WebmasterRadio.FM has launched a new program, AFFILIATE WIRE

Produced by RevenueWire.com, a comprehensive e-business platform for affiliate marketers and merchants of digital products, AFFILIATE WIRE listeners can expect a wealth of educational, actionable information and expertise from a company built to increase affiliate revenue in the digital product space—one that practices elevated principles of sustainable and ethical online marketing and e-commerce.

Topics to be covered in their debut episode will include a recap of this year’s Affiliate Summit West tradeshow in Las Vegas, an in-depth discussion about the industry trend toward market diversification and globalization in 2010, and what affiliates can do to capitalize on these emerging opportunities over the course of the coming year.

New episodes of AFFILIATE WIRE air every third Thursday of the month at 1PM Eastern / 10AM Pacific on WebmasterRadio.FM or on-demand in the WebmasterRadio.FM archives inside the Affiliate Marketing Channel or through iTunes.

Affiliate marketing just got a whole lot easier.

LettuceLinks LLC has announced the official public release of their affiliate aggregator service. LettuceLinks aims to reshape affiliate marketing by helping publishers manage and analyze their affiliate links and discover new affiliate programs.

LettuceLinks is an affiliate aggregation service which instantly turns ordinary links on your website into affiliate links. Use your existing affiliate accounts and their MatchMaker service to uncover new affiliate programs that fit your site’s demographic.

Affiliate marketing has been around since the early days of ecommerce. There are currently over 7,000 online retailers who participate in some form of affiliate marketing, including big names like Amazon, eBay, BestBuy, Dell and more. The industry is estimated to spend $2.1 billion this year alone on affiliate marketing fees with spending projected to rise to $3.3 billion in 2012.

“A core problem with affiliate marketing for publishers is that the marketplace is complex and scattered across different networks, so managing multiple affiliate programs becomes tedious and time consuming,” said Brendyn Alexander, Co-Founder of LettuceLinks. “Posting and managing affiliate links is more complicated than it should be. That’s where we come in.”

LettuceLinks installs by adding a single line of JavaScript to the footer of your website, similar to installing a service such as Google Analytics. Once installed, any potential affiliate links are converted to actual affiliate links on the fly — all of which is invisible to the user. The free MatchMaker service surfaces click-thrus for which the user had no affiliate relationship, providing an easy way for users to apply for missing affiliate programs and increase their affiliate coverage. LettuceLinks currently supports all of the major US affiliate networks including Amazon Associates, Commission Junction, LinkShare, Google Affiliate Network and eBay Partner Network. If users already have accounts they can use them with LettuceLinks or create new ones.

In the affiliate aggregator market, LettuceLinks offers some key features which set them apart from the competition. Most notably, LettuceLinks has chosen a different compensation model. Rather than affiliating all traffic in-house and dispersing commission to publishers, LettuceLinks takes a small percentage of the publisher’s click thrus and attaches their own affiliate information. While this does mean publishers need to establish and maintain multiple accounts with affiliate networks, the MatchMaker service ensures they only spend time signing up for merchant relationships which will earn them commission and are a good fit for their site content. This approach allows merchants and affiliate networks to continue managing their relationship with the publisher, while LettuceLinks focuses on providing a first-class affiliate aggregation service for the same audience.

“Networks and merchants want to know who’s linking to them, what types of sites are sending them traffic,” said Brendyn. “Most of our potential users already have affiliate accounts they want to keep using. Our goal is to work with them and provide an innovative service that, at the same time, disrupts the affiliate ecosystem as little as possible.”

For more information, visit http://lettucelinks.com.

That’s because you don’t have to deal with product creation or customer service headaches. All you have to do is recommend products to desperate buyers. Then you sit back and collect your massive paychecks.

But beware: Your affiliate cash can disappear quicker than snow in June if you don’t protect your commissions. How do you do that? Sit tight, and I will show you.

Stop using direct affiliate links.
You probably already know that it’s a good idea to cloak (hide) your affiliate links. Doing so will help ward off the link hijackers who switch in their affiliate ID for yours, and thus steal your commission when they buy the product. It also virtually reduces the number of buyers who “cut off” the affiliate portion of a link and go straight to the sales page (perhaps thinking that doing so will somehow give them a better deal).

But there’s another reason to use direct affiliate links: Namely, because you could end up with hundreds of “dead” links all over the Internet.

You see, if you make a blog post, Twitter about an affiliate product or include your direct affiliate link in an ebook, then what happens if the vendor stops selling that product? You’ll have dead links. Maybe hundreds of them.

If instead you use a redirect link, you can change the redirect link to point from the dead affiliate link to a similar affiliate product in just a minute or two. And in doing so, you could potentially save thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions.

Lots of folks like to use one of the free link-shortening services out there, and that’s fine — provided that you are using a service that you trust will be there for the long haul.

