Newb Guide Pt 4: Picking What to Promote
This is part 4 of Nickycakes’ affiliate newbie guide. Please go read the previous parts if you have not already.
Ok, so you have your tracking set up, you are approved at some affiliate networks, what do you do next? Well, now you have to pick what you want to advertise. Since, like Nickycakes, you probably have about 0 real world marketing experience, you probably have no idea what to do.  And even if you DID have an idea what to promote, it would be wrong. That is why you really have only 2 options: asking someone, and trial and error. You will be using a combination of both.
When Nicky got started, he tried to promote a bunch of stuff that he thought would do well, and it all failed. Then he started randomly picking stuff that he never thought would ever do well in a million years, and guess what happened…he found some profitable campaigns.
Ask Someone
Go to your affiliate managers at all the networks you are signed up with and ask them to pick 1 offer for you that they think you could have the most succeses with. If they recommend one that has already been recommended to you by another AM, ask for another. Get a list of 3-5 and write them down. Affiliate managers are a great resource for this because they know exactly what is doing well for other people. They know what a lazy newbie like you can do well with, so just ask.
Pick a Few at Random
Pretty simple…go through the list of offers and literally pick a couple random ass ones. As mentioned earlier, you suck at marketing, so throwing a dart at a dartboard or banging your face forecefully against the keyboard will certainly provide better results than your best instincts.
Combining the two should give you like 5-7 offers to get started with. Make sure you write them down, along with the network that they’re on and what the payouts are, because that stuff is easy to lose track of.
This post is rather short, but it will probably take you a while to get done, so get started.
Next post is about landing pages.
It’s pretty simple really. Just promote Fleshlights.
pretty much.. in affiliate marketing, all roads lead to fleshlight
This post taught me everything I Know.
don’t forget the backend shamwow sales from your fleshlight customer list.
What do you when your AM send you an email saying “this xxx offer is good” but when you ask about XXX – i.e what its doing best in and they tell you “search” and you ask which particular search engine and they say “dont know” ?
Would you classify this as a dumb ass lazy AM or is it an acceptable reply?
Thanks for the guides by the way – cant wait for the new one.
I try to never tell my AM’s anything about how i’m promoting offers, so it could be that they just have no idea, or they dont want to share the secrets of other affiliates. Not that it matters, you should be testing that stuff out yourself anyway.
Nicky,
Aha! You have revealed the greatest secret ever on how to be successful at Affiliate Marketing…”There is no one method that consistently works, you just have to TRY-STUFF!”
Thank you for saving me years of chemical-induced escape from thinking I could ‘MASTER’ any of this AM marketing over-night…
Inside of all the angry quips, you have a helpful side, shhh I won’t tell..
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase
Affiliate Summit West 2009 attendee
ShamWow….lmao I was thinking of that one too!
ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI ACAI
Where’s my Obama grant?
If the AM’s knew exactly HOW the affiliates were crushing an offer, I’m guessing that they would not be AM’s. I know if I were making $5K a day, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be in Tahiti.
I ask this all the time to get a feel as to what others do.
Do you buy a domain per offer? Obviously if you’re going to try a few offers for one niche you buy one. But right off the bat do you buy a domain?
You could also try looking up the trends to see what the hot item is being searched for. Not recommended for newcomers but it’s an added source for research.
Great series of affiliate marketing posts!
I’m saving this for my friends…
Yea I prefer the first one ask some one who knows better as I am lazy. But I know the real fun lies in trial and error method.
Love this guide very polished.
great read and comments are hilarious…..
Thanks for your efforts to publish this in 2009
Any major changes by mid 2012??