Everything You Always Wanted To Know

About Affiliate Marketing*

*(but were afraid to ask)

By Tony Seel

Copyright © 2019 Irresistible Influence Marketing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Okay, I’ll admit it. It’s a cheesy title improvised from a Woody Allen movie. But, the truth is that affiliate marketing is a mystery to vast numbers of people who are on the internet everyday. Yet, it is also an extremely lucrative business for others who know how to capitalize on it. How many? I wouldn’t hazard a guess, but enough to tell me (and you), that there’s money to be made in this industry. Which is why I’ve put together this guide which gives you everything you need to get started in this highly lucrative field. How lucrative? The good new is that affiliate Marketing is a $12 billion industry. The even better news is that there’s room for you. So, let’s get started! Tony Seel Founder and CEO Irresistible Influence Marketing

Table of Contents

Is Affiliate Marketing For You?

What is Affiliate Marketing?

The Keys to Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing Made Easy

7 Reasons Why Affiliate Marketing is The Easiest Path to Prosperity

How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

Making Big Money With Affiliate Marketing

How To Launch A Profitable Affiliate Marketing Campaign

7 Indispensible Tips for Affiliate Marketing

Is Affiliate Marketing For You?

Have you heard of Michelle Schroeder? Probably not, but she earns $100,000 a month, and half of that comes from affiliate marketing. How about John Chow? He has earned $4 million, primarily as an affiliate marketer. Chow boasts that he went from 0 to earning $40,000 a month from his blog in just two years. And by working only 2 hours a day. Sound intriguing? Rae "Sugarrae" Hoffman is another top affiliate marketer. This is what she says about her website: "As far as revenue goes, I'm not going to give specific numbers, because it's frankly none of your damn business. But what I will tell you is that the annual net revenue you could have made with the site would have put you in the top 15% of annual household incomes ."

How about Mark Ling? He started affiliate marketing in 1999. His current net worth is estimated at $12 million. Do you think that Michelle, John, Sugarrae, and Mark are geniuses? They'd each tell you that they're not, but they have learned how to make money through affiliate marketing. You can too.

What is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is a way to make money by helping other businesses sell their products. The internet has opened up all kinds of new ways to do this and has made the field even more profitable for savvy marketers. Affiliate marketing is a way to make money by helping other businesses sell their products. The internet has opened up all kinds of new ways to do this and has made the field even more profitable for savvy marketers. By learning the different aspects of the internet sales process you can become a savvy internet marketer yourself. It isn't as hard as you might think, if you are learning from the best.

The Keys to Affiliate Marketing

What are the keys to affiliate marketing? First, the right product is essential. If you are marketing a product that no one wants, no one benefits and few will buy. If it is a product that people are interested in, but it under performs, you lose credibility and reputation. A good quality product that benefits others is what you are after. Next, internet traffic is essential. With heavy traffic, chances are better that you will find those who will most benefit from the products that you are marketing. You can learn how to generate heavy traffic. Third, as I mentioned in the first point above, the trust that you create with your readers and (hopefully) clients will help you build a reputable affiliate marketing platform for yourself. You will establish trust through your honesty, clarity, and integrity. Writing good sales copy is also important, and I've created several products to help you with this. By learning the different aspects of the internet sales process you can become a savvy internet marketer yourself. It isn't as hard as you might think, if you are learning from the best. Affiliate marketing is an excellent field for a first or second career, or a sideline business to boost your income.

Affiliate Marketing Made Easy

The graphic above explains the affiliate marketing process from the perspective of the product creator, but let's turn it around so that it applies to an affiliate marketer like yourself. First, go to a place like Clickbank.com and you see a host of products. Choose one that you believe will be a great seller for you. Every product on Clickbank is giving a sales rating so that you can see what's been a great seller for other affiliate marketers. When you've found the best product for you, click on the Promote button and grab the html code that you need to promote the product.

Clickbank is a network for product creators and affiliate marketers and while it's huge, there are other networks also. The biggest network for physical products is Amazon. To sell as an affiliate, you may put an ad on your website for the product as you see at the top of the graphic above. Or you may decide to market through solo ads, or Facebook ads, or a number of other advertising possibilities. When a customer clicks and buys the product, you earn a commission. In most cases, that commission is from 50% of the selling price up to 100% for digital products. 100% is usually for low-priced products that are a starting point for the sales funnel of the product creator. That's how affiliate marketing works, and it is lucrative if you can sell. The keys to sellings are persuasive ads put in front of good prospects. My products are designed to help you learn the persuasive ad part. Let's talk about some ways that you can market affiliate products.

