For almost any successful niche you will find more than one product. There are some niches that you can find more than 50 different offers. Each has its own landing page and many others characteristics that differentiate the offer from his competitors. As a result we experience different CR (conversion rate).

You probably heard it so many times; Do a spilt test. Checks which offer convert the best.  Its true and you are advised to do so, but this post is not about a split test.

I assume that you already found the best offer that convert best for your traffic. Intentionally I use the term “Convert best for your traffic” and not “Convert best” because you will find that what works for others might not works for you as vice versa.

But is it the best that you can get for your traffic. It is NOT !

Let’s get straight to the bottom line. Most of the affiliate marketers forget that in a place they offer a product they can offer another one. By doing so, theoretically you double your campaign ROI. Because it sounds so simple affiliate marketers tend to drop this approach. After all the common spirit in the making money online community is that it has to be complex.

I do not support that myth. Making money online can be a simple task. The only thing you need to do is to use your mind, to be creative, to do a good research on how to use this sale technique effectively.

Let me give you 2 samples that you will find on the internet. The first one is very common although I don’t use it due to morality issue (Google don’t like it as well). The second one you will hardly find on the web but those who do so earn more money with less competitors, and most important they make money while giving a true added value to the buyer.

Case #1
There are many skin care products offers on the market. Their CPA is between $30 to $40. Lots of affiliate marketers are promoting them and therefore their bids rapidly increasing. Almost a year ago a gifted affiliate marketer (no names of course) started a campaign where he claims that he found the right way to use these products: it’s all about the combination of the two different products. This campaign was designed as a blog with touching personal (fake) evidence. This campaign was a success and you can tell that only by the numbers of affiliate marketers who copied it to their benefit. It was just a matter of time until Google stepped in and gave a “SLAP” to those who did so.

Case #2
What if I tell you to promote an online fax service? How many do you think will jump on that offer? I bet almost none. The most common excuse will be that it’s barely $10 commission with low margin.  What if I told you to promote a DIY (Do It Yourself) office desk?
The story is simple. There is a guy (no names again) who developed a “Start your own Home office” website where he give practical advice on how you can start your own home office. The idea is to help people to get things done without getting into huge expenses.  His average CPA is around $80! His ROI is more than 300%.
He will probably not get copied, mainly because most affiliate marketers are too lazy to do the kind of work he did.

It’s up to you do decide whether you like to take your online marketing business to its next level or keep copy what others are doing. It could be the difference for making 100K a year or 1M a year.

You can sit back and accept the situation or you can find creative ways to take advantage of it to make money differently. Those who are running PPC campaigns probably noticed a decrease in their bids (at least for some niches). I know about some affiliate marketers who decided to halt their projects until the market will show some positive signs. I don’t think they are acting wisely. Even for those affiliate marketers who focus their work in 2-3 niches this period of time can be a good time to test new niches.

Here is my tip for you: When people don’t like to spend money to buy their goods they are more than happy to get it for free.
Did you know that you can give people free stuff and get paid for it?

I am promoting a basic product that for each lead I am getting more than $30!
The users only needs to pay $2.95 S&H.
Sound simple? well it can be simple if you know how to do it right.

You will not find those kinds of campaigns at ClickBank or CJ.
There are networks like NeverBlue, Hydra and COPEAC that offer a variety of “free gifts” campaigns. Some of those campaigns can be found in all of those three networks but some campaigns are exclusive for each network. If you want to do it right my advice is to sign up in all of the three networks and then to look for the products that you feel most comfortable to promote.
Another reason to sign up to all of the three is the fact that some time the same campaign will have a different commission on each network. Obviously you will prefer to work with the network that pays the highest commission for a specific campaign.

Try to think about creative ways to promote those kinds of products. It’s the key for your success. Think out of the box.

Few days ago I’ve noticed that something is wrong with this campaign. I don’t check my campaign every day (in my opinion it’s a waste of time). However, since I suspected that something is not working well I gave it a close look.

I was amazed to find out that the merchant changed the landing page for the link that I was using. This merchant has lots of affiliate links that you can use. I chose the affiliate link that fits to the pre sale page that I use on my website. I even used some of his colors and the graphics so when the user meets the sale page it will look familiar as possible.

I called the network and express my anger about the merchant action. Expectedly my affiliate manager apologized and he also justified my claims. However, I have no intention to continue my work with that merchant any more. Lucky me, he is not the only merchant that sale this line of products.

I never thought to check the merchants landing page on a daily basis and I am surly not going to start now. Imagine how much time it will take to an affiliate marketer to check 500 landing pages every day. On that time I can create a new campaign from start to end.

I tend to argue that this is the network responsibility – to make sure that the merchants will not change their landing pages without a clear notice upfront.

Spending the day in a completely isolated work environment can damage the efficiency of the work. You don’t have the privilege to do a brainstorming with others about your ideas. In the best case you improve your ideas based on your own mistakes. Most of the affiliate marketers do not get the chance to improve their ideas – they drop after only few campaigns.

There is a famous show with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that was recorded in September 2005 – Buffett and Gates Go Back to School. The two men spent the day at the University of Nebraska with students and faculty from the College of Business Administration answering their questions.
I find this show very motivating. Warren Buffett is known as a person that for him the human factor is above all. In this show they were asked who you go to when you need an advice. Warren Buffet answer was: “I looked in the mirror”.
Later on he explained that if he would advise with others about his ideas he will not differentiate himself from the mainstream.

Do you find it familiar? How many times did you try to spy after other affiliates marketers campaigns? As an affiliate marketer you should not ask others about what is works best for them but to develop your own unique strategy that will differentiate yourself from other marketers. Its not easy thing to do but it is probably the safest way to build a solid affiliate business. Give it a thought.

I found this video on YouTube. It’s only a small part of the all show. Take a look:

This brings me back to my last post. I left it with an open question: “How do you find affiliate marketers to promote your product”.

Like with any of my products, this one also has it own affiliate program. I am firmly believed in affiliate marketing. I am promoting others products and on the same time I use this channel to promote my own. It’s a great way to leverage your sales.

So how do you find affiliate marketers?

The first thing that you can do is to participate in related forums link DP (DigitalPoint). There are many of them so just do a search on Google and you will find bunch of them easily. The best is to find the forums dedicated to the network that you are going to publish your product.

Another option is to manage a list of affiliate marketers. This way every time you are launching a product with just a single click you let them know. It takes time to establish this kind of a mailing list but in the long run it’s worth it. You don’t need to put much effort on that because companies like AWeber offing a great way to manage a mailing list.

An immediate mailing list can be found at other publishers!
Find a publisher with a complementary product to yours. Write him an email with your offer. In most cases he will be happy to promote your product to his customers as long you are offering an affiliate program. You get a prefect mailing list and he earns his commission.

Affiliate Elite is a product developed by Brad Callen. Originally this product is for affiliate marketers. However not many are aware to the fact that publishers can use it to find the contact details of affiliate marketers. The idea is simple: you do a search for a product within your niche. Affiliate Elite will check who is promoting it. Once you have the results you can get the affiliate marketers details including their email address. All you have left to do is to send an email to that list with your affiliate program description. Just make sure not to spam them.

In my opinion affiliate marketers are very important to the products success. You should put the right effort to give them their needs and most of all the feeling that you are cherish their work. Do the best that you can for your affiliate marketers. The results will not be late to come.