System

How to set up an system capable of generating income on autopilot.

From an IM-WebCrafter’s perspective there are really only two ways to generate income online…

1. Selling your own product or service.
2. Promoting someone else’s product or service.

Selling your own product is the method most people think of when first considering making money on the Internet however, option two provides far greater benefits because by opting to promote third-party products and services you eliminate expensive start up costs and your running costs are kept to a bare minimum.

Affiliates

Individuals who make a comfortable living promoting other people’s products and services online are known as ‘affiliates‘. By signing up to an affiliate program, you’ll receive a commission payment every time your promotional efforts produce a sale. This could be either a one-off commission payment or a repeated commission payment. ie. promoting subscriptions to a private membership site will generate a recurring commission each and every month the new subscriber remains a member.

Eg. A new subscriber’s monthly membership subscription is $50 per month and as an affiliate you receive 50% commission of the new subscriber’s monthly fee.

• Month 1: 10 new subscribers = $250 commission.
• Month 2: 10 new subscribers = $250 plus repeat commission from Month 1 = $500
• Month 3: 10 new subscribers = $250 plus repeat commission from Month 1 & 2 = $750

If you continue to introduce 10 new subscribers per month and no-one cancels, in month six you’d receive a commission payment of $1,500. By Month 10 your monthly recurring commission would rise to $2,500 per month. *Calculations are based upon each new subscriber maintaining their monthly subscriptions.

Affiliate Programs: Where can you find them and which are the best?

There are literally hundreds of affiliate programs available online for almost any product you care to name so if you have a particular interest or feel there is a specific type of product you want to promote, just type “product description+ affiliate program” into Google Search and wait for the results. i.e. baby clothes + affiliate program.

I find the most popular affiliate programs are the type that promote ‘digital information products‘ i.e. books, newsletters, courses, membership sites, etc. There are three main reasons for this… (1) Millions of visitors daily are looking to improve their lifestyles through re-education, (2) ‘educational’ products have a high ‘perceived’ value and (3) digital products are delivered directly to the customer immediately after payment is received.

The Ultimate Income System?

As I mentioned earlier promoting someone else’s products as an affiliate not only eliminates expensive start up costs but also keeps running costs to a bare minimum.

Here’s why…

• You don’t need a domain name
• You don’t need a hosting account
• You don’t need to create a product
• You don’t need to write a sales page
• You don’t need to set up a payment processor
• You don’t need to create bonuses
• You don’t need to offer a guarantee
• You don’t need to package the product
• You don’t need to deliver the product
• You don’t need to handle customer service issues

Everything is taken care of by the product owner/creator so you can focus on just one thing… sending visitors to their offer. That’s it!

To put it simply, you will get paid a commission for giving directions. Isn’t that great? When was the last time you got paid for giving directions?

Setting Up An Income System In Minutes!

The fastest way to set up your very first income system is to locate an affiliate program that allows you to…

• Join up for free
• Promote digital information products
• Earn high commissions between 50% – 75%
• Get paid weekly

If you’re just starting out and don’t have much marketing experience, I have outlined the most straightforward process for creating your affiliate account with Clickbank.

Clickbank is a third-party processor that handles all of the orders and ultimately manages our affiliate program. If you don’t own a Clickbank account, the first step you must take is to sign up with clickbank and create your own account.

Simply sign up using the link below and fill in all the necessary information. You’ll be asked to create a clickbank affiliate nickname. This is your “personal ID” that will be used in your special affiliate links.

After you have set your clickbank account, you’ll be ready to promote any product within the Clickbank Marketplace through your unique affiliate hoplink. You will earn 50%-75% commission on each person who buys the products you promote through your affiliate referral link.

Click below to sign up with Clickbank:

Sign Up With Clickbank

After you have signed up with clickbank and got your own clickbank affiliate nickname, you are ready to start promoting and marketing products from the Clickbank marketplace.

The process of marketing products is simple. All you need to do is place your special referral links on your webpages, in your e-zine or in various locations both online and offline, and send traffic to your chosen products website. These special links are called “clickbank hoplinks” and through them Clickbank keeps track of the traffic you send to the vendor’s website and gives you credit for the sales or subscriptions you generate.

This is why it is so important to create your hoplinks correctly. Using the wrong hoplink, you will not get credit for the sales that you generate and all your efforts will be in vain.

