7 Affiliate Marketing Success Tips: Increase Your Affiliate Commissions

Affiliate marketing brings with it a set of rules to follow, but some rules can be broken and improved upon, there are lots of ways to promote your affiliate link, but did you know that the more creative you are with any type of marketing anything is possible. Online marketing brings with it many advantages over traditional offline marketing and it is quite easy to get set up here online in the area of affiliate marketing.

I have been involved in affiliate marketing for awhile now and seen what works and what doesn't and tested certain things out and it all comes back to what valuable information you offer to gain some trust and authority in a subject area so people will feel comfortable with buying from your recommendations rather than somewhere else.

I have gathered at least 7 top ways to increase your affiliate commissions and these actually work, but you do of course have to put some effort into them and keep with it for the long term and mark every little promotion you do down, so you can track your progress, I use spreadsheets and lots of notepads for this.

First up:

Profit per transactions - look for higher priced products to promote

Always be on the lookout for higher commission rates on affiliate products aswell as looking for products with higher ticket prices, of course you could go the route of finding low paying affiliate products which are in high demand so that you get lots of little commissions, but if you mix and match these offers with small and large priced items with over 75% commissions, then you can potentially make more money in the long run.

Word of warning - Don't just pick anything just because it does have a 75% commission rate, research the product first, find out from others who may have used the product, ask in forums and Google for a review of the product and look for reviews that give a balanced view of the product, if you see just the sales page coming through in the review then they may just be trying to pull a fast one over you by giving it a lame review.

A balance review is one that lists the benefits of the product with some personal thoughts and opinions on the product and they may write a few points of how it could be improved or something that shows they have used it and thought of something to give feedback to the product owner.

Look for recurring billing products

Anything with a recurring billing is good, although again you will have to research to see if they are any good, some affiliates buy the product first and use it thoroughly before they review and write content about it, so residual income is best so you have money coming in everytime someone is a member of something or they are billed for that product or service either weekly or monthly.

At Clickbank they have recurring income products, so have a look there, but don't feel limited to Clickbank as there are many recurring or residual affiliate items out there if you look for them, just use your niche keywords when doing any search online.

One great way to improve or increase your affiliate commissions is to find one time offers that could have a backend recurring sale after the purchase of the first product, usually this could be a membership that is linked to the first product and this membership would of course be a recurring income product, it makes sense to promote another offer after the first because affiliate marketing experts say that customers are more likely to buy when they have just purchased as they are in that mindset of wanting something to learn more.

Get higher a commission rate by negotiating

This is a good method for when you have a good track record already established with an affiliate manager or network and you are making sales and driving alot of traffic to one certain affiliate promotion, this puts you at a great advantage to ask for a commission raise and you could do well by being prepared by having all of the stats and other data to prove or back up your traffic and sales, although most affiliate managers will have access to affiliate statistical information, it helps to be prepared which makes it easier for them, so they can check and confirm after your initial contact with them.

Don't try to approach an affiliate manager on the back of what you will do in the future as this is of no help to the affiliate manager, they actively recruit top affiliates and give them a higher rate so that their efforts are rewarded, so don't pester them until you are a top affiliate who is driving substantial traffic to their promotions.

Test and track your affiliate campaigns

Always be in the frame of mind to test everything thoroughly, headlines of opt-in pages, different keywords and any other data that you want to test it's effectiveness, you can create split tests which are just as simple as creating two different pages with one minor difference say the pages headline one reads differently using specific keywords and the other has other keywords that fit you niche and just see which one does the best in terms of traffic and then dump the loser.

Also looking at the times of the day or even different days you place classified ads could make the difference between more visits and sales through your affiliate links, so look at a couple of ways to track different things, Google analytics is the obvious free choice for your sites and content data, but you may find that you will need other tracking systems in place to track different things like email opt-in rates and what links they click on in your email messages, I use Aweber for this, but for your affiliate links, there may be a link tracker for this too, the more you look t tracking and seing what people are visiting more on your sites the better position you are in to tweak them parts to fine tune your promotional campaigns.

Get productive, do all set tasks

To get productive instead of wasting time doing the things that are destructive to your business like getting distracted by checking emails, forum discussions about religion and generally dong the things that don't advance your affiliate business.

By setting tasks or weekly or even daily to do lists you can be prepared each day with jobs to do that need doing, prioritising is the way of keeping up with your daily tasks and making sure you do them, set an alarm clock and set each task up for say 20 to 30 minutes and don't stop until the time runs out, I've been doing this one and I've done alot more work because of it.

Getting rid of distractions is very important, so you have to ensure that all distratcions will never get in the way of your work, close your door and say to the kids Busy! goodbye! or have a sign on the door saying "Come back soon, a busy dad at work" and any other thing that could potentially distract you remove or unplug it.

Keep setting time aside for promoting and marketing

Sticking with it is always the best advise and don't give up as it does take time to build your affiliate earnings through lots of different marketing campaigns and if you give up then it'll show to others that you just can't be bothered and you are not professional enough to do this type of business.

It will take a long term commitment and self discipline to make your affiliate business a success, but together with you tracking your progress and having daily or weekly to do lists you can keep on top of this if you apply effort and time to promote on a regular basis.

Capture the opt-in first

Your primary objective should be to get people to click your affiliate link and buy the product, but what if people visit your page and decide not to purchase on this occasion, you will have lost a lead, so always try and capture the opt-ins first by having your email sign up box the first thing they see on a page or above the fold when people arrive there.

A subscriber you have the potential to market more to them and provide more information and answers to questions that they may have, if your visitor leaves then they just leave, never to be seen or heard of again.

A good opt-in offer provides an incentive for the subscriber to sign up, a free report that tells specific information is always a good bet, but a free 30 day email course is also a very good option, as they get one course module each day for the next 30 days ad they are often very impressed with learning something for free that arrives in their email inbox that they are more open to trust your opinions and recommendations for related products.

Alot of marketers build trust in different ways, they either have a personal blog that they send people to, which is just a blog with a prominent photo of the blogger and blog posts that are personal and informal, John Chow the make money blogging blogger does this with ease, he provides good information but sometimes he films himself eating out at restaurants on the same blog and through his Youtube channel and this to me shows that he is serious about his business but also wants to show that he is normal as everyone else and wants to relate to others on a personal level which works very well for him.

And there you have it, 7 top affiliate tips to increase your affiliate commissions. Be sure to visit my Yotube channel and see what the Secret Affiliate Weapon 2 is all about!

If you are new to affiliate marketing you need a system you can follow and one that can work well for your future as an affiliate, I bought the original Secret Affiliate Weapon and the new updated version too and they are very different products indeed, but they are both very helpful and the great thing is you get the first affiliate weapon too when you buy the second one as a bonus.