Vendor Affiliate Articles

Before we start- vendor is the person who wants to to sell their affiliate product This is something that I have been toying with for some time. Vendor affiliate articles give you information that is supposed to be tweaked to give the maximum clickthroughs. That is the Vendors job. But if you grab the title and then use Advanced Search in Google…the amount of sites that are using the same article will be many.

Many affiliates are really just plain lazy and they wonder why they have dropped out of rankings or they have had no sales (even Amazon is banning anything PLR).

Articles are good for promotion, but if you send that exact same article to many places not everyone will get the article SEO. It depends upon who has the greater search engine power. A bigger site that has a high PR will always get the article SEO than the original owner, especially if their site is low in search engine power and PR.

A better way would be to use the article in an email campaign because then it is harder to be seen by Google. If you really have to put it on your site then never use an Article Spinner- they churn out nothing words. AI would be pretty cool though. Look up the topic yourself and then read through the article. You will be able to “spin it” yourself and it will look human and natural to search as well.

In the olden days Mike Geary (who swept to affiliate vendor success by selling the TruthAboutAbs ebook).

Now before you say "this is too old" well, the same process and theory applies to ebooks, software and articles that vendors of affiliate product use to sell their products.

Mike gives his affiliate an ebook (oddly enough with some additional affiliate links for himself, that is OK, he did the work), email, articles, and banners. None give a percentage conversion, just “some have given some affiliates $1,000 to 20,000 pay days. No details no nothing.

One email title: “Why excess abdominal fat is more DEADLY than you think” exact term, found 31,800 times in Google.

1. Article: “Study Shows 1 Obscure Trick to Make ANY Exercise Program or Workout MUCH More Effective” exact term, found 17,900 times in Google.

2. Article: “3 Unique Veggies That Fight Abdominal Fat?” exact term, found 161,000 times in Google.

The difference between article 1 and article 2 is that article 1 is found half way down the page of promotional articles to use. Article 2 is the top article.

Oddly enough, this title: ‘COFFEE - 3 Tricks to Make it Super-Healthy” was found by Google (exact term) 237,000 times. So affiliates are thinking about the heading, not caring whether the article is useful or not (which is not shown either).

Another one: “The Energy Drinks Scam”, exact term, found 145,000 times in Google (second from the top of the articles list).

So would these affiliate articles be helpful for you to sell the product?

So a good product?

Probably, but there is no way to tell how well the promotional materials help the affiliate. How many clicks do they need to get a sale? Were they promoted first and then offered to the affiliates or were they just written and then offered to affiliates?

Could this product be powered out? Can the niche be filled with additional products?

Actually yes and Mike helps us with this. In his free affiliate ebook, where he has affiliate links to products…hang on…he has actually shown us the affiliate products which he sells (so presumably they sell and there is an endorsement). All we need to do is follow the links, see what he is actually promoting, research that product (is it viable, does it sell etc) and sign up to be an affiliate from the vendor.

But what usually is a good idea is to sign up for email newsletters (using a disposable email account) and see what that vendor is promoting. They either promote products that they believe in and done some research about, or they are just trying to make some extra cash promoting anything (you will be able to tell when you research those products by following the links).

I personally get onto as many vendor lists as possible. I see what my subscribers/ customers will see; how they are spoken to and if they promote more products- more juicier products to their lists.

The more lists per topic/ niche that you subscribe to the more you will realize there aren't that many products around that affiliates are promoting. They go after the same ones all the time. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. Also you have to think about if your subscribers are also on other people’s lists…are you going to copy the same promoted stuff?

What to do: Ask

Many affiliate businesses- many offline as well as on, get to know who they are trying to sell for. One marketer once told of a printer who did large bulk orders for one company weekly. When asked what the company did, the printer had no idea.

This is not how you want to find a product. You are an extension of that company and they are of you. In reality many affiliate product owners shouldn’t accept everyone as a seller- they should be picky because their name and reputation is linked directly to the seller.

What I did was to talk to the owner of the product and I asked some questions. Why ask questions?

