Disclaimer: Since affiliate links do not effect the context of this post, I am using them when linking to the affiliate network. If you are not signed up with AzoogleAds, and would like to be, simply use one of the links in this post, send me an email, and I will talk to my account manager about getting your application approved.

A big factor for your success or non-success in affiliate marketing is the offers that you choose to promote. There are markets that just don’t do well online, merchants that do a poor job of converting the visitor into a sale/lead, and offers that are just difficult to promote for one reason or another. You can avoid these problems by understanding how to choose good markets, using your judgment when choosing merchants, and thinking out of the box when developing promotion strategies.

As you progress in your affiliate marketing ventures, and increase the number of successes that you have, you will also increase your confidence and knowledge of what makes a good offer. To help you get an idea of how I think, I will pick a few offers (none of which I have promoted before) and give you my thought process on them; one or two per post. Some of them may look promising while others may not. Hopefully this will turn into a frequently recurring series.

The Offer: Value Plus / Vacation Passport Trial

I found these two offers (value plus, vacation passport) while browsing AzoogleAds. They are both essentially the same offer, but are targeted at different markets. They have a base payout of $18.25 per lead, can be incentivized, offer a built-in incentive ($25 gift card), have almost no restrictions, and are based on inexpensive trials.

Trial offers are great because you can get huge payouts compared to the relative cost to the consumer. I almost always have success when promoting trials. A free trial would have been better, but it only costs $1.95 and is more of a validation step than anything. Also, on top of the $18.25 base payout, I’m sure that once you send even a couple leads their way, your Azoogle affiliate manager can bump it up to $20-$25 per lead. This would give you an enormous advantage on your margins.

Landing Page Strategy

So how would I promote these offers? Well, the one thing that I don’t like about these offers is their landing page (they both have essentially the same one). If you send unqualified visitors to this page, I can almost guarantee you that they won’t convert. It just does not offer enough compelling reasons for a consumer to give out their credit card details. This means that you will have to do more work with your own presell page, but that is actually a good thing.

By being forced to set up your own promotion, you can differentiate yourself from the crowd and all of the other affilaite marketers who are too lazy to spend the amount of time required. The first thing you should do is buy a domain name specifically for the market you are going to promote (two if you wanted to promote both of them). Keep it short and sweet so that you have space to add additional information to your display URL in the PPC engines (this is usually limited to 35 characters).

Next, I would see if there were any related offers that I could combine on a comparison/review page. I have found this to be the best choice because it gives the consumer a feeling of control. If there were no other compatible offers, I would simply create a catchy, yet easy to read, landing page that clearly displays all of the benefits, explains why they should sign up, stresses the trial offer and $25 gift card, and makes multiple calls to action (actually says things like “sign up now”).

All of your call to action links would point to the offer landing page (with your affiliate link), and hopefully you will have informed and sold your visitor on the membership.

Making Use of Incentives

Since these offers do allow incentives, you might as well make use of them. Generally, I advise against out-of-pocket incentives because there isn’t much point in reducing your margins. I’ve seen affiliates promote a $20 offer with a $10 cash incentive, and I am pretty sure they aren’t making more net profit than I am with no incentives.

The right way to do incentives is to offer something that has no reproduction cost to you. Make a quick compilation guide of [free] articles and links from around the internet. Make some how-to videos that the market would find interesting. Interview some experts in the given market and give away the audios as an incentive. The great thing about this is that you don’t have to worry about the logistics of tracking individual signups. If someone just wants your bonuses for free, and tells you they signed up when they really didn’t, you don’t have to worry about getting ripped off… your reproduction cost is $0.

For this particular offer, I would probably also offer an optional $1.95 monetary incentive. Just say something like “if you want to sign up, but are turned off by the $1.95 trial, just let me know and I’ll pay your trial fee.” Most people wont take you up on this offer, but for those that do, the $1.95 paid will be worth it. To make sure you are getting ripped off here, just require that they send your a copy of their payment receipt and their PayPal address that they would like the funds sent to.

Choosing The Right Keywords

You can never know for sure what the right keywords are, but you can certainly increase your chances of finding the right keywords. For these offers, I would use base keywords like “budgeting, budgeting guide, budgeting advice, household finances, reduce spending, frugal living, hotel coupons, retail coupons, etc” and then probably combine them with the names of states, large cities, stores, restaurants, hotels, etc.

Of course, each of these keywords should have their own pay-per-click ads and, if possible, their own variations of your landing page. If you just lump everything together without any organization and/or planning, you will end up with inactive keywords, low click-through-rates, and expensive click prices.

Again, not all of your keywords are going to prove successful. You will need to test, track, and monitor your results. Some keywords might be too competitive (increase your bids or niche down deeper) and other keywords just won’t turn into sales (rework your corresponding ads and landing pages or throw them out).

Going Beyond Evaluation

What I have done here is a quick analysis of a random affiliate offer. These are just ideas of how I would likely approach this market and offer. The actual steps for setting everything up, creating your campaigns, grouping your keywords, building your landing pages, and testing your results can be as simple or as complex as you feel necessary.

The real key here is that you simply need to get out there and try it. With experience, you will be able to evaluate offers with your own knowledge and style. If you don’t feel comfortable spending money just yet, just go through hypothetical scenarios. Do all of the thing I did above, analyze the competition, and watch everything unfold. You will see some marketers stay in the game (they are probably making money) while others come and go (their promotions weren’t successful).

End Note: The offers that were discussed in this post were found through the AzoogleAds CPA network. If you would like to get an account with them, use this link and send me an email so I can talk to my account manager about expediting your application.