How to market your Affilate Sites

Once you have an affiliate website up and running, how do you drive traffic? What are effective methods of bringing qualified traffic, both online and offline? Here are a few methods, for both beginners and more experienced marketers.

Online Marketing

What’s great about online marketing is how trackable it is and how fast it can work. In just days after launching an online campaign, you’ll know exactly how well it’s working. You’ll know what’s effective and what’s not.

Where can you get traffic from online? Here’s a (non-comprehensive) list:

* Google AdWords
* Google Content Network
* Banner ad buys
* Other Search PPC: Yahoo, MSN, etc.
* Third-tier networks: AdBrite, 7 Search, etc.
* SEO
* Article marketing
* Co-registration
* Third party PPC: Facebook PPC, MySpace PPC, etc.

The list goes on and on. Start testing which traffic sources work for you and your business, at first on a small scale; then expand it as you get more traffic.

Offline Marketing Methods

Many super affiliates believe offline is where it’s at. While online marketing is extremely competitive among affiliates, offline is still relatively untouched.

How do you get traffic offline?

At the most basic level, by getting cheap exposure to your website. In fact, one of the most profitable dating affiliates did this using a very simple, very affordable method.

He put signs all over a city saying “Single? Go to SanMateoDating.com” (where San Mateo is the city). He started by buying domains of his local cities and sticking his own lawn signs all over the place.

Once it was clear that the business was a success, he then expanded his business and bought hundreds of domains and outsourced thousands of signs. Today, his business earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

This is just one example of how a very simple advertising method expanded and scaled can earn some very serious money.

Where can you generate traffic offline? Here are a few places to look into:

* Classified ads
* Radio ads
* Magazine ads
* Newspaper ads
* Direct mail
* Flyer advertising

Classified ads are a great place to start because they’re so cheap and so scalable. If you find something that works, you can buy classifieds all over the world.

If you’re buying magazine or newspaper ads, consider doing a direct mail postcard campaign first. Often times your buy-in will be less and you’ll be able to gauge whether or not a specific audience will convert for less money.

When you’re buying any kind of “media,” i.e. TV, radio, magazine, be sure to negotiate hard. The rate card price is very overpriced; in fact you can get a 15% discount by just asking for the “in-house agency discount.” In general, you’ll want to be paying somewhere around 30% less than the rate card price, at least.

We’ve just covered a lot of different ways to drive traffic, both online and off. Pick one of these methods and test them out for yourself. If you have a great website, then you almost definitely have one or more converting traffic sources out there just waiting to be found.