Ah, come on now. You surely didn’t fall for that did you?

And yet people do. Every day.

To be honest, it irritates me that people fall for straplines like that. Now, I’m not saying that the people selling affiliate marketing books / online income books are all fraudsters preying on desperate newbies who want to make quick money. But the ones who offer “iron clad” earnings guarantees most definately are. To my mind, this does two things. First, it gives the whole affiliate marketing industry a spammy sheen that it most definately does not deserve. Second, it disappoints people and adds a burden of failure to their aspirations to improve their financial situation.

So. What I’m trying to say is that if you’re someone looking for more information on affiliate marketing remember this: – If it sounds easy or too good to be true… it is. Save your money. Here’s what I think the biggest secret to success in affiliate marketing: Its hard bloody work, a lot of research, and a few failures before you get that first golden paycheque.

Another secret: – All the information you need to succeed is available for free on the internet.

So with that in mind, I’m going to chuck up a handful of places you can get good free information. If anyone has any additions to my list, drop me a line in the comment field and I’ll get them added. Purveyors of spam need not apply

I absolutely do not make any kind of guarantee as to your earning potential once you have read these information sources. That’s entirely up to you and your own entrepreurial flair… which is something no crappy e-book can give you (and something nobody else can copy from you and resell either).

This is intended as a starting point, not a comprehensive list. Good luck!

Affiliate Marketing Forums: –

There’s also a great series of podcasts for newbies over at Frasers Affiliate Blog.

Oh, and lets not forget my very own beginners guide to adwords PPC and the Setting up your first affiliate site guide by Steven Marwick of Virtual Cards!

Both of these have newbie sections, and seem to be pretty friendly places. Any question you might have is likely to have been asked already, so there’s great information in forum archives.

SEO: –

Network Name: Affiliate Future
URL: http://www.AffiliateFuture.co.uk

Contact Details:
AffiliateFuture
Kirkman House
12/14 Whitfield Street
London
W1T 2RF
United Kingdom

Telephone: 0207 927 8115

Type of Merchants Available: Affiliate Future has a fair few travel merchants on its books and is therefore a firm favourite with affiliates specialising in this area. Virgin Holidays, Aspro Tours, Thrifty Car Rental & Portland Direct are there to name just a few. They also look a little more favourably on adult type merchandise such as toys, lingerie and DVD’s than most other affiliate networks.

Payments: Minimum payout is £25 for which Payments tend to be made around 12 to 16 days after the end of the month in which you earn them, so Affiliate Future earn lots of brownie points for helping out affiliates with their cash flow.
Read the rest of this entry »

I love affiliate marketing. I eat, sleep, and breathe it. Why? I could go on forever, but here are my main reasons.

Every day I wake up, and it feels a bit like Christmas. I have a funny little feeling of excitement in the pit of my stomach and a great feeling of optimism. The cause? My one true passion in life, affiliate marketing. As soon as I open my eyes, that’s me… I have to get up, grab a quick tea and get straight onto the internet to assess what happened yesterday and plan my day ahead.

The other great thing about affiliate marketing, is that you don’t need to stay in one place to do it. You can take time off whenever you like and generally your earnings don’t suffer from it (within reason!). I’ve been travelling for the last 7 months and running my affiliate business on the road. So far I’ve been to Thailand, New Zealand, and half way round Australia whilst still earning 5 times my salary when I worked for an online marketing agency.

I feel blessed each and every day. Whenever I’m doing something amazing on my trip like swimming on a beautiful reef in Thailand, or sitting on an impossibly beautiful beach, I think about affiliate marketing… because it’s the real vehicle that has brought me to all the wonderful places I’m seeing right now. I do have to work part time on my trip… here’s a picture of me in my mobile office complete with internet connection from a 3G datacard.

Finally, I love affiliate marketing for its wonderful economy of scale. One person can run a business with virtually limitless turnover and profit. Once you have something set up and bringing in an income stream, you can move onto your next project again, and again, and again, and watch the turnover slowly build into something truly special. This is a simplification; but if I really told you guys how I do things, this post would be encyclopaedic in nature!

Affiliate marketing… I love you!!

Network Name: TradeDoubler
URL: http://www.TradeDoubler.com
Contact Details:
4th Floor, 52 Grosvenor Gardens
London, SW1W 0AU
United Kingdom

Telephone: 0207 881 1489

Type of Merchants Available: Tradedoubler has a huge amount of large brands as merchants. As every affiliate knows, big brands can mean big money if promoted in the right way. Tradedoubler’s portfolio includes affiliate programmes from American Express, Dell, Ann Summers, Natwest, and Opodo to name but a few.

Min Payout:£30.

Payments: Payments tend to be made two months in arrears. However, Tradedoubler has some merchants available to promote who “prepay” commissions. This means that whatever commissions you earn will appear in your bank account the following month. There are a few of these around, so good scope to speed up your affiliate payments!

2nd Tier Commissions: Nope.

Support Quality : Tradedoubler have had some fairly chronic issues with giving affiliates appropriate support in the past. The need to contact a particular account manager direct about affiliate queries has sometimes led to delays or total lack of response. However, they are now attempting to rectify this situation by creating a dedicated team of “publisher managers”. This has started to work well, and they have recently promised to answer all affiliate queries the same day if submitted before 4pm (Mon-Fri). A marvellous step, but we shall see if they fall on their own sword over this one!

Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to take a bit of a look at UK affiliate networks in terms of the features they offer to affiliates. For example, what kind of merchant performance data do they provide? What tracking tools? What are their feeds like? I’m starting with Affiliate Window… because they begin with an “A” and because I happen to really like using their affiliate interface and reporting.

Network Name: Affiliate Window
URL: http://www.affiliatewindow.com
Contact Details:
Affiliate Window Ltd
3rd floor
100 Leman Street
London, E1 8EU
United Kingdom

Tel: 0844 557 9240
Fax: 0844 557 9241

Type of Merchants Available: Affiliate Window has a broad base of merchants for affiliates to promote. Increasingly attracting in big brand names such as Woolworths, Vodafone, Curry’s & B&Q this network also has a good selection of gift, gadget and clothing merchants. Also a handful of gambling and finance programmes.

Min Payout: £25

Payments:Twice monthly. Merchants have 28 days to validate payments and the network is active in encouraging validations from all merchants to ensure as speedy payment as possible to affiliates.

2nd Tier Commissions: Yes, usually 5% with participating merchants. Some pay lower amounts dependent on margins.

Support Quality : Generally pretty good. Affiliate Window makes use of a support ticket system which makes it difficult for your enquiry to go unanswered. Queries generally get a response within 24 hours. E-mails sent direct to individual members of staff are answered quickly and curteously. Read the rest of this entry »

Tradedoubler’s track record on communication with affiliates has come in for heavy criticism for quite some time now. Many affiliates have complained the network simply does not respond at all to e-mail communications. Tradedoubler themselves have previously admitted that they have a problem answering e-mails, with many genuine queries being sent to junk e-mail folders.

This week Tradedoubler have announced they will now guarantee a same day response to queries submitted via the online support form before 4pm.

This is pretty brave considering the criticism that has been levelled at them by affiliates. Their system had better be absolutely bullet proof otherwise the A4UForum will be echoing with the sound of their long-suffering affiliates complaining once more about a lack of servce.

Time will tell Tradedoubler, but we’ll be watching you….