Newbie Affiliate Networks?

[Testament]

Hey all!

In trying to finance my own fastlane business ideas, I've come into one constant source of hardship:

Money!

I've been working for a company that does affiliate advertising for a while, but honestly company politics are getting to be a bit much for me to contentedly deal with. I'm now looking to be a free agent (or mostly free) and obviously, affiliate marketing seemed like it would be the easiest way to get the money together to fund my own fastlane ideas while also working on that most holy of skills, marketing.

I know a lot of my fellow Fastlane brethren (and sister-n) have dabbled in affiliate work previously, and was wondering if y'all could give any suggestions for affiliate networks that were more geared towards newbies.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Roli]

I was just going to answer you, but want to understand first what you're asking.

You say you've been working for a company that does affiliate advertising; do you mean the company is an affiliate to many different brands, or they sell their own product and have an affiliate program?

How newbie are you? Is what I'm trying to work out.

 

[Testament]

@Roli Hey Roli! Thanks for taking the time to reply, and sorry for the ultra-late response - I'd actually forgotten about my post. I won't let that happen twice.

I'd actually meant that I'm working with a company that is an affiliate to many different brands. I'd mostly been doing Facebook stuff actually - I'm pretty intensely familiar with running ads via Facebook - however these were mostly for banner ad clicks and pages that had mobile apps. I've never written out landing pages that try to directly sell products that you get a percentage of (see, I'm even fuzzy on the correct terminology...heh).

So I'm pretty experienced in a very small part of the overall picture, which is great because I get to do a lot of marketing, but also sucks because I'm not able to do anything else yet. I'd say I'm close to complete n00b in most of the areas of AM, but I know OF most of the process - find an audience with a need, find an off for a product that helps satiate that need, find a traffic source, send it to your landing page, and all of the amazing marketing in between.

I guess I'm just really fuzzy on all the details of each of the steps, or I guess specifically how exactly to successfully execute on those steps.

 

[Roli]

@Roli Hey Roli! Thanks for taking the time to reply, and sorry for the ultra-late response - I'd actually forgotten about my post. I won't let that happen twice.

I'd actually meant that I'm working with a company that is an affiliate to many different brands. I'd mostly been doing Facebook stuff actually - I'm pretty intensely familiar with running ads via Facebook - however these were mostly for banner ad clicks and pages that had mobile apps. I've never written out landing pages that try to directly sell products that you get a percentage of (see, I'm even fuzzy on the correct terminology...heh).

So I'm pretty experienced in a very small part of the overall picture, which is great because I get to do a lot of marketing, but also sucks because I'm not able to do anything else yet. I'd say I'm close to complete n00b in most of the areas of AM, but I know OF most of the process - find an audience with a need, find an off for a product that helps satiate that need, find a traffic source, send it to your landing page, and all of the amazing marketing in between.

I guess I'm just really fuzzy on all the details of each of the steps, or I guess specifically how exactly to successfully execute on those steps.

Hey no problem dude, check your alert settings so it doesn't happen again.

OK so 2 things strike me about your reply, one is you're selling yourself short, if you've been working in a company of this type you simply must have picked up a fair bit. My advice on that point would be to write down all the things you know about affiliate marketing, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The second thing that strikes me is, you work in this company doing just Facebook ads, so I'm assuming the company has a person/people doing blogs and Twitter?

Have you spoke to these people to get their opinions and to generally mine their knowledge? If not that's a massive oversight which you need to correct quickly.

So on to your original question, which affiliate networks are geared towards newbies?

Essentially I think you're asking about what ones are easy to use and hold your hand through the learning process.

There are two way you can go, with an aggregate affiliate program like Tradedoubler or Clickbank or you can go straight to the source product and join their program.

Try both, I would start off with Tradedoubler as the site is pretty easy to navigate and to get started, though you won't get much hand holding, if any.

Approaching a product directly and becoming their affiliate will usually mean that you will get an affiliate manager who will hold your hand and answer any questions you have about the program and some of them will help you with marketing tools and such.

However which one you go for is dependent on what you feel you can write about, you don't necessarily have to write about your chosen affiliate, you could syndicate, but that costs money and you're trying to avoid costs aren't you?

For instance, I am a gambling affiliate for Betfair and Bet365, I have a website Betfair Trading Tips where I post my Betfair links and I have a site where I post my 365 links, but the site I post my 365 links to, I have stopped updating, mainly because I don't want to write in that style any more, even though the 365 affiliate program has made me about 10 times what the Betfair program has made.

I am looking to start pimping my 365 links again as the commissions they pay are amazing 30% lifetime commission on each subscriber, so your account can lay dormant for ages and then suddenly you have money in it from an old subscriber, it's great and of course 365 have the best affiliate managers and the site is just lovely to use.

Betfair piss me off for a number of reasons, but i would probably still recommend them and I like the fact that your payments just get paid automatically once they hit a certain level.

So in conclusion I would recommend first mining all the knowledge you can from your existing company and then check out the gambling industry and an aggregate like Tradedoubler, though if you live in America you may have problems with gambling.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask me more specific questions

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[hughjasle]

sounds like you were working for a buzzfeed content style site, right?

Knowing that will help answer how best to get you going.

 

[Testament]

Wow, thanks for the huge response Roli!

The second thing that strikes me is, you work in this company doing just Facebook ads, so I'm assuming the company has a person/people doing blogs and Twitter?

