Hey everyone, I hope you are having a Blessed day.

If you are looking to get some exposure for your Christian affiliate program, you should get in touch with me.   We have a combination of options here to help you do that including the opportunity to podcast on the CAM Blog,  program announcments and press releases, as well as advertising options to promote your program to affiliates who follow ChristianAffiliateMarketers.com and the CAM Blog Feed.

If you are interested,  please contact me using the site contact form above and we’ll discuss your program and offer and see if we can’t find a way to help get the word out.

A warning though.. if you are someone who is looking to prey on the Christian community as “just another niche” without delivering a high quality product or service and preferably, advancing the Gospel, save your time.  I’m pretty picky with what I endorse here.

God Bless,

Wade

I took some time late last week to chat with Justin Palmer of C28.com, who recently re-launched their affiliate marketing effort with a new program on the AvantLink afiliate network. For the record, I am managing the affiliate program for C28 through my company GTO Management. I’m really excited about this program for a number of reasons.

Justin and I chatted about the C28 brand (essentially a Hot Topic, Zumiez, or Above the Belt-style Christian Lifestyle retailer) and how they use their physical locations to share the Gospel. We talked about the C28 commitment to customer service, about their product selection (1500+ products) and about their business cycles (big back to school and Christmas shopping rushes)

Here are some program details on the C28 Affiliate Program:

Network - AvantLink

Offer- 15-20% of sales depending on volume

Average Order Value - $50+

Conversion Rate - 2+%

Creatives Offered - banners, text links, product feed, Affiliate Link Encoder

Join now at - https://www.avantlink.com/affiliate_app.php?mi=10265

 

 CAM Podcast with Justin from C28 [18:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (118)

I see it again and again; affiliates applying for an affiliate program of a merchant I work with.  I go to the application and click on the link to their site that they submitted for review.   I find…… a page full of banners and little or no content.

I do some homework with some cool little tools that I use to evaluate site’s traffic and I find very little or no traffic.   I’m not surprised.  Why would there be traffic?

Would you as a shopper knowingly seek out a page made up of just image ads?

The quality of the merchants you work with doesn’t even matter.   If you don’t offer any reason for someone to find you, let alone spend some time on your site, why would you expect them to act on your ads?

To be a successful affiliate - and by this, I mean someone who makes more than occassional latte’ or beer money from affiliate marketing, you need to add something to the conversation.  Better yet- why not start a conversation of your own?

“Banner farms” or sites made up of just a bunch of banner slapped up on a page - suck

Niche content pages are the way to go - find something you are passionate about, find a domain name that plays into your theme and start writing.   Review products, share your thoughts, share your expertise, react to other people’s thoughts and content - generate CONTENT.   Then, surround your content with ads targeting people who would be interested in your content.

Is your niche content page or blog about raising good Christian kids?   The you should be working with Nest Entertainment and Family Christian and promoting products that help parents raise good Christian kids.   Writing about Homeschooling from a Christian perspective?  You had better be hooked up with and promoting Alpha Omega Publications or Sonlight.

Do you see what I am saying?

Affiliate Marketing has NEVER been about just slapping up some banners and making money.  That is lazy.

Real affiliate marketing is about matching up people who are looking for a product with the product they want - and what better way to do that by giving your shoppers CONTENT to answer their questions and “pre-sell” them on the products that you would like them to buy.

You could also start a community based on your interest.  Chances are that other people have the same interests and concerns.  Let them start the conversations and suggests products and deals while you bring in the affiliate links.  It worked pretty well for FatWallet.com

Affiliate success is work… it’s not overnight.   But if you set out do do it the right way, you will be rewarded.

We’ll talk more tomorrow about pre-selling and reviews and the all important issue of INTEGRITY

God Bless,

Wade

I got a skype chat from Jason Stanley Marshall last night asking me if I would be down with helping him out in a Teleconference tonight at 6:00 ET with some folks that are following his “Petey Project”

Jason is trying to help some folks get started with online marketing and asked if I would be up for jumping on with him to talk affiliate marketing as it’s one of the easiest ways to get involved in online/internet marketing. I’m all for helping my Christian brothers and sisters out, so I am happy to be invited to participate.

I wanted to post some resource links for people who might be involved in the call to follow - here are some links to info you may find helpful:

Blogging Resources:

Sherman Hu’s WordPress Tutorials

Blog Classroom

Affiliate Networks:

Shareasale

Commission Junction

Christian Affiliate Programs:

SinglesofFaith Affiliate Program

JesusBranded Affiliate Program

Piano Wizard

Parable Christian Books and Products

ChristianBook.com

Alpha Omega

Nest Entertainment

Tradeshows and Events:

Affiliate Summit

GodBlogCon

Illuminate Conference

I’ll touch a bit on all of these links on the call.

God Bless,

Wade Tonkin