Hi Adam, I’m a starter to this entire IM and affiliate marketing thingy and have been trying to find some legit product to market. Problem is i went browsing through ClickBank but most of the products, after doing some research, i found that they appear to be fake. why i say appear is because, some results are in favour of the product while some others claim it to be a scam (and the question of jealousy comes in place).

How do i find a legit product to market? Are there any tips or basic things to look out for when searching for a product in ClickBank? Really appreciate if you could give me a reply. Or if you do not want to flood your comments list, replying me through the email i gave u is fine too. Thanks

Well, the easiest way to know if a product is ‘legit’ is to simply purchase it yourself and see if it’s worth its salt. Put yourself in the shoes of the customer and see if the product really adds value or if it solves whatever problem the market wants solved.

Of course, this would be a lot easier if you really were a part of the market yourself. For example, if you’re a fat bastard (kidding!) and you really need to lose weight, buying a weight-loss product that really helps you out here; whoa! you know its worth its salt.

Or you could test out that dating ebook (you’ve been dying to get) that promises you more attention with the women and see if it gets you to second base or a smack in the face. Whatever it is, actually buying the product, testing it, and also going through the sales process just like a true-blue customer would will give you the best opinion of the product always.

But if you’re a miserly cheapskate and you just can’t bear to shell out some dough to test a product – don’t worry! You can always approach the vendor directly and ask if you could have a review copy. And most times, the vendor will be more than happy to send you a review copy (especially true for digital products) to help out any affiliate who can add more sales to their bottom line.

But also be prepared to back up your affiliate ‘credentials’. I’ve personally had people who’ve emailed requesting review copies of my products and for some of them, I get the feeling that they’re just doing that to get the product for free instead of actually wanting to affiliate the product. If I’m getting that cheapskate vibe from someone, I usually ask for some of his background, his websites, etc to check if he’s for real or not. And most times, they can’t produce anything. Haha! Busted…

A great way to start looking for products to affiliate is to go with products from reputable marketers in whatever niche you’re in. If someone’s pretty well-known in a niche and s/he is well-trusted, respected, and yadda yadda yadda – that means something. And it usually means they’ve built their solid reputations based on giving true value to their marketplace. Of course, you should still want to test out their products first before you promote anything. It always plays to be safe. You don’t to promote junk to your list and lose any goodwill just for the sake of making some profits in the short-term. So check.

And remember, you don’t need to just stick to Clickbank products. There are tons of other great products out there being affiliated through other networks or by themselves. So don’t miss those gems just because you only want to focus on CB.

This site is a great resource for anyone looking for great products to affiliate – www.AssociatePrograms.com

And lastly, don’t just promote any product that comes your way that you think is a good fit for your list. Why don’t you actually ASK what your list is actually looking for – what type of information do they want, what problems do they have and need to be solved, etc. In a nutshell, ask them what type of products they want and simply give it to them! Could it be any simpler?

The best way to do that is to create a simple survey and ask. I’ve done it before and the data you mine is really, really useful stuff to know. I mean, having your list tell you what they want to SPEND MONEY ON? You really want that sort of information.

If you’re looking for survey software, you can consider this – www.Ask500People.com. It’s free (oh yay..) and it looks pretty too. Another pretty popular option is this – www.SurveyMonkey.com. So ask away.

Hope this helps you out!

I ran an experiment on my list weeks back, where I conducted a survey asking them what were they interested to learn the most from us. And the No.1 result I got was ‘How To Make A Full-Time Income Online’.

So knowing that was the thing that interest my list the most, I decided to do the most common sense thing I could do, I gave them what they wanted. So because we don’t have any Internet marketing products of our own, I had to go hunting for a really good affiliate product that I could honestly recommend to the list.

And so after some scurrying around on the net, I decided to settle on Ewen Chia’s “Newbie Cash Machine” (yes.. it’s an affiliate link).

Why?

Simple. Because I BOUGHT the thing first and had a look myself before I started recommending it to anyone. And seriously, the ebook is pretty good. Loads of info, step-by-step instructions and screenshots to learn from. A solid decent product. Not the best in the world, but then… there’s no such thing.

I also decided on Newbie Cash because I knew that the people who chose ‘Make Money Online’ were obviously beginners in the arena and they had no idea how or where to start out in Internet Marketing. If they were experienced onine marketers, they’d be picking stuff like traffic, lead gen, copywriting, etc – more advanced and specific components on making money online.

And so knowing I had a crowd of newbie Internet marketers to who already told me they wanted to learn how they could make money online, Newbie Cash was a perfect fit for them. Simple, easy, straight to the point without all the advanced stuff that could concuss a newbie out for a month.

And so we had picked a good reputable product. Now it was time to promote it.

On a side note, I really have to be very, very careful about the stuff I promote because AK’s got a reputation to uphold. In any case, I always check with him first to make sure, and usually if we know the product’s from a reputable marketer/business and/or we’ve personally reviewed the product, we go ahead with out affiliate promotions.

OK! So in the past, what I would do was to simply send an email promo and stop at there. But this time I decided to test out something new to see if it would garner a much higher response.

I decided to write a one page review about what I thought was good and bad about Newbie Cash so the readers could decide for themselves whether it was something that they were really interested in.

Afterwards, I had the ‘bright’ idea (another one of those “duh…” moments) to also add a limited bonus offer for the first 50 people who bought through our affiliate link. So I sifted through my collection of PLR/MRR/RR products and picked something that I thought would be really useful to a newbie – a ready made website, product, salesletter all done for them. I felt it would give them a great platform to start off with, and even if they didn’t use it, they could still model and learn from it.

