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Affiliate Marketing and Its History

Affiliate Marketing is a derivative of Internet marketing where the advertisement publisher gets paid for every customer or sales provided by him.

Affiliate marketing is the most basic of all Internet marketing strategies. 

In this type of marketing, affiliate management companies, in-house affiliate managers and third party vendors are effectively utilized to use E-mail Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, RSS Capturing and Display Advertising for the success of the product. Web traffic can be traced with the help of a third party or affiliate programs. A lot of work is involved in this process. At first marketing by this method involved lots of spamming, false advertising, trademark infringement, etc.

After the invention of complex algorithms and advance security this has been regulated to make it safer for doing business and shopping online. This even led to the better scrutinizing of the terms and conditions by the merchants. Affiliate marketing became more profiting with the opening of more opportunities but at the same time it also increased the competition in marketing.

Due to this pressure, in house affiliate programs for merchants became a thing of the past and were replaced by out-sourced programs. The companies that offered this service have expert affiliate and network program managers who have various affiliate program management techniques.  These affiliate networks have publishers associated with them who help them with the advertising part.

Affiliate marketing was started by cdnow.com who had music oriented websites. They placed list of music albums on their site and they paid others if they put those links in their websites when a visitor bought their album through their site. The first company to link was Geffen Records.

Two months later, Amazon was offered by a woman that she would sell Amazon’s books on her website and she should be paid a certain percentage in return if she sold Amazon’s books through her site. They liked the idea and started the Amazon associates program. It was more of a commission program where they received a commission if a visitor clicked their links and banners on other’s site and bought anything through it.

Since its invention, the affiliate network has been adopted by various businesses like travel, education, telecom, mobile, gaming, personal finance, retail, and subscription sites, the most common being adult and gambling sectors. In UK alone, affiliate marketing produced £ 2.16 billion.

The compensation methods used are Cost per sale (CPS), Cost per action (CPA), Cost per mile (CPM) and Cost per click (CPC). The first two are the more famous methods today. This is because in CPM and CPC, the visitor which turns up on a particular website might not be the targeted audience and a click would be enough to generate commission.

CPS and CPA have a compulsion that the visitor not only clicks on the link, but also buys something or signs up for some service after it, which proves that he is among the targeted audience. Only in the above case does the affiliate gets paid.

So the affiliate should try to send as much targeted traffic as possible to the advertiser in order to increase his/her returns and for this reason affiliate marketing is also known as performance marketing because it totally depends on the performance of the affiliate. The affiliate team can be differentiated from a sales team from the nature of their jobs. The job of the affiliate team is to drag targeted traffic to a point and from that point it’s the job of the sales team to influence the visitor to buy the product or the service.

This is a very effective kind of method because the money is being paid only when results have been achieved. The publisher incurs all the cost except that of initial setup and development of the program, which is incurred by the merchant. Many businesses give credit to this method of marketing for their success.

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Affiliate Programs = Money in the Bank

Do you consider yourself to be a pretty well rounded internet surfer or even a webmaster? If you fall into one of these types of categories, you are urged to think about joining an affiliate program. It won’t cost you a thing. With this type of a program being free, you most likely have absolutely nothing to lose.

Are you looking for a relatively easy way to make money online? If you have been spending a lot of time doing research online, you may have come across some programs that are known or referred to as affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are a great way to make money online, but do you really know what they are? If not, you are urged to read on at this blog everyday.

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Google Adsense Advertising Policies

Google Adsense is a program that allows businesses to advertise on other websites. The business only pays the host website when a consumer clicks on the link to take them to their website. This is a very effective way of advertising because of the millions of people who access the internet every day.

It is also a low cost marketing method that businesses of all sizes can benefit from. Websites are eager to host advertisements for other businesses because it doesn’t cost them anything and they earn money for doing it when consumers choose to follow the link from a particular advertisement.

If you are interested in using Google Adsense to advertise, then you need to make sure you are aware of their policies. This will make the process smoother for you and eliminate any misunderstandings down the road. This can be a great money maker or advertising tool, but only when it is used correctly.

There is no long term contract with Google Adsense. You can choose to leave the program at any time. You will need to provide written notice by mail or email to Google. All ads will be removed from your website within ten days. They also have the right to discontinue your business from the program at any time for not following their policies. You do have the right to file an appeal if your account is canceled. This gives you the opportunity to discuss the situation with a Google Adsense representative.

You must be approved by Google Adsense before you are allowed to be a part of the program either as a host site for advertisements or to post your ads. The owner of the website must be at least 18 years of age. The approval process involves an application that you complete with information on your website including keywords. You will have a response to your application within two days. Make sure it is completed entirely or your application will be denied.

All communications must take place with Google. This means if you have concerns or issues about an advertisement your business has on a website or about an ad you are hosting on your website everything goes through Google. The two businesses are not to discuss the issue between each other. Google does not guarantee a set amount of clicks or earnings for a host website. It also doesn’t guarantee any increase in traffic or sales for a business.

Google Adsense has the right to use the name of businesses participating in the program for presentations, marketing, and financial reports. Users of Google Adsense are required to pay for the amount of pay per clicks their ads received as outlined. Adsense accounts are non-transferable under any circumstances. They can’t be resold to another provider. A maximum of three ads per webpage can be displayed. Advertisements can’t be placed on web pages that don’t contain content for your website. A webpage can’t be used for the sole purpose of displaying ads to make money.

Click fraud is not acceptable at all by Google Adsense. It damages the reputation of the program and costs the advertisers a great deal of money. Any website hosting advertisements that are believed to be involved in Click Fraud will be banned from using the program. If you chose to use Google Adsense to advertise your business, protect it from Click fraud by purchasing Click Fraud software.

