Mobile Affiliate Marketing: Get Ready for a Revolution

Affiliate marketing through mobile phones is going to be huge soon.

Because, to make a long story short:

-- 3G phones with broadband-caliber Web browsing capabilities are multiplying like rabbits.
-- Americans are flat-out addicted to their mobile devices.
-- People from other countries are even more flat-out addicted to their mobile devices.

Are you ready for the mobile affiliate marketing revolution? If you're not ready yet--and almost no affiliate marketers are--what can you do to get ready?

Start Thinking About Mobile Affiliate Marketing

Thinking may not be the most action-oriented activity in the world, but in a territory as virgin as mobile affiliate marketing, taking the time to think is an indispensable part of exploration.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." Five years from now, when mobile devices are well-established as a sales channel with millions of consumers buying stuff right off their phone every single day, the bandwagon will be a crowded and chaotic one.

The time to start thinking long and hard about mobile affiliate marketing is now, when the bandwagon is plodding along serenely but steadily.

Think about how you use your mobile device. Look at how your friends are using their mobile devices. Research companies who clearly "get" the potential of mobile affiliate marketing (a company called Bango is a good place to start). Read solid articles like this one.

To paraphrase another great American (Jim Belushi in Animal House), "Our advice to you is to start thinking…heavily."

Get Technical

The mobile Internet is not the same as the computer-based Internet, and it likely never will be. You cannot succeed with mobile affiliate marketing unless you adhere to the technical realities of this emerging medium. Four such technical realities to consider are:

The algorithms for the mobile Internet are different. Call your programmer.

The mobile Internet does not accommodate Flash graphics and other bandwidth-intensive software well. Simple, clean pages, sized right, are much preferred.

Mobile Internet users are typically looking for a very specific thing, rather than casually surfing. Therefore, your mobile affiliate marketing efforts better get right to the point.

Current estimates are that 75 percent of mobile Internet searches go through the iPhone, issued by Apple. Google, meanwhile, is pumping millions into "Android," its own mobile Internet platform. If you want to win at mobile affiliate marketing, know Apple and know Google.

Mobile Affiliate Marketing Product Selection

Casino and adult sites are the main practitioners of mobile affiliate marketing as of now.

Other industries will no doubt follow. Your goal, as an affiliate marketer looking to cash in from the mobile affiliate marketing revolution, is to identify, early and often, the affiliate merchants who have products that are fundamentally conducive to being sold over the mobile Internet.

Games and location-based ("you're right down the street") offers are two major possibilities to keep in mind. The GPS tools built into 3G phones are a search marketer's wet dream come true.