1) "Affiliate Marketing Training -- Learn to Crawl Before You Enter the Race!"

2) "Not Making Money With Affiliate Programs? Read the Fine Print!"

3) "Classified Ads."

4) "Tell Us What You Think!"

The growth of the affiliate marketing industry has been astounding as of late, and that means that many new people are making the plunge every day. This has also lead to an increase in the amount of affiliate marketing training materials permeating the market.

So what gives?

Affiliate marketing is simply redirecting traffic, isn't it? Isn't that what makes it so easy to do and easy to be successful at?

In a word: No!

There is a lot more to affiliate marketing then just setting up an affiliate account, dropping your website into cyberspace, and sitting back as the cash rolls in. Yes, it can be easy, and it is definitely creative and fun, but it is a business, like any other, and you need to be qualified for the position and have a good handle on what you're doing in order to survive.

There are many affiliate marketers out there who simply aren't making the grade, and the reason is that they don't have the proper training to be successful at their jobs. Anyone who is absolutely serious about being a success has three options: training, training, and more training!

But where to begin? Well, there are several ways to receive this kind of training. First of all, trial and error may be one way to go, as many affiliate marketers are self taught.

That is a time consuming affair though, with no guarantee of success. A better way to go would be through the use of affiliate marketing manuals, online tutorials, affiliate marketing training courses, and of course, the great affiliate conferences held every year in different parts of the world.

Read a Book!

One of the best and easiest ways to retain the basic fundamental principles of affiliate marketing is to go down to your bookstore and grab up a couple books on the subject. Many affiliate marketers have found a way to subsidize their income as instructors and novelists, since they are spending a lot of time writing articles for their websites anyway.

There is little in the way of professional training in affiliate marketing, for example, you can't go to university to become an expert on it, but many of these authors have run the self-taught method explained above and achieved a certain level of success.

Learn from their successes and mistakes! Read their books and take notes. See how they have found success in some areas and how they relate to the other books you have.

Cross referencing is a great way to get a feel for the fundamentals of affiliate marketing, as you will start to see specific patterns emerge in the training methods of each book. Also, you will be able to trim away the extra fat that may be part of each authors affiliate style, and come up with your own goals and direction based on the knowledge they have imparted to you.

If reading a book isn't getting you anywhere or you'd like to see more, there is always the online tutorial route for affiliate marketing training.

Getting Extra Help through Cyberspace

Another great way to get he affiliate marketing training you need is to go through an online tutorial. In much the same way as a book will help you learn the basics and get the information you really need, online tutorials can show you how real affiliate marketing can be successful in a dynamic web presence complete with working models and examples.

In addition, many of these tutorials will offer links to great savings and deals on important affiliate products such as web site hosting, template design, and domain name registration to get the eager affiliate marketing student up and running.

Many of these affiliate marketing online tutorials are designed and kept up by successful affiliate marketers (some of whom may have written books that you should already be reading!) and you can learn from their mistakes and successes.

Also, since web copy is generally simpler than book formats, expect the information you gather from an online tutorial to be brisk, to the point, and perfect for taking notes.

(editor's note: a good start would be to download this special report, How To Become a Successful and Hunted High-Earning Affiliate Champion)

Back to School, Affiliate Marketing Style!

If you feel that you haven't learned enough from reading books and checking out online tutorials, then you are in exactly the right frame of mind for being an affiliate marketing success. It is time to move on to where real success begins: the classroom.

Now, this classroom can be in a real class, as some successful affiliate marketers hold actual marketing lessons for their students, and, depending where you live, this may or may not be an option for you.

On the other hand, there are plenty of marketers out there who offer their affiliate marketing training courses as downloadable e-courses, something you can do at home in your spare time just like distance learning for many universities!

One fine example of this type of downloadable course is available through one of Affiliate Marketing's shining stars James Martell, a man who has made his fortune several times over by becoming first successful as an affiliate marketer, and then as both a teacher and student of the art of affiliate marketing and the astounding growth of the industry.

This course has been a huge success and is wildly popular not only because it is a fully comprehensive strategy that includes all of the great secrets to success James Martell has learned over the years, but also because James Martell will be there with you every step of the way to make sure you get everything out of his course that you put into it. Martell also provides updates and online help for his students, and anyone serious about becoming a successful affiliate marketer really needs to take a look at what James Martell has to offer.

In fact, not only has James Martell written a book on the subject, he has also provided online tutorials with his training course, covering just about every area of learning in the world of affiliate marketing training.

Finally, after all of the hard work and effort you have put into your education, and you feel you can't possibly learn any more without going into the world of affiliate marketing yourself, it's time to relax, have some fun, and really get down to business: it's time to attend and affiliate marketing event.

The Summit of the Affiliate Marketers

Once you are ready to become an affiliate marketer, you may be tempted to just plunge in and start getting to work. But you'll be a lot better off -- and so will your marketing strategy -- if you make a point to attend an affiliate marketing event, such as Affiliate Summit 2005 being held Las Vegas, Nevada and Commission Junction University being held in Santa Barbara, California in September.

