Hey everyone and welcome back to the Introduction to Affiliate Marketing,

If you have read my last thread, we will have already run through the basics of affiliate marketing. This time around I want to switch the spotlight onto the differences between Clickbank and other affiliate marketing sites and how this can affect sales and advertising.

As some of you may already know, Clickbank is used for digital products products only and does not sell real items (for obvious reasons such as postage and handling fees, insurance of products etc…). Although clickbank is the best affiliate system in the world, it’s products can be hard to advertise and are usually very competitive. Many people prefer to sell real world items, such as the items available through the affiliate website; Commission Junction. CJ (Commission Junction) offers affiliate marketing of wide variety of real world items such as clothes or ipods etc… But why would you sell real world items over digital items? Simply because they’re worth more and you can advertise real world products very easily.

Real world items are usually worth more than digital items because:

• Digital items can be infinitely produced.
• Digital items be downloaded illegally.
• Real world items take manual labor.
• Real world items need to be delivered, which means a delivery fee.

Advertising real world items can be considerably easier for a number of reasons, however I’ll go over the main ones:

• Real world items are desirable to more people. For example, why would a mother working full time need to download PSP games? That mother might want new shoes or some new pants, these are things that everyone needs.
• Real world products can be shown in action. For example, you could make a video of someone listening to an iPod in order to advertise your website.

This information is hardly surprising when you think about it, however it may not be as obvious to most people who promote an affiliate link. Most people simply rush in and advertise the first product they see. This may seem like a good strategy for a short while, but if you really want to reap the rewards of affiliate marketing then you need to know how to advertise on the web very effectively using many different methods and techniques. A lack of advertising skills will result in a waste of time for those who want to advertise any product over the internet.

Although I have talked about real world products being “better” so far, this is not always the case, it really depends on your situation. For example, if you have just started a site that reviews different clothes companies (using affiliate techniques desbribed in “Introducing Affiliate Marketing - Part 1), then you may not get sales until you have fully optimized your site, advertised on Google Adwords, worked on your site’s SEO etc… It also depends on how well the product (that you’re advertising or reviewing) converts, if your real world product doesn’t convert as well as a digital ebook, then you may get more money out of the digital ebook for the next few months. However if you have established a good site based on real world products, which is properly SEOd and converts well then you are almost certain to make more money out of this, than out of a site advertising cheaper digital products.

Just a quick note: Remember that word of mouth is a very very very important advertising tool. If you provide people with a helpful affiliate site, with lots of information about different products, then you might just find that your site will grow rapidly.

I hope that you enjoyed this post and I hope that I’ll be writing again soon,

Chris from Money007.