How I Compare Affiliate Programs

The Goal of Promoting Affiliate Programs Is More of These

I have been working online for a number of years now and have found it worthwhile to compare the various affiliate programs in the marketplace before choosing which one to promote. Which network or brand to choose can vary based on any number of factors which we'll talk about here. Things I like to consider can include benefits to me such as ease of use, commission rate, reputation and product breadth, but it also equally important to consider your audience when selecting products and programs to promote. After all if you misunderstand the needs of your visitors you don't have much chance of successfully marketing to them.

Three Major Affiliate Programs to Consider

The three most widely known affiliate programs (commission-based) are Amazon, eBay, and Clickbank. You may be wondering why I exclude Google AdSense here but I consider that an advertising program and not a pure commission-based affiliate program. Having had the pleasure of working with each of these networks I think it is fair to say that Amazon has the best overall reputation for trust level, commissions payment (including micro-payments now), and product selection. Where they tend to be a little on the weak side is their commission level. They also tend to be fairly flexible as to who can participate.

eBay Partner Network would have to be the second most widely known affiliate program, although their rules and payouts have changed substantially over the years. While previously they ran a hybrid program based loosely more on sales activity now they compute payments based on a quality click formula that more resembles Google's AdSense program than a true commission-based affiliate program. Click earnings rates tend to be exceptionally low for most sites, and many publisher accounts have been broadly banned by them - much along the lines of what Google has done. If you do choose to work with the eBay program they do have some very good tools but you will almost certainly be banned if you violate the most minute terms of service.

The third and final commission-based affiliate program is Clickbank. The trust reputation of Clickbank is much lower than the previously mentioned programs, primarily because the quality of the product offerings on that platform tend to be lower / more of the Tv Infomercial level quality as compared to the brand-name merchandise which Amazon (and to a lesser extend eBay) tend to market as their bread-and-butter product lines. Having said that, the lines of product quality on sites such as Amazon and eBay are only as good as the sellers of those items - and given the number of non-brand name 3rd parties selling on those platforms I think it is safe to say the quality and trust level of both those dot-com brands has been diluted over time. On the plus side for Clickbank, the typical commission rate for a Clickbank product ranges from 50% up to 80%. Higher commission rates means it takes fewer sales to make good money online.

Are There Other Affiliate Programs Than Clickbank or Amazon

The short answer is yes there are a number of networked affiliate programs as well as individual affiliate programs in the marketplace. The advantage of using a networked program is that it is easier to find a wider variety of products to promote, and earnings from the various vendors (usually) accumulate in a single account making it easier to achieve payout thresholds. After all - making a sale doesn't get you paid until you hit the minimum payout level. Now as we mentioned above, Amazon's payout threshold is effectively zero. eBay's (last I recall) was as low as $10. Clickbank's minimum payout is $50.

Social Media Training PDF

I have written a cheap social media training PDF available online or via Kindle (cheaper version). Now more than ever network marketing is critical to the success of your small business. A business without a coordinated marketing presence online is missing out on a tremendous opportunity to build an audience and acheive their business and social agenda cheaply and efficiently.

Media Buy Costs Plummet When Taken Online and Social

Web savvy business owners know and understand the drill. When the need to promote a new offer comes up, the marketing effort ramps up and quickly gets the message out to key followers and further out onto the web. Occasionally a marketing effort or social message goes viral and your business audience grows overnight! This isn't obviously always the case but with the right setup in place these so called media "buys" cost the smart business owner NOTHING!

Facebook Twitter and Google - The Key Elements of Our Social Media Training PDF

So how do you become a web savvy business owner like our example above? You need only read and implement the steps outlined in our social media training PDF (cheaper Kindle edition). In it we cover how to bring your marketing message quickly and efficiently to all the social networks (and other media outlets) at once. With the click of one button the web savvy business owner informs all their followers wherever they choose to receive their media information while at the same time publishing the same information to the broader public across a variety of news outlets.

Benefits of Taking Social Media Training to the Next Level

In addition to the obvious benefits of increased business exposure for pennies (or nothing!) the advantage of taking additional social media training is the advancement of skills in online marketing as well as understanding what to expect from online marketing efforts. One great example of this is the difference between sending out a weekly flyer in the mail (or as blown-in advertising in your local paper) versus putting content up on the web. Your flyer is unlikely to be read at all - and if read even once, will be discarded almost immediately. That is literally throwing money directly into the garbage.

On the other hand, time spent putting a social media message together and then putting it up on the web creates a permanent record which not only links your message to your store or brand, but also creates a spot in search engines to which customers who read (and discarded) your message the first time around can still search for (and more importantly... find!) your original message for re-use or (even better) to pass along / share with friends.

Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of our social media training PDF or Kindle edition. You won't regret it. I promise.

SEnuke Review

In this SENuke Review we will talk about how it is something of a bionic arm (or hands) of web-publishing for professional internet marketers. A lot has changed in article marketing since the SEnuke (Search Engine Nuke) software program was originally offered several years ago. It has since gone through a couple of major upgrades designed to get as much of the "work" out of "working online" as humanly possible. Purists might argue that the techniques and methods used by the software program run afoul of plagarism rules and copyright infringement and to be frank I would have to agree that several functions of the automation do tread into dark areas of the DMCA however a white hat marketer does not have to necessarily use those functions to still gain benefits of using this incredibly powerful piece of web publishing automation software.

SEnuke Review Positives

SEnuke is far and away the most powerful article marketing tool I have ever seen. If you have ever tried article marketing yourself you know exactly how time consuming and tedious it can be. Any campaign requires a considerable amount of effort just to research and setup - let alone execute. The major advantage of using automated article marketing software like this is time-saving. This software is capable (in its most advanced form) of doing absolutely all of the heavy lifting once you have performed your own keyword research (prior editions of SEnuke had a great keyword module however that function was made obsolete given the many good cheap or free substitutes available on the web). Once you decide on your niche, the software can literally do any or all of the remaining work for you. Many marketers use the program this way to saturate time-sensitive keywords with something akin to a "fire and forget" attitude toward their content. These pages certainly aren't the highest quality and will ultimately find their way to the Google sin-bin but by the time they get de-indexed the marketer has already cashed in on their target (hopefully).

Understand this is not how I market, nor it is any form of recommendation for this style of marketing however it is worth noting that this style of marketing does infact exist. Those more conscientious marketers who write their own content may still benefit from many of the automated features of SEnuke given its ability to quickly setup campaigns, accounts, distribute content, manage and save URL links, RSS feed links, create backlinks, and syndicate it all while you watch (or go have a snack or go to the movies). Full automation requires additional services but if your time is too valuable to monitor the program while it runs then paying a few dollars for the add-on services will be money well spent.

SEnuke Review Negatives

One of the big negatives in using a powerful program like SEnuke is that it can run afoul of the major search engines, notably Google. Online marketers using the full automation features of the program are essentially violating just about every term of service imaginable in the Web 2.0 world. The article marketing program creates seed articles from previously published article databases on the web. I don't care how much "spinning" an author does to an automatically generated article - it's still copyright theft in my mind - and a major violation of the DMCA.

On the other hand many web marketers outside the western world (and a fair number inside as well) don't hold themselves accountable to that standard. It is hard to blame them really. The web is like the wild west in many respects - filled with toothless / unevenly applied laws where the spoils inevitably go to the people with the fastest draw and the smallest conscience. With more and more small business marketers growing dissatisfied with the treatment they get via the major search engines it really is no wonder people continue to turn to high-powered automated marketing programs like SEnuke in greater numbers. See a demo of SEnuke.