Affiliate Marketing on a Limited Budget

One of the most common needs for many beginning affiliates is to have the knowledge to be able to start up a successful advertising campaign with a tight budget. Not everyone has a line of credit to fund their new business, nor does everyone have stacks of cash in order to make it happen at all costs. If your funds are limited, how can you still become a successful affiliate?

Understand What You Shouldn’t Be Doing In the First Place

This is critical for any affiliate that’s set up for success. You simply have to know what you should avoid and what might be worth giving a shot. Many so-called “gurus” really try to overcomplicate this, so let’s take a look at it with a more simple approach.

• Don’t think that you’ll be able to achieve overnight success. It’s just not realistic. You’ll lose some and win some, that’s simply just part of the equation.
• Don’t choose offers based solely on how well it pays. Payouts don’t tell you whether or not it’s going to be a way to stack your cash easily.i
• Don’t think that the cheapest clicks will give you the best conversion rate. Sometimes the more expensive clicks convert the best, it just depends on the niche you’re targeting.
• Don’t rush into launching an ad campaign as this could hurt you when you don’t have the money that you can afford to lose. Focus on launching the highest quality ad campaign possible. Here are a few questions that you can ask yourself to do just that.
  • Are the links properly set up?
  • Are your clicks being tracked accurately? This is on both ends, your affiliate account as well as your tracking platform.
  • Are you targeting the right people for the offer that you’re promoting?

Now that you know what to stay away from, you’re ready to get deeper into how you can advertise with limited funds at your disposal.

Harness the Power of Priceless Opportunities

Affiliate marketing is about opportunity. Every single day you see it, promises of how you can work at home and be comfortable while making decent money, promises of spending more time with your kids (if you have any), and promises that this is simply one of the best jobs in the world. It’s not some big secret that opportunity is what drives this industry.

Keeping that in mind, there are many priceless opportunities that you can use to your advantage when you have have a limited ad budget. Here are some of the most popular ones.

Build Slowly While Using Persistence

You can’t create the most profitable advertising campaign in the world by doing it quickly. The old saying “good things come to those who wait” proves true, especially in this case. You don’t have to wait forever, but you do need to take your time to assure that your campaign covers everything that it needs to and that it’s rolled out in a manner that isn’t going to blow all of your funds at once. Build slowly, and don’t give up. That’s the true key to being a successful affiliate even when the funding may be on a smaller scale.

With that in mind, this also means that you need to plan your ad campaign just like you’re about to roll out a million dollar marketing project, but while keeping a daily budget that allows you to prolong the longevity of your campaign. By doing this you’ll be able to test without wasting hundreds (maybe even thousands) of dollars for little or no results.

Use the Ads of Competitors to Your Advantage

By keeping an eye on your competition within a particular niche, you’ll end up being able to see what works as well as what doesn’t work. Go ahead and make a mental note (physical if you have to) about the ads of your competitors and what they’re doing to ensure a successful marketing campaign. Once you’ve gotten an idea about what your competition is doing and has done, think about how you can do it different but with a better approach.

An Ad Voucher Can Save You Money

Google and Yahoo! are two advertising sources that provide advertisers with a free voucher that give you a certain amount of advertising funds in the form of a credit. This is a great way to get your ad campaigns rolling without large amounts of money.

If you wanted to take it one step further, just set up a few different ad accounts so that you can use more than one voucher. You could easily turn that into over a thousand bucks worth of advertising funds.

Ask yourself, “is there another way that this campaign could work?”

Many people get disappointed when they don’t see their ads producing results for them. Instead of thinking about how they could make it work, they just throw the idea in the trash and start over again. The most successful people in this world found other ways to make things work and this has been proven to work time and time again.

Do What Nobody Else Does

There’s one big problem that’s been lingering around the affiliate marketing industry for the longest time. Too many people spend their time and energy trying to “copycat” someone else’s ideas. Just because someone claims or seems to be successful doesn’t mean that you have to go and copy what it is that they’re doing. Instead, get ideas from it and do something that nobody else does.

One Word Leads to Success When Bootstrapping: Simplify

When you overthink something, you’re honestly limiting your potential. There can’t be any better way to sum this up than to follow the K.I.S.S. principle, “Keep It Simple Stupid.” Go about things in a simple fashion and you will quickly see exactly how your life has become less stressful and more beneficial while your business reaps the benefits of simplicity.

Evaluate Your Options for Traffic Sources & Use the Best Ones

It’s important not to limit yourself to just one traffic source, many affiliates have seen their demise by doing so while others have reached phenomenal levels of success when they embraced diversification within this particular part of their advertising campaign.