1. One way is through a review page on your website. As an affiliate marketer, you can ask product creators for a review copy of their product. Some won't give you one, but others will and a review can be an effective way to create sales.

The key to this method is getting people to your review page. With good SEO some will find your page because they're looking for reviews of the product you're offering for sale. Otherwise, you'll need to alert people about your review. 2. Another way to sell affiliate products is through solo ads. Solo ads are purchased through solo ad sellers who have huge email lists. You give them the copy, they may rewrite it for their lists, and anyone who responds is added to your list and you have the chance to offer them products that you believe will improve their lives or their businesses. The sales process through solo ads works best if you have a lead magnet (also called a tripwire) to offer. In fact, some solo ad sellers insist on this. Your lead magnet gives the prospect something for free or at a very low price as an inducement to give you their email address. Once they're on your list, you know what to do (if not, see above).

3. Facebook ads are a popular way to advertise these days. See my posts on Facebook ads for some particulars on this. YouTube is another great channel for marketing. I cover YouTube here . So, how do you get started?

1. Choose a product or niche. What products or services interest you and do you see proof that your chosen product or service has a high level of interest from others?

2. I learned this trick from Neil Patel (except that the site that he suggested was bought by Apple and they killed it). There are a number of social media analytical tools that you can use to gauge whether the product or service you've chosen is a good seller. Definitely do this work before putting time, effort, and money to work for marketing.

3. Be sure to collect email addresses as you build your affiliate marketing business. Emails addresses enable you to establish and grow a relationship with potential buyers. An autoresponder is the best way to do this, and I recommend AWeber. I use AWeber and I've found them to be great people to deal with.

4. Make sure that the products you recommend deserve your support. If you sell lousy products it will hurt your reputation and give your prospects a strong reason to never consider what you say or sell.

5. If you can, offer bonuses. These could be digital products that you've created. This will boost your sales.

6. Closely monitor your advertising. Don't be afraid to change channels if you don't like what you're seeing. Maybe a different social media would work better than the one you're using. Maybe solo ads would be best of all. Find what works best as cheaply as possible. Make every dollar you spend on advertising work for you. For help with this, check out my products .

If you’re still not sure that affiliate marketing will work for you, you’ll be interested in the following 7 reasons why affiliate marketing is the easiest path to prosperity.

7 Reasons Why Affiliate Marketing is The Easiest Path to Prosperity

Affiliate marketing is the quickest, cheapest, and most efficient way to tap into the internet marketplace. Even those who create products cannot create enough products quickly enough to satisfy the demand of the two billion-plus people who surf the web. Even product creators do some affiliate marketing. There are thousands of people trying to make a living or earn extra cash on the internet, but most are unsuccessful. Some dabble in eBay, some create products, others scratch their heads and wonder, “How can I tap into the billions of people and trillions of dollars that are available on the internet?” Yes, billions and trillions. Are you scratching your head right now? The people and profits are out there. The question is, how do you connect with them? Affiliate marketing started on the internet in 1994, and Forester Research projects that affiliate marketing commissions will reach $3.4 billion this year and $4.5 billion by 2016. Would you like a piece of that pie?

7 Reasons to Become an Affiliate Marketer

Why become an affiliate marketer? Here are seven great reasons:

1. Because you can start part-time in your spare time and build into a full-time, lucrative business, or you can stay part-time and enjoy extra income without a full-time commitment.

2. No need for expensive brick and mortar. With affiliate marketing, you don’t have to maintain a storefront or warehouse that steals money from your bottom line. You can work from home.

3. With affiliate marketing, you can set your own hours and be your own boss. You can work as much or as little as you want. There are affiliate marketers who are now millionaires from a few hours of work a day.

4. You can create a business that you love, not one that someone else has designed for you. Others will help you, but you are the person in charge who makes affiliate marketing what you want it to be for you!

5. Affiliate marketing on the internet enables you to tap into the worldwide market of billions of people and trillions of dollars.

