Although key factors drive affiliate marketing growth in the coming years; online business failure and fears of a crowded market place cause some good people to back away from an online business, especially affiliate marketing.
These good people may think the Internet is getting too crowded for new entrepreneurs. Perhaps growth information in this post can help put those fears at rest.
Consider Please These Facts:
- Internet growth means many, many opportunities exist for anyone wanting to start an online business. More opportunities crop up daily.
- Consider today’s Cyber Monday sales – greater than last year. Major retailers from Walmart to The Home Depot are driving sales via their web sites. More people purchase on line than ever before. And they become returning customers.
- Business thrives when solutions meet existing demand. Today’s analytic tools provide outstanding data indicating which niches are good to enter and which are cooling. Remember, your product is determined by the customer want or need it satisfies. Many, many pizza parlors surrounded the Eastern Michigan University when Tom Monaghan and his brother started Domino’s. There product was not pizza. Domino’s sells convenience.
- 95% of people trying to make money on the Internet earn less than $500 a year. That’s because most want to get rich quick. Most fail on the Internet because they want to make fast money online. The objective is starting and running an Internet based business. Just about everyone I know working online makes a reasonable amount each month. When I last moved the moving company crew chief shared with me he earns $35,000 a month selling on Amazon and eBay. He’d been building his business over six years and was soon leaving his job to work online full-time.
- Most people quit working online when they learn there is simply no way you can buy a $27 software program that runs while you sleep and pulls in big bucks to your bank account with you doing nothing. For online money-making success understand this: success knows you are starting a business. The Internet is not just another J-O-B opportunity. Be prepared to learn necessary lessons that create sustainable income via the Internet.
A Fast Entry to Making Money Online
I am an affiliate marketer. I drive traffic to product offers and earn a commission for each sale. That is how I make most of my money online. I sell on Amazon and eBay. I also have web sites where I sell collectibles, shipping them from my storage facility. Each day I set aside an hour to study my business niche. I also read many articles on affiliate marketing. This is what I do. This is my dot-com lifestyle. I work when I want and wherever I have an Internet connection. Working online gives me a great life and I recommend everyone give it a try.
If you want to get started with your own online business click here. That link takes you to the best online business opportunity, one I’ve been part of for 3 1/2 years.
A problem many have making money online is their mind set. Think of the problem this way: Just because you pay tuition at a college, university, or trade school doesn’t mean you get a degree or certificate of completion, or industry certification. You actually have to attend class, prove your knowledge (tests and exams), and offer practical demonstrations you know the course work.
Starting an online business is no different. You can buy all the promoted money-making courses and software, but you will not be successful unless you learn the Tao of Online Money Making. That’s not the title of a book, it’s just the way I think of what you need to know.
We All Need Coaches
Remember the old TV show, Kung Fu? The series hero never stopped learning from his kung fu master. That sage referred to the hero as ‘grasshopper‘. Well, Grasshopper, do it the right way and you, too, can master the skills necessary to make money online.
The secret to success is learning something so you can teach it to someone else. The difference between playing catch in the park and playing for a team is desire, coaching, and practice.
I’m thinking of the tired joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” I meet many people who ask me how to make money online and I tell them to Google affiliate marketing, or similar keywords. Usually we know the serious people from those just curious. Serious people have already done some homework and ask different questions. The curious just want easy money.
Serious people put in the time and resources to actually start an online business. The curious spend a few bucks, if that, and give up. The curious are like fledgling farmers pulling carrots out of the ground to see how they’re doing. Learn what you’re doing. You’re serious when you know what to do next without before you are asked.
When my younger son said he wanted to play golf we told him you learn to play before you play. That was many years ago. He’s now a top amateur who astounds his duffer friends with his casual approach to the game. On the tee he chats away then smacks a 290 yard drive down the middle of a par 5 fairway. That’s after many years of lessons and practice rounds.
Perhaps you should read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. This excellent work discusses top people from the Beatles to software billionaires did to achieve their remarkable success. Spend a few bucks on this book before buying some get-rich-while-sleeping software package.
Add to your knowledge every day
For y our pleasure below is an article by Carolyn Kmet first published on the Practical Commerce website a while back. It describes affiliate marketing research. It tells of expected affiliate marketing growth. First published a while back, the points made are still relevant.
I worked for many years in economic development. During that time I made many friendships with leading economists. To a person they predict a severe economic downturn (read recession) starting later this year.
