5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Promoting a New Offer

This is a guest post by Super Affiliate Zac Johnson. Zac has helped people all over the world earn a full time income online via affiliate marketing. To learn more about Zac, visit ZacJohnson.com

Before going live with a new ad campaign, you should always have a general idea of how you will promote the offer and what type of first results you should expect to see. Instead of diving into your next ad campaign head first, and simply choosing the offer because it looks good, or has a high payout, you should first ask yourself the following.

1.) Is this Something You’d Actually Buy?
There are a ton of offers out there. Some are decent, while others are complete crap. Promoting an offer that you might actually use, or think is of quality, isn’t just a “moral” issue, but it can actually help you succeed much faster. If you are promoting something that sucks, and you have no interest in it… you will probably be less likely to do research, or know where these types of buyers are located. Having an interest in the offer isn’t necessary, but it won’t be such a drag setting up new campaigns and going through keyword lists.
(Resource: Yourself! Would you offer this to your family?)

2.) Don’t Promote Based on Offer Payout.
Finding affiliate offers that pay out $30-$50 per offer is now more likely that it isn’t. With the quick increase of re-bill offers and continuity programs, networks and advertisers are able to pay out much higher commissions, because they know the user will keep getting billed monthly. While there is no problem promoting an offer than pays a lot of money, there is also a lot of competition from networks as well. Search around for the highest paying networks, then split test and see which offers/networks convert best. You might surprised with your findings!
(Resource: Compare network offer payouts at sites like affspy.com and offervault.com.)

3.) Limiting Yourself to Only US Traffic
Something all too common among affiliates, is their unwillingness to dive into foreign markets. For those already advertising on Facebook, you know about this all too well. Don’t be scared to test out new countries and traffic sources. In most cases, it will be cheaper and may even convert better than your US traffic, as well as having less competition. If foreign languages or landing page design is what’s holding you back, just take some time to do a quick translation using free tools online. If the offer is for another country, the offer landing page will already be converted for you.
(Resource: Use babelfish.yahoo.com to convert English ad copy into any other foreign languages.)

4.) What’s Your Competition?
Just as important as demographic data or the offer payout, is how much competition you are going against? Right away, competition can tell you a lot of things. If a lot of people are promoting the same offer, and it’s all over the place… it usually means that the offer works, and is making a lot of money . On the other hand, this also means a lot of advertiser competition. With more advertisers, you may see less leads for each advertiser, while still having to pay high costs to get the most exposure. It’s sometimes better to be the best source in a smaller niche market, then a small fish in a big market.
(Resource: Get a general idea of traffic volume and advertisers by using https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and Google search.)

5.) Best Method of Promotion
Advertising online is insane right now. A decade ago, you only had so many options… banner ads, email ads and search. Now you have a ton of ad networks, media buying galore, cost per view, social advertising and more. The days of throwing $10 to waste for 1,000 random ad views to your banner are long gone. With advanced tracking and demographic data, you can cater your advertisement needs to hit the eyes of users interested in your product/offer. With social marketing (Facebook/MySpace) you have amazing demographics where you can pin point right down to age, location and marital status. Even with advancements in search you can target only visitors qualified for your product. Test different advertising sources, and focus on which bring you the best results.
(Resource: All major search engines and social sites: adwords.google.com, advertise.myspace.com, www.facebook.com/advertising)

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