1. Because if you get a slow reply then your customers are going to get a slow reply.

2. If you get a poorly worded/ bad spelling email then that is not professional.

3. You can bypass stats and ask directly

4. You can figure out if they are really the product owner/ developer

5. You can find out if the BS meter is running high

6. Because you need to know if they are a business that you should spend time/ money and your name against.

7. Because communication will draw out future communication which can lead to interviews and JV partnerships.

Vendor Questions. Going above and beyond affiliate articles

Here are the “basic questions” which I ask to all vendors. They can be expanded upon by the owner (open questions) and they shouldn’t really be yes/ no (closed) questions. I also find that I have pushed away some affiliate products because I have had little response or “odd” answers from the questions posed.

Obviously these questions can be tailored to your chosen developer and you might get a better response (more open, more info, more help) from an “unknown” vendor rather than a “superstar” vendor.

If you have any concerns, just move away from the vendor. It is their loss.

0. Always start with a small introduction to yourself and what you want. I start out by stating that I promote a certain niche, you read their website and you liked X, Y and Z. You give a link to your main website (the content one that looks professional). This keeps you well away from the majority of the spam and rubbish emails that they get regularly. One email I read went something like this:

“Hi. I belong to a successful company specialising in internet marketing and we have promoted many products and we have become successful. We have the ideas but not the money and would like your help in turning our ideas into a reality, please contact us at bxbxbx.gmail.com”

For some odd reason the vendor never replied. But these are the types of email that they get. Professional people just don’t do this.

1. Could you give me an outline of [your product] that is not on the sales page- what is [your book/ product] about?

This is asking if they know their own product. If they do, they will churn out little nuggets which can be used in your campaigns. It also checks to see how pumped and enthusiastic they are about their own product. If they churn out the exact text from the sales page, then they might not be the original developer and they can not read the question. If they say no, or “read here” then that is cheating and not really being customer orientated. Remember that you are a potential seller of their product which could net them sales/ month. They should be helpful.

2. Do you know the amount of affiliates that you have selling your product?

Some vendors get affiliates to sign up to their “affiliate program”, many don’t. The first is better, but knowing the amount of affiliates promoting their product lines gives you a good “competition range”. One vendor I asked had 500 affiliates….but their product was nowhere on search- or the product was really badly promoted. Now either the vendor is lying or the affiliates are poor converters…and in some topics that is the case because they have no knowledge about the field. This could be an opportunity. So we ask the next question.

3. In a range, how many units is the best affiliate selling (including yourself)?

The same vendor with 500 affiliates stated 15 units a month for the best and 1-2 per month on average. With the majority of the sales actually coming from the vendor themselves. This then implies the affiliates are poor in knowledge of the product. Buyers are buying from the author who seems to be preselling well (or grabbing visitors with email and then disposing of the affiliate cookie for their own).

4. Are there any other versions a customer can buy?

If a vendor is selling digital copies are they selling them through your affiliate directory company? What happens when the vendor offers a hard good version at a higher price on the same page or an upsell? Are you going to get the commission? Again sometimes this information isn’t advertised on the website. For some odd reason this one vendor didn’t state that a 90 minute conversation was also being sold as a bonus when they bought. They also had hard good versions of the product affiliated through a different company. In this case sometimes the type of customer would prefer a hard good rather than a digital version.

5. Can I have a review copy/ a [percentage] section of the product?

Some vendors will and some don’t. The ones that do check your email subject line and see if you are a legitimate person, or someone who just has a one page crap site on Wordpress. The ones that do want to make sure that:

1. You don’t steal their work

2. You are going to do some good with the information that you give.

Unfortunately many affiliates go straight in with the kill and ask for a review copy right away. This is just asking for freebees. First we ask real, concerned questions about their product and give some information away that we know what we are doing. Then we ask for something in return. You could even ask for a percentage of their ebook- a percentage is a good way to do it. In some cases ask for a time limited trial of their software (if one isn’t available- then later you can ask to be the only person who supplies this- with your affiliate link attached).

This series is taken from the ebook Superstar Affiliate Product Finder which can be found on Amazon here

The series start can be found here.

Check out more affiliate articles here