When you go about finding various traffic sources, try to get to know what each one has to offer and what audiences they’re best at targeting. Make sure that you run offers that will be beneficial to the reach that you get through a traffic source. More about your options when it comes to traffic sources is available as you get deeper into this guide.

Take Your Campaign to the Next Level & Make REAL Money

When you start seeing success with an advertising campaign, you’ll quickly be able to see which ads have the most potential to earn you more money and which ones just might not work for creating an income for yourself. Take the strongest ones and scale them to even bigger campaigns that target a much wider reach towards the people within your targeted demographic. This is just one part of how you can go from being a beginner that barely makes an income to one hell of a money-making affiliate that networks will scramble to in order to win you over.

Understanding Split Testing

The word split testing is dreaded by a lot of affiliates, especially the beginners simply because it’s a process that’s more often over-thought than not. This is something that must come to an end. Right here, right now. Let’s go about split testing in a simple way that’s to the point so that it’s much easier for everyone to understand.

The Essence of Split Testing

The whole purpose of split testing is to weed out crappy ads and landing pages from the ones that perform the best. You don’t need to let your emotions get in the way when split testing or it will turn out to be a completely ineffective task. Ending with being nothing but a waste of time, energy, and your thought process. There are two main types of split testing used by affiliates today and those are:

• Website Split Testing - This is also known as split testing landing pages. The purpose is to try out different approaches in order to see which approach works best for the traffic that’s being driven to it.
• Ad Campaign Split Testing - This is where you take variations of one advertisement (it could be using a different picture, headline, etc.) and test out which one gets the most interaction.
  
  

Is split testing for every affiliate?

Absolutely, while many may not think they need to split test, it’s essential for any marketing campaign. If you don’t test out different ideas and approaches, you won’t be able to uncover the gold so to speak. Affiliates can’t afford to ignore what split testing has to offer, and this is honestly something that can’t be stressed enough.

What do I need to get in order to split test?

Just some sort of reputable tracking software like CPV Lab or Prosper202 (which is free by the way) will work. All you need is something that allows you to track the results and see which test is performing the best. It’s nothing too overly complicated.

Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with a whole bunch of cool ideas to test at once!

Ideally you only want to make one change per split test that you do. This could mean changing the picture in the ad, headings, call to action etc. The reason for this is that too many changes can actually hurt you in the long run, one simple change is all it takes to make a difference.

Understand That Split Testing Takes Time

You have to be able to have good ground to work from when you go about doing split testing. This means that you have to be patient to get results that can produce you with the data that you need to come to a logical conclusion. A general rule of thumb is to let the ad be live for 2 days, or for as long as it takes to generate around 20 or so clicks.

Wrapping Up Your Split Test

Alright, so you’ve got your testing done, now it’s time to sum up your results and see what really works and what needs to be thrown in the trash can for good (or just modified to see if it’s just one little thing throwing it all out of whack).

What is a Landing Page?

Many people see the word “landing page” time and time again. They even wonder what the heck all of the talk is about and they can’t be blamed for it, every single affiliate has had this sort of curiosity at one point in their career whether they will admit it or not. To keep it simple, a landing page is meant to be the “selling point” for any offers that you promote. The general concept is that you take the visitors who click on your ad from a point of curiosity to a point of actually wanting to get the offer that you’re promoting. It’s from this page that you’d link to your offer.

That all sounds good and great, but you kept it too simple!
I figured this would happen, which is why some of the basic concepts have been outlined for you below. Some like it simple, some want all of the meat on the bone so to speak.

What is a traditional landing page?

A traditional landing page is simply a page that you use to pre-sell your offer to those who may be interested in it, based upon the interest or curiosity that they had when they clicked your offers. This is hosted on your own web hosting and it’s just like a website, except it’s a single page with the content, graphics, and links that you use to get them into their buying mode.

You may also see this referred to in the industry as a “squeeze page” or by another term, for the complete list of landing page terms, make sure you check out the “Affiliate Marketing Terminology Glossary” that’s included with this guide.

What is a PPV landing page?

A PPV (Pay Per View) landing page is used on advertising networks that have websites which offer advertisements in the form of a pop-up window. A PPC landing page is the page that is displayed in the pop-up ad that focuses on generating a conversion from each visitor that gets popped in the face with it.

This is a great option since it’s essentially a more focused advertising option that allows the use of graphics and other cool tricks that Pay Per Click campaigns usually don’t come with. Some networks you might be able to pull off some tricks that you have in your bag, but a lot of them will limit you to what you can do whereas PPV networks tend to be a little bit more lenient.

