A lot of you guys know that I recently jumped back into playing with affiliate marketing after procrastinating with it for a long time. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a hands-on type-of-person and that’s the best way for me to learn and remember things so my main advice is to just jump into it and learn as you go.

But before you do, here are a few things that I learnt from affiliate marketing so far. Don’t make some really stupid mistakes I have made. But also, I have learnt some interesting things I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t jump into action instead of just letting my words do all the talking.

1. Keyword research is key to PPC affiliate marketing – If you’ve mastered keyword research then PPC affiliate marketing should be that much easier for you. Most of it is finding the best keywords that convert at the cheapest price and narrowing down your selection to the best ones.

2. Put “{keyword}” at the end of your affiliate links – I read about this and it definitely helps you a lot with PPC marketing. When you type in {keyword} (type it exactly as shown), it lets you track what keywords your visitors are coming from, which ones convert, and so on. This will definitely help you narrow down which keywords aren’t converting for you.

Ask your affiliate manager where to find it and if you need help with it.

3. Always read the TOS for each affiliate network – Most affiliate networks have similar TOS and guidelines but you always want to remember to read it carefully because if you screw up, you might lose more than just your money you’ve earned.

4. Be careful with your marketing techniques (especially with social networking sites) – Like I said previously, make sure you read the TOS of your affiliate network carefully. For instance, when doing search marketing, Market Leverage has one for social media and bulletin boards:

Social Media and Bulletin Boards. MarketLeverage strictly forbids the use of social media profiles (e.g., Facebook or MySpace) and bulletin boards (e.g., Craigslist) to advertise or distribute Search Marketing Content. Notwithstanding the foregoing, this does not preclude You from purchasing keywords which reside on social media websites to advertise and distribute Search Marketing Content.

5. Keywords you cannot bid on – Did you know you can’t bid on certain keywords such as “diet pills” unless you have a pharmaceutical license? Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. There are plenty more keywords like that, and you wonder why those keywords were so low when you were bidding for them, huh?

6. Quality Scores suck – If you don’t know what quality score is, it’s basically a ranking system for Google to determine if you have enough content on your site/landing page. If your landing page doesn’t meet their criteria and requirements then more than likely your bids for the keywords for those campaigns will be extremely higher than normal.

7. Be careful writing your Adwords ad campaigns – First, your display URL has to match your destination URL. For instance, if you have an affiliate link that’s like iBlogtoBlog.com/yourkeywordshere , that would go in your destination URL but then you would have to put iBlogtoBlog.com as the display URL and not DatMoney.com

Also, there are certain words you cannot use on your ads. Honestly, I can’t remember the example I wanted to give but Google will basically tell you that you can’t use those terms.

Additionally, I would suggest not lying on your ad campaigns because yes, you might get tons of clicks and traffic but if those visitors are lied to, they weren’t convert. To sum it up, you’ll just be losing money! (I should’ve made that it’s own point)

8. Always check the landing page you’re promoting – If you create your own landing pages for your campaigns, then you don’t have to worry. But say you’re taking one straight from the affiliate network and linking to it through PPC, make sure you check it because that may determine if you should promote it or not.

There are various reasons that include the quality score of the landing page and if it’s a spammy site, but one thing I didn’t know was the fact that Google does not allow sites with pop-ups to be advertised through their PPC ads.

Of course, one campaign I was promoting didn’t have it but a few days after I was making money, then must have added it because Google shut down my PPC campaign because of it.

9. Don’t rely on “estimations” for PPC – Before you bid on keywords, you can always check an estimated amount that each keyword is going for through Google’s Traffic Estimator, but in my experience, they are usually inaccurate by a lot.

For instance, I would look up a keyword and it’s estimate is about $0.50-$1.00 per click… then I get to Adwords and the minimum bid is like $6.00! Good lord that’s a huge difference!

10. Don’t pick campaigns based on how much they will pay you – Yes, it sounds nice that you’d get $75/sale, right? But just because you would potentially get that, it doesn’t mean you will. You have to remember that those campaigns need to convert for you to get anything, if they don’t, more than likely you’d be wasting your money and your time.

Also, if you’re starting out and pick a campaign that pays you $3.00/lead but you’re spending $5.00 bidding on keywords through PPC, you’ll get tons of people to convert but overall you’ll be at a loss no matter what .

Well, unless all the keyword competitors just drop which I highly doubt in this day and age.

I’ve learnt a lot more from affiliate marketing but these 10 points are just a start, especially for people who haven’t tested out affiliate marketing that always wanted to.

Again, I never claimed I was an expert in affiliate marketing but at least I’ve taken action and I’ve gained a lot more knowledge to build of off.

Let me know if you have any questions!