Affiliate Programs – How to Use Commission Junction

The affiliate program is probably the best return for your effort with the least demand on your time. This has an appeal to the Boomer Entrepreneur since we want to run the business and not have it run us. We want to have time to “kick back and smell the roses”.

The attraction to this model is that it is virtually risk free except for your time. It costs you nothing to sign up as an affiliate. You recommend the product and send your visitors to the website where the product is sold and if the customer purchases the product, you are paid a commission. Amazon.com is credited with being the first businesses on the Net to fully develop the affiliate concept and now all the major companies have affiliate programs.

When you sign up as an affiliate, you will be given an affiliate number, and a special link to use for linking to the affiliate website. This link will send your visitor to the business site and at the same time tell the business that you sent the visitor so you will receive the commission in the case of a sale.

There are companies that do the accounting and act as the coordinator between affiliates and the companies they represent. These are called affiliate program providers (APP’s). One of the major sites for handling affiliate accounting is called Commission Junction. It handles eBay and others. The major site for electronic products is ClickBank. Other sites are BeFree, Linkshare, and Performics. A German APP is Affili.net.

Commission Junction is the largest APP and handles many great companies. To fully explore what is available, you need to sign up at CJ and look for affiliates there. You will be able to see who the companies are and the commission structure of each. You can then join the program right in CJ without having to go to each company and apply.

I suggest that you join CJ and study the many companies that are represented. Take note of a few that you feel might be ones that you would like to represent. Don’t join the affiliate program yet, but go to Google and research the company website. See if they sell themselves well and will support the sales effort that you are going to expend to sell their products or services. Also, from CJ, you can link to the landing page in the company website. Go there and check it out to see if it sells well.

Step by Step Start

The following will lead you through the sign up process as a Commission Junction publisher. This process is longer than most that you have previously completed. Be prepared to complete two pages of information. The second page is long and detailed.

First page: Select your language, country, and currency. Click NEXT.

Second page: After swearing to abide by the rules and regs, you will be asked for information about your newsletter or website (URL). If you have a website, you can enter it. If not, make up a name for the eZine that you may plan to publish. For this application, you must make up a newsletter name if you do not have a website (URL). Be creative!

You will then be asked about your promotional methods. Click the Website/Content and Search Engine Marketing buttons. Next click “NO” on the radio button that asks if you donate any proceeds to charity (unless you want to do so).

Next you will be asked to enter all the information needed for setting up your account. You might have to attempt this page a couple of times since you might not have all the info you might need the first time. A key item you will need is social security number or tax ID if you are registering as a business. If you want to have your payments direct deposited, get a blank check so you will have the info to set up the banking information.

When you finish giving CJ your entire pedigree, click “Accept Terms” and you are on your way. Check your Inbox for an email from CJ with your acceptance message and password.

Sign up for Commission Junction at

https://signup.cj.com/member/publisherSignUp.do

Once you have received your acceptance email from Commission Junction, log in to www.cj.com and use your password to enter. When you are logged in, you will be on your Commission Junction Home Page. It shows your account status and basic accounting info. It also shows the new advertisers on CJ. You might see if any of these look appealing since you can jump right on them and get a head start.

Near the top of the page click on “Account”. This is where you can update the information that you entered on your application.

Now down to business. Click on the “Get Links” tab near the top and you will be presented the page where you can find advertisers. There are several ways to view it: By category, by advertiser name, by Smart Zone, and by relationship which will list all the accounts with which you have an established relationship.

As an example, to find a company with which you are familiar (eBay), select the Category view and in the left column under Commerce, click “Auctions”. The page that is presented will contain various auction sites, but you will recognize most of them as the various eBay sites for the USA and other countries.

To join an affiliate, click on the “View Links” in the box with the affiliate name. You will be presented with the various banner ads and links for the affiliate. Pick one and click on it. If you are not a member of the affiliate program, you will be presented a page describing the program and at the bottom of the page is a button “Join Program”. Click this and see the response. Sometimes you will be accepted immediately and sometimes you will get a message that you will be notified after your application has been reviewed. Go ahead and join eBay USA since you should be accepted immediately by it.

The sequence of “Get Links” and “Join Program” is how you sign up for the affiliate programs that you want to represent. It is all in Commission Junction and it makes it very easy for you to grow an affiliate program as your online job.

Note: Some affiliates require that you have a website when you sign up with them. You can build a website later and reapply if this affiliate program is one you want to pursue as an online job.