Affiliate summits and conferences are places for industry professionals to get together, share a few laughs, eat, drink, and introduce themselves to other parts of the affiliate marketing industry.

This means that web designers, hosting companies, and businesses looking to expand their affiliate marketing presence are all mingling with affiliate marketers themselves, shaking hands and making friendships that will be beneficial to all involved.

Affiliate marketers can also learn about changes to laws and policies, new technologies, and better strategies for tackling affiliate marketing problems. They will be exposed to the same people who they will be in contact with when they start their affiliate marketing strategies, and this in turn can improve their relationships and business prospects across the board.

Plus, it is a chance to become a member of an exciting and dynamic close-knit group of people who have come together and formed an environment of support in an industry that leaves many untrained victims by the wayside. These are people that you want to get to know, not because it will help your business but because their friendships will enrich your life in ways you can't begin to imagine.

Affiliate marketing training. If you are really serious about getting into the race, take some time and learn to crawl first.

For more information, visit James Martell's Affiliate Marketers Handbook web site

You may be building your home business using a home based business opportunity such as affiliate programs. This is an excellent way to begin, as you can be in business pretty quickly without all the expenses involved in creating your own products and services.

(That's one of the advantages of using a home based business opportunity -- it allows you to tap into a business which already has the foundation in place.)

But, too often, people blindly sign up for affiliate programs without reading the fine print. I know it's boring, but what you read could mean the difference between making some money and losing some, especially if you are driving affiliate traffic through pay-per-clicks or other methods that require you to spend your money to drive traffic.

Here's a case in point that I found this morning.

I came across an interesting product that I wanted to study. I know a lot of people who would enjoy it and it would be a great product to recommend.

So, I scroll down the sales page and see they have an affiliate program. They had many policies related to their program -- all the standard boilerplate -- but here are two things that caught my eye.... and should be things you look for when adding affiliate programs to your portfolio.

"Commissions will only be tracked and paid when the user makes a purchase on the same visit that the user visits our site from the link to our site on your site."

Do you understand what that is saying? Now I don't know about you, but I'm not an impulse shopper. I'm the first to admit I love buying STUFF and would go broke if everything that caught my initial interest ended up in my house or computer! Very, very, seldom do I make a purchase the first time I hit a web site.

The policy statement above is informing you that there are NO cookies placed on your potential customers' computers.

So, if I've visited this site and read the sales letter, then gone on about my business to think it over and order it at another time (maybe I didn't save your affiliate link, but bookmarked the site when I got there), you will earn ZIP, NADA, ZERO!

That was bad enough. Then it got worse....

"All parties who make purchases through our web site, regardless of whether they may have reached our web site through the link from your web site, are deemed to be our customers and not your customers relative to our products and services. We will have the right to contact these customers and send future marketing offers to them.

You will have no right to commissions on subsequent purchases that may be made by these customers, except for subsequent purchases that may be traced at the time of purchase through a link from your web site."

Okay, here's the scenario. Let's say you have a customer who happens to buy on the same visit through your affiliate link. This company offers a residual product that pays out less than $10 per month for each customer you send to the company. But, now YOUR prospect becomes THEIR customer. And YOUR prospect will begin receiving emails and offers directly from the company.

So, let's assume this company develops a new product that sells for $300. They have the right to market directly to the prospect you brought to them (and who is now their customer). If that customer purchases through the company's email link or web site, guess what you'll receive?

That's right! ZIP, NADA, ZERO.

The only possibility you have to earn any additional income from that prospect is if YOU get in front of them first and they happen to click your link instead of the company's link. To be honest, your chances of that are slim, because most companies announce new products to their in-house list before they announce it through affiliates.

If you don't think this can happen, let me assure you it can. A good friend of mine spent years promoting a $37 product owned by a marketer who has a range of other products, all the up to a $1500+ seminar. Seems his affiliate program was set up the same way.

While she earned $18.50 from the sale of his ebook, she didn't get a dime of the $750 affiliate commissions unless she was able to get in front of those purchasers before him.

What are the chances of that? Well, she happened to attend one of his seminars and met four people from her list that were attending - and had first learned about him through her. But she didn't make a dime.

Here are some tips when choosing affiliate programs:

1. Always read the fine print. I know it's painful, but you gotta do it.
   
   
2. Find out how long cookies are enabled. This can be as short as never (as in the above example) to years and years. The longer cookies are enabled, the better chance you have to collect those affiliate commissions.
   
   
3. Is your affiliate commission protected for additional products and services provided by that company? Some are, some aren't. But you want to find this out.
   
   
4. You can still promote affiliate products and services you love, even if you're getting the short end of the stick. After all, it's your business. But this information is absolustely critical if you plan on spending one red cent for promotion.

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4) "Tell Us What You Think!"

Dear friend, I would love to hear what you think of this issue of The Internet Marketing Profits^™ newsletter. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you'd like to share with me, please send those, too -- just email me right away! And don't forget to check out the previous issues at the Internet Marketing Profits Newsletter Archive.

Warmest Regards,

Valeriu S. Popescu, Editor and Publisher
The Internet Marketing Profits^™ Newsletter

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