Written by: Simon Slade, Guest Blogger

Those of us in the affiliate marketing world work hard to get visitors to our pages, so it’s disappointing when they turn on their heels and walk out without even clicking a HopLink. The disappointment is intensified if you actually paid for the traffic using PPC advertising.

What can you do about this? Is it possible to still get value from visitors who are leaving your site? Do you just let them walk away, or can you still convert them into potential customers without requiring them to buy right then?

A lot of smart Internet marketers realize that every visitor to their site has value, and they maximize that value by realizing that even though not every visitor will hand over money, they can part with something that may prove just as valuable – their email address. Having a list of qualified, opted-in visitors can be very valuable to your marketing efforts, allowing you to re-market to these visitors later (just follow all CAN-SPAM guidelines), and can be a powerful bargaining chip when negotiating joint ventures with other Internet marketers.

Studies indicate that the majority of site visitors leave within 8 seconds of visiting a site. Another significant percentage leaves after reviewing the landing page and deciding the content is either not relevant, or not compelling enough for them. A mere 3% will actually make a purchase, on average. Interestingly enough, though, approximately 30% of visitors will sign up for a newsletter.

If you’re not getting many email addresses from visitors right now, and you’re feeling frustrated by all the traffic just walking away, then I strongly encourage you to try the following methods to improve your signup conversion rate.

• Popover – A popover is a small overlay containing newsletter signup information that can be set to appear on every visitor’s screen shortly after they arrive at your site. Unlike popups, browser blockers do not affect popovers. They can’t be missed either. They appear in an overlay that sits over the top of the page and can be as detailed as you like, listing the reasons why they should sign up and fields for their name and email address. You can see an example of this on SaleHoo’s main landing page (give it a few seconds to show up). You can style them any way you like and include as much or as little text as you want. To maximize your chances of a signup, make it clear what’s in it for them and make sure the whole process is easy and works smoothly!Testing indicates that delaying the popover for about 20 seconds gives visitors a chance to get familiar with your site so they’ll be more inclined to sign up.

• Sidebar signup – If you run a WordPress site, then adding a sidebar widget is something you can probably do in your sleep. Signup form code can be pasted into a standard text/HTML widget. With your signup form appearing on every page of your site, it increases the chances of it being seen and capturing an email lead before they exit, regardless of the entrance page.

Give them a reason to give you their email

Asking for an email address outright doesn’t generally work. The novelty of getting emails wore off about 10 years ago, so there needs to be a good reason for someone to part with their email address these days!

The secret to getting a visitor’s email address is to think about what they want. It sounds obvious but it’s often ignored. You get them what they want and they’ll give you what you want. Simple.

Think about what you have of value that you can offer in exchange for an email address.

• A free eBook
• A free 7-part mini-course
• A free trial membership
• A free SEO report on the visitor’s website (using an SEO tool like Traffic Travis)

Obviously free is a good start, but make it relevant and you’ll be on to a sure thing. For example, if you have a site about dog training, then offer a 7-part course on house training a puppy. Or, if your site is focused on Internet marketing, tempt them with a “Beginners Guide to PPC” eBook.

Give visitors two options: Buy or leave their email address

If you’re only focusing on making sales you’re ignoring around 97% of your visitors. That’s not good business practice. If you put as much effort into capturing email addresses as you do trying to make a sale then you can look forward to a far more successful online business in the future, with an email list that can potentially earn you a lot of extra dollars in the months to come.

Do you try to capture email addresses? What works for you?

About the author

Simon Slade is the CEO of Affilorama, an affiliate marketing training portal that offers free video training, education, and affiliate tools to both beginning and advanced affiliate marketers. You can follow them on Twitter.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. The Do’s and Don’ts of Using Email to Promote ClickBank Products
2. 7 Steps to a Killer Newsletter Strategy
3. 6 Quick-Fix Tips to Fire Up Your Click-Through Rate

Jan. 27, 2010 - In the wake of several merchant account closures due to what major credit card companies consider ambiguous continuity program terms, ClickBank, a global online retailer, is offering several guidelines regarding best business practices for continuity program merchants.

