Process Instant Rebates Online!
Make Money Online! Low Refunds. Affiliates Earn huge Profits! 10-30% conversions.
Author: Russ Moore
Article source: http://www.selfseo.com/. Used with author's permission.
When promoting affiliate programs, many people make the
common mistake of linking directly to the url they are
promoting. Yes, this can and will earn you commissions if
your advertising and the site's salescopy are effective.
However, by placing your ads (and your affiliate partner's
url) all over the web, you are building link popularity ONLY
for your partner. This, of course, does YOU absolutely no
good at all beyond the potential sales.
If you've placed their url in 20 places, they now have 20
links pointing to THEM... and you have NONE pointing to you.
It's just not fair. That's allot of work, and if they go out
of business, or change their affiliate link format... your
links are DEAD.
If you have a site of your own, you are far better off to
create a folder and use a simple redirect to the affiliate
url.
For example:
Instead of... http://www.somesite.com?affiliateid
Use... http://www.yoururl.com/somesite
The index.htm file in your "somesite" folder redirects to
the affiliate url.
Now with the same effort, you have 20 links pointing to YOUR
site, and only one link pointing to theirs (the one in your
redirect file). Yet your promotion still functions the same.
The link gets clicked, the promoted url gets a visit, and
you get paid if the site makes the sale.
This is a much better option as it not only increases your
own link popularity, but it gives you control. If your new
partner goes belly up while your ads are still floating
around, you can change your redirect and point it to a
similar program with very little effort.
Now, being the intelligent marketer that you are, I'm sure
you are tracking your links... right? Of course you are.
How else would you measure your results? How would you know
if the ads you are running are working, or they are just a
waste of your valuable time?
Since you are tracking ads, your affiliate partner isn't
gaining link popularity from your efforts. If you are using
link tracking software hosted on your site, YOU get the link
popularity.
BUT... many marketers use an online ad tracking service, and
in this case the ad tracking service get the links. And once
again, YOU get the headaches if they close their doors.
Fortunately the fix is nearly the same. Now you setup your
redirect files to point to the ad tracker, which then links
to the url you are promoting.
Keep in mind that by doing this you will also have to set
it up so you can tell which ad sent the hit by creating
multiple redirect files (one for each ad).
Now your ads point to:
http://www.yoururl.com/somesite/somepage.htm
http://www.yoururl.com/somesite/somepage4u.htm
http://www.yoururl.com/somesite/mysomepage.htm
You get the idea, right? Good.
You can either use a different tracking link for each one or
add a key to the link in your redirect so the ad tracker can
accurately measure the results of each campaign (read your
ad tracker's instructions for ad key setup).
Yes, it does take a little time and effort, but it's worth
it if/when the affiliate program owner OR your ad tracking
service decides to pull the plug.
Total control = no wasted advertising.
This is even more important if your links are in viral
ebooks and articles that can circulate for years to come.
Note: This also gives you the ability to go back and add a
page to grab the visitor's contact info on the way to your
partner's site. But that's another article. About the author:
The internet's equivilent to the "Jack of all trades",
Russ Moore is a net writer/publisher/techie with more than
a few tricks up his sleeve. Visit his site to snag a cool,
fr.ee ad tracker. http://www.WizKlix.com
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