Always carry out your own research prior to joining any Affiliate program. Make sure the program/s you choose to join will be worth all your time, effort and financial outlays!

Here are eight hot tips to guide you:

1. Is The Program Free to Join?

The majority of Affiliate programs available these days are totally free of charge to join. On that basis why would you select a program that makes you pay a joining or monthly fee?

2. How Often and How Do They Pay Your Commission?

Most programs have reasonably similar frequencies and methods of paying you your commission. Some programs make payment once a month and some every quarter. Most programs will provide you with a couple of methods in which they will pay your commission. Probably the safest and most convenient payment method is via Pay Pal. If the Affiliate program resides within the country you live in, then getting paid by cheque might be the most convenient method. However; if the Affiliate program is resident in a foreign country then getting paid by cheque could cost you big dollars in bank fees to cash or deposit those foreign cheques to your bank account.

Most Affiliate programs wont pay you any commission until you have a minimum payment due to you of say; $50.

3. Try to Establish the Hit Per Sale Ratio

Try to determine the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes in order to generate one sale based on all Affiliate statistics. This statistic is most important because this will tell you how much traffic you will have to generate prior to you earning any commission.

4. Does The Program Use Cookies to Safeguard Your Referrals?

When someone that you refer to the Affiliate site visits that site the Affiliate system should place a cookie in the referrals computer system. This is vitally important. Why? Because that referral may not buy the product or join the program on the day. However in three months they may have a change of heart and return to the Affiliate site to buy the product or join the program.

Providing the Affiliate program uses cookies that are valid for at least six months then you are assured you will receive the commission on that sale. Plus if the program is a two tier program (see later), and the person joins the Affiliate program they will be placed under yourself to ensure you receive additional referral commissions.

5. Does The Program Provide Statistics to Affiliates?

The Affiliate program should provide their Affiliates with pertinent statistics so that Affiliates will be aware of how many impressions, hits and sales were generated from their site and advertising activity. Impressions refer to the number of times a banner or text link was viewed by a visitor. A hit is one click on a banner or text link in your site or advertising.

6. Will You Be Representing a Reputable Retailer?

How long has the Affiliate program been around? New kids on the block come and go with monotonous regularity. Determine just how solid the Affiliate program is by doing your own due diligence.The more knowledge you can accumulate about the retailer, the more confident you will feel that you wont be wasting your time, effort and money, representing a program that may do a bunk tomorrow.

7. Single or Two Tier Program?

Determining this fact is vital! Many programs are single tier programs. This means that you get paid a commission ONLY on the products you sell personally. With a two tier program you get paid commission on the products you personally sell; PLUS you receive an additional income on the sales that any people you personally referred to the program sell. It takes the same amount of effort to work a two tier program as it does a single tier program. Why not maximise your income by working a two tier program?

8. Most Important – What is the Commission Percentage?

Rates of commission vary greatly from one program to another. Determine the minimum commission percentage you require and ONLY join Affiliate programs that meet your minimum percentage. There is little point in promoting a program that only pays 3% commission on a product that retails for only $10 if your overhead costs average $2 per sale. The resulting $1 profit might not be worth all your time, effort and cost.

Make sure you check off these key eight points before you commit to any Affiliate program. Happy hunting!

The first step in beginning to build traffic for your online
business is to identify who your target audience will be.
This may sound rather simplistic, but it’s surprising how many
first time internet marketers blindly go about trying to attract
every member of the population to their website or ezine.

This is a bit like having a tobacco shop on a busy street and then
putting up a wall on the sidewalk forcing every individual who
passes by to enter your shop. Right away you should
be able to see the problem here. Your shop will be crammed with
people, but a large majority of them will be non smokers.

This will tend to anger them and they will begin to grumble and mill
about, causing great confusion and noise. This in turn will tick
off even the smokers in the crowd. They won’t be able to see the
products for sale, or even get near the checkout to make a purchase.
In fact the smokers may get so annoyed they will purposely avoid
your shop and even your street in future.

Most folks who have been forced into your shop in this way will
leave as quickly as they can. On top of that they will go to great
lengths to warn others to stay away from your street.

Now imagine that wall on the sidewalk again with two doors in it.
One door is marked “smokers” and the other marked “non smokers”.
The “non smoker” door would pass people through and allow them
to continue along the sidewalk. The “smokers” then would be
funneled into your shop where a calm friendly staff greets them
and shows them the bargains to be had within. Soothing music
and pleasant lighting would make their visit a pleasant one.

Now, making your website or ezine a pleasant experience for your
visitors is a topic for a future article, but getting the right
visitors through the door in the first place is of paramount
importance. With a little planning you can find ways to bring in
just the right sort of visitors to make your online efforts a
success.

Competition in any Internet Marketing business makes it tough to make money. The situation is no different with Affiliate Marketing. If you want to be successful you must be different to the crowd.
Learning how to use Camtasia will impress your prospects and customers. Streaming, screen-captured videos add a new dimension in communicating with your prospects.

When your prospects can view in real time all aspects of your product or service via video streaming they will more readily purchase.
You can create stunning videos, using multimedia tutorials and step-by-step presentations now available online.

Interested? How does Camtasia work?

1. Camtasia records your desktop activity with a single click. You dont require to save and compile all your files because it is recorded right there and then.

2. Simple to convert your videos into web pages. Once converted you can have your customers visiting that page. Videos make it easier for your prospects to understand what your product or service is all about.

3. Upload your pages. Publish them through blogs, RSS feed and podcasts. You may want your Camtasia videos to spread to other potential prospects who may become potential customers in the future.

Here are some other excellent things you can do with your affiliate program using Camtasia. You can…

Create stunning multimedia presentations proven to increase sales because all “senses” are engaged. This also has the tendency to reduce skepticism with hard-to-please customers.

Reduce refunds and other customer issues by demonstrating visually how to use your product or service properly. As a result complaints will be minimized.

Promote your affiliate products and services using visual presentations. This is an effective way of redirecting your viewers straight to your affiliate website after they have finished viewing the video. Make the most of the presentation by placing your site information details at the end of the presentation which encourages them to visit your site if they need more information.

Multiply your online auction bids exponentially when you give your readers a feel of what you have to offer. Based on reports, auctions including pictures increase bidding percentage by 400%. Imagine how much higher it will be if you provide streaming videos.

Publish valuable infoproducts that you can sell for a much higher price. Well worth the higher price because of the full colored graphics menus and templates that you will be providing via Camtasia.

These are just a few of the things you can do with Camtasia to assist with promotion of your affiliate program/s.

The main reason for using Camtasia is to boost your income generated from your affiliate program/s or other internet business.