Newbie Research questions

I am a newbie researching to jump into affiliate marketing. In particular I am looking at Clickbank and Adwords.

I have been reading various forums/blogs etc on the topic but I couldn't find answers to the following:

1. How do you select a product that sells and how do you actually verify that it sells? (I know once you start promoting it you'll know but is there any ways to find out before hand )

2. I have also read about that it is better for affiliates to have their own landing pages. The question is should these landing pages then direct the traffic to the vendor's sales pitch page or the product page where the viewer can simply buy the product. If you direct the traffic to the vendor's sales pitch then won't it be a big turn off for the viewers because essentially your landing page is a sales pitch.

3. I have also noticed that many vendors have their own opt-in mailing lists. What if the traffic you send them subscribe to their opt-ins rather than your opt-ins and then buy something later on. Do you still get a commission on that sale?

Hopefully someone can answer these.

Thanks in advance
TheDeep

 

Hey TheDeep,

Good questions, here's some answers.

1.) That's really what everyone would like to know Some things you know sell well, as indicated by their gravity. Some of these have a very high refund rate though, so you make a lot of sales and have a lot of refunded sales, so watch out.

Really, though, how well something sells is not only a mix of how well-developed their sell page is, but the audience you select and how well you market to them.

In general, it's hard to know if something will sell or not, ignoring gravity, other than face value. A good test is:

- Do I know who *exactly* this product is marketed to? Is it marketed to dog owners? small dog owners? rare breed small dog owners? rare breed small dog owners whose dogs have obedience issues? rare breed small dog owners whose dogs have obedience issues and who are wanting to go online and purchase a solution?

- Do I know *exactly* the problems or desires of the audience? Is the product I'm selling them a cure/solution/information that they don't need, or is it something that answers their questions exactly, spoken in their style language?

If you can do the research and answer these questions, you will generally have a far better idea if the product is successful when marketed correctly.

2.) No. The idea of a landing page is to pre-sell, not to sell. You generate & build interest in the product, "stoke the fire", so to speak. Maybe provide a brief (100-150 word) review of the product, with the sole message of "Hey, does this sound exactly like what you want? Go here (merchant site) to learn more about how you can achieve exactly what you want!" From there, the merchant just adds excitement and demonstrates the product's features to try to close the sale.

Just keep the lander brief & simple, and you'll do fine. Don't try to re-write the whole sales pitch page.

3.) It's still a good idea to have your own list. If the user hits your page and then clicks-through to the merchant and signs up to their mailing list, and later buys that product (within 30 days), your affiliate ID is still locked to their cookie for that product, so you should get the credit.

Of course, you won't have the opportunity to continue marketing to them, but if the merchant's newsletter persuades them to buy the product, you'll at least get credit, assuming they haven't cleared their cookies or clicked through through another affiliate's link.

But it's still a good idea to run opt-ins on your own site, since many surfers may not click through to the merchant on their first visit to your page.


Hope this helps!

-T

 

good answers.
deffinetly research the market before you advertise with adwords

 

Hi TheDeep,

If you haven't spent some time looking at cbengine, then that might help.

http://www.cbengine.com/ <---not an affiliate link

Art