Well I'm actually on the team doing the blog/buzzfeed style articles right now - I'm writing a fair amount of 90's trivia style articles and also boosting them and tracking metrics.

So on to your original question, which affiliate networks are geared towards newbies?

Essentially I think you're asking about what ones are easy to use and hold your hand through the learning process.

Yes that is my real question - which affiliate networks will hold your hand through the process and not care that you're still learning the process.

However which one you go for is dependent on what you feel you can write about, you don't necessarily have to write about your chosen affiliate, you could syndicate, but that costs money and you're trying to avoid costs aren't you?

For instance, I am a gambling affiliate for Betfair and Bet365, I have a website Betfair Trading Tips where I post my Betfair links and I have a site where I post my 365 links, but the site I post my 365 links to, I have stopped updating, mainly because I don't want to write in that style any more, even though the 365 affiliate program has made me about 10 times what the Betfair program has made.

Hmmm, I see. So are you saying that you set up pages that produce blog content and then you have people pay you to put display advertisements like Google Adsense on it and do cost per click? Or do you have full offers and landing pages contained on your blog?

I'm not sure I understand the style of writing you mentioned - so both sites are for gambling offers, but you're not interested in writing for one of them?

I am looking to start pimping my 365 links again as the commissions they pay are amazing 30% lifetime commission on each subscriber, so your account can lay dormant for ages and then suddenly you have money in it from an old subscriber, it's great and of course 365 have the best affiliate managers and the site is just lovely to use.

So would you also recommend Bet365 for a semi-beginner? I'm just thinking I don't want to sign up with them for them to suddenly tell me that I don't have the desired experience on the interview. Would you suggest being as transparent as possible with the affiliate networks when signing up?

So in conclusion I would recommend first mining all the knowledge you can from your existing company and then check out the gambling industry and an aggregate like Tradedoubler, though if you live in America you may have problems with gambling.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask me more specific questions

That is insanely helpful! Thanks so much for taking the time to give me such detailed help man. Members like yourself are the reason I love this place so much!

@hughjasle Hey Hugh! Yes, the company I'm working with has a few different wings of marketing/content development, but the one I'm currently working in has me doing Buzzfeed or Cracked.com style articles.

 

[Roli]

Wow, thanks for the huge response Roli!



Well I'm actually on the team doing the blog/buzzfeed style articles right now - I'm writing a fair amount of 90's trivia style articles and also boosting them and tracking metrics.



Yes that is my real question - which affiliate networks will hold your hand through the process and not care that you're still learning the process.

OK so you are learning a hell of a lot at buzzfeed without even realising it (unconscious competence), you're going to need that knowledge, you're going to apply what you're doing at buzzfeed and you're going to talk to other colleagues and find out what they do and how they do it!

Bet365 will definitely hold your hand through the process, they are excellent, all questions answered in a timely fashion and an easy to navigate site.

Hmmm, I see. So are you saying that you set up pages that produce blog content and then you have people pay you to put display advertisements like Google Adsense on it and do cost per click? Or do you have full offers and landing pages contained on your blog?

Yes you set up a page, you could use Google Adsense, but I don't, I simply write articles and place my affiliate links within the articles, I also get subscribers and then email them links to new articles and offers with affiliate links.

I'm not sure I understand the style of writing you mentioned - so both sites are for gambling offers, but you're not interested in writing for one of them?

Yes both sites are for gambling offers, however the first one is the first site I ever set up, so I made a lot of mistakes, my main one, making the site way too complex, so basically it would took up too much of my time to realistically keep going.

What I did, without realising at the time, is set up a site that should have had several writers contributing, so the second site I set up years later, is designed so that if I want I can post every day or once a week, or as sporadically as I want. I still leave the first site up, not being updated, because even though the info is way out of date, it still gets the odd signup, which makes me money.

Oh and that's another thing about 365, they tend to keep their link IDs the same, this means that you can post a link, knowing that it will never, or almost never go out of date, so people can click on it years later and if they sign up, you make money, simple!

So would you also recommend Bet365 for a semi-beginner? I'm just thinking I don't want to sign up with them for them to suddenly tell me that I don't have the desired experience on the interview. Would you suggest being as transparent as possible with the affiliate networks when signing up?

Abso-damn-lutely! They are super cool and as long as your site is up and live and doesn't use any blackhat SEO methods, they will accept you into their program.

Transparency is always good, sign up and they assign you a manager, just let him know you're a newbie and you're all good to go.

By the way there is no interview, you just contact them, send them your website url and they look at it and approve you, like I said, if you set up an honest site, they will accept you.

Then it's up to you, can you write gambling style articles? Or maybe you'll syndicate them and buy them from Fivver and Upwork, setting up the site and the affiliate is about 0.0000001% of the work, the rest is about writing and pimping, but like I said, the pimping part, you are learning at Buzzfeed, take notes! Speak to colleagues, take more notes! Find out how they promote their articles, find out every damned aspect of it, from how they use Twitter and Facebook, to how they write their teaser headlines, to how they write/choose their articles.

Mine that knowledge dude!!! [/QUOTE]

That is insanely helpful! Thanks so much for taking the time to give me such detailed help man. Members like yourself are the reason I love this place so much!

No worries dude, I'm in the same situation as you, changing my mindset, doing what I can do to get into the fast lane and stay there, seriously you have more knowledge than you think, I'm almost embarrassed giving you this advice. So yeah, feel free to PM me with some of those juicy Buzzfeed secrets!

Oh and thanks for the rep transfer

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.