There are two major ways to increase your affiliate profits:
- Boost your commissions: sell more.
- Cut money waste: reduce costs while maintaining or increasing the sales amount.
Boost your commissions
As we see it, the starting point is your landing pages. You have to turn your site into the conversion point. Don't play the rulette. Make them want to buy before they click the affiliate link.
Here are the steps you must take:
1. Enrich your site(s) content
In time, you can see what works and what doesn't. For example, if one of your pages is about “repairing blue gadgets”, think of a way to get feedback about it.
For example, publish it in your ezine as an update article. Then, wait for opinions and questions. From the feedback answers, choose the most frequent thread, and write a response article where you refer — naturally — to your affiliate program.
Another example. You want to sell a software that converts all kinds of currencies. You know it's a very good product, but the merchant doesn't explain very well how it is installed. This is your subject. Write a tutorial that even the five year old can understand. This way, you become the missing link.
We bet you can think of ten other ways to improve/enrich your site's content. Remember, the more your visitors trust you, the less you depend on the merchant's approach.
Ken Envoy is the master of this game. Learn how to do it right from his free Affiliate Masters Course
2. Optimize your affiliate portofolio
Remember the 80/20 rule? It applies here, too. Of all the affiliate programs in the same area, about 20 percent are really good for you, and worthy of your investment. Concentrate your time and money on these 20 percent. Before subscribing, answer some questions: would I pay for this? Will I be happy about it? Or rather deceived? Do I like the service? Do I find anything offending about this product ?
Learn how Mike Delrue reached $18.000/month using this technique, from his Affiliate Money Tree Handbook.
Don't ever get affiliated to programs that you don't believe in. Drop out the programs that generate problems, whatever the cause.
3. Tweak your keywords to obtain a better distribution.
Once you've established your affiliate portofolio, work with the keywords list.
4. Tweak your ads to increase traffic
The easiest way to improve ads is to run split tests. A split test is when you divide the potential traffic of a keyword between two different ads. One ad is displayed to one half of the viewers, and the other ad to the other half. Assuming the viewers adopt similar behaviours (that is they are an homogeneous group), you can see which ad gets the most clicks.
5. Negotiate better comissions
You did all your homework. The landing pages convert, the ads and keywords perform well. There is one more thing you can do: negotiate better conditions with your merchants. You are now a conversion point for them. The missing link. They can't afford to lose you.
First of all, back-up your requests with figures. Then, think of how to formulate the request. Figure out a win-win situation and make an offer that can't be refused. Otherwise, there are a lot of things to ask, like exclusive offers (this is the best way to win a round over your competitors).
6. Increase your investment capital
This is the best one. When you know your business inside-out and outside-in, pump in more money. Find new niches or exploit the existing ones more. It's time to put your expertise at work.
Reduce money waste
This doesn't refer to reducing costs. If you don't invest money, you don't get money back. You may even increase costs, by paying more for those programs and keywords that have a better ROI.
- Use rule 80/20 to determine the unproductive programs.
You have two options. You can stop promoting them for good, if they're low value. If they just don't fit in your curent campaign, think of a way to promote them under a different concept.
- Increase conversion rate.
The next article is about another program you can use to capitalize your content. Learn how to increase your revenue with Google AdSense™.