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Affiliate programs have emerged as one of the main revenue streams on the internet. There's plenty of money to be made selling other people's stuff, or having other people selling your stuff.

What everyone keeps asking me lately, is everything related to affiliate programs. How can I join the same affiliate programs as Michael Campbell? Where can I find merchants that offer affiliate programs? Where can I get a solution provider or affiliate program software to sell my own product? How does Michael Campbell's affiliate program work?

You asked for it, so here it is, the complete list of affiliate programs that I've joined, the affiliate software and solution providers that I recommend, links to join them and sources to find merchants. It's all here.

In an affiliate program, you put links and advertising on your site and get paid by the click through, sign up, or commission on every sale. Getting started involves finding programs to join, signing up, getting a special tracking code that identifies the clicks or sales as coming from you, and putting the links, banners or endorsements on your web pages. If you are a merchant with a product to sell, it involves either buying or leasing affiliate software from a solution provider, and then finding people that are passionate about selling your product.

As you know, my main focus is internet marketing. The marketing books and software that I sell on my web site, are a natural "back end" sale to my book "Nothing But Net" (this book is went offline -- VP notice). The products are mostly digital products, and for good reason. The digital product margins are high, support issues are minimal, and returns are low.

Most internet marketer affiliate programs are small, well run, and either owned or operated by the people that stand behind the product. They are not likely to be using complicated third party software requiring all sorts of bits and pieces, to fit together and function properly. Every single one of the internet marketing affiliate programs that I belong to and recommend, have been fair, honest, accurate, trustworthy and quick to pay their sales force, that's you and I, the affiliates.

What I do is join the affiliate program and then buy the product. I know not everyone can afford this but I look at it a different way. I can't afford not to. I really need to buy the product through the affiliate program, so I know the entire process a customer will see and experience.

What kind of post sale follow up is offered? Is there an email or autoresponder thanking me? What is the credit card transaction like? Did I have any download or installation problems. Is there technical support offered? How fast do they respond? What are my customers going to see and how will it affect my reputation as an information source? Bottom line is, do I want my name on this?

As far as the cost of the book or software, you can write off the entire cost as a business expense. But still the work is not done. Actually read, and or use the product, review it, analyze it, poke at it, and if it's good enough, put it on your web site with an endorsement.

If you've never actually seen or used the product you are selling, plus you're using the same banner ads as everyone else, I'll bet your ads are invisible and your sales are flat. My secret to making money with affiliate programs? I actually research, bought and used the stuff I'm talking about. I put the links within related content on my site. I give an honest and enthusiastic review, my own point of view, which makes it refreshing in the mind of the consumer. Buy the product or really do some research on it, take the time to get familiar with it, and write an endorsement from the heart, you'll sell 10 to 100 times more because of it!

I'm a big believer that smaller is usually better when it comes to affiliate programs. I mean, the closer they are to the person that's running it, the less hassles you are likely to get. I try to steer clear of the BIG brand name affiliate programs, the only one I've had really good success with is Commission Junction.

I know many of you have been able to deal with the larger companies, and have been able to get their "mile long" affiliate codes and links to work without a hitch, but I like to take it a step further before I would recommend any of the BIG companies to my friends, relatives and customers.

What I did was phone up or email each the top solution providers / affiliate directories. I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to html, but not everyone is so well versed. I tried calling and emailing each one of the BIG affiliate companies for tech support, I might just need a little help with the tracking code. I want to see what the average person might be put through. As always, your mileage will vary, but here's my opinion and experience with the largest affiliate software companies.

I tried signing up for an affiliate program that claims to be the biggest affiliate software company. I tried purchasing something using my links and the sale was not tracked. The affiliate software company (solution provider) blamed the merchant and vice versa. All I was left with was a tracking number.

A month later the merchant said the problem was resolved. Again I purchased, and again my sale was not tracked. Another tracking number, more finger pointing. I finally got a technician that said I had done everything correctly at my end, and he assured me I would get my commissions. Six months later, no check, another phone call, another tracking number.... forget it!

One affiliate program refused my membership because my site did not have enough content. Can you imagine? I tried to explain that my site is a store, and most of my valuable content was subscription based and inside of password protected directories. All I managed to get were a bunch of stock replies. When I finally did get an answer from a human, it was along the lines of "that's our rule and if you don't like it, too bad, now go away and stop emailing us".

With the fourth or fifth largest, I really needed support because I could not get their code to work no matter what I tried. I managed to get a half interested email from some technician. We emailed back and forth a few times and then it just kind of petered out. Further emails were ignored and I gave up on getting any help from them.