6. With affiliate marketing you are not responsible for customer support – the person or company that you’re selling for has that responsibility.

7. Affiliate marketing is really about helping others. If your motive is to manipulate people to create sales, please don’t become an affiliate marketer. On the other hand, if you can view affiliate marketing as a means to connect others with great products that will benefit them, then join the club!

Zig Ziglar, one of the greatest salesmen of all time once said, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” That’s the key that has unlocked fortunes in any field, including affiliate marketing.

If you are considering affiliate marketing, the biggest question in your mind is likely, can I make money with it? That’s where we’re headed next.

How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

Did you know that affiliate marketing is expected to grow exponentially, and what is now a $12 billion industry is expected to grow by 10% for the next few years. Affiliate marketing has changed over the years, but with billions of dollars made over those same years and significant projected growth, affiliate marketing continues to be an incredibly lucrative field within internet marketing. In fact, affiliate marketing remains one of the most accessible business opportunities on the internet. The key to unlocking the fortunes available through affiliate marketing is driving traffic to sales pages for the products that you are promoting, but let's first take a step back from that door. Before you unlock the door that opens to untold riches (and talking about a multi-billion dollar industry is talking about untold riches), there's one more important step that you need to take. If you're looking for a new career, affiliate marketing can be that new career for you. The way to turn part-time income into full-time compensation is only limited by the number of sales that you make. If this sounds interesting to you, here's the process for starting:

The Affiliate Marketing Process

1. You need to choose a niche and great products in that niche that are selling. To choose a niche, you can go to Clickbank.com and other affiliate marketing hubs

to see what is available in a variety of niches. Choose a niche, choose a product with good sales, and you're ready to launch your affiliate business.

How do you know which products are good sellers and which are duds? For Clickbank the measure is Gravity (this is abbreviated as Grav on Clickbank). A Gravity above 10 tells you there's a market out there for a product you're interested in selling. The higher the Gravity the better. Whether you're using Clickbank or some other source for other people's products, they all have a measure for this. 2. Once you've chosen a product to promote, the next step is choosing how you will market the product. Will you promote through your website, via emails, or will you use some other channel for advertising and promotion? 3. Once you've determined how you're going to promote the product you've chosen it's time to put together your advertising and marketing. Maybe you'd like to review the product on your website - write the review. Maybe your preferred method of promotion is emails to your list - write the emails. You may choose to promote your product to someone else's list - in this case you contact the list owner and do what they ask. It might be providing a swipe (the copy for an email) and a website url. You could advertise the product through banner ads, Facebook ads, Google adwords, Instagram, Pinterest, or any number of social media channels ( I have a guide on this ). You could create a YouTube video. There are many places to advertise, the choices are varied, but in time you will find what works best for you and the products that you promote. That's the affiliate marketing process in miniature; there are some other pieces that you'll need in place to complete what may seem like a puzzle to you at this point. You'll need Paypal or some other means to collect money, and you may need a website with a domain name. One of the important aspects of affiliate marketing is building trust with potential buyers.

One of the ways to do this is through a blog like this one where you can demonstrate that you know what you're talking about. A second way is with an email list that you send to regularly. Through regular emails you can establish trust. Be yourself, be honest, and you will build trust with those you interact with on a regular basis. Here are some affiliate network suggestions from Drink Coffee and Prosper, a good website about affiliate marketing:

1. Linqia : Great for sponsored posts. 2. Shareasale : A huge hub for affiliates. 3. OfferJuice : I joined solely because blog guru Michelle uses it (by the way, she

banks $50K+ PER MONTH in affiliate income! Learn how here ) 4. Izea : One of the first networks I joined. Tons of opportunities instantly! 5. Peerfly : Have you heard of CPA offers? Get paid by lead or by sale. Amazing

income opportunity!! 6. Flexoffers : Tons of opportunity and great income potential.

Maybe you’re interested in not just making money with affiliate marketing, but making big money. That’s next.

Making Big Money With Affiliate Marketing

How many affiliate marketers are there around the world? I wouldn't even try to guess. Affiliate marketing is likely the most popular starting point for online marketing because from the outside it seems so easy. And really, when you compare it to alternatives, it is pretty easy. What's so hard about selling someone else's product? The hard work is developing a product that sells, right? Plus, if you can get prospects to look at the affiliate products you're promoting, the product developer takes over the selling process. Your job is finished, he does the rest of the work, and you get paid your commission. Nice. But, consider the following question. Would you hire an architect who arrives at your building site with no plans and starts directing the construction crew? I don't think you would. Yet it appears to me that most affiliate marketers jump into the fray without any plan whatsoever for how to succeed. That's a recipe for failure. What follows is a recipe for success.

