Understanding the Affiliate Industry: The Only Affiliate Marketing Secret You Will Ever Need
The affiliate industry is incredibly simple to understand. It is open to everyone, and everyone starts in the same place— i.e. at zilch! But, our business is dominated by a myth that there is some big hidden “secret” to making money. Folks, there simply isn’t. There is only one— ONE— affiliate marketing secret, and that is the secret of traffic. And traffic’s no secret either! Here are three pointers to help you get to grips with this crucial problem of traffic.
1. What is the best price to pay for traffic?
You can pay for all the traffic you want, or you can get it for free. With an unlimited budget, you can have unlimited traffic.
(No, I am not being sarcastic! There is a point here that I will come back to below.)
Free traffic is my favorite kind!
But that’s just me. You might feel differently. You may think it’s important to pay for it. OK, fine.
But then…
2. Decide how long are you willing to wait for traffic.
Paid traffic can be had today. Literally.
You do that through PPC ads on the big search engines.
A huge part of the so-called “affiliate marketing secret” books teach better and more clever ways to to do this.
But fundamentally the strategy is…
Go to a search engine. Open your account and set your budget. Do your keyword research and write some ads. Link those ads to your affiliate URL. Click and save. Whatever traffic you can afford, you will have.
The affiliate industry spends a lot of its resources selling us this strategy. As strategies go, I have no argument with it. It works.
But… with PPC, we pay for our errors!
That does not appeal to you?
All right, then. If that is the case…
3. Look at your long term goals.
I love free traffic. Not like. Love.
The great advantage of this type of preferred traffic is that is exposes not just the product, but you, the marketer.
If you expect to be in business for a long time (and maybe you don’t!), then plan on developing your profile as an expert in your niche.
If you take away nothing else from this short article, I hope you see that the question of traffic is not just a question for today.
Traffic is tomorrow’s problem, and next year’s.
You’ve got to ask yourself: “Why am I in business? What do I hope to accomplish? How much money will it take for me to feel that I have ‘arrived’?”
Forums and articles are places where we market not just our product, but ourselves.
People get to feel you out, in a manner of speaking. They get to know you and decide whether they want to know more.
No PPC ad will ever do that. Unless, of course, the ad is for building a list— and that’s another day’s work!
The great disadvantage of articles and forums: it takes time and work to establish yourself as the “expert”.
So, do you want to be a niche expert, or just make some sales and go do something else? Either is perfectly OK. But decide which you want.
And then…
..stick to it!
To summarize: Some people are in the affiliate game for life; others just want to dip their toe in the water. Success in the affiliate industry is about traffic: how to get it and how to keep it. There is no other “affiliate marketing secret”, if you want to call it that. You have to decide what kind of traffic you want, because different types of traffic will lead to different outcomes. No one can decide this for you. It’s entirely up to you.