I personally found out the hard way that you can get burned if a site owner (in this case, a well-known marketer) allows their hosting to expire. All of my links went dead, and I didn’t find out until days later. It took this particular site owner over a month to get his site back up. By then, of course, I had already changed out my links.

Don’t let that happen to you.

There are two services that I personally use and can recommend. The first is Cloak Companion, a hosted solution that allows you to create links based from your own domain. It is a snap to install and will have you off to the races in no time.

The second option works great for those who are using WordPress. The Pretty Link plugin is quick and easy to set up, and allows you to create and track the links you generate.

Keep an Eye Out for Sales Leaks
Be sure that you vet out the vendors of products you intend to promote. It may be a case of a relatively new marketer that simply makes an honest mistake; unfortunately you may also run into folks who are simply out to make a quick buck, and don’t mind taking advantage of their affiliates in order to do it.

Don’t fall prey to this.

Avoid programs that feature Google AdSense ads on the sales page. The more distractions that exist on a sales page, the greater the risk that your prospect won’t convert into a sale. Other marketers know exactly what they’re doing – you send them traffic for free, and they get the money every time someone clicks on their ads. Either way, avoid these vendors.

Alternative payment options. Another sneaky way product vendors reach into your pocket is by offering multiple payment options on the affiliate landing page. For example, if the vendor uses Clickbank for affiliate tracking, then obviously you won’t get a penny if the vendor encourages customers to call their orders in.

Customer service reps that send visitors to a new page. Watch out for this sneaky trick: sometimes when a prospect has a question, the customer service rep (or the vendor) sends the customer to a different sales page. End result? You lose the commission!

Find out what loopholes the vendor will use to keep your money.

Here’s one last tip: Always read the TOS (terms of service) and affiliate agreement. Sometimes you’ll find outrageous payment thresholds that allows the vendor to legally keep your money until you reach that threshold. Other times the vendor charges a huge “accounting fee” just to cut you your check.

Were These Tips Helpful?
To discover more tips and strategies that help super affiliates keep those checks rolling in day after day, you can claim your FREE MEMBERSHIP to Affiliate Profits Club (normally $27.00) with my compliments. Inside the members area you’ll find audio, video and written information that will help you achieve super affiliate status in no time!

Affiliate marketing, network marketing, SEO, and direct sales are all exciting and growing businesses online.

Product launches that generate huge income and promise to reach you to do the same are all over the internet. From Frank Kern, Mike Dillard, Keith Wellman, Eben Pagan and many more gurus that are out there showing everyone how to live the good life, there is one serious problem that seems to be conveniently ignored.

Obviously there is opportunity on the internet like never before. There is an amazing amount of free information if you know who to listen to.

I watched a video earlier today that actually cleared up a question about links on a website. In 3 minutes I understood how to create much better traffic and a higher Google rank than before. I also finally had proof in front of my eyes as to how vital this really is.

More important than content on a site, which blew me away. Guess how much it cost me?

Zero, zilch, nada. Invaluable and free. I guarantee that I will be reading and talking more with that particular person.

Ok. Back to my point that you must become a master of.

My guess is that every person that reads this will understand exactly what I am talking about. Many of you will think that you already know this but my question is, do you put it into action?

Vision without action is daydreaming. And although this may be fun sometimes and you may actually have a creative thought as well, it’s generally a waist of productive time. So what am I referring to? Having IADD. Internet Attention Deficit Disorder. IADD is insidious and pernicious at the same time. Once you have it the first step is to become aware that you fit the criteria.

The second step is to admit it, and the third step is to correct it or at least manage the symptoms.

Some of the symptoms include: being on multiple lists for e-mails from auto responders, reading everything you can on websites and search engine optimization, learning about affiliate marketing and always looking for another product or service to launch.

Joining network marketing companies and calling yourself an internet marketer are dead giveaways.

The worst is always looking to buy from or learn how to duplicate what the latest guru is doing. PLI possibly. Product Launchitis. Launch mania at it’s worst.

So what can you do?
FOCUS! Decide what is the most exciting to you. Does it fit your personality type. Write down a plan of action. Then you can decide to learn about and possibly even spend money on a worthwhile venture. It’s the same as going to college, you have to pick a major. Do not be foolish and end up with frustration and being the master of nothing. You can have a minor but focusing your efforts on your major discipline can make you wealthy online. It is also more enjoyable and you can become an expert in an area.

I know it’s a challenge for the IADD generation but the most successful business people have done it this way since the beginning of time. Same with great athletes as well as artists, etc. If you like product launches then by all means study Frank Kern or Mike Dillard. If you want to understand Google AdWords then read Perry Marshall’s work. If you want to create relationship marketing campaigns online, then Aweber is the place to go. You may combine these ideas but stay focused in an area.