A word of caution: Becoming an affiliate does not automatically make you rich. Becoming an affiliate establishes the relationship to let you promote a product and get paid for successful promotion. It is up to you to do the work of driving traffic to the affiliate site. If you do your job well, a percentage of the traffic will purchase from the site and you will be paid a commission for those purchases.

This concludes your education about Commission Junction. It is a powerful website and is a “must join” if you are going to create an affiliate program.

Good luck with your future affiliate programs.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.

About The Author
John V. W. Howe is an entrepreneur, author, inventor, patent holder, husband, father, and grandfather. He has been involved in entrepreneurial activities for over 40 years and has recently started several web sites to assist Boomers (baby boomers) to become entrepreneurs when they retire. During his career, John has founded and managed several successful companies including computer services, plastic injection molding, and assembly operations. He is currently Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Kodiak Thermal Technologies, Inc. John’s websites are http://www.boomer-ezine.com and http://www.retirement-jobs-online.com. His hobbies include raising and training English pointers, quail hunting, and fly fishing.

Earning Thousands By Affiliate Selling

Affiliate selling online can make you the ultimate virtual sales representative. You can literally sell any product on the market today to consumers all around the world. With aggressive techniques, you can earn thousands in commissions without leaving the comforts of your own home.

An affiliate seller is like a traffic director of merchandising. He/she signals the oncoming consumer traffic to the companies that supply the products in which they are searching. Consequently, when a sale is made from your directed or redirected traffic, you get a commission of the sale. Thousands of Internet businesses utilize this every day—seven days a week and 365 days of the year. But is it as easy as it sounds? Absolutely!

The majority of major online companies offer affiliate marketing and commission programs and each and every one of them will, no doubt, welcome you in assisting in getting their products to the public. Many have either established their own affiliate program or use affiliate companies such as Commission Junction and LinkShare. Check out the online companies that want you to work for them.

Amazon.com – Amazon is practically the most popular online marketplace in the world. Known as the go to place to find books, Amazon sells everything from beauty products and apparel to electronics and power tools. Amazon supplies a comprehensive section for its affiliates. The site is http://associates.amazon.com. Once you sign up, Amazon supplies you with a tool (on their website) in which any affiliate (Amazon refers to them as associates) can create attractive links to the specific product you wish to advertise. Furthermore, Amazon will supply affiliates detailed information on the items sold through the efforts of the associate.

Walmart.com and Target.com – Both of these companies are powerhouses in retail sales all across the United States. They have managed to build corporate presences due to their versatile ability to supply customers with the opportunity of one stop shopping. They are attempting to establish the identical, powerful, ‘virtual’ presence on the Internet as well. Both companies offer affiliate programs as well. Unlike Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target offer their commission program through the LinkShare Network with commissions up to 7% of total sales referred. You can sign up by going to the homepage of each store (www.walmart.com and www.target.com) and clicking on the “Affiliate Program” link at the bottom of the page.

Commission Junction – Commission Junction is the service many of the large corporations utilizes to manage their affiliate programs. Commission Junction’s companies include, but aren’t limited to, Dell.com, HSN.com (Home Shopping Network), Expedia.com, Staples.com, BestBuy.com, Travelocity.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Marriott.com, Fossil.com, Ebay.com, Tommy Hilfiger, The Home Depot and Yahoo! What this means is that there is absolutely no product you cannot represent. If you want to be a travel agent, try Expedia, Marriott and Travelocity. If you like electronics, there is Dell and Best Buy and many others. The only limitation to your ability to sell is you!

Affiliate sales are tracked by a code that is embedded in each link you build from the corporate affiliate program website. This code verifies exactly what link the potential client was referred. If the link on your page redirected a consumer to buy from the corporate website, you are credited for the sale and commissions are figured.

Copyright (c) 2006 Diane Hughes

About The Author
Diane Hughes
http://ProBizTips.com

ATTENTION! I am giving away $2,446.13 worth of marketing tools and products and over $5,010.64 worth of resale rights. Demand is great and memberships are going fast! http://www.madmarketer.com/diane

How to Start Your Affiliate Business

Does this sound familiar:

“Getting started is easy!”
-- Complete the online application below.
-- Read the ‘Affiliate Agreement’ and the additional terms included with it!
-- We notify you of your acceptance.
-- Place the links on your site and Start earning cash!

