Affiliate Summit Lessons Learned

By Mark Ling
Affiliate Summit Lessons Learned

 

Hi Everyone,

A few weeks ago I flew out to Las Vegas to attend Affiliate Summit.

I personally got a lot out of the event because I managed to meet more than 20 people who are making 7 to 8 figures a year online.

What I wanted to do in this particular blog post was simply to mention the top 3 takeaways that I got out of the event...

1. All the super affiliates that I met (7 and 8 figure affiliates) made over 80% of their income from just 1 or 2 niches. These niches varied across affiliates but the theme was the same, super affiliates got to know a niche extremely well and then promoted aggressively using several forms of paid advertising (google ppc, google content, yahoo ppc, yahoo content, msn, natural seo, media buys, pay per view and so forth). Not many did a lot of natural search engine optimization.

Examples of the niches they focussed on include: weight loss, muscle gain, make money online, forex, satellite tv on pc software, anti spyware/adware software, make money (general bizopp), and self help niches.

That's not to say that other affiliates weren't doing well in other niches, but those are the main niches that were mentioned to me by ones who were doing 7 to 8 figures a year.

2. Health and fitness is the biggest niche in virtually every single affiliate network. I spoke to senior staff at a lot of the various networks and most of them said that weight loss and other fitness related offers were the ones that were doing the best for them. The next closest niche was 'make money' market.

3. When done correctly video salescopy vastly outperforms long salescopy format, however it has the potential to backfire so this needs to be tested closely. I will be running my own tests soon (starting in the save marriage niche). Apparently not including a fast forward button on the video salescopy greatly increases sales (again I will need to test this). I'm interested in testing this kind of thing out with affiliate videos. You don't need to be in the video, most of these videos are voiced over with slides.

I hope you enjoy this post, I'm interested in your comments.

All the best,
Mark

88 Comments

View all 88 comments (Currently displaying latest 50)

Nick 15 years ago
Specialisation in one or two niches makes learning about your customers wants & needs so much easier. Within no time you will soon become an authority. Thanks for the article Mark.
Shawna Slater 15 years ago
The old 80/20 rule: eighty percent of the income comes from twenty percent of the niches.

Very helpful in giving us the "skinny" on all your long hours. THANKS!
Karen Sielski 15 years ago
Thanks for these insights Mark! This is very helpful information. I've been focusing on SEO and have known I need to take the plunge and become a master at PPC and the content networks. Off to get started...
Gordon 15 years ago
Interesting. I would have thought no fast forward would have decreased sales as if i am send a video with no fast forward I just close the window. I for one have no time for no fast forward button.

good work
Chris 15 years ago
Mark, thanks for sharing this info. I'm very interested in hearing your results with the forward vs non-forward button on sales videos.

Personally, I hate it when I can't forward. I usually watch the videos the same way I read sales letters, randomly at first, then line by line if enough jumps out at me.
Jess 15 years ago
Thanks for sharing Mark.
mint88 15 years ago
It's really interesting to see the niches that are the most popular and to see that these super affiliates concentrate on just one or two. This is really drilling deep rather than spreading wide. What are your thoughts Mark? Is this the way to go or would you still spread wide over many niches? Just interested to hear your opinion. Thanks!
Paula Shelton 15 years ago
It's tragic, though expected, that the main money-making markets for the most successful affiliate marketers are the 'get a dream body, get rich' schemes. I almost typed 'scams' for 'schemes' there, which is probably some Freudian slip of the brain expressing my personal deep mistrust of anyone selling an impossible dream --- for nothing or very little.
Affiliate marketing is a great and fair way to make money while sharing knowledge online. Get paid for results and pay only for results. But the system is so open to '...and there's more, you too can be as rich as me...you must read on through this tedious drivel to find out the real single and only answer...don't expect any emails from me unless it's important, but I'll have something important to email you about every day for ever...' abuse, that most people distrust it. Not surprising really.
AffiliatesTag 15 years ago
Thanks for the sharing.. it's valuable information... really interesting to know the common factor in 7 and 8 figure affiliates marketers.
Keith 15 years ago
Re; forced videos

Personally, those who force you to watch the whole video to get their inevitable sales pitch are disrespectful of my time and anytime one is offered, in most cases I will immediately delete them and quite possibly unsubscribe as well. I hate those things, and too they often start out so slow and drone on. Just get to the point. Just say no to these types of videos. It may work at first, but the backlash will come.