About the Author:
Dr. Beck has a highly successful wellness based clinic. An active real estate investor with a business background. Has been voraciously reading and studying finance, economics and wealth accumulation as well as passive income streams for many years. Also enjoys teaching entrepreneurs how to leverage the internet to create the life of their dreams. A true combination of health and wealth. Visit Dr. Beck online at: http://theincomenut.com/.

When using twitter you will likely find yourself spending a lot of time trying to find and/or develop good content to tweet about.

If you are into Affiliate Marketing or just about any other Niche, there is lots of information available. It is important for your efforts to make money online that you provide good quality information to your follows.

Developing the information or finding good content is one of the key elements in your efforts to develop trust with your Twitter followers. There are hundreds of people trying to market on the internet and Twitter is fast becoming a marketing tool. If you can provide useful information to your followers they will likely see you as an authority and start trusting you.

Twitter Time Saver is a tool that will help you find and organize high quality useful products that you can share with your Twitter followers. And Twitter Time Saver can be used in any niche.

In addition, Twitter Time Saver works quickly and easily so that you can share information and resources with your readers on a regular basis.

Twitter Time Saver is a 16 page guide that shows you how to set up each component of the system. The interaction between each component is automatic and saves you time because you just go the end and get the date to post to your Twitter account.

Twitter Time Saver comes with videos that cover exactly how to set each piece up.

Video 1 – Google News Feed – Shows you how to set up and easily find out what is new

Video 2 – Google Reader – Shows you how to set up so you can easily sort the good information from the bad data so that you only feed valuable information to your Tweeter followers

Video 3 – Friend Feed -Shows you how to set up and find the hidden integration link to make it all tick along automatically

Twitter Time Saver will allow you to

1. Find the hidden integration link between Twitter and Friend Feed
2. Discover an easy way to find and sort the latest information available in your niche.
3. Use automation to save you lots of time and thus discover and provide more information to your followers
4. Use free resources to accomplish your tasks in a lot less time
5. and much … much more

Get Twitter Time Saver now and start saving time, finding more information to provide to your followers, and building trust with your Twitter followers. This will greatly improve your efforts to make money online.

By the way, Twitter Time Saver makes a great companion to Doug Champigny’s Advanced Twitter Marketing System.

About the Author:
Lonnie Minton writes about Promoting Affiliate Programs and Affiliate Marketing in his newsletter, eCourses, and eBooks. Visit his blog at http://www.affiliateinternetbusinessonline.com/ Sign up for his Promoting Affiliate Programs Ezine at http://www.affiliateinternetbusinessonline.com/tsplist

What the Heck is Squidoo?

Squidoo is the creation of the brilliant mind of marketing guru Seth Godin, author of Meatball Sundae, among other titles.

Squidoo is just another example of how you can harness the power of social media and use it as a tool to promote and grow your business.

Sites like Squidoo offer particularly good news for small business owners that may be struggling during these tough economic times — when you have more time than money, it makes good sense to focus your energy (and your creativity) on the resources that are available to you. If you aren’t using Squidoo, you’re leaving money on the table.

But What Am I Going to Do With this Lens?
For starters, you can redirect a parked domain to your newly designed Squidoo lens. If you are less than impressed with some of the alternatives for parked domains, give this some careful consideration. Perhaps you purchased a few extra domains when you set up your main site — whether that purchase was simply to protect the names or part of a project on your never-ending “to do” list — these names are perfect candidates to redirect to your Squidoo lens.

• Use your lens as a tool to boost your main site’s ranking.
• Create well-ranked pages in Google that can bring in even more traffic;
• Position yourself, your business or blog as an expert, and direct qualified traffic your way;
• Use your lens to promote news items that provide a tie-in to your business;
• Post original articles that illustrate the need for your product or service;
• Provide technical information or alternative uses for your products.

• Use Squidoo lenses for cheap market research. Your only investment in Squidoo lenses is your time — so this is a great way to conduct a bit of research to see if there is enough interest to launch a full-blown site. You can test out niches to see how they’ll perform – with minimal investment and effort.

• Promote collateral affiliate products and services. Squidoo offers an assortment of monetization methods to its lensmasters, and, as long as you adhere to their terms of service, you can certainly incorporate your own as well. Whether you choose to embed text links within the body of relevant articles or showcase an assortment of Amazon products — these are just a few of the options available. The key is to use your creativity to strike a balance between providing solid content and making a bit of coin in the bargain.

• Earn money for your favorite charity. This last point may be a bit of a surprise, so let me explain. Squidoo encourages folks to designate a portion (or even all) of their earnings from their lenses, and donate them to charity. This isn’t mandatory, but Squidoo reports that over 50% of their lensmasters current donate some portion of their earnings.