So I put the whole thing together – review plus the limited bonus offer, and went on to promote it to the list. And here are the results:

Pretty neat. Over 2000 bucks in a matter of days is pretty solid. In all I sent 3 emails, Tue,Wed,Fri for the whole promo so we didn’t deluge them with anything. Also, we just sent an email out telling those that bought Newbie Cash could always email us for support, if they needed some help in setting up their first online business. Just our way of providing REAL value to our list members.

Anyway, I know gurus can make over $10,000 in a day just sending out one email, so to keep things in perspective, I’ve still got a loooooong way to go.

I hope you liked the post. Maybe some inspiration as well to help you along your way.

All the best…

So when I first started out selling Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaires, I too gave out 50% commissions. The thing was I wasn’t happy giving out the commissions! (ok note: wasn’t)

When I received an email in my inbow telling me of a new sale, I would jump up and then I’d go – ‘Oh shit, that may have been an affiliate sale.’

haha! Can you believe that?

Anyway, the reason why I felt like that was because I was GREEDY. I wanted everything for myself. I looked at an affiliate sale and I saw the $44 I didn’t earn. I totaled up all my affiliate sales, double them and say – ‘That was what I would have made if they weren’t affiliate sales’

Which was STUPID.

But back then, as a newbie, I believe it was a pretty common thing to go through. I didn’t have that long-term business mindset instilled in me yet. I wanted to do everything myself and I wanted to keep 100% of profits.

And so that stingy attitude kept me from bumping up my affiliate commissions higher because I just couldn’t bear to see an affiliate make $66 on my product while I just made a “measly” $21. I thought 50% was a good deal by itself already, I thought it was fair to vendor and affiliates, and so I kept it at that level.

OK, I knew some (or actually ALL) of the bestselling items on Clickbank offered 75% commissions and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there’s a very obvious pattern going on there. I knew that Ewen Chia was giving out 75% commissions for his Secret Affiliate Weapon, front-end to back, and that site is doing massively well.

All those real-life examples in front of me signalled that these guys had tons of affiliates working for them and they were making very good sales day in, day out. But I just couldn’t handle the “pain” I felt whenever an affiliate took his cut.

And so I gave myself the bogus excuse that these guys are successful enough already and that’s why they could afford to give such high commissions. I was a newbie and I couldn’t “afford” it. And so I continued to think that offering 75% commissions was Siao! (crazy).

Anyway, let’s now fast forward abit.

You might remember that we did a short promo when Andrew Fox’s Dominating Clickbank product dropped to half price ($47) some time back. I offered it to my list because I thought it was a good deal to grab and I personally picked up a copy myself.

After I went through it, my opinion of the product itself was that it was OK. But what I learnt from Andrew Fox was the power of having affiliates market and drive the traffic to your sales site for you. And it hammered out to me that you had to start giving out much more that just the basic 50% commissions.

I didn’t budge.

So fast forward somemore and now you might remember we did a promo for Joel Chue’s Mastermind Income Generator. Before he launched MIG, Joel met up with me to discuss how he could do his launch. And I learnt that he was prepared to give 75% commissions to affiliates. And my stingy brain (not me!) was going – ‘Wow! He’s actually prepared to do that.”

Anyway, we promoted MIG, I was making sales and it kinda gave me a kick to see that I was making 3 times of what Joel was making per sale. (Sorry Joel! It’s not me, it’s my brain!)

Anyway I felt really good, because I felt I was truly, truly rewarded for my affiliate efforts and I was happy that Joel valued me highly enough to give affiliates that amount of commission. I felt really happy promoting for my friend because he gave first (by “sacrificing” his cut of profits so I could make more) and now I wanted to reciprocate. (Normal human brains are wired to reciprocate good stuff…)

And then it hit me with a ton of bricks.

If my friend can give out 75% commissions and I now knew how it felt to be valued as an affiliate, what’s stopping me now from giving out the MAX commssions to my affiliates. Besides all the top products in Clickbank gave 75% commissions, and if i did the same thing, I too would attract more affiliates and make more sales.

And so I bumped up commissions for Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaires to the Clickbank max – 75%. And I waited to see if sales would actually improve.

Well… As you can tell from my Chinese New Year post, I’m a very happy man. David Vallieres decided to promote Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaires and we made a good glut of sales in just a few days. And it might not have happened at all if my commissions were stuck at 50%. The 75% commissions may have just been the thing that allowed David V to say yes to our product instead of another one.

Besides, I felt happy that David was being justly rewarded for his efforts. That he was making a good $66+ a sale while I was only pocketing $21+. It felt good to know that my affiliate was making 3 times of what I was making because it means that he’s making TONS more money than me. And I do that because I want to communicate that I value affiliates very, very highly by giving them a bigger share of the profit.

Also you want to make sure that your affiliates are happy, so that they continue to promote for you and the best way to keep them happy is to help them make TONS more money.

And that’s how I see it now.

Whenever an affiliate sale is made, I’m glad that my affiliate is being paid more than me. I’m glad that he’s pocketing $66+ per sale instead of $44 for his efforts, because I want to tell them that I value you, I want you to make more money, so that you’re happy to continue promoting my product.

Now I see all those $21 sales as “free” sales. They were given to me by my affiliates. If not for them, I wouldn’t have them at all in the first place! So it’s really like my affiliates giving me “free” $21 notes all day long. I didn’t really have to do anything to make that sale. It was my affiliate who did it, and thus s/he should be rewared the maximum for it.

And I’m glad I bumped up commissions to 75% because if I didn’t I would be missing out this glut of $21 sales, especially from David V!

So if you’re had the same mindset as I had before and you can’t bear to give out more than 50% then I suggest that you DO. Because from what I’ve shared with you so far, it really does pay off.

Give first and you will receive more back in abundance.