Just like that, you think you are on your way to earning 100s of dollars in income right away. You hear the success stories. You see the potential for earning an income on the internet. You jump right in and join a bunch of affiliate programs, purchase the services and software that you are told that you need…. Now you have spent all this money and have still not made anything to show for your efforts.

What you need to do is start by planning out your business. Make sure that you have an overall business plan. Put this down on paper. When planning your business, you need to determine which affiliate programs to join. You want to avoid just putting up a list of affiliate links. This will never encourage people to buy from you. Do your research about products and services. There is so much out there on the internet about everything… this should not be a hard task. Look to see what people are out there buying. Keep in mind that most people on the internet are looking for information. Make sure that you are able to provide then with the information that is helpful to them. Choose something that you can be passionate about and work hard at showing people how your product or service will help them. This will encourage visitors to click on that banner and purchase the goods or services that you are promoting.

Once you have figured out what your business is then it is time to establish a presentation of your business - Your WEB SITE. This does not have to be a grand 20 page web site. It is more of a one to two page site that allows you to pitch your business. Remember, if you are not building a business, you are not going to earn any money on affiliate sites. You want to keep your site very easy to understand and browse through. You want to make sure that you show your passion about the products or services that you are selling. Show people what the product or service can do for them. Make them think that it is something that they cannot live without. Use testimonials and personalize your web page for the product or service. You want people to see that you are just the average Joe who has found this wonderful product and show what it is going to do for them. It does not have to be anything elaborate. In fact, simplicity is the key to keeping people on your site. The more ‘Bling’ that you have going on, the less likely that people will stay on your site.

Remember, starting any business is difficult. Don’t expect to make big money right away. It takes time to establish trust with customers. But, by planning your business and building a quality site, you will avoid the mistakes that many affiliates make. You will be way ahead of the pack and on your way to building a viable web BUSINESS.

About The Author
Markus Corkern is a writer and affiliate director for http://www.megaffiliates.com. He is active in new research and development in the internet affiliate marketing field.

Affiliate Marketing: Making Money Finding Clients!

As a business owner, Bill had a good thing happening. He was able to run his store and run it well. He had customers that would even come from quite a ways away because they liked the products and the services that he provided. But, since he was only one person, he didn't want to really expand with other stores. He liked being able to go home to his family and not worry about a lot of other employees.

Yet, it would be nice to be able to get his product to others, wouldn't it? Bill knew he would have more customers if he could get his business online and then promote it. But, he knew nothing of how to do that. The last thing that he wanted to do was spend money advertising his company only to not make anything off of it.

Bill wanted to be able to retire one day and give his children the ability to have a business that was already stable so he decided to try his hand at developing a website. With a little help from his son, he learned that there were people out there that would work for him to promote his website. All he had to do was to hire them and only pay them when people came to the site to buy a product.

These affiliate marketers did all of the work for him. They brought people to his website where his products did all of the talking. And, he paid them for bringing the customers. Soon, they came back on their own and his business grew well beyond his hopes.

Fred was one of the affiliate marketers that worked with Bill. He created a website that was geared at promoting Bill's and made a good amount of income off of just this one site. He brought the customers and Bill paid him to do so.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most sought after types of internet marketing. For those that are looking to get in, the process is simple. Advertise for a company and bring clients to them. If it is just that simple, though, more people would be after this highly profitable game. In affiliate marketing of any type, there is some work that needs to be done to make it successful. For that reason, understanding just what affiliate marketing is and how it works is how you'll know if this is the right place for you to be in.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

The job of an individual in this business is to promote web businesses like Bill's. The affiliate marketer is then rewarded for every visitor that is brought to the site because of what he did to promote it. You may be promoting for subscribers for services. You may be promoting for customers who will make purchases. Or, you may be compensated just for having the individuals make it to the right web page. In any case, affiliate marketing is set up to be that of a finder's fee situation because you are bringing new businesses to the client.

Some terms to know:

Affiliate: An affiliate is an individual that is affiliated with a company to help promote the company.

Marketing: Is the act of promoting a website or product.

Affiliate marketing: Promoting of a website, product or service through affiliates as opposed to paying for and placing the advertising yourself.

Affiliate marketer: An individual that does the marketing for the company.

