Persistent Merchants = Bigger Commissions

One underrated aspect of affiliate marketing is how great it is to promote the products of persistent merchants. So many times in affiliate marketing, you send a visitor to a website and the sales pitch is weak and then there is no follow-up whatsoever, so no commission for you.

By choosing to work with persistent merchants--companies that will, if at first they don't succeed at selling their product, try, try, try again--you can gain the ability to reap maximum affiliate marketing commissions.

The OddsMaker Example

The best way to explain what we're talking about might be to tell you a little about an outfit called OddsMaker.com. OddsMaker is an online casino, they are in the major leagues of online sports betting sites. They are also extremely, extremely persistent.

And this persistence results in giant commissions for the affiliate partners of OddsMaker.com!

Unlike other sites where the mentality is "one and done," OddsMaker works hard to maintain a relationship with anyone who has ever deposited funds into an OddsMaker account. They will send you a monthly email with a special bonus, they will even call you on the phone.

Three years later, you haven't bet on sports in literally three years, and you'll still receive the random "special bonus" email from OddsMaker.com.
Now for the person being solicited, especially if this person is broke because they lost all their money betting on sports, this persistence may be less than welcome.

But for the affiliate who sends this person to OddsMaker in the first place, this constant follow-up must be counted as the best thing about the OddsMaker affiliate program. The more "touches" OddsMaker has with that customer, the more chances that you'll be paid more commissions.

It's a pretty simple concept, really.

Email Marketing

When choosing affiliate programs, make sure to check out what their policies are in terms of email marketing. Also, if possible, what their past results have been for email marketing campaigns and what system they're using.

Email marketing can be annoying, without a doubt--nobody likes spam. However, the fact of the matter, from an affiliate marketing perspective, is that email marketing, done right, works. Heck, even when it's done wrong, it's better than doing nothing.

There are so many millions of websites out there, you must understand that there's no guarantee that a customer you send to your affiliate partner will ever return to that site again and buy. But if that customer gives your partner their email address…that's a good thing, no?

Yes, it's a tremendously good thing when your affiliate partner uses that email address to make more sales than would normally occur, and that means you get paid.

"The Hard Sell"

In affiliate marketing, "The Hard Sell" has a bad name. It's widely considered much better to "recommend" and "provide information" than to sell, sell, SELL.

This makes sense because generally speaking, as an affiliate, your biggest asset is your relationship with your visitor. After all, you don't technically work for the company whose products you are promoting. They could cut you off tomorrow, then where would you be if you'd spent the last six months hard selling every one of your visitors to the point they don't visit anymore? You'd be nowhere. You'd have no visitors, your reputation would be shot, etc.

That's why you leave the hard selling to your affiliate partners. Your job is to kindly, gently bring that visitor to your partner's site, but it's your partner's job to MAKE THE SALE.

Persistence pays off in sales; in fact, on many days, it's the only thing that matters at all.

Remember, then, when choosing affiliate marketing merchant partners, to team up with a company that knows how important persistence is in the grand scheme of sales.