Google Adsense is a great opportunity for businesses to advertise their products and services on various websites and pay only for the number of consumers who click on the link to go to that businesses website. It is also a great way for a business to make money by hosting advertisements for other businesses. Understanding the policies of Google Adsense will help you determine if the program is right for you. It also helps the program work properly for all those involved in it.


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The Adsense Buzz and How It Works

Internet advertising with Adsense is a popular type of advertising through the commonly used search engine, Google. This type of advertising allows website owners to earn money by advertising Google on their websites.

The website will feature a link back to Google and the advertiser is paid based on the number of hits Google gets from that particular link. The advertisements can be text, images, or both. This is a very easy way for you to generate some extra revenue on your website without very much time or effort involved.

You don’t just have to advertise for Google though. With Adsense you can choose to have advertisements on your website for other websites and businesses. It is a good idea to choose those that are relevant to your own website but not a direct competitor.

For example if you sell customized seat covers for vehicles you don’t want to advertise for other company’s that offer that same product. You may want to advertise for businesses that sell car cleaning products, stereo systems, windshields, and other vehicle related products that a consumer may be interested in. How do you make sure this happens?

Google works hard to filter out the types of advertisements it sends to your website. They understand all about competition. The Google Adsense software is very sophisticated. It will work hard to send you ads that are relevant to the type of business you operate. This gives you more chances of earning revenue from the ads because your target audience will be the ones seeing these ads on your website.

The Google Adsense software looks at languages too. If your website offers materials in several languages then you will have the ads available in those languages as well. In fact, it is believed Google is able to determine more about your website and what consumers want than most website owners.

The amount of revenue you will generate with Adsense depends on how much each advertiser is willing to pay you for a per-click from your website. It also depends on the amount of advertising you do on your website. There is no cost to you for placing the ads on your website, so any revenue you generate will be profitable. Avoid placing too many ads on your website though or it can become distracting to the consumer. You still want them to focus on making a purchase from your website first. It is very simple too. All you are required to do is paste a couple of lines of coding from Google and place it into the html for your website.

Take a few moments and surf the internet. Chances are you will find several websites that have ads on them for other websites. This is set up to make them noticeable but not the primary focus of the actual website you are visiting. You are not responsible for the services or products of the companies you advertise for.

Google offers a great customer service support team to answer all of your questions about Adsense. There is also online help that gives you information on getting started, making the program work for your website, and troubleshooting. You can access the testing area to see how ads are going to look on your website. Does Adsense sound good to you? If you would like to sign up, go to www.Adwords.com.

Google Adsense is a great way to use your website as advertising space for Google and other businesses. There is no cost to you and you will earn money every time a user takes a link from your website to the one the ad is for. It is very simple to use and can earn you a considerable amount of money if your website has a high volume of traffic. The online help and customer service of Google Adsense will give you all the information you need to know as well as help you with any questions or concerns along the way.

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The Search for Winning Sales Letter Services

Writing a perfect sales letter can be very hard to do if you don’t have the proper tools and guidance on your side. A badly written sales letter won’t perform as well as you would hope that it should.

Writing a sales letter is tough and writing a winning sales letter is even tougher. Many sales managers bang their heads trying to figure out how to get it right. Well, to answer this question, they should put themselves in other people’s shoes and ask, what “benefit “would I receive by reading this sales letter? Remember the word “benefit,” which is the crux of this discussion. Many sales people take bits and pieces of information from here and there and create a mess out of a sales letter. They literally throw everything on people and then get what they deserve, instant rejection.

One should always remember that a sales letter works only when you have a product to sell and an offer to make. A sales letter should not be an introduction of your product or company. Remember every word is important in the sales letter and do not waste a single letter, which would distract your potential customer’s attention. They are not interested in the features of you product, but an offer or benefit to them. Think from the customer’s point of view and ask yourselves why should I read this letter? Is there any benefit or offer to me which cannot be refused? Can you convince me that this is really a good offer?

After keeping these things in mind, sales managers should apply some thought in presenting their letter. The header or the headline is very crucial to any sales letter. It should directly target the customers of your product. One also needs to be tactful in the use of words. But if you’re not especially good at this type of thing, do not attempt to do it and just be simple in writing about it. The headline should not be more than one line, so try to be as specific as possible but with maximum affect. Nobody has time to read each and every letter in this fast paced era of instant satisfaction. If you are not able to convey your message to the audience in stipulated time, then you have lost those customers. The headline should start out with a benefit being offered to the customer. This ensures that the customer will at least go to the body of the letter.

Now, having made a good effort with the heading, it’s the time to work on the body of the letter. How do you maintain the level of enthusiasm that you created in the customer’s mind with the heading? Once again it is important to remember to not to focus on the features of the product you are trying to sell, but on the benefits and offers you are giving to them. Things like, how much money it is going to save them and how it would affect their lives, should be mentioned in the body of the letter. Make them realize the need for it and compare it to another competitor’s product. Remember, a person reading your sales letter will constantly have questions in their mind as to how this will benefit me, after each and every sentence. So be ready to clear those doubts and answer the questions. Being a little informal in this approach won’t do any harm.  Try to grab their attention by relating to real life things. You can add a bit of humor as long you are sure that it won’t be in the bad taste of the reader. Bring in few recently happy clients to give testimony of your products. Keep the testimonials believable and something that people can relate to.

Once you’ve given a clear explanation about the product, do not forget to prompt your audience to take action. If it is an email, prompt your reader to click on a link to act now or provide a contact number, if its direct mail. Also remind them again that if you don’t act now you will forfeit the offer, as the offer is for limited time only.

Once you are done with the letter, one of the most important parts of the sales letter is P.S. Many people simply read the beginning and end of the letter. So, try to convey something that will prompt them to go back to the letter and read it. It will be a perfect end to the sales letter.

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