First, don't minimize the work required to be successful in affiliate marketing, but don't let is put you off either. First, you have to research products (or services). Is it a good product? Does it do what it says it will do? Will anyone want to buy it? With great products you can make great money. Research products before you sell them. Look at product reviews, read what others say about the product. One caution: be wary of some product reviews. Other affiliate marketers will put up a review as part of their marketing promotion. Second, decide the best way to promote the product. What will be your optimal marketing mix? Emails, banner ads, Facebook ads, Google ads – what are the best places to promote the product or service that you choose? This may take some trial and error before you know what works best for you. If you decide to go the email route, have you built an email list of hungry buyers? Are your subscribers interested in what you have to sell? Have you built your credibility with them so that they are hungry to buy from you? You may decide that the best way to market the product you've chosen is through a website that you create. How much experience do you have on selling from a website? How successful have you been or will you be in promoting your website? None of this is None of this is to suggest that building a website for affiliate marketing isn't the way that you should go. I'm just saying that whatever you do, make sure you know how to do it before jumping in. An amateurish website will get amateurish results. Look at some professional websites and emulate what they're doing for best results.

Whatever way you choose to promote a product, you are likely going to have to spend money to drive potential buyers to your offer. How much money? You likely won't have any idea until you start and see your results. Start small and scale upwards once you've hit on a way that works. Don't go all in before testing and reviewing results. Affiliate marketing can be lucrative, but understand, there may be more to it than meets the eye. You can be a successful affiliate marketer. Just understand that it is work. Start small, grow your business, and who knows, maybe you'll be the next millionaire affiliate marketer! If you're looking for someone to lead you through the process of making great money with affiliate marketing, I recommend that you look no further than the $12 million dollar man, Mark Ling. I’ve mentioned him before - Ling started in 1999 in affiliate marketing and his multi-million dollar status tells you he's one of the best at it. You can learn more about his training here . The best way to do affiliate marketing takes planning. A one-off effort is not likely to produce great results. What does produce great results is an affiliate marketing campaign. See what I mean on the following page.

How To Launch A Profitable Affiliate Marketing Campaign

Looking to turn the internet into your own, private ATM through affiliate marketing? So are many others. The truth is that as millennials and post-millennials age, the affiliate marketing space will grow with them. Affiliate marketing is a booming industry that has huge potential for astronomical profits. What many affiliate marketers don't realize is that it takes effective advertising and marketing to drive sales. Affiliate marketing is a business based on marketing the products of others, and this requires two areas of expertise: marketing AND advertising. Without both, you are not likely to succeed. Without effective advertising, your marketing efforts will come not result in sufficient sales to be profitable. When your income is dependent on making sales, your advertising copy is what either creates those sales or drives buyers away. This is why Irresistible Influence Marketing is focused on training you to become your own advertising copywriter. The marketing side of the business is finding the right target audience for the products being advertised. Quality content marketing can help the right target audience find you. This helps in two ways. First, when you use your website as your content showroom, you give potential customers opportunities for multiple "touches." One of the most basic principles of

marketing today is that it takes at least seven touches to make a sale. Every time you create new and valuable content, you create a quality touch point for your target audience. Second, your website not only helps you showcase your knowledge and expertise, it also gives you a place to invite people to sign up to your email list. With an email list, you can multiply your touches by providing even more quality content and quality touches .

How can you profit from affiliate marketing? First, plan your business around campaigns. Choose one or two products a week and write your website content to support those campaigns. Second, stay consistent. Build your business plan around consistently placing your affiliate products in front of your target audience through your email list, your website, social media, and paid advertising. The more channels you use, the more likely you are to reach buyers. The opposite of this is also true: the fewer channels you use, the less likely you are to reach buyers. Let's walk through the design of an affiliate marketing campaign.

