A Guaranteed Way to Double, Triple or Quadruple Your Affiliate Earnings

The telephone rang.

"Hey James." It was an affiliate, probably the only one I speak to on a regular basis. "I just wanted to check everything was okay with the affiliate system - I just got a whole bunch of commissions through..."

Let’s backtrack.

The affiliate, Mark, is an incredibly smart guy who I had hired to make a free website for affiliates of my website.

I told Mark a couple of things I wanted (call to action, emphasise the £25 sign up bonus e.t.c.) but Mark did most of the work.

The results were incredible.

From a couple of sales a month, Mark is now making several sales a day. So many, in fact, that he initially thought there was a fault with our affiliate software!

It’s not just traffic...

The experiment confirmed something I had noticed both from the affiliate system I run and from my own experiences as an affiliate. If you have been doing affiliate marketing for a while, it’s something you will probably have noticed yourself:

It’s not just about how much traffic you send to a site, or what that site does with your traffic. It’s also how you prep your traffic.

Consider: The affiliate who sends us the most traffic gets one of the worst conversion rates - in fact, he only makes a sale every three months or so. He has a site plastered with flashing images.

Mark, after making the change, became the top affiliate - generating well over half the affiliate income with just 10% of our affiliate traffic.

What was the change?

I wish I could say it was something complicated that would make us sound clever, but essentially the changes Mark made are this:

• Adding a strong call to action.
• Changing the layout of the site.
• Matching the site colours and style to our website.

Mark and I think the main reason for the increase us related to number 3. The buy now button also sends the customer directly to the product page, so it looks as if the customer is on the same website.

One more thing...

I’m also enjoying a very lucrative affiliate program myself at the moment.

(I would share it with you, but frankly it is paying for my family’s holiday this year and I have no desire to share the niche with more players:) )

The site (mine!) is probably the ugliest one in the world, but I get conversion rates of over 15%.

I think the amazing conversion rates are due to:

• I use the product myself and love it. I think this shows through in my review.
• I can link to an example of myself using the product.
• As I am a user, I can talk honestly about what is not right with the product - and show users how to get around it! As humans we know nothing is perfect, and small faults reassure us that the review is genuine.

How to get the amazing conversion rates...

Both the above stories can be used to your advantage:

1. Match your landing page to the page you are sending affiliates to - then split test with your current page.

2. Write reviews of products you know and like (check out http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/ for great examples of doing this!), listing any faults, and linking to examples of how you have used them. Of course, use your affiliate links to do so.

If you can’t be bothered to do this, of course, you could always join our affiliate scheme - we’ll be launching our free website as soon as we have finished split-testing.

Wonder what we do? Well, smokers form some 20% of the UK population, and we offer them a product which can both save their lives and save them money. That creates a massive opportunity. As David Sweanor, a tobacco harm reduction expert and former advisor to the WHO, once said to us in an interview:

"Seldom is there an offer to become a billionaire while saving millions of lives. I think there will be takers."

Guest post by: James Dunworth is the IT director of E Cigarette Direct, the UK distributor of the NJOY electronic cigarette. He is also the co-author of the TobaccoHarmReduction.org’s study Electronic Cigarette (E Cigarettes) As a Potential Harm Reduction Product.

• How to Maximize Your Profits by Understanding Your Keyword Traffic
• The Easiest Way to Handle Friends That Want You to Teach Them Internet Marketing
• 14 Steps To Jump a Wikipedia Ranking
• How to Promote Your Site by Creating Tools and Widgets
• The 5 Rules of Video and Your Landing Page
• Ranking for the Niche