How To Guide to Affiliate Marketing [for Affiliates]

18 Comments / General Discussion, Thoughts for Affiliates / By /

I’ve had my Online Guide to Affiliate Marketing [for Merchants] up for a while, and to this date it has been one of the most popular (read: most frequently viewed, and linked-to) blog posts of mine.

Today I’ve decided to go through all of my previous blog posts and pick those immediately relevant for affiliates — to start a “How To” guide for affiliates. At the time of initial posting the Guide contains answers to 47 questions [edit: 50 as of 11/03/2011], but, just as it is the case with the guide for merchants, I will be expanding and deepening this one further as time goes.

“How To” Guide to Affiliate Marketing
for Affiliates

Introduction

Getting Started & Day-to-Day Work

Blogging & Blog-Based Websites

Mobile Marketing

Advanced Topics (analytics, optimization, and more)

Motivational

If there are topics/questions I haven’t yet covered that you want to see here, just post about them in the “Comments” area below or email me your questions, and I will make sure they are added to the Guide.

18 thoughts on “How To Guide to Affiliate Marketing [for Affiliates]”

  2. Geno

    Thank you for your comment and also for tweeting this “how to” guide, Sheila. Should you think of any other topics to include with time, let me know.

    Reply
  4. Geno

    Debra, be my guest. Just link to the post you’re referencing.

    You may also email me at geno /at/ amnavigator for any additional help.

    Reply
  7. shareasale newb

    Hi. Thanks for your response. Now I am thinking about this example… [screenshot here]

    You said these stats is not a good sign. The example stats are from shareasale merchant named unique rewards, they pay per survey lead. Can merchants do that reversal stuff all the time and not get banned by ShareAsale? Because that was my logic:
    Ok this particular merchant is with SAS from year 2003 so if he did shady (dishinest) reversals most of the time he would be already banned? Right? Or SAS does not care about that and its “affiliates problem”? So seeing that this merchant is not banned and is 7 year member could I do the conclusion that this merchant is honest and these reversals are just rare accidents?

    Regards

    Reply
  8. Geno

    This would be a question to ShareASale. Generally, they are extremely affiliate-friendly and will work with you on resolving real problems. In this particular case, I don’t know if this merchant has been doing this for all 7 years, or just the past 30 days, but when I say “it’s not a good sign” I mean: I wouldn’t work with this merchant. There are plenty of other merchants out there. For example, check out ShareASale’s Top 100 PowerRank list, which has some really nice programs.

    Reply
  9. shareasale newb

    Hi. Thats right if you have opportunity to pick any niche. But if I have survey website and I would like to promote survey leads then the field of merchants is very narrow 🙂 So if you had survey traffic or website and wanted to monetize you still would not use it even if there is not much of other survey merchants on SaS?

    For now I have couple in CJ, but my traffic needs more 🙂

    Reply
  10. shareasale newb

    Its so overwhelming with those networks and merchant as well 🙂
    For example navigating CJ I see merchant in description says “we pay 1.50 per lead, but in action list it says 2.00 per lead. Confusing.
    Or one more example from CJ, advertiser called Toluna.

    In description they say: ONLY LEADS CONFIRMED BY MAIL FROM UK, GERMANY and ITALY residents WILL BE PAID !!

    But in the action list they say:
    1.90 for germany lead
    1.85 for UK lead
    2.30 for Greece lead.

    In description they have ITALY and in actions they have GREECE and no Italy.

    Should I market to Italy or to Greece along with UK or Germany? If they count only Italy and no greece I will earn 0$ trying to promote to Greece. If they count only Greece I will earn 0$ trying to promote to Italy. LOL

    Stuff like that is very annoying… And unclear situations like that is pretty common there…
    How come you spend so much money joining CJ as merchant and can not even write clear instructions to affiliates lol

    Reply
  11. shareasale newb

    Survey website is website that pays people money for taking online surveys. If that merchant is on Shareasale or CJ I as affiliate refer those people to those websites and get money for refering them

    You can search for uniquerewards in sharesale merchant search or just search for “survey” in CJ search and will see those survey merchants

    Reply
  13. shareasale newb

    Yes thats cool. All I was trying to say that I can not just pick something other from top100 powerrankings because I need specific niche merchant and that one was kind of the only one there. Otherwise I would not bother with it (seeing those reversal stats) aswell..

    Reply
  14. Sue

    hi,
    i am not sure if this is relevant. but i have established a website on which i want to advertise affilate deep links directly to merchant product pages. i am using clixgalore to do this but am having a hard time working out how this is done exactly. it tells me about datafeeds and deep links and i have spent all day with no success. if you can give me some instructions that would be fantastic.

    thanks

    Reply
    1. Geno

      You’re most welcome.

      Your comment reminds me — I need to update the list to include some of the more recent posts… Will do that some time soon.

      Reply

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