Dush Ramachandran, ClickBank vice president of sales and business development, says clarity is key.

“If you are engaged in a practice in which goods or services are provided automatically, and the customer must either pay for the service or specifically decline it in advance of billing, you must be very clear and upfront about it,” he said. “This type of practice is not unethical unless buyers do not fully understand the terms or sellers do not accept the consumer’s decision to discontinue the service or return the product.”

Ramachandran said the need for transparency and a willingness to accept cancellations also hold true for offers with confusing terms or delayed charges. “Credit card companies are no longer going to support merchants engaging in ‘free’ offers that are not actually free.”

Finally, he said, customers must receive goods or services in exchange for a credit card payment and, for any offer, must provide an affirmative consent such as a mandatory “I agree” statement checkbox where the customer acknowledges the terms and conditions of the offer and consents to be entered into a continuity program.

“At ClickBank, we’ve found that the best way to avoid compliance issues and keep our client’s continuity programs up and running without interruption is to be completely transparent with consumers regarding the terms of continuity programs.”

Take a look at these related posts:

1. Online Retail Giant ClickBank Expands Services to International Markets
2. ClickBank Executive Dush Ramachandran on Affiliate Boards
3. ClickBank Offers PayPal for Recurring Billing

It’s been a year since we launched the open beta phase of our new generation of publisher statistics. In the meantime and after we received some great and helpful feedback, we were working hard to provide you with more functionalities and to improve our statistic services on a regular basis. So now we are ready to remove the little “beta” tag and kick-start into the one and only live phase!

This also means for you that by the 3rd of March, the old version of our publisher statistics will be officially removed from your User Interface’s navigation bar and replaced by our new stats.

+++ UPDATE: Because of our yearly internal company event, we decided to launch on March 10 instead of March 3! +++

You will still be able to access and use the old statistics, but we think that the new ones should definitely be your first choice. And here is why:

Our new usability allows you to get straight to your results with just one click. You have also full flexibility in whatever you do: create your own custom report templates by picking and mixing from a wide selection of reporting elements and parameters. Just save your customised report templates or export them to Excel or as .csv-files. Of course you are also free to choose from more than a dozen of pre-arranged report templates based on most common publisher use cases. This saves you even more time and effort and gets you detailed insight as to how your programmes and advertising spaces are performing. You’ll be also able to see separate results for the statuses “open” and “approved”.

One click to results: Choose from more than a dozen of pre-arranged report templates based on most common publisher use cases.

Those of you who want to customise your own reports will now find the filter selection options under the tab “advanced”.

We also improved the overall performance of our statistics – now they are simply faster and even more reliable. By the 3rd of March we’ll also be able to provide the new statistics in different languages: English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Last but not least, you will be free to include graphs to comfortably visualise sales, leads and commissions and to get a much better feeling for trends and tendencies. With our different chart designs (bar or pie) you can visualise a report’s numbers just the way you need it.

So, if you’re not already using our new statistics, you should definitely try them out! And please keep in mind that you’ll be led to the new application via the “statistics” tab in your User Interface automatically from March onwards. Feel free to let us know what you think and we’ll be happy to discuss and answer your questions. We hope that you’ll enjoy exploring our new stats and stay tuned for more details on the official launch!

+++ UPDATE: Because of our yearly internal company event, we decided to launch on March 10 instead of March 3! +++

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

It’s the final day of Affiliate Summit West 2010, and it’s been a whirlwind event! With over 4000 people in attendance, every day has been very busy and productive. Our Meet Market table and exhibition booth have been swarmed by a mix of current and future vendors and affiliates, and we look forward to adding many new people to our network within the coming weeks.

ClickBank's Meet Market Table on Sunday

In addition to our event sponsorship and exhibiting on the show floor, our VP of Business Development and Marketing, Dush Ramachandran, led a popular session yesterday on affiliate marketing opportunities in Europe.