While I am at it I will also say the same for anyone who uses 3-4 exit pop ups They're gone.
Jesus 15 years ago
It definitely makes sense. If you pay attention to 1- 2 niches you will be able to make those very productive.

There is also a misconception with video and you make a very important point. In order to make a good video you don't have to appear in it, a good slideshow with some very well explained bullet points will do!!
Ramesh Rathinam 15 years ago
Health and fitness, Make money are the ever green Niches. These two seems to have made more millionaires then rest of combined. Good Article Mark.
Ken 15 years ago
Hey mark, Thanks for your insightful sharing. I guess the worthwhile thing to note, is that for every 20 people making 7 or 8 figures, there are hundreds more making probably 5 to 6 figures, which is encouraging for us just starting out. I'm so glad your site is not just another money sucking "training" site, what you put up here is extremely useful and relevant! Thanks so much, doing my week 3 classes now...
tomp 15 years ago
that is a fact......weight loss and fitness niches are doing the best.thank you for your article Mark
Emi 15 years ago
Hi Mark,

I know I am the average of the 5 people I spend time with the most. If I want to be doing well at internet marketing, I would need to spend time with other people who are doing well online. When attending these conferences, how do I go about finding people who are the ones who are doing well online like you did? I networked with many people, but did you go to Affiliate Summit knowing of these people beforehand to meet them at the at the conference? You said you met 20 people who were making 7-8 figure incomes at Affiliate Summit. How did you happen to meet them and how would you suggest one goes about meeting these people when attending conferences like this?

Emi
Annie 15 years ago
Video as a media is bound to be a force. It has to be used in an engaging manner and not as a long winded sales monologue. We can close down anyone who is boring and predictable. The long copy letter is long, that doesnt mean the video has to be long too. Some of the most effective videos I have watched are short and visionary.
PandaMarketer 15 years ago
I attended asw10 but did not get a chance to rub shoulders with higher income affiliates. Thanks for your take-aways.

Dave
aka PandaMarketer on twitter
chandrasekaran rajamani 15 years ago
Hello,
Your inputs are are very helpful.As for me I have a slow internet connection in which videos load slowly and it becomes a torture to watch videos so most of the time I hit the back button and do not watch the video.I am sure that there are many people out there who have a slow internet connection and feel the same.
chandrasekaran
Dean Peterson 15 years ago
I hate the long video sales copy but I have to admit it makes me listen to it all - would rather skip to the offer and see the P.S. like in long sales copy though. Intersted to see how your tests work out! I am in the "make money" market - always fills the pipeline - never grows old! I really like Affilormama - the only monthly program I belong to as hate continiuty! Mark overdelivers!
Ana 15 years ago
I am not surprised especially the fitness and lose weight niches we all know that most people we know are experts on both of those subjects and are certainly interested in any topic relating to these so therefore why not internet marketing as a tool to market these. Yes good one. Thanks for that. http://www.needhelpwithdetoxing.com
Made Suparta 15 years ago
Hmmmmmm...............video sales letter..........new tactic?................look forward it from yours
mike garrison 15 years ago
My opinion is that your market will tell you which type of video works best.
Test long versus short, salesy versusi nformative,male versus female.
in short, if you would supply us with your testing guidlines, i think that would, help us the most.
Also, maybe some resources for video production.

