Are you struggling to make more than $50 a month promoting affiliate programs?

You need to stop making mistakes that many affiliates make when it comes to promoting another company's products or services.

THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE

The number one blunder is not knowing enough about the product or service that you are promoting. It is important to become an expert on the product or service that you are promoting in order to write effective promotional material on it. Buying the product or service is best way to fully understand what you are promoting.

You should also believe in what you are promoting. If you feel the product or service that you are promoting is not worth purchasing, do you really want to be affiliated with it?

Although it may not be realistic to purchase every product or service you promote, you should still have a good understanding incase an interested individual contacts YOU with any questions.

NOT TARGETING

If you start noticing that your visitors-to-sales ratio is poor, this could be a result of not promoting to the right people. You want to promote your affiliate programs to people who will have a genuine interest in the product or service.

Why spend hundreds of dollars on advertising to the wrong crowd? It is better to bring 100 targeted visitors with a sales ratio of 20% than 1,000 untargeted customers with a sales ratio of only 1%.

You should also choose an affiliate program that compliments the theme to your ezine or web site. You will have a hard time promoting an affiliate program for dog food on your motorcycle web site. Trust me, it won't work.

AFFILIATE SOFTWARE

If a company running the program does not provide the affiliate with statistics or occasional email support, they obviously are not interested in helping their affiliates make money.

A great affiliate program should provide you with real-time statistics, timely commissions and reliable email support. They should be also issuing a newsletter every so often to update you on program changes or tips on promoting their products or services.

It is also very important that the affiliate software the company is using sends a cookie to a visitor's computer. Rarely do people purchase on the first visit. They usually come back later after giving some thought to purchasing the product or service.

If the company has not sent a cookie to the visitor's computer and the visitor comes back to the site not using your unique affiliate URL, you will not get credited for the sale.

PRE-SELLING

A lot of affiliates make the mistake of not *pre-selling* the product or service. They simply put a banner up on their web site and hope that people will click-thru and buy.

When most people click on a banner, they expect to see a sales pitch. With that in mind, they will be arriving at the affiliate site with a bit of skepticism and caution. These people rarely buy.

Successful affiliates almost always *pre-sell* the product or service using methods such as endorsements. By writing about the product or service in a favourable light in your ezine or on your web site, you will be convincing the prospective customer that they can benefit from the product or service.

Your job is to create genuine interest in the customer and it is the job of the company's affiliate site to close the sale. An affiliate program is a partnership between the company and the affiliate. Both need to work together to generate sales!

POOR COMMISSIONS

Don't waste your time on companies that do not provide generous commissions. Do you honestly think you are going to make a killing promoting a program that pays you a 3% commission?  Stick with the programs that pay you over 20% in commissions and you will make more money with less effort.

Also watch that the company pays your commissions on a regular bases. Late or no commissions without a justifiable reason could indicate that the company is in financial difficulty and may not be able to pay you. Look what happened to Cyberrebate.com, they owed over $1 million dollars in affiliate commissions and went belly-up before those commissions were ever paid out.

GIVING UP TO SOON

Many affiliates abandon a program after only promoting it for a short period of time. They have the "make a little money from one affiliate program and move on to the next" attitude.

Remember, some customers need to see an advertisement an average seven times before they will purchase. You may be giving up to soon and losing those sales to affiliates who stick with the program and reach your potential customer on that magic seventh try!

Being an affiliate doesn't mean worker harder. It is all about finding out what works and working smarter!