Compensation for affiliate marketing ranges in how it is provided. There are three main types of payment structures available.

a. Pay Per Lead: In this scenario, the affiliate marketer is paid based on the individuals that they get to register or subscribe to the site's product or service.
b. Pay Per Click: In this method of compensation, the company will determine a set rate to pay based on each time that a new client visits the website.
c. Pay Per Sale: In this case, the affiliate marketer will be paid based on the amount of sales made from the purchase of a client that is attracted to the website. This is a commission based program.

The Benefits

From the aspect of being the affiliate marketer, you can make money virtually anytime of the day and night when your sales medium works. Whatever you do to make sure that the clients click through to the buyer's website, you'll be able to be compensated for that. Another benefit is the fact that there are many affiliate programs out there being run. Bill's small business is nothing compared to the larger companies out there. One of the largest that runs its own affiliate program is that of Amazon.com.

On the other hand, businesses like to use these set ups and are willing to provide the opportunity because nothing is paid for until it is realized. They pay only when you give them the results of clients to the site. Bill liked this, of course, because he knew he wasn't wasting his advertising dollars.

The Cons Of Affiliate Marketing

Like any other money making opportunity, it is important for you to understand that you may need to invest. Often, the affiliate marketer will need to invest in a website to attract visitors to and in advertising and marketing. For some individuals, the plan is to develop one website that is a launching pad for several affiliate marketing campaigns.

For example, if the affiliate marketer wishes to tap into the world of credit card affiliate programs, he or she will design a website that provides key information about credit cards. They will be able to link the website to the official websites of the credit card companies. By luring customers in with quality information on credit cards, the potential customer will click on the banner ads or links provided to take them to the official site to sign up.

But, affiliate marketing is not that simple. You will need to invest in providing good quality information. You will need to furnish your content yourself or hire a professional. Then, you'll need to get customers to your site. To do this, some affiliate marketers use search engine optimization and article directories while others pay to have their website listed as an advertiser on search pages.

Is There Money Out There?

It may seem that you are putting quite a bit of money into this business, but in fact, affiliate marketing can be a good way to make decent money. The amount can range from just a few dollars to quite a bit. It all comes from the knowledge that you have or obtain and the work and dedication you put into the task. Affiliate marketing has the potential to make a decent income. You help Bill and he pays you to do so. Both win in the game of affiliate marketing.

About The Author
Keith Lee is a motivational speaker, a life coach and a fitness instructor for the past 10 yeras. He study and did research on the Internet Marketing Industry for years. Go to his webiste http://www.MyInternetMarketingSuccess.com for some superb tips.

Affiliate Marketing - A Business Without Hassle?

Do you look for a small business idea, which allow you to make money without the hassle of selling products, packing and shipping? Take a look at affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing can be a very good opportunity for you. Instead of sales pages you load your web site with information. In that change, you make your site more attractive for the search engines, your site will draw more traffic.

here are some basics of how to get going as an affiliate marketer

It all start with your web site. People search the Net for information. There are different ways to provide information.It can be Articles, product reviews, videos or chat rooms. You have to choose a theme for your site, and stick to that theme.

Your main task as an affiliate marketer is to get visitors to your web site. You don't have to worry about the sales pitch.Concentrate at get high traffic to your site.

Once people start to find your web site, and your interesting content. It's time to choose a good affiliate program.

How to choose the right affiliate program?

First, of course it has to be in the same theme as your web site content. If your site is about computers, your visitors are more likely to click at a link regarding computers, than a link regarding how to breed birds.

Second, you have to be sure that your merchant deliver as promised. Whether it's a product or a service, you must promote high quality stuff. If you wouldn't by from your merchant, so wont your visitors.

Third, choose one program, learn how it works, concentrate on this until you're satisfied with the outcome. Only then you choose the next one. You must master one program at the time, if you try to master 100 programs at one time, you'll not master any of them.

They way to succeed a an affiliate marketer is to implement one program at the time. Keep it to a handful of affiliate marketing programs. Affiliate marketing is an ongoing learning process. To be able to keep up with this process, you must restrict yourself to a few top notch programs.

weave in your affiliate links in your content. One or two links per page is enough. If you have to many links your visitors will feel that you only want to sell something to them.

This is a cornerstone for your success, your job is to provide useful information. You don't sell anything. After you have provided information, you make a recommendation, your visitor click at the link and your MERCHANT do the actual selling.

About The Author
Ove Nordkvist's web site http://www.small-biz-ideas.net is all about small business ideas, and how to get them up and running. Visit http://www.small-biz-ideas.net/affiliate-marketing-ideas.html Take advantage of this affiliate marketing ideas tutorial. Download your free copy of an affiliate masters course.