Creating Your Hoplink

To create your hoplink correctly simply follow these steps:

1) The standard clickbank hoplink format is: http://xxxxx.vendor.hop.clickbank.net -  where ‘vendor‘ is the ID of the product creator. For example, the product creator may have chosen ‘golftips ‘ as their vendor ID,  so the link will look like this: http://xxxxx.golftips.hop.clickbank.net [note: the colors are only here for the purpose of this explanation and to help you differentiate between the two ID types]

2) Now all you have to do is insert YOUR clickbank affiliate nickname in the place where the xxxxx are located

For example, if your affiliate nickname is jon47day (this is just an example. Remember to use your OWN nickname), then the hoplink would look like this: http://jon47day.golftips.hop.clickbank.net

That’s all there is to it. When someone clicks through YOUR hoplink, they are redirected to the product website and a small tracking file commonly known as a “cookie” is dropped onto the computer of the visitor. This “records” that the visitor has arrived on the site from your link and when he or she buys the product you get credited for the sale.

Note about cookies: Clickbank uses 60 day cookies (tracking files that are dropped onto the visitor’s computer), so if the people you send to the product website make a purchase on the day or return any time within the next 60 days, you’ll receive a commission for the sale (anywhere between 50% and 75% commission)

Last note: In some cases, potential customers are reluctant to buy when they realize they’re being sent to the product page through an affiliate link. To prevent this from happening, most experienced affiliate marketers disguise their affiliate hoplink using a process called “link cloaking”.

Link Cloaking – When and Why?

There are number of reasons why the more experienced affiliate will always cloak (hide) his affiliate hoplink.

1. By their very nature,  people don’t like to be sold to and are less likely to buy if they feel someone, somewhere is getting a commission for a recommendation. It has been proven that sales significantly decrease through an ‘uncloaked’ link.

2. Link theft is something else that can occur when smart Clickbank marketers spot an offer through an affiliate link. It is no trouble for them to clear the cookies on the computer, obtain a hoplink of their own, enter this new link into the browser and refresh the page.

3. The third reason is that clickbank hoplinks are not too pretty and people are less likely to click through clickbank hoplinks than they would on ‘normal-looking’ links.

Which of these two links you would be more likely to click on:

http://jon47day.golftips.hop.clickbank.net

http://www.BetterGolfTips.com

Probably the second link, right? Why? Well, this link is simply more appealing and relevant to your search. This is what link cloaking is all about.

Four Ways To Cloak Your Link

Here are some of the most popular methods used by top marketers to ‘cloak’ affiliate hoplinks:

Method 1: Use HTML to display different destination link

Simply use the following HTML code:

Example HTML code:

<a href=”http://XXXXXX.pregnant7.hop.clickbank.net”>www.PregnancyMiracle.com</a>

This HTML code will display www.PregnancyMiracle.com but send people through your affiliate link (be sure to replace the XXXX’s with your affiliate ID.)

For more info on how to make clickbank hoplinks, visit:

http://PregnancyMiracle.com/affiliateresources/hoplink-instructions.htm

Method 2: Use “link shrinkers”

There are many 3rd party services you can use to hide your affiliate link and shrink it at the same time. This service is free, fast and easy. What more can you wish for?

Here are a few examples:

• http://tinyurl.com/
• http://www.shorturl.com
• http://www.shrinkmylink.com
• http://url123.com

Note: while link shrinkers work fine, they do convert less on average than more appealing versions (e.g. using a domain name and domain forwarding – see the next method). Additionally, link shrinking services come and go, so as a warning, if you’re using these services be sure to check them often.

Method 3: Purchase a domain name from Godadd.com

Here’s a reliable option that will give you more control over your links and increase your conversions. All you have to do is register a domain name with a company that offers free forwarding service with URL masking. I use http://www.godaddy.com/ for many of my domains. Godaddy offers free forwarding and masking services and it’s only about 9 bucks per domain to register.

Tip: always choose a domain name that contains keywords that are relevant to the product you’re promoting. For example: if you’re promoting Pregnancy Miracle, a good choice would be: AmazingPregnancySecrets.com or NaturalPregnancySolution.com

After you registered a domain name log into your account and click on “domain forwarding.” Next, type in your affiliate hoplink into the ‘domain to forward to’ box. Then click on “mask domain” and enter the display URL to match your new chosen domain name.

Method 4: Buy a link cloaking software

Here are some of the most popular link cloaking software that are currently being used by Pregnancy Miracle affiliates:

http://www.novasoft-inc.com

http://www.affiliatelinkcloaker.com
(This is a cute little software that I’ve used in the past.)