This is the first in a series of educational post about getting started as an affiliate marketer. Whether you’re new to the industry or have some experience under your belt, you should get more tips and strategies to enhance and improve your campaigns.
What’s Affiliate Marketing and CPA Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a channel or method where advertisers (also known as merchants or product owners) recruit partners to help them:
Generate prospective customers OR
Pre-sell them on the idea of buying the product OR
Getting involved in the sales process themselves
Depending on the advertiser you’re working with, you might be known as an affiliate/affiliate marketer/partner/associate/reseller.
You might be paid on:
The number of prospects generated (lead generation) OR
The value of products bought (revenue share/pay-per-sale) OR
On an ongoing basis receiving regular payments as long as the customer continues the product/service. (continuity/rebilling/subscription)
CPA marketing or Cost-Per-Action marketing is primarily focused on the lead generation aspect of the business. You might receive a $30 payout on a $4.95 trial by the customer. The advertiser is able to recoup their commission payout to you by selling a premium product on the backend (as a product upgrade), or enrol the customer in a monthly subscription.
Hence, for many new affiliates, the CPA route (more…)
Market Leverage Social Media Manager Dina Riccobono, came on the Friday Podcast to talk about the network’s social branding intiatives. Specifically, industry observers will note that Market Leverage has often taken the lead in reaching out to affiliate via the social media channel – Market Leverage TV, Greenlink affiliate video tutorials, and engagement on blogs and forums.
I invited Dina on the Friday Podcast to give her insight into intiatives like:
What social media marketing means to Market Leverage
Some of the past social campaigns that the network has led
How the online social media projects tie in with real-world tradeshows and events
Market Leverage’s new mobile application for affiliates
Finding difficulty getting started as an affiliate marketer? WhoIsAndrewWee.com has partnered the Market Leverage affiliate network to host the first Affiliate Challenge, which will provide education to help you kickstart your campaigns and promises prizes for participants.
I’m happy to announce that after a period of discussion, Market Leverage is the proud sponsor of possibly the first affiliate competition specifically targeted at Singapore-based affiliates.
So if you’re new to the industry and want to get your foot in the door, do take action by participating in this contest.
Here’s the WhoIsAndrewWee.com Affiliate Challenge format:
The contest will be held over a period of 2 months (from 8 Jun – 7 Aug 2009)
You need to be a new Market Leverage affiliate and based in Singapore to qualify for the contest. (future contests will be expanded to other geographical regions).
The contest will have 2 phases – one at the midway mark (8 Jun – 7 Jul), where prizes will be awarded to participants. And one for the contest duration (8 Jun – 7 Aug), another round of prizes will be awarded then. so you’ll have 2 sets of chances to win prizes.
One of the goals of this contest is to increase the number of active Singapore affiliate marketers, especially since Asia is a growing region.
There are 2 categories of prizes available:
Top Affiliates (determined by affiliate commissions generated)
Merit Prizes for affiliates who put in the most effort in promoting their campaigns (determined by the contest panel)
Affiliates will need to provide official personal identification or business registration documents during their application and payments will be made out to the person or business entity used for the affiliate application
Only affiliates based in Singapore (or are from Singapore) are eligible for the contest
The judges decisions are final
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There’ll be a series of contest updates and tips to promote your affiliate campaigns over the following weeks.
[To get your affiliate applications processed faster, you are welcome to drop me a note via the blog contact form, stating your name, email address used in the application, so they can be reviewed by the Market Leverage affiliate review team more promptly]
Charles Ngo, better known as “Dr Ngo” (after the James Bond villain), flies low on the public radar, even though he’s a successful affiliate. I had an opportunity to invite him on the Friday Podcast to share some of his past experiences in building up to his current level of success, as well as techniques to grow an affiliate marketing business.
During the Friday Podcast, we talked about:
How Charles got his start in internet marketing
How to work around and deal with cashflow issues as you’re building your business
The importance of networking within the industry and key affiliate events to attend
There’s a ruckus in the social marketing space with some analysts like Jeremiah Owyang talking about the repercussions (mostly negative) about embedding affiliate links in social media (Twitter for example), while internet marketers like Shawn Collins, Linda Buquet and Lisa Barone basically saying that going the additional step of labelling every affiliate link with a (aff) as being pretty silly/stupid. So what’re we supposed to take away from this? Can affiliate link disclosure go too far?
Brian Clark has also stepped in with the legal perspective on what’s kosher and what’s not, when it comes to “word of mouth marketing” AKA social media.
So taking a look at social media for a moment, the medium is very personality-based – we follow individuals (or maybe Britney Spears’ manager firing out tweets on her behalf), and hence there’s greater (more…)
Being able to effectively generate awareness for your company and your products/services is important, regardless of whether you’re a merchant,business owner, affiliate network, or even internet marketer.
I had the opportunity to invite Ali Croft on the podcast to share public relations strategies to enhance your business.
Ali leads the public relations consultancy at Just Drive Media, a PR and online marketing agency. She has about 10 years experience in the industry and most recently had been PR manager at auction site/marketplace eBay, where she led the team to a Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil award for excellence in PR.
During the podcast, Ali spoke about:
What public relations is and why it’s important
Tools for monitoring your online reputation (with tools like Radian6)
Tips for reputation management and building your authority status online
How to effectively communicate during a crisis
Keys to building and maintaining awareness with your core audience
Market Leverage Social Media Manager Dina Riccobono, came on the Friday Podcast to talk about the network’s social branding intiatives. Specifically, industry observers will note that Market Leverage has often taken the lead in reaching out to affiliate via the social media channel – Market Leverage TV, Greenlink affiliate video tutorials, and engagement on blogs and forums.
Charles Ngo, better known as “Dr Ngo” (after the James Bond villain), flies low on the public radar, even though he’s a successful affiliate. I had an opportunity to invite him on the Friday Podcast to share some of his past experiences in building up to his current level of success, as well as techniques to grow an affiliate marketing business.
Being able to effectively generate awareness for your company and your products/services is important, regardless of whether you’re a merchant,business owner, affiliate network, or even internet marketer.