ClickBank employees chat with visitors at our booth

One of the highlights of this Affiliate Summit were the excellent keynote speeches by Dr. Robert Cialdini and Brian Clark of Copyblogger and DIYThemes, which sells the amazing Thesis theme for WordPress. Both speeches were hugely popular, and generated a lot of great discussion and ideas for boosting online profits in powerful and sustainable ways.

Brian Clark of Copyblogger

Even though it’s the last official day of the show, we’ve still got a packed schedule coming up, with client meetings, parties, and more! We’ll be posting video interviews with some of our clients very soon, but in the meantime check out our pictures from Day 1, 2, and 3 of the show.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit Day 1 Wrap-Up
2. ClickBank Connects with its Network at Affiliate Summit West
3. Affiliate Summit West Wrap-Up

Jan. 14, 2010 – The most promising growth strategies for affiliate marketers in Europe will be the topic of discussion for ClickBank’s Dush Ramachandran, vice president of sales and business development, at Affiliate Summit West 2010, Jan. 17-19 in Las Vegas.

Drawing from his experience working with more than 22,000 affiliate marketers in Europe, Ramachandran will speak about “CPA Affiliate Marketing Opportunities in Europe.” Joining him for this panel discussion will be Jim Banks, CEO of Global Direct Media, James Little of AffiliateFuture, and Matthew Wood, managing director and founder of Existem. The discussion will be held on Monday, January 18, from 3:30-4:30 p.m. in the Tropical room of the Rio Hotel & Casino Convention Center.

Overseeing sales operations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, Ramachandran is frequently invited to speak at the largest and most prominent national and international affiliate marketing meetings. He serves on the advisory boards of Affiliate Summit and Affilicon, its international counterpart.

ClickBank has drawn top vendors and affiliate marketers from around the globe since 1998. To date, the company has paid out the equivalent of €1 billion in commissions.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. ClickBank VP to Discuss Affiliate Growth Strategies at Affiliate Marketing Conferences in LA, Las Vegas
2. ClickBank Provides Affiliate Marketing Insight at Affilicon Israel
3. ClickBank VP Dush Ramachandran to Share Advice on Microniche Marketing at Affiliate Summit East

Written by: Steven Clayton, Guest Blogger

One of the things I get asked a lot is where to begin as an affiliate marketer.

It can all be so overwhelming. There are so many different ways to get traffic, build sites, and pick products to promote (these are the three components of any affiliate marketing effort). In addition, some of these traffic and site building options can be expensive and highly technical, requiring a lot of training and expertise.

My goal in this post is to highlight a way to get started as an affiliate that’s relatively easy, risk-free, zero cost, has a great chance to make your first money online, and doesn’t require any technical knowledge or experience.

We’re going to use ClickBank for our product, a BlogSpot blog for our website, and search engine optimization to get traffic. If you’re totally new to search engine optimization and want a very quick introduction, you may want to check out this video.

Step 1 – Find 10 products you’re interested in promoting

• One of the best parts of being an affiliate for ClickBank is that it’s so easy to get started because there are thousands of unique products to promote. Once you have a ClickBank account, go to the Marketplace and browse it to find products that you have an interest in and/or that you or someone you know would buy.
• Make a note of the products, including their Pitch Pages and the custom HopLinks you’ll use to promote them (you’ll get these by clicking the Promote button next to the Marketplace listing). It’s a good idea to save this information in a text file on your computer.

Step 2 – Find potential keywords using Google’s keyword tool

• Go to Google’s external keyword tool.
• For each product you picked in Step 1, enter the most generic keyword that applies to your product. For example, if you’re promoting a product on how to cure tinnitus, use the keyword “tinnitus” and click the Get Keyword Ideas button.
• Go over to the Match Type drop down box and select Phrase Match.
• Sort the list in descending order of global search volume by clicking on the column Title.
• Make a list of any keyword that is between 10000 and 30000 global monthly searches, and that has something to do with your product.
• At the end of this step, you’ll have 10 lists. Some of these lists may be empty, as it’s possible that there won’t be any keywords that meet our criteria.  We’re being very careful about selecting only the ones that will work for us, so have patience and don’t get discouraged.

