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The idea for this week’s post/Podcast episode came from an email subscriber, Endre.
In the email, Endre asked how to go about choosing profitable products to promote from the ClickBank Marketplace.
Choosing Profitable Affiliate Products on ClickBank
In this video, I respond to Endre and show you 3 main criteria to consider, when choosing affiliate products to promote.
I show you the exact process that I go through when evaluating products, which can be applied not only to selecting products on ClickBank, but selecting affiliate products in general.
In my experience, it is always best to start with a product or category of products that you have experience with or are passionate about, if possible.
If you are having a hard time coming up with ideas, subscribe via email and you will instantly get my keyword brainstorming guide, which should help get the creative juices flowing.
The 3 main criteria that I utilize in selecting affiliate products to promote:
- Analyze the size of the market – There should be at least 3,000 local monthly searches (US in my case) for 3-5 different main keyword phrases that you are targeting for your site.
- Analyze the competition – Do a thorough analysis of each keyword phrase mentioned in item 1, to be sure that you can compete for a spot on the first page of Google.
- Evaluate the sales page for the affiliate product – Check out the main landing page for affiliate products that you plan to promote, to make sure they are designed to convert.
Long, detailed sales pages may seem overdone, but they work.
One quick tip is to try to close the main sales page and see if there are ways to attempt to keep you there, by offering freebies or discounts to remain on page. Those tend to convert well also.
In addition, if there are any email sign-ups for the product, be sure to sign yourself up ahead of time. That is a great way to see how well they do, when trying to convert the subscriber into a paid customer.
I’ve seen examples of great email auto-responders, setup to convert and also examples of terrible newsletters with atrocious spelling and grammar that I could hardly read. Those emails can go a long way towards determining if a product is one you want to put forth the effort into promoting, or decide against.
Another suggestion is to purchase the product yourself, so that you can clearly articulate the benefits to your potential customers. One benefit of ClickBank is that you can purchase products through your own affiliate links. This is not against their terms of service. That is a great way to try a product yourself and get a deep discount for doing so.
Another benefit of ClickBank is that once your account is approved, you can automatically promote any products you see in the ClickBank Marketplace, so the barriers to entry are low.
One of the downsides, however, is that ClickBank requires you to make a minimum of 5 sales, from at least two different payment methods before you will qualify for a payout. There is a way to get past those hurdles and I provided some details here in a prior post.
If you do promote products on ClickBank, one other suggestion is to be sure to change your payment threshold from the default of $100, to $10 in your account settings.
Other Affiliate Networks to Consider
ClickBank isn’t the only affiliate marketplace out there, they just happen to have a lot of products available, low barriers to entry and a good advanced search option.
Some other affiliate marketplaces to consider include the following:
ShareASale
LinkShare
Commission Junction
OfferVault
uKritic – Site where affiliates post reviews and link to their actual affiliate sites. That is a great way to see what other folks are promoting and to see examples of how their sites are setup and designed.
In-House Affiliate Programs
Something I didn’t touch on in the video/Podcast is that you do not have to utilize affiliate networks necessarily.
Some of the best affiliate programs out there are in-house affiliate programs, run directly by the product vendor themselves.
To find those, search Google for “product name affiliate program”. The good ones have been at it for a long time and they provide the ability to do deep linking to specific pages on their site, better tracking, more tools to help you promote their products and they typically have an affiliate manager to assist you along the way.
Two of the main software programs that companies use to run their own in-house affiliate programs are iDevAffiliate and Post Affiliate Pro. So if you have a product or category in mind, you could search for “product name/category idevaffiliate”, for example, “skin care idevaffiliate” or “skin care postaffiliatepro”.
Tool of the Week
As highlighted in the video, our tool of the week is Long Tail Pro.
That is my recommended keyword research tool and if you watched the video, you saw how quickly and easily we were able to determine whether the product selected had enough traffic and whether we could compete for a spot on the first page of Google.
If you go through my discounted link, you will get their annual plan for $55 off.
Long Tail Pro – Affiliate Link Discount
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Conclusion
It is very important to do the research upfront, when selecting an affiliate product to promote. If you miss any of the steps mentioned above, you could put forth a lot of time and effort, only to come up flat.
How do you choose an affiliate product to promote? Have you had any good or bad experiences with a particular affiliate network or vendor?
Please share your results with us in the comments below, thanks!