The second or third largest affiliate software company was quick to respond and said "that's funny, our html code should work". I was promised that I would get escalated to tech support right away, that so & so would look after me. So & so never got back to me, and my original contact stuck me in autoresponder land, and never gave me so & so's email address or phone number.

Whew! Finally! Enter Commission Junction, finally, a big affiliate directory and solution provider that I can work with. I called up CJ because I had a question regarding their html code. I got a very informative answer from a very polite technician. I had another little glitch and this time got a very fast email in return that detailed how to fix my problem, no copy & paste reply here!

I'm impressed, they've got good customer service, an excellent selection of programs to join, a good monthly newsletter, a slick user interface, and they're very quick to cut a commission check and mail it to me every month.

Here's what they have to say about themselves. Commission Junction creates alliances between affiliate sites that have interesting content and online merchants that sell products or services. We enable affiliate content sites to leverage their content and engage in e-commerce, by placing merchant ads, products, and services at the point-of-interest to their consumers on a pay-for-performance basis.

Huh? In other words, what the corporate office is saying is: Find products that match your content. Create instant shopping on your site. Earn commissions for every impression, click, lead or sale. Manage your entire merchant network through a single interface. Choose from thousands of products from hundreds of merchants.

To join Commission Junction as a reseller, click on the link below:
http://www.1-internet-marketing.com/cja/

http://www.refer-it.com
Refer-It.com is the authoritative guide to internet associate, referral, and affiliate programs. Refer-it also features resources, a discussion forum, interviews, downloads, and an article archive.

http://www.affiliatetips.com
Affiliate marketing tips, resources, industry news and interactive email discussions hosted by Ola Edvardsson. A true one-stop resource for learning about affiliate programs and finding new ways to profit from your website. Their email discussion list is one of the few world wide, that is entirely dedicated to affiliate marketing. Jump aboard and join the community!

http://www.revenews.com
The latest scoop on revenue sharing, affiliate and associate programs. ReveNews.com is dedicated to providing expertise, education and resources to the growing community of "revenue sharing" web site participants. They are focused on providing you the advice and opinions to participate effectively in these new revenue sharing opportunities.

http://www.affiliateforce.com
The official site of the internet affiliate marketing summit. Bringing together the solution providers, merchants & affiliates. The largest congregation of affiliate marketing experts to date. The summit was held in Miami Beach Convention Center 15-19 March 2000. You can still download the speaker's slides & handouts here.

So what if you have created your own product and want to set up your set up your own affiliate program? You could go with the BIG affiliate software companies (also known as solution providers) and run into all the potential customer support pitfalls that I mentioned earlier, or go with one of the smaller, more supportive companies.

Just be sure that you get a good working relationship and technical support for your sales force. Proof the system by actually making purchases using the same codes that you provide to affiliates. Be sure that the links and codes are working, and sales are tracking properly. Otherwise, your affiliates will just get frustrated very quickly and leave for greener pastures.

If you want to check out the big solution providers, this url offers a good starting point - http://www.refer-it.com/main.cfm?screen=info/build/software

I recommend using one of the smaller companies for your affiliate software solution. Instead of leasing a technology, you actually buy the software. You are then offered installation, setup, tutorial and hands on tech support you just can't get with the big boys. There are two that I'm familiar with.

Both offer two tiers, unlimited products, ability to customize individual commissions, and even automate the check cutting process at the end of the month. Find out more about them by following the links below.

Assoctrac by the Internet Marketing Center
http://www.1-internet-marketing.com/crat/

The Affiliate Program by Kowabunga Technologies
http://www.1-internet-marketing.com/tap/

 

Joint Ventures Save Time and Make Money

As I mentioned before, unless you want to hire support staff, a fulfillment center, cut the checks, and so on, you might be better off in a joint venture with someone like Active MarketPlace. You'll have a lot more time to do what you love, whether it's laying on the beach or running your business. If you JV with someone else and let them do the selling for you, additional revenue becomes a simple matter of finding related affiliate programs to act as a "back end sale" to your digital product. Then all you need to do is give the back end products - well researched - endorsements from the heart, and watch as your sales increase dramatically.

That about wraps it up for me. Please keep me posted on your successes and learning experiences along the way. If you have any affiliate or internet marketing tips you would like to share, please let me know.

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Michael Campbell earn $200,000 a year, in pure profits, working from home, using nothing but affiliate programs. No traditional advertising of any kind was used, not even a business card. Now you'll be able to use the same powerful internet marketing tactics he used. You don't need any physical inventory, you don't need to handle any products, you don't need merchant accounts, you don't need the hassles of owning the store, you don't even need clients. All you have to do is click here now to have all his secrets exposed: http://www.clickinitrich.com
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