Nice Timming by the way, I’m just finishing my first business and it’s actually monetized using Amazon Affiliate Marketing, it’s still not finished I just want to add some posts before publishing it to the public.
By the way, I’ve been thinking about something that it’s mentioned in your first tip about earning trust, I added an “about page” with my photo and some description of myself but should I add the link to my personal blog? I’ve seen many people on forums saying that the personal blog should not be added to the business, what do you recommend? or anyone here have any bad or good experience with adding your personal blog to a business?
Thanks as always for all your knowledge as always, Happy New Year
It’s up to you Rodrigo. Depends on the business I guess. Here on SPI, I get very personal with my audience and would love to have them understand me outside of business as much as possible, to build on those important relationships that are what make the SPI brand.
Some businesses and models, I can see that not being of value to the audience or to the business in whole.
I think it should be looked at on a case by case basis. Hope that helps!
Thanks a lot Pat, I will think a lot about then, but yeah, I think you’re right, it would be better to have a little space to be you outside business
A comprehensive guide, well written. I have the impression these features become more and more rare these times. I wish I had followed your articles before. I will go to the archives. I tried to imagine what could be added but couldn’t find. Have a wonderful celebration of the New Year.
What a great podcast! I listened twice. Great information here that I am going to use. Thanks for all your info and have a great new year!
Amazing podcast! I was scribbling notes as fast as I could write. You gave me a lot of homework to do. Can’t believe I actually enjoy having homework. Keep up the wonderful work you do. It’s a tremendous resource for people looking to take their online ventures to the next level.
Best wishes for 2012!
Hey Pat
Another masterful podcast – now going to be a checklist for my online affiliate related work. You will laugh to know that I made my first 80 pence commission on Amazon this Christmas – retirement has been postponed!!!
Thank you for all your amazing content this year – have a blisteringly good New Year and I look forward to you continuing my education next year
Best regards John
Wow Pat. You topped yourself once again. This would have been a worthwhile listen or read with just 2-3 of the tips you gave. Throwing 30 quality ones at the SPI community is really a gift.
Time to start implementing!
Hey Pat,
Thanks for taking the time to provide a transcript for your podcasts. These 30 tips somewhat summarizes what you do in your blog, so the transcript is nice to keep.
Some people are just smart, but some, like you, are able to bring their smartness to a level which always produce results, and in this regard you continue to be an inspiration to me and to others.
Keep it up, and happy New Year!
Hey, can someone point me to how to set up Google analytics on my new site? is there a particular plugin that works best?
Craig I use the Google Analyticator plugin, add your Google Analytics UID (the number with the format AB-12345678-9) to that plugin in the settings and then enable it and that’s it
If you want to add it manually, then go to the Gear icon below Sign out, then select tracking code and select that code and paste it to the header of every page you create, if you use the thesis theme you can select the “thesis options” and in additional scripts paste it there, but I would go with the plugin
I use the same – Google Analyticator. Great plugin
Hi Pat,
I was wondering why you have chosen to keep your Podcast and eBook free instead of charging a minimal amount like $0.49 cents or $0.99 cents each. I understand that it’s a way to convey value, as well as, a marketing channel. Can you share your monetization rationale?
Thanks!
The more I give away for free, the more I get back in return.
With the podcast, I know I wouldn’t have over 1,000,000 downloads if I started charging for it – and the purpose of it is twofold: get more people to discover and become fans of the SPI brand, and get existing fans to enjoy SPI material even more, off the site and in their cars, on their walks, etc.
I know I will make more in the long run by giving this away for free and earning affiliate clicks or even customers (once I have a product out), than if I were to charge a microfee like that.
Same with the eBook, except the main purpose of that is to get people to subscribe to my newsletter, and blow them away with extremely high-quality stuff, for free, to make a long-lasting first impression.
I have just used Social Proof Giveaway (tip 18) strategy over the Christmas. And it worked great.
We gave away our iPhone app in exchange for the comments. And we got great comments on the game’s page and on the facebook even though we are just starting out. Really nice!
The Podcast is very helpful to me which not so good in England. I learned what would you give it, can expect success like you
Awesome share…
Thanks Pat! I have learned so much from your podcasts. You are an inspiration. I appreciate all of your helpful advice. This podcast motivated me to click through and purchase all of your amazon book recommendations, as a thank you to you and hopefully to learn more! I trust your referrals.
As always, this is brilliant! Thanks Pat
Affiliate marketing is a real challenge and you won’t earn or make extra money off of it until you build organic traffic and provide high-quality, relevant, valuable and engaging content. That content will encourage visitors to take action in the end such as clicking your ads or buying the products you offer. The more traffic visitors you get, the more money you could potentially make.
Pat,
Not that you haven’t heard it before, but I have to tell you the truth…
The content you produce here at SPI is absolutely top shelf. Seriously. As you know, this whole industry is fairly screwed up in terms of egos, hype, misinformation, etc… The information in this particular episode flies in the face of all that crap. Thanks too for providing the PDF transcript here, it’s definitely helpful to have that as a reference after listening to the audio…
Thanks again for all the work you go to Pat – in the evenings even my wife looks forward to your podcasts and videos, asking me regularly “has Pat released anything new yet?” Your tips and techniques continue to help us grow our brand and expand further using the BE EVERYWHERE techniques you recommend. Thanks Pat!
Outstanding podcast Pat. You’ve got some great ideas here. I can’t wait to start putting these into practice.
Great stuff as always Pat. Your podcasts make my lunch breaks a million times better! Thanks for finally tackling how to do affiliate marketing in one concise podcast!
In one of the tips, you recommend multiple affiliate links in the article. Has anybody on here ever had an issue with google dropping it from rankings for too many affiliate links in the article?
It’s probably hard for people to tell Brendan, but if you just have a few instances I don’t think it’ll be a problem. You should set them to all be no-follow anyway.
Wow. Just wow.
I knew that. I’ve always known that. Yet none of my affiliate links are no-follow.
Also, thanks for such a prompt reply!
Thanks Pat, another brilliant episode jam packed with actionable ideas. Thanks for all your hard work throughout 2011. Looking forward to the next episode.
Great podcast again Pat!
Epic posts.. man I must admit i’ve done one recently and took me full weekend to get done but was awesome to do. Over 3700 words for just one product!
> http://www.hothitmedia.com/fbinfluence-review-facebook-marketing-success if anyone want to read it. Its about Facebook Influence.
Insane but fun
ps.. why did you use Vimeo for your video for the keyword research and not put it on your YouTube account?
Great question Ralph. Actually, when I made that video I was unable to upload a video more 10 minutes in length to YouTube. I’ve only recently become a partner with YouTube which allows me to upload unlimited length videos, so I’m probably going to move it very soon.
Ahh ok.
I was thinking that Vimeo wouldn’t allow you to download video’s..
Its always possible but it just depends how techie you are.
Thanks for the answer!
Listening to your podcast (#2 for today) and you make it sound so easy