Conversion Junction

Affiliate marketing can equally rewarding and frustrating at the same time. The concept of marketing other people’s products online is rather simple. The formula for success on paper is pretty simple also. The issues comes in when the actual choosing of a product and marketing the product begins.

The question of the day is; When should you pull the plug on marketing campaign? If you are using Pay Per Click, you only have a few days to make that decision before you lose the shirt off your back.

The formula I used to decide if a product is worthy of my continue efforts depends on several factors. Today I will share with you the formula that has kept me from giving up on affiliate marketing altogether.

Research Your Product:

You want to find a product that is somewhat competitive but not over saturated. A product that is over saturated will take up too much time with organic SEO and to much money with PPC. A totally untapped market may mean two things: one the product is not in demand or you have found a treasure chess. To find out if you are sitting on a goldmine, you must do some keyword research to find out if the searches for the product is high.

Test Your Product:

Before you spend a dime promoting any product, do some test to make sure that It will sell. The easiest way to test a product is to find some non competitive keywords and start a Squidoo Lens or a Hub on Hub Pages. Write a non promotional review about the product using your keywords in the title and content. If you do not make a sale after 200 click thrus, then trash the campaign.

Compare Keywords Selection:

It is a wise choice to use more than one keyword tool. Many people live or die by one keyword tool. This can be a huge mistake since keyword analysis is not an exact science. The only people that know for certain all the keywords that are being used is the search engines and mum is the word with them. Comparing your keywords with at least two sources will give you a better idea of the keywords effectiveness.

I personally like to use Google adwords keyword tool for suggestions on keywords only. They tend to be more effective for adwords broad match then for individual ranking for a keyword. I then compare the suggestions from adwords with Word Tracker, Keyword Discovery and Word Pot. If I get 3 out of 4 to agree, then I move forward. Two out of four, I proceed with caution. One out of four, I trashed the keyword.

The total time it takes me to do this research is about 3 hours for approximately 10 keywords. Those 3hours of testing and research on the other hand, can save months of frustration and tons of money. The keys to success may be different for everyone, but one thing for certain is you will need a plan of attack before you can succeed.