Deciding Which Landing Page to Use for Your Campaign

It all depends upon your strategy and what kind of goals that you’d like to accomplish with paid advertising. However, you should look through this section to get a clear idea on what each option offers and doesn’t offer to truly see which one is going to be the best fit for your affiliate marketing business. Don’t just trust the word of others, remember that you have to see it to believe and the only way to do this is through your own free will.

When to Use Landing Pages vs Direct Linking

One of the most common things that comes out of the affiliate mind is whether using a landing page is the best way to go or if direct linking provides affiliates with a better opportunity. Believe it or not, even experienced affiliates often find themselves wondering this so it’s not just limited to the beginners. Well, there are some things that you could look at in order to determine which one is truly the best strategy for your campaign, see it for yourself.

Who are you going to be using to drive traffic via PPC?

This is the most critical part when you’re trying to choose between using a landing page and doing a direct link to your offer. Some networks won’t allow direct linking while others do. So, let’s take a quick look at some of the choices for PPC traffic among affiliates today.

Google AdWords

Google is known for being one of the pickiest advertising networks. They seriously look at everything you can think of to make sure that they’re advertisers are delivering quality and relevant ads to their users. Some say you even need a landing page to even have a chance of advertising on Google.

It could also go as far as saying that one-page landers and direct linking are two things that Google won’t be afraid to deny when submitted for their approval. The best bet for trying to take advantage of this source of PPC traffic is to create a relevant mini-site that relates directly to your promoted offer.

MSN & Yahoo!

MSN & Yahoo! are two search engines that fall right below in Google for popularity, and the reasons are pretty obvious. Both of these search engines that provide advertising opportunities are easier to get approved with an ad that takes part in direct linking. If you want to give direct linking a shot using search traffic, these two are great places to try out.

Low-Tier PPC Networks

These are the smaller search engines and PPC networks such as Ask which really aren’t the mainstream choice among internet users. Low-tier PPC networks usually allow for direct linking and getting approval for your ads is usually much easier, as long as it doesn’t go too far out of the way to where they filter it out through a denial of course.

Is the offer that you plan to promote worthy of a landing page for it?

This is one thing that’s usually the tell-all when you’re trying to decide whether or not you should use a landing page for a particular offer. Most of the time, you’ll lose out on some of your clicks when you go with a landing page, but then again for certain offers it’s always good to pre-sell your prospective conversions to get them into their state of buying. You just have to take a close look at the offer and decide for yourself if it’s worth of the time and energy it takes to build an awesome landing page for it.

Are you still wondering which is the best route to take?

There’s only one option left if this is the case. Split-test with and without a landing page. If your conversions are higher with a landing page, this is the best route to take. If it’s higher with direct linking, well you know what to do.

Writing Better Adcopy

There are three different types of ad copy. These types of ad copy are bad ad copy, good ad copy, and the best ad copy. You may be wondering exactly how you classify ad copy, but the results and what has been done in the development phase are what defines each piece of ad copy used today. The parts of developing ad copy are explained below so that you can see how you can take good ad copy and produce it into the best ad copy among advertisers that are competing with you for the traffic.

How do you make the ad title work for you?

The first thing that people notice about ads is the title. This is where the opportunity to draw their attention towards your ad is presented and you only have a few seconds to do it, if you even have that long. The human mind works very fast and you have to figure out exactly how to get the mind to become curious. In order to help break this down a little bit more, let’s dig down into it from two different approaches.

2 Line Ad Titles

The Good

Using 2 line ad titles has some pretty good benefits attached to it, which you can see described in the list below.

• Helps draw the human eye to the area where your ad is featured and continues to draw the human eye deeper into the ad itself.
• Provides you with the opportunity for your ad to take up more “real estate.”
• You can trim down your main ad copy within the body of the ad since a 2 line ad has the opportunity to provide more information right from the beginning.
• Has been proven to have a higher click-through rate in certain situations.

The Bad

Just like with anything, there are drawbacks with using 2 line ad titles. What are they exactly?

• For certain audiences, this type of title doesn’t seem to work well.
• It does take a little getting used to if you want to craft a 2 line ad that provides the needed information.

Conclusion

2 line ad titles can help out greatly when you have a demographic that has a short attention span, yet requires information to justify their actions. It’s a great approach as long as you can come up with a way to summarize what you offer and how it benefits your prospects within the ad title itself.

1 Line Ad Titles

Using 1 line ad titles isn’t all about negative benefits. In fact, there are some pretty good ones listed below.

The Good

• If you’re using a traffic source that allows the use of images within your ads, a shorter ad title will help direct the attention towards the image that’s used.
• This will help spark curiosity. When visitors click your ad, they arrive at the destination with a curious mind that seeks answers.
• The actual ad copy within the body of the ad will have more attention focused on it instead of the title.