How To Do An Affiliate Marketing Campaign Step One: Choose your niche and choose your products. Once you've decided on your niche, choose the products that you are going to promote. These products should already have a proven record of sales - you are looking for products to promote that you know will sell. All affiliate marketing websites have a measure for this - choose to sell winners and you're already ahead. Step Two: Get the links for your chosen product and consult the sales page for help in writing your advertising copy for the product. It's a good practice to research how others are selling this product for added insight for your own campaign.

Step Three: Create your advertising. Think about Advertising Angles , Headlines , and product benefits that you will highlight in your advertising copy. If you're using email, plan out a series of emails for your campaign. In this step, take some cues from others who are selling this product. Look at their ads, sales pages, reviews, and not only for this product but for other products in your niche. Inspiration often comes from a wide variety of sources. This is why experience advertising copywriters often keep "swipe files." Swipe files consist of great ads that can serve as guides for your own advertising. Step Four: Launch your campaign. It is advisable to start any paid advertising with a low budgeted amount. Make sure everything is set up correctly and you're getting some results before you amp up your paid marketing. Step Five: Monitor your campaign. If you're not getting the results you planned for, tweak your ads, maybe change your channels, but ONLY change one item at a time so that you can see whether your change results in better or worse performance. Now that you know how to do an affiliate marketing campaign, here are 7 tips that will take your affiliate marketing business even further.

7 Indispensible Tips for Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry and one of the easiest ways to break into internet marketing. How many businesses do you know that you can start up for as little as $5.17? That's how much it cost me to start my internet marketing business. I bought my tonyseel.com domain on special from Go Daddy for $1.17 and I started this website on IPage for $3. AWeber, my autoresponder was $1.00 for the first month. That's $5.17! Facebook ads are as cheap as $5 a day. Yes, there are more expenses than the ones that you incur at the very beginning, but affiliate marketing is perfectly scalable. You can ramp up your advertising as you make sales.

7 Indispensible Tips for Affiliate Marketing Here's seven of my most important tips for getting your affiliate marketing business profitable:

1. Think relationships first. The best internet marketing is based on people knowing, liking and trusting you. For affiliate marketing, building a relationship can be even more essential. Relationships are always a process. First, people get to know you as they learn of you from an ad, a post, an email, or some other way of introduction. If they want to go further with you, they will join your list and receive regular emails from you. Through your emails and other contacts, people will learn more about you, and as they do so they either like you or not, and trust you or not. Your part in this process is giving them every reason to like and trust you by what you send them whether it's an email, a video, whatever. 2. Focus on building your list. The larger your email list, the more sales and income you will generate. As you build your list, you will be building your business. As your list grows numerically, continue to work on building trust with your subscribers. It's said very often and it's still true - the money's in the list. 3. Promote wisely. If you send junk to your list, guess what? They'll think you're a junk dealer and they will likely learn not to trust you. People want valuable content and quality products. If this is what you deliver, they will learn to like and trust you. When that happens, you are more likely to be a successful affiliate marketing. 4. Promote only quality products that solve a problem or otherwise help your subscribers. If your subscribers know that you have their best interests at heart, they are more likely to be open to what you are promoting. 5. Promote what you use. You've heard of endorsements? Of course. Well, why not endorse what works well for you? If it works for you, it makes sense to tell others about it. On my Recommended Resources page you'll find TMD Hosting, Go Daddy, AWeber, Paypal, and Fiverr. I use all these services, I've found them all to be great, and so I recommend them to others. 6. Continually work on improving your copywriting skills. If your email subject lines don't compel your readers to open your emails, your business is dead. If the copy inside your email doesn't compel them to click through to a sales page, your business cannot be profitable.

Email marketing is the backbone for affiliate marketing and your success will be largely determined by your copywriting. If your copywriting is not creating enough sales, click here for help . 7. Always stay "white hat." White hat means being completely honest and ethical. When you maintain the highest standards of integrity for your business, you will earn the trust of those who know you. To go "black hat" is a sure way to lose the trust of your subscribers. Give your audience every reason to know, like, and trust you, and no reason to discount, dislike, or distrust you. Use what you’ve learned in this ebook to launch or improve your affiliate marketing, and just maybe you’ll join Michelle Schroeder, John Chow, Rae “SugarRae” Hoffman, and Mark Ling at the top of the heap. Even if you don’t, there’s plenty of money to be made with affiliate marketing. To your prosperity! Tony Seel