For beginners, affiliate marketing can seem like a complicated riddle wrapped in a puzzle. It doesn’t, however, have to be.
There may be no magic potion to help you start earning money, but a solid plan backed by the right investment of time and money can lead to a lucrative career for affiliate marketers in Canada. After all, Canada continues to be a leader in online engagement and activity. The most recent ComScore “Canada Digital Future in Focus” report, in fact, shows that Canadians spend more than 41 hours per month online on their PC (good for second place in the world).
How, though, do you get started? And more importantly, how can you get set yourself up to make money in affiliate marketing?
Here are some tips for the neophyte affiliate marketer:
Choose Wisely
The mistake rookie affiliate marketers often make is to choose a hot “bandwagon” product. The most successful affiliate marketers, however, are those who have chosen products that they are truly interested in. Don’t just follow what you think is in demand, look for products and services that you are truly passionate about. This will push you to learn as much as possible about the product, and to produce authoritative, engaging content.
The easiest way to effectively promote a product or service is to be convincing, and if you don’t know anything about those products or services, you’ll be as convincing as a three-dollar bill. Knowledge and experience with the product or services creates an aura of authority and truthfulness, and this stems from choosing the products that are most interesting to you.
Test Tracking and Performance
Once you have set up your affiliate marketing website, and are populating it with great, authoritative content, you need to be able to track and analyze your website’s performance. This is the key to ongoing improvement and optimization.
Using your affiliate system reporting, you can track impressions, clicks, and registrations to understand exactly how your traffic is interacting with your content. Equally important, you can then test the performance of creatives by running affiliate reports by creative. This type of in-depth data will clearly highlight the most effective creative approach, removing the guesswork from decision making going forward.
Keep an Eye on Devices
Having a killer website is essential, but you also have to keep an eye on new devices. Consider this: in 2012, smartphone subscribers grew by 17%, with ad impressions viewed on tablets rising to 14% by Q4. It’s now essential that you account for this clear demographic shift. How? By doing your research.
How are users interacting with the product you are promoting? Are they using mobile phones? Tablets? PCs? PPC? These are questions you have to answer. By leveraging subIDs you can track performance on a number of these different touch points, enabling you to understand where your focus should lie.
Ultimately, there’s no easy way to make money in affiliate marketing, but by choosing wisely and leveraging relevant data and tools, you can put yourself in the best possible position for a successful affiliate marketing career.
What other tips would you share? Leave your comments below.