The Bad

Not every method is perfect, so here’s the dark side of using 1 line ad titles.

• If you don’t have the right audience for this ad, it could end up costing you some money instead of making you money.
• It takes time to come up with a short title that works.
• You don’t have the opportunity to provide a more in-depth engagement with people using the ad title. It forces you to focus on the actual body more to help solve their curiosity or keep their mind going so that they’re urged to click through.

Conclusion

This is a great way to go about creating curiosity and also helping your image get the attention it needs to paint the picture for those who see it. As long as you target those who like curiosity, it can be a great approach. However, for those who demand answers it could be something that’s not as beneficial as a 2 line ad.

What can be kept in mind to produce the best ad copy?

There are several different things that go into creating the best ad copy possible. In an effort to help alleviate some of the confusion among affiliates, here are a few things that can guide you directly to the world of writing epic ad copy that works for you and your business.

Be Detailed

There are two things that you need to do in order to assure that you’re being detailed. First of all, your ads need to be within ad groups, with each ad group only representing a set of closely related keywords. The second thing that needs to be done is to make sure the ad copy is geared directly towards those keywords. This means that you need to make sure that you’re not using a bunch of generic ads to get the job done. Instead, they should be super-targeted.

Provide the Best Perceived Value

This is how visitors feel about the value which is provided when they see your ad. A lot of ads don’t follow this simple step, and they stick out like a sore thumb. An example of doing this

is to briefly explain explain exactly what you can offer them. This is going to be something that shows how you’re different than the others advertising in your niche while creating a sense of urgency by making them see that there’s no other choice but to click on your ad if they want the best solution. Also, make sure that anything that helps others build trust with you is displayed within the advertisement.

Be Unique

Standing out from your competitors is essential to achieving the highest level of success with your campaign possible. Instead of copying what other advertisers within your target vertical are doing, think about how your ad can stand out while delivering the most value to prospects possible. By being unique and having your own style, you’re showing those who see your ads that you’re passionate about fulfilling their needs.

Don’t forget your keywords!

Creativity has hurt a lot of affiliates in their campaigns, because when they get too creative they forget about one thing. When their ad shows up for a particular keyword, it’s because the end-user has searched for it. You really need to include the keyword within the headline and main ad copy. The reason for this is not only because it will appear more relevant to those searching for that particular keyword, but Google bolds the search phrase which means that it will bold words within your ad if it contains the keyword that’s being searched for. Now this is what you call killing two birds with one stone.

Provide a Call to Action

This has been explained throughout this guide and an ad isn’t somewhere that you should forget to add a call to action. Tell people what to do, whether it’s directly or indirectly. Do they need to get rid of the wrinkles and look younger? Tell them so!

Don’t Waste Time

There’s enough people beating around the bush in their ads without you having to do the same. Value the time of your prospective conversions and get to the point quickly. Show them how you’re going to benefit them right away, instead of letting them sit there to answer that question for themselves.

Pay Attention to Grammar & Spelling

You may not think of it this way, but proper grammar and spelling provides a much more professional appearance. Make sure that you pay close attention to this so that you can be as professional as possible throughout each part of your campaign. After all, you don’t want to be perceived as an amateur just trying to take them for their money, do you?

Use Your Display URL Wisely

Your display URL is part of your ad too. This means that there also needs to be some thought put into it instead of just throwing up your main URL. For example, you could have WeightLoss.com or WeightLoss.com/Diet-Pill show up when someone searches for “diet pill.” Which one looks better and more relevant?

Are there any tricks to getting display ads to work well?

Actually, there are quite a few. Below you’ll see which ones are the most popular ones that have proven themselves to be true winners.

Adding Credibility

Testimonials are the best way to add credibility to anything. See if the offer that you’re promoting has any by asking your affiliate manager or searching for it on Google. When people see a testimonial, they can only help to think that it works since it has obviously worked for someone else.

Add Some Life By Animating the Ad

This doesn’t mean animate your creative to the point where it bugs the crap out of those who see it. Animate it one part at a time, starting with the action button or an arrow that provides a visual trail. If that works, try implementing animation into another part of the advertisement. It’s no secret that animation draws attention, which is sure to improve your CTR when done the right way.

Ensuring Simplicity

Think of the ads that Google uses when people are searching for something. The goal of this is to ensure that it stands out when it’s put up beside the fancy ads. A simple white background and blue text usually does the trick.

Entice Visitors to Play a Video

This is one of the coolest approaches, because you don’t need a video advertisement to pull this one off. Any websites that target the gaming or video demographics work the best for this. What you do is make the ad look like it’s a video. When they go to play it, they turn into a click-through to your landing page. Pretty sweet, right?