If you elect to donate a portion of your earnings to a particular charity, this is something that you could cross-promote on your main website, and get your current customer base involved in. In fact, launching a lens (or series of lenses) in support of a particular charity could be the basis for an entire promotional campaign — with press releases, promotional videos, flyers, sales, and other activities.

Not All Lenses Are Created Equally
It isn’t enough just to get your page up on Squidoo — you want your page to actually be found. In order to do that, you must have solid content, good titles, and strong keywords. With over 900,000 pages, that is no small feat, but it is possible. A well-built lens can advance through the rankings quickly — and begin to generate quality traffic for your site in fairly short order.

Ready to Make a Splash on Squidoo?
By now, your head is spinning with the possibilities, as well it should be. But if, for some reason, you have more ideas than time, don’t get your tentacles in a bunch. You can visit the Promo Diva® blog to find a wealth of premade niche lenses for sale, as well as order your own custom niche lens.

If you are an aspiring shutter bug or videographer, you can easily position yourself to profit from your talents.

Video & Rev-Share Sites
One of the best ways to make money through your web videos is by using ad revenue sharing sites. These types of sites allow you to place your web video on their sites; when your video generates income through the ads that are placed on the page, you earn a certain amount of money. While you won’t be able to retire in Aruba on these earnings, you do have a shot at a respectable side income that you could easily use to fund promotional efforts.

Selling to a Niche
The key to making the most money off of ad revenue sites is by uploading as much content as you can, and tailoring the video for a specific type of audience. The more targeted the ad message, the higher potential of converting those click-thrus into sales. Some good ad revenue video sites are Revver and Google Video.

Selling to the Masses
Another method of earning through video is by selling your videos to others who may want to use them. There are a multitude of sites that allow you to sell your stock video clips, and stock photos, such as iStockVideo. Each site has specific guidelines as to the types of images that they accept, as well as size and quality guidelines — so be sure and familiarize yourself with these beforehand. In order to maximize your earning potential, you may want to do some background investigation to see what types of images are popular. You can do this by browsing the site to check out the profiles of the most popular contributors; another option is to check out sites like Alexa, Google News, and Alltop and see what topics are capturing headlines. Many web designers utilize stock photos to create client sites — you may want to contact a few designers to see if they have any current photo needs. If you are able to establish a few strategic partnerships with some busy designers, you may well end up with more work than you can handle.

Contract Out Your Services
Perhaps you are a big fan of a widget made by a specific company. If you make contact with the company that makes the widget, they may be interested in working with you, or even paying you to create a video on their behalf. By creating videos that affiliates and sales representatives can utilize, you are offering a value-added service that many small companies can’t afford to produce in-house. By establishing a few partnerships, you can create a lucrative niche business for yourself.

Let’s look at a few things you can do to shift the odds in your favor.

First and foremost, learn to write articles.
Article marketing is free and will bring you quality, targeted traffic for months and months. It takes awhile to learn to use PPC and profit, so allow yourself to dabble in PPC while focusing in article marketing for the time being. You will find plenty of prospective buyers without spending a penny in advertising.

Next, let’s get to the real topic of this article ‚ finding alternatives to Clickbank. Why? – Because Clickbank is over-saturated with affiliates and want-to-be-affiliates, so your competition is very steep. The most popular Clickbank products, the ones that really sell, will cost you a fortune in PPC campaigns. It is surprising that so many beginning affiliates do not realize how unnecessary Clickbank is. The only real benefit to Clickbank is convenience, in that you can search products all in one place, you get paid from one source, and you only need one account to do so. The benefits of using other sources, in my experience, have far outweighed those conveniences. Let’s look at some other options.

Did you know that most sites offer their own affiliate programs?

Do a search for a general topic that you want to find products for. Find several of the top organic search results pages that actually offer a product for sale. Now scroll to the bottom of those pages (in most cases). On many of these sites, you will find a link for ‚ Affiliates‚ Join Affiliate Program‚ Partners‚ or Become a Partner. There are other variations, but it should be obvious that you are seeing an affiliate program.

Click there and sign up with the sites that you want to promote with. Many direct affiliate programs offer more options and better commissions than Clickbank programs, and you have the added benefit of competing against much smaller numbers. Try to pick programs that don’t also have a program with Clickbank, or you wind up in the same position as before.

By going straight to the product vendors and becoming affiliated with them, you put yourself in the unique position of being one of the very small percentage of online affiliates who are working with individual companies, which gives you a great competitive edge. It’s amazing to see a campaign that costs almost nothing yield great results, when having been accustomed to watching expensive campaigns hemorrhage your money.

Cutting yourself away from the masses of Clickbank affiliates is one of the best advantages you can give yourself. Let the professionals dominate, and let the want-to-bes throw away their money. This way, neither of those will stop you from taking your cut, nor cause you to pay far more than you should for PPC ads.

Here are a few others choices that I personally have used:

http://www.e-junkie.com
http://www.Paydotcom.com