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Comments on Issue 4 of FeedFront Magazine

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I downloaded issue 4 of FeedFront Magazine (the official magazine of Affiliate Summit) today and was delighted to see that the cover feature is “The Women of Affiliate Marketing” – a collection of 56 brief bios listing years of experience, a tip to new affiliates and some comment on where they see the industry one year from today.

Shawn Collins introduced the piece as follows…

“Back in the late nineties, it was not unusual to attend an affiliate marketing event (or any
online marketing event for that matter) and see very few women in the room“.

No kidding. Then again, a few of us old-timers really enjoyed being the only female in the room. 🙂

Shawn went on to say…

“Fast-forward ten years later and you'll find that the opposite is true. Affiliate marketing is overflowing with women who are leaders in their fields or bright, up-and-coming innovators“.

Melissa Salas' of Buy.com shared a great tip for new affiliates. She said, “Affiliates need to evaluate programs holistically, in terms of brand recognition, conversion, reliability, convenience, security, and guaranteed customer satisfaction.“

Lisa Riolo's honest and sage advice – “Don't give up too soon. The learning curve is deceptively steep. Consistent, predictable success takes time. If you understand this, you'll have realistic expectations and sufficient patience to get to the fun part.“

I really liked Deborah Carney's take on the future … “I see affiliate marketing evolving away from mega mall sites into more review sites and interactive sites. More retail and less lead generation as the economy changes the way people shop plus the regulatory agencies jumping in and restricting tactics that people are finding intrusive or misleading.“

I agree wholeheartedly.

How could I not? It's a model that worked exceptionally well when I started in this business, works even better now and is what I've been preaching since I started teaching.

By the way, of the 56 women profiled, only 2 of us claimed 11 years experience – Linda Woods and I – and as of January 1st, I'm in my 12th year as an affiliate marketer.

Moreover, I'm still going strong… with review sites. 🙂

FeedFront

Affiliating in the Season of Love

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Aaah… the season of love. Such a special time of year. For those in love, those looking for love, and ESPECIALLY for those SELLING love – on the Internet! :-))

I started my ebusiness with Internet dating service affiliate programs and the internet dating niche STILL comprises the bulk of my income.

Internet dating services can also be lucrative for you.

You may wonder, “How is that possible? Aren't there too many dating service affiliates already?“

Well, yes, there are TONS of Internet dating service affiliate sites.

Take a good look at them though.

Most of them are complete crap. The pages are covered with banners and links, but ZERO content.

And CONTENT is why my sites are so successful.

I review the services that I promote on my site to help my visitors choose between the vast array of services available to them.

I write articles that help my visitors learn about how Internet dating works and how to make it work for them.

I also send a newsletter to help my visitors stay abreast of new services and good discounts.

Did you notice that I said ‘help my vistors' three times?

Helping your visitors is the ticket to success – and there are still PLENTY of tickets left for that train.

One of the reasons that dating service products sell so well online is because they are relatively inexpensive. They're also available for immediate delivery, and goodness knows, most of us are into instant gratification. Let's not forget that 1 in 2 marriages in North America flounders, so there are MILLIONS of singles out there looking for love.

All of those factors make dating services easier to sell on the ‘Net than hard goods.

Too, generally those who buy an online dating service membership remain a member of the program for between 4 and 6 months, and most dating service affiliate programs offer commissions on recurring sales.

So, instead of making $10 for a one-shot deal, you'll earn 40, 50 or 60 bucks when you signup just one customer!

Courtesy of Yahoo! Personals, here are a few more things for you to consider Internet dating services:

16.3 million (6.1 million women and 10.2 million men) visited personals/dating sites in 2002.
Jupiter Research, December 2002

The popularity of online personals has grown 31 percent between December 2001 and December 2002.
comScore Media Metrix, February 2003

The Personals/Dating category surpassed both Business/Investment and Entertainment/Lifestyle to become the largest paid content category in 2002 with $302 million in revenues, up nearly threefold from $72 million in 2001.
Online Publishers Association, March 2003

Revenues from online personals is expected to grow steadily to reach an estimated $642 million in 2007.
Jupiter Research, December 2002

If those numbers don't convince you, here are the results for some love-related keyword search terms for the month of December 2003.

  • 5,355,479 dating
  • 173,547 romance
  • 634,225 love
  • 110,702 girlfriend
  • 59,139 valentine
  • 200,016 single
  • 302,172 american single
  • 72,130 personal ad

Start your own dating service affiliate site right now and you'll be perfectly positioned next Valentine's to take advantage of what everyone is looking for in the ‘Season of Love' … A DATE!

How to Make Money from New Year’s Resolutions

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The New Year is looming large and it's time to think about how best to profit from all the New Years resolutions that will be made — and eventually mostly broken so you can profit from them again next year. 🙂

Here are the top 10 resolutions along with corresponding affiliate programs and Clickbank best-sellers that you can promote.