The Different Types Of Affiliate Marketing

There are different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one classify them. However, the most basic affiliate marketing programs, falls under pay-per-performance (PPP).

• Pay Per Performance (PPP)

PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action - that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually purchase something from the merchant's site or when the visitor becomes a lead. This means a lot of savings for the merchant as compared to paid advertising. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for the commissions offered by the merchant in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 20% to 75% of the actual product sales.

Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).

o Pay Per Sale (PPS)

In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant's site actually buys something from the merchant's site. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is almost always a higher percentage commission and a higher fixed fee that would motivate and attract more affiliate to work harder for the merchant. This is a win-win situation, the affiliate earns more while the merchant gets more sales for doing nothing.

o Pay Per Lead (PPL)

The PPL type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant's site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.

Aside from these two main types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is residual income affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the same customer he has referred purchases the same product again or some other product from the merchant's site.

• Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing

These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made. These structures offer more incentive and further motivate the affiliates to work harder and very quickly build a fleet of affliates under the merchant.

In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. PPS and PPL affiliate marketing types) fall under the single-tier classification.

In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct lead or sales that he refers to the merchant's site, but also on every lead or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation.

Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, that the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

• Residual Income Affiliate Marketing

In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for the customer he has referred to the merchant's site. Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase the same product or another product. Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.

The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits. Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for a merchant? Rather, it is to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit the merchant's needs and characteristics best.

About The Author
Gerald Choo is an active affiliate marketer who loves to share with others how to make money online. Get a FREE e-book on affiliate marketing when you visit:
http://www.affiliatemarketingweapons.com

Double Your Income: Take A Chance With Internet Affiliate Programs

If you want to produce a profitable web site, then affiliate programs are the most ideal approach.

Certain affiliates of companies or corporations out there are looking for help regarding their marketing. The affiliates’ money is weighed greatly on the commissions taken from the players registrations, and most often these affiliates do not know how to carry this alone. Thus, they needed an instructor to get the proper methods in affiliate programs.

This instructor is the internet itself. The affiliates when studying the procedure simply visit the web sites and search on the programs concerning affiliate marketing. These web sites along with the programs are presenting the various schemes of marketing that the affiliates can apply to boost their possible lower commissions.

These affiliates are expected to widen more their knowledge regarding marketing if they will search further to the web sites and to the affiliate marketing programs.

For instance, the use of banner is the largest element of affiliate marketing programs. And then, the web sites and the affiliate marketing programs will detail everything to the affiliates.

The affiliates can utilize a banner on the other web sites to employ traffic to the site of their mother company where they are employed as an affiliate. This is the main thing that is being covered by the affiliate marketing programs and sites.

These web sites and programs are stressing the use of banners because it performs a vital function in employing traffic on the sites endorsed by the affiliates.

The assistance of banners in employing traffic is very effective, though this is not the sole scheme to augment the affiliates’ commissions, the web sites and programs cannot deny the fact of the success it brings compared to the others.

These affiliates are always searching for the possible ways to boost up their earnings and turn it into bulk profit, so as to increase their commissions as affiliates. Likewise, they are also finding for ways to learn the strategies in marketing their works as affiliates.

Hence, when these needs occur, they immediately search for the offers in the internet that could help them. This occurrence directly means a profit for the websites and affiliate marketing programs owners.

These affiliate marketing program web sites are utilized by the affiliates on their own advantages as they look for guidance in boosting up their incomes.

Since there are numerous ways to boost the affiliates profits, ways that are not entirely familiar for the affiliates, these web sites have been designed to increase their knowledge on it and help them to understand it deeply, and through these knowledge they were able to generate more money.

Basically, these programs and web sites instruct the affiliates on various things that are concerned in increasing of their profits. And through this, it isn’t impossible for them to accumulate commissions as gambling affiliates.

These web sites and programs have been a great help in boosting up the affiliates status in marketing. Even today, these programs and web sites earn more income as they assist these affiliates into profitable commissions.

It is like a give and take process, as the web sites and programs feed the minds of the affiliates about the competent marketing strategies and skills, which later is turned into revenues or their commissions. These web sites and programs likewise earn their turnovers.

About The Author
Mario Churchill is a freelance author and has written over 200 articles on various subjects. For more information checkout http://www.turnkeyaffiliateprogram.com and http://www.killeraffiliateprogram.com.