Actually, we haven’t yet fully recovered from the 2008 recession. That one took me to the cleaners. Make sure you protect your finances no matter what your situation is today. In today’s world you owe it to yourself and your family to have more than one income stream. I strongly encourage you to start a business of your own. Do it online and the cost of entry is nothing compared to brix & stix operations.
Here is Carolin’s article. Enjoy:
In August 2015, Rakuten Affiliate Network commissioned Forrester, the research company, to conduct a study on the factors driving growth in the affiliate industry.
Forrester surveyed decision makers at 151 large U.S. advertisers (in excess of $200 million in annual revenue) and 151 large U.S. publishers (with traffic that ranks in the top 5,000). Forrester also conducted 10 interviews with advertisers and publishers “on the challenges and opportunities affiliate marketing presents.”
The results, which Rakuten released — here’s the PDF — forecast that U.S. affiliate marketing spending will increase by 10 percent annually between 2015 and 2020, to roughly $6.8 billion. It also reported three key factors that will drive this growth, according to the participants.
Consumers Want Informative Content
Consumers today are more sophisticated in how they shop. They utilize many sources to inform their purchasing decisions. As such, consumers have higher expectations for relevant, compelling marketing content. Retailers and affiliates are both seeking opportunities to use that content through the affiliate channel.
This is a notable shift, as historically high volume coupon and deal sites have dominated the affiliate channel. According to the study, retailers will increasingly partner with content affiliates — bloggers, mainly — to educate customers to new and informative product and service information in relevant environments, as well as to drive purchases and conversions.
- Consumers today are more sophisticated in how they shop. They utilize many sources to inform their purchasing decisions.
“Savvy consumers have come to expect a higher standard of native content resulting in a rise of investment toward influencer marketing programs and affiliate marketing in particular,” stated Melissa Feemster, general manager and senior vice president of Rakuten Affiliate Network.
According to the study, advertisers see affiliate marketing as a way to break through the clutter of other digital channels to capture consumers’ attention. And since this is done on a performance basis, advertisers can often avoid the usual costs of new customer acquisition.
Acquisition Methods to be More Sophisticated
The study notes that many of the surveyed advertisers are using forecasting and marketing-mix tools to analyze and adjust their affiliate programs. However, few advertisers are applying advanced attribution tools to analyze the multichannel impact. Instead, advertisers are relying on first-click and last-click methods to attribute revenue. (I’ve addressed attribution challenges previously, by the way, at “Affiliate Marketing: Many Ways to Attribute Sales.”)
First-click and last-click attribution approaches do not provide clear insight into the impact affiliate marketing has throughout the consumer’s purchase journey. A consumer may read a product review on one site, watch a product demonstration on YouTube, search for additional product applications on another site, and ask for further opinions from friends on social media.
If retailers consider only first-click and last-click, they may not value the intermediate influences that shape a purchase decision. The study notes that without sophisticated attribution, “Many advertisers risk overlooking the blog post that made consumers aware of available products or services, the article that laid out the options available among different competitors, or other content that helped the customer choose the accessories for their recent purchase.”
In other words, retailers that only focus on first-click or last-click attribution will not fully understand what influences affiliate sales. For example, say an advertiser pays a flat fee plus commission for a product review on a blog. If a shopper first encountered the product on a coupon site (the first click), read that blog post after seeing the coupon, and then clicked on a banner ad (the last click) to go to the advertiser’s site and complete the purchase, the advertiser will not know that the product review played a key role in the purchase decision. The advertiser might conclude that paying a blogger for a product review is wasteful, when in fact, the post influenced the consumer.
Retailers Value Expertise
According to the study, affiliates typically market themselves to retailers by emphasizing traffic and site quality. However, retailers value product and industry expertise as the most important factor in deciding which affiliates, or publishers, to work with.
“If an advertiser wants to appeal to a niche market, then a publisher with lower traffic but deeper penetration into that niche market will be much more attractive to an advertiser,” Feemster, with Rakuten, stated in the report. “In turn, publishers want to work with multiple advertisers and may aim to appeal more broadly in order to increase the potential number of advertisers they work with.”
A Few End Words
- Affiliate marketing will continue to grow. The Internet revenue pie is not finite. It grows as more people worldwide go online to purchase goods and services.
- The best time and place to begin is where you are.
- Learn to swim before diving into a body of water.
- Start with basic instruction such as Top Tier Side Income.
- Be encouraged by success of others. Some Internet rock stars may be off-putting waving evidence of big bank accounts and heavy daily earnings. Yet, most doing that are actually making that kind of money online. Find mentors compatible with your sensibility and learn from them.
- If you are serious about starting an online business (not just seeking a few quick bucks) start today.
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