Provide the Desire to Scroll for More

This works when the image used for the ad makes people want to see more. Just add a scrollbar to it. When they go to click it, you guessed it, they end up at your landing page.

Target Multiple Audiences at Once

The great thing about image ads is the fact that you can use it to target multiple mindsets at once without having to buy additional advertising space. You’ll see these used mainly on news sites. The key is to make it look like multiple ad spots instead of just one advertisement which only aims for one approach.

You now have many tricks that can be used to write the best ad copy and create the best creatives around. As long as you use these tips in combination with your creativity, it should pay off really well for you. Keep in mind, there are other routes that you can take which is where innovation comes into play. We can’t hand you the whole world, you have to work hard to succeed in this industry and we’re not about to break that up for anyone.

When Odds Are Against You

Thomas Edison couldn’t have summed it up better, and the affiliate marketing industry is one place that this has become all too true. Constantly, you will see people who want to be spoon fed with the secrets of the trade, so that they don’t have to put forth the work needed to become a successful affiliate marketer. If someone isn’t willing to put some sweat into their efforts, they don’t deserve the opportunity to stack cash in this industry. It’s as simple as that.

You’re reading this section because you probably have some sort of interest in making it to the “super affiliate” level. This is something that isn’t just handed to affiliates, it comes after a lot of hard work and determination that shines through the surface. Sometimes it even comes with sleepless nights and lots of head banging on the computer desk. Affiliate marketing is one of the hardest industries to break into, but it’s also one of the most lucrative. Let’s take a look at some of the things that can be done when the odds seem to be against you, so that instead of quitting, you have the knowledge needed to push on through.

The odds are going to be against you at one point or another.

This is something that’s bound to happen to affiliate marketers. There will be days where campaigns run great and then there will be days to where they just seem to be nothing but a loss. In order to become a true super affiliate, you have to understand this reality and know that this is something that happens to the best of us. It’s definitely not a sign that nothing is ever going to work out for you in this industry. So whatever you do, don’t give up before you have a chance to overcome these obstacles.

There’s no room for failure, there’s only room for learning.

This is another part of this section where Thomas Edison is a legend who makes this as true as it could ever be. Many people say that he failed so many times, but he knew that this was an opportunity to learn about what he did wrong or didn’t do at all. When you’re trying to make it to the life of a super affiliate, you need to remove the word “failure” from your vocabulary. There’s a lot of money to be made, and there’s no time for failure. There’s only time to learn how to use your bad experiences as learning experiences to make you even better at what you do.

Push through and experience the best times.

If you let the rough times get you down, you’re going to end up quitting way too soon. Especially when it comes to performance-based marketing. Just keep pushing towards success and eventually this is what you’re going to obtain. Those roadblocks are meant to make you quit, but when you run through them there’s simply nothing there stopping you.

“Opportunity is missed by most people people because
it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

- Thomas Edison -

Creating EMail Lists with PPV

This is one of the popular things that affiliates do with PPV traffic. Mainly because an e-mail list provides the opportunity to sell to the same person over and over again. Sounds pretty lucrative, right? It is if you do it wisely, just like anything else.

Getting Your Start With Using PPV Traffic for List Building

There are many niches that using an e-mail list can work for. In an effort to keep it simple, any niche where you can promote multiple products to one person is a prospect for this particular method. Some niches that this applies to includes, but is in no way limited to:

• Business Opportunities
• Dating
• Financial
• Internet Marketing
• Weight Loss

The best way to uncover the golden niches where a mailing list could be effective is to ask yourself whether or not the audience that you’re targeting is going to be willing to make additional purchases on top of the one that you promote to them at first. Don’t limit your options, because that is where you’ll honestly start limiting your income.

2 Options, 1 Result

There are two ways that you can build a list using PPV traffic.

1. Using a traditional landing page with an opt-in form incorporated into it where you could also be promoting a particular offer that you’re running with your favorite network.
2. Using an “email capture” page that only displays the opt-in form with no focus on anything else but getting them to hand over their email address willingly.

See, it’s not as complicated as it sounded, is it?

Don’t neglect your list once it’s built. Keep building & keep earning.

The purpose of compiling a mailing list is so that you have the opportunity to increase your earnings through the conversion to multiple offers from one particular person. Keep your e-mail list rolling regularly so that you can keep earning consistently.

Also, try to add some value to your mailing list for your subscribers so that the unsubscribe rate doesn’t end up going through the roof because they see you as a spammer. The more loyal subscribers you keep on your mailing list, the more commissions you have the chance of making.