1. Spend More Time with Family & Friends

Polls indicate that more than 50% of those surveyed make a promise to spend more time with family and friends in the coming year. Help people do that with programs like:

2. Get Fit

Nothing does as much good for a body as a regular fitness program. Exercise extends life expectancy, lowers blood pressure, improves your mood and even reduces the risk of some cancers. Too, one of the fastest-growing trends in the fitness industry is involving children in exercise. Great online fitness programs and ebooks include:

3. Lose Weight

More than two thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, so it's not surprising that one of the most popular New Year's resolutions is to lose weight. Programs to help folks shed those extra pounds include:

  • Fat Loss 4 Idiots ($30.37/sale – Clickbank)
  • eDiets (up to $50/sale – CJ)
  • Drugstore.com (10.00% commission – Linkshare)

4. Quit Smoking

The average smoker trys and fails 4 times before they quite for good. Help them kick the smoking habit for good this year with:

5. Enjoy Life More

Considering the pressures of a bad economy, job uncertainty and all the other stressors facing the average person today, it's no wonder that “enjoying life more” has become a popular resolution in recent years. Help them do just that by introducing them to a new hobby or leisure time pursuit, i.e. scrapbooking or photography; or engaging in current pursuits like travelling more and listening to music. Even better is when you can help them find a great deal!

  • Hotwire.com (2% commissions – Linkshare)
  • 500 Scrapbooking Sketches ($/sale: $12.79)
  • iTunes (5% commission – Linkshare)

6. Quit Drinking or Drink Less

Alchoholism is rampant in our stressed-out societies. If you want to help prevent some of the incredible damage that alchoholism wreaks on individuals and their families, share your knowledge and support with others to help them overcome this devastating condition… or just convince them to drink less while opting for BETTER quality.

  • HypnoBusters (50% commissions – Ejunkie)
  • My Way Out (15% commissions – Independent)
  • Wine.com (5 – 20% commissions – Linkshare)

7. Get Out of Debt

With the economy falling apart at the seams, people losing their jobs everyday by the tens of thousands, more and more folks are realizing the need to free themselves from the burden of debt. You can help them with programs such as:

  • Leo Quinn's “How to Own Your Paycheck Again” (up to 50% commissions – Independent)
  • Ultimate Debt Relief Guide ($22.60 per sale – Clickbank)

8. Education – Self-Improvement

Once again, a weakened economy is forcing many to look farther afield to improve their educational standings, and as in any typical year there are others who just seek self-improvement.

9. Volunteerism & Charities

In good economic times, many people commit to helping others. In tough times when many are out of work, volunteering is a good route to finding gainful employment.

10. Get Organized

This is one of those resolutions that I have every year… check out this blog post and you'll see why. 🙂 Help people like me reduce the clutter and get organized with

As always, you can search for programs and information related to these and other topics on the major affiliate networks, such as Clickbank, Commission Junction, Linkshare and Google.

Datafeedr: Affiliate Stores for WordPress Bloggers

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Gone are the days of flat file manipulation and sharing 4th click revenue… Datafeedr is here. HURRAY!

Datafeedr is a slick new solution by Stefan Everaet and Eric Busch for WordPress bloggers who want to easily incorporate merchant product datafeeds into their blogs.

Features include:

  • You'll never have to deal with raw datafeed files again – HURRAY! Datafeedr has eliminated the technical hurdles for converting raw datafeed files into webpages. Just pointing and clicking is all what is needed.
  • You won't have to rely on supplied merchant datafeed categories (some were very VERY sloppy – if they existed at all). Now you can create your own store categories and subcategories.
  • You can add search for and choose exactly which products you want to add to your store..
  • When you ‘subscribe' to a specific search, existing products will automatically be updated and new products meeting the search criteria will be added to your product list.
  • You can combine products from different merchants across different networks in one store.
  • Currently, there are products available from Shareasale, CJ, Linkshare, Netshops, Bridaluxe, as well as Shareasale coupons and deals. Plans include adding Affiliate Window, Commission Monster and PepperJam.
  • Individual products can be embedded in blog posts.
  • There's also a drip feed option… so you can post a product (or two or three) per day and send those out via feed to your subscribers.

Stefan and Eric have posted a very good video on the homepage showing how the setup process works and detailed video tutorials are available to help you set up your own affiliate store using Datafeedr.

Subscription plans for this service are available starting at $27 per month.

I highly recommend that you watch the video so you can see for yourself what a slick operation Datafeedr is. Personally, I LOVE it!

Video: My Predictions for Affiliate Marketing in 2009

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If you're concerned about how the economic crisis might affect your affiliate business prospects in 2009, you'll want to watch this video. In it I discuss a primary indicator that bodes well for the industry, and on the downside, which affiliates will have to scale up or expand their marketing efforts.

I also give clues that point to some potentially lucrative markets.

Have a point to contribute or a question to ask? Please share your comments below… just no comments about my bad hair day, please. It was the lighting, I swear! 🙂

The Super Affiliate HandbookWant to learn affiliate marketing methods that I've used successfully for the past 10 years and which produce conversion rates much higher than industry averages?

Then get your copy of the Super Affiliate Handbook today!

Video: Which Clickbank Affiliate Gets Credit?

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From Todd….If more than one affiliate is involved driving traffic to a Clickbank merchant's site, who gets credit?

The first? The last? The affiliates in the middle are just out of luck?

Clickbank cookies last for 60 days. Does this mean the visitor can come back anytime within 60 days and you still get the credit, right?”

Right… or almost right.

Even if your visitor returns to the merchants site through a bookmark or search engine within 60 days, you would still get credit. However, that's UNLESS they click on another Clickbank affiliate's link in the meantime… because it's the last affiliate clicked that gets the credit.

The links below are used to demonstrate how that works in the video.

http://webvista2.getbuyers.hop.clickbank.net/

http://webjv.getbuyers.hop.clickbank.net/

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