SPI 030 : Pat’s Top 30 Tips for Successful Affiliate Marketing

The Smart Passive Income Podcast

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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:

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)

An Insider Look: My Affiliate Links and Exactly Where They Convert

In the Details of my Affiliate Link ConversionsI received an interesting email from an SPI reader over the weekend:

“I don’t get it Pat. You make all this affiliate income (your June income report was off the hook!) and you have never come across as being pushy or aggressive with your promotions. I read your blog and am subscribed to your newsletter and you have never sent me anything but content, and somehow you’re earning a CEO’s income. I hope this isn’t rude, and it’s not that I don’t believe you, but how exactly are you doing this?”

To answer this question I can break it down into 4 key concepts:

  1. Provide massive value.
  2. Earn massive trust.
  3. Learn and understand the needs and wants of your followers.
  4. Lead and teach by example.

Combining these 4 concepts together allow me to share products (some of which I am an affiliate for) without being hawkish, and instead of worrying about losing readers, subscribers and potential customers, I’m actually strengthening the relationships I have with them.

For many of you, this isn’t groundbreaking news – and some of you are already putting these concepts into practice, which is fantastic.

Today, however, I wanted to provide you with a more detailed and concrete example of how I earn an income from affiliate programs, specifically illustrating where on my site (and “off site”) sales are coming from. Click Here to Read The Details About My Affiliate Commissions

SPI 022 : Affiliate Marketing Strategies, Tips and Techniques From Real Life Experiences with Chris Guthrie

The Smart Passive Income Podcast

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In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, special guest Chris Guthrie and I discuss several affiliate marketing strategies, tips and techniques drawing from real life examples from our own websites and experiences.

Affiliate marketing has been huge for me lately. Last month, I earned $18,638.24 from affiliate marketing and Chris has pushed over 1.5 million dollars in product sales from Amazon.com alone, which is out of this world.

You may remember Chris from Session #10 of the SPI Podcast, which was more of an interview style type podcast. This time around we do more of a “round-table” type discussion about affiliate marketing and throw tips back and forth that have worked for us in the past. There’s a lot of little golden nuggets in this session, so whether you’re just getting started with affiliate marketing, or you’re already experienced with it and want to increase your conversions, there should be something here for you.

In this session, you’ll learn:

  • The first experiences that both Chris and I had with affiliate marketing.
  • How to find the perfect products to sell as an affiliate on your site.
  • Our thoughts on promoting a product that you haven’t used yourself yet.
  • How to get products for free from companies to review and promote on your site.
  • Rules for long-term success with affiliate marketing – especially if you have an existing audience or following.
  • The best tips for affiliate marketing if you have a product-based niche site.
  • Detailed information about one of Chris’s niche sites that he recently sold for a lot of money.
  • The mindset that you need to really crush it with affiliate marketing.
  • The most important factor that determines your success with niche site affiliate marketing.
  • Why and when you should become a “sales rep” for a specific product.
  • Interesting and unique places to add affiliate links to increase sales and conversions.
  • Specific types of posts that work best for affiliate marketing.
  • Websites that we built that totally failed, and why.
  • How podcasts, videos and webinars can be the best way to promote products as an affiliate.
  • Where the affiliate links on your blog or website should really be.
  • Plus a lot more… Click to continue…

8 Principles for Effective Affiliate Marketing on a Blog

principles-marketingIn a little over a year, this blog alone has earned me $6,931.97.

Compared to my other online businesses, that’s not very much at all – but considering I don’t sell anything on this blog and have only 4 125×125 ads (below the fold) in the sidebar, I’d say that’s pretty darn good. My point here is that you don’t have to aggressively sell or advertise to your audience in order to earn some decent cash on your blog. You can do it by being honest and smart with your affiliate links.

Some critics might say that I probably could have earned more. Maybe if I placed Google adsense within my posts. Maybe if I had more advertisements in the sidebar. Maybe if I had text link ads. Maybe if I did product review posts.

I disagree.

All of those things take away from the main focus of this blog (which is the main focus that ALL blogs should have) – the content. If you write excellent content – things that get people excited, things that people haven’t seen before, things that make people want more – you’ll have the potential (and more importantly, the foundation) to make money online. Click to continue…

3 Types of Affiliate Marketing Explained, And The One I Profit From

affiliate marketing explainedIn my latest monthly income report, you may have noticed that my affiliate income had surpassed my direct income from the electronic products that I sell online. I received a lot of comments, asking me to explain more about where my affiliate income comes from and how it works.

Instead of just breaking down where it all came from – how much this, and how much that – I decided to turn this post into something a little bit more useful that would do more than just tell you how much I earned. Again, I’m not here to show you the money I make online, I’m here to show you how I make money online, and what I’ve learned along the way.

When thinking specifically about affiliate income, I determined that I could divide how people earn money as an affiliate into three primary categories: Unattached, Related, and Involved. I’m speaking in terms of how we are associated with the product or products we may be an affiliate for. Click to continue…

Affiliate Links – To Hide or Not to Hide – What’s Your Opinion?

affiliate-networksThere’s a lot of debate whether or not a person who has a blog or does any kind of social media type affiliate marketing online should hide or disguise their affiliate links. I’m interested to hear what you think, but let’s talk more about it first.

For those of you who don’t understand, affiliate marketing is where individuals promote a business (or products of a business) in exchange for a percentage of the sales they generate. The actual affiliate link is the link on the individual’s website that points people toward the other business’s product or service. Normally, the link will have some sort of identification tag on the end that helps the business identify who is bringing in the leads and how much commission they will have earned. Click to continue…