One of the biggest problems affiliate marketers face is picking the right products to promote on affiliate networks such as Clickbank.
Getting this wrong could lead to a lot of money wasted on PPC, and certainly a lot of time wasted on writing articles and building websites to promote that dud Clickbank product.
The thing is, most marketers will blindly follow the #1 product’s and soon get a shock when these products don’t convert at the “industry standard” of 1%.
Heck, I’ve picked top Clickbank products that convert at 0.70% over the period of a month before, so I feel the pain on that one.
It’s impossible to predict exact figures when promoting affiliate products, but if you follow these simple steps, you’ll get a better idea of how to spot a winner from a wimp in places like Clickbank.
1. Best selling doesn’t mean best converting
Don’t always be drawn to the number one product on Clickbank, it doesn’t mean you’ll be successful if you simply drop in and start promoting it. It’s more to do with how you presell your visitors and the keyword you target to reach them.
Remember, if you’re not able to set up a good presell page or system to promote affiliate products, you might not see very good conversions at all. So don’t be fooled into thinking that just because lots of people are making sales with a product means that you will automatically do the same.
For example, diet pills sell in their millions both offline via mail order and online via websites. However, that doesn’t mean you could just buy a truckload of the things and start making a killing selling in your local town and via your one page website does it?
The point is, be prepared to presell or it will be a tough sell, no matter how popular the product is.
2. Desperate markets have deeper pockets
The more hungry a person is for a solution to their problems, or a fix for their desires, the more money they spend and the less convincing they will need to do so. The types of products that meet the desperate markets criteria should all cater to instant fixes.
Things like PC repair, a quick guide to fix something or find something out, a tool that performs a laborious task quickly etc…
3. How long been on the market? The longer the better.
The longer the product has been around and has been consistently advertised/sold, the better. If you try to promote a new product, you’re going to be riding either side of the wave until you either crash or rise to the top. With proven, long standing products there is far less risk as the product is clearly fulfilling a need in the market and is not about to be easily buried.
4. Long running PPC ads exist?
The final way to establish if a product is actually worth promoting (and if it is actually making money) is to look at the affiliates of that product. The easiest place to find these affiliates is of course in the PPC listings.
Pick out some keywords that are related to the product/market and see who is advertising the same product that you have in mind. Watch them for a few weeks and see if they stick around. If they do, then clearly they are making money promoting the same affiliate product that you have in mind.
These three steps can set you apart from your fierce online competition and you should always deploy them in every PPC campaign you set up.
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