Step 3 – Evaluate the competition for SEO

• Now we need to see if it would be possible for us to actually rank in Google for terms that would drive traffic to the product we’re going to market. For each keyword identified in Step 2, head over to Google and type the keyword in quotes. For example, if the keyword phrase was “cure tinnitus,” you’d type “cure tinnitus” into Google.
• You’ll see the search results and the words “Results 1-10 of about xx,xxx” on the right hand side. If the xx,xxx number is less than 100,000, move on to the next step. Otherwise, discard this keyword.
• Do another Google search by typing inurl:”keyword phrase”. For example, for our keyword above it would be inurl:”cure tinnitus”. Take a look at the number of results again. If that number is below 1,250, this keyword is a winner. Make a note of it.

Step 4 – Pick the keyword you want to start with and build a BlogSpot blog

• We’ve picked a BlogSpot blog for 2 reasons: it’s easy to build a nice-looking site quickly, and blogs rank very well in Google.
• In general, pick the keyword phrase that has the highest search volume, the lowest competition numbers from step 3, and seems to be the best fit for someone looking to actually buy your product. There are really no wrong answers here, just go with your instinct using these criteria as a guide.
• Build your BlogSpot blog. Sign up and watch the tutorials on how to create content like posts. When setting up your blog, make sure that the blog title is your keyword phrase.
• Make sure that the blog address (URL) also contains the keyword phrase you’ve picked in some way. So in our example, best-tinnitus-cure, my-tinnitus-cure, etc., all work just fine. Dashes are fine anywhere, so with a bit of creativity you should have no trouble coming up with a name that’s not been taken.
• The goal of your blog is to inform and to sell. Provide valuable content from the Pitch Page of the product, as well as outside resources. Add your HopLink to the actual product using text and possibly images. You can often get images from an affiliate page for the product, which can be found in the product’s Vendor Spotlight in the ClickBank Marketplace.
• Important: Never make up any information about the product! I encourage you to buy the product or have someone you know purchase the product, so you can give a truthful and accurate opinion of it.
• The exact steps to build out the site are too extensive to go into here, but an example should do the trick.  Check this page out.  It will give you a great idea of what we’re after.

Step 5 – Do some link building

• Link building is the key to search engine optimization, and the best way to quickly get included in search engine results for the keyword you’re targeting.
• The process of getting a backlink is a bit different for each option listed below, but you can’t go wrong here.  The idea is to do three things: get a link to your site, use your keyword phrase in the description or tag when you’re using a bookmarking site, use your keyword phrase as the “anchor text” (the text that’s clickable…that is the actual link to your site) whenever possible.  Don’t worry about getting this perfect…any link is better than a perfect link, and you can do no harm!
• Blog comment posting is a popular way of getting backlinks.  Here’s a nice page that explains how to do it.
• Social bookmarking can be a great way to build backlinks to your site.  Here’s a huge list of them! Just set up an account with them and add your site.
• Web 2.0 properties like Squidoo, Hubpages, etc. are great places to put up a small amount of content and then to add a backlink to your site.  Here’s a nice list of these types of sites.
• Also take a look at this guest blog post I did previously for other ideas.

Try to build at least 5-10 backlinks every single day! This will give you the quickest results.

Conclusion

The most important part of this process is the keyword research in steps 2 and 3.  If you have trouble finding the right keyword phrases for the 10 products you selected, go get 10 more and try again. Have patience. If you stick it out and find the right keywords, the rest will usually take care of itself.

After a while… it could be days, could be weeks, you should show up in the Google search results and people will click on your links to the ClickBank product and you’ll make your first money online! Best of luck in your affiliate marketing efforts.

About the author

Steven Clayton and his partner Tim Godfrey are the creators of several best-selling Internet Marketing information products, including Commission Blueprint 2.0, Niche Blueprint, and SEM Business Blueprint. You can get more great advice and information on their blog.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. Choosing the Best Keywords to Promote ClickBank Products Using Search Engines
2. Affiliate Strategies: A Powerful Technique to Test New Products- Part 1
3. Affiliate Strategies: A Powerful Technique to Test New Products- Part 2