There has been great debates over the future success of Affiliate Marketers. The simple answer is that there remains great profits to be made from being an Affiliate Marketer, as long as you have patience and are willing to reaserch and test.
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Can you really sell other people's products and expect to build a profitable online business? What does it really take to be a "Super" Affiliate in 2008?
As with most debates about affiliate marketing, there are always two sides of the story. There's one side that says that it is impossible to make a profit from being an affiliate marketer, and then there's the other side suggesting that the only reason that affiliate marketers fail is that too many people are after a quick way of making money online.
As an affiliate marketer you have to know what constitutes success. For some it is making $100 a day (profit), while others expect to make over $1,000 a day in profits. The biggest problem is that when you start out as an affiliate marketer you expect to make $100+ each day from day one. When sales don't magically appear in the first few weeks you start to panic and many just simply give up. It is the affiliate marketer that thinks outside the box that really succeeds.
With so many affiliates selling so many different products, it becomes difficult to stand out from the crowd. What selling techniques will actually work in 2008? How do I know that my pay-per-click advertising campaign wil actually work? The answer is simple (and again this is where success is driven from), test, test and test again. Too many people don't believe in split testing because it takes too much time to maintain, when in fact testing will not only save you time but also $1,000's in business costs.
A common theme with PPC advertising is that it is a waste of time and money. People are paying too much money per click and they are being wiped from the table. But if you're smart you wil know that if your advertisement is leading a prospective client to a landing page that is relevant to the ad, then the price of the click will decrease. I know some of my friends don't pay anything over 0.10c a click and they are making a fortune.
Therefore if you can keep costs to a mimimum in your advertising campaigns, then why can't you use a PPC advertising campaign to set up a successful affilaite marketing business? The answer is - there si absolutely no reason why you can't make money from selling other people's products. Some affiliate marketers are scared of spending money on advertising when in fact it can be the difference between survival and losing out all together. What if I told you that $1,000 could generate $3,000 in profits? What if I told you that $100 could generate $2,000 in online profits? This is what is happening each and every day for som many affiliate marketers all around the world. It is the rate of return, not just the advertising dollar in isolation.
As an example why does Rosalind Gardner (she makes over $500k a year selling other people's products) still advertising her Super Affiliate book on Google? Because she is making MONEY by doing it. I would imagine that she is now paying very little for her clicks, as her landing page (sales page for her book) is completely relevant to her advertisment. Ask Rosalind if she thinks Affiliate marketing is dying. I think her answer would be a categorical NO!
There is no doubt that it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain financial freedom online, but for many it is more than just a dream. A successful affiliate marketer will simply find a way to be efficient, and most importantly understand the benefits of both a quality website(s) and a well researched advertising campaign on any search engine. It is my belief that if you are prepared to research properly (and test, test and test again) you will succeed. It's the people who are after quick money that will be the ones that don't succeed!