Thanks,
Mike
www,affiliatetraininghelp.com
Jason 15 years ago
Interesting to see that they all do well in PPC as opposed to organic listing. Probably the best tip that I've picked up!
Bill 15 years ago
This is VERY helpful and insightful information.

Thanks
Rick Samara 15 years ago
Thanks for this extremely valuable information. It's great to finally get information on Affiliate Summit West. Were these observations taken from the classes or on your personal meetings with super affiliates. I would also be interested in what trends emerged from the classes.

I was a little surprised that 'people search' was not mentioned as a niche. Seems to me that a whole 'cottage' industry has sprung up out of public information.

Again, many thanks for the quick insight!

Rick
Fransisco Brevoort 15 years ago
Can I come with you next time mark!!!
Ricardo 15 years ago
the video without any player buttons is very powerful... because you watch or you not watch only two options possible :-)... people loves audio over reading...
Troy 15 years ago
Thanks for the update Mark.
The only thing I have a bit of a problem with is videos with no forward button, It just eeks me...lol

Troy
william eckard 15 years ago
Thanks for sharing. Interesting facts.

Two things come to mind. Firstly, like all business, start at the bottom with a low budget (natural ranking), make some money and plough back the money into your business. (PPC and more). I am willing to take a bet that these 8 figure earners' PPC expenses are all 6 or 7 figures, or am I wrong?

Secondly it makes sense that PPC gives them better results. Why would Google allow a natural ranker to make more money than one of their paying customers? Surely they have it sorted in their measurement and ranking criteria, or else PPC would have been long gone?

It will be interesting to see some feedback on your research and once again I got some insider information from Affilorama. Thanks Mark.
Andrew H. (cherrytree) 15 years ago
Hey thanks for letting us Know Which Niches are Going Strong With Top Earners Cherrytree
Gregory Hyne 15 years ago
Great post. It took me a while to figure out that the best markets to go into are the ones with the most listbuilders and the most products to cross promote. I know that videos without controls convert better but I'd like to knw how many potential buyers are driven away before this point. Conversion per click and not per view is the issue i think. From my own point of view, I don 't mind the lack of controls but I need to see the video duration in text.
Bronnamdi 15 years ago
Thanks for sharing this worthwhile information with us. I am in the process of mixing my traffic sources with organic search engine traffic and paid sources like ppc and others but no video at the moment.

Glad to know that even the gurus are also doing the same. In time, I hope that my income will be as large as theirs.
Ming Jong 15 years ago
Thanks for the info!

It is great to know that what are the successful affiliate marketer are doing/not doing.


Cheers,
Ming Jong
mike bebbington 15 years ago
I only use ppc sparingly,and then I look for a niche within a niche,seo is what you need to master when strating out,things like forex are for the big boys,they pay upwards of 10 bucks a click for this,so unless you are already rich forget it,the sharks eat the minnows every time.As for video marketing I like it,seo is easy if you have the right mentor,which thanks to a webinar with mark and a IM colleague I am begining to major in it.
Viola 15 years ago
So if everybody is in the weightloss niche, how does a newbie even stand a chance of getting started and making even a few hundred dollars?

My niche is weightloss and health for the over 40 crowd because of my background and because this is my struggle and focus personally so I thought I combine this with IM and see if I can actually make some money while I am improving my own health..

So far, sad to say, other then some nice comments left on my blog I haven't gotten anywhere. But I know this is just a start and I keep on going.
Dan DeLuca 15 years ago
Thanks Mark, as usual lots of value here. I'll be ramping up my investigation of forex market, since I was thinking of a website for that. I like the idea of ongoing payments! Definitely want to hear how your video testing goes too!
Graham in UK 15 years ago
Hi Mark
Well it just confirms what we all know already doesn't it?
The big boys can afford to use PPC and make loads of money
The rest of us use SEO because we can't afford PPC!
The more advanced are using video which has got to be the way to go
the rest of us are trying to learn about video!
Everything is easy.... when you know how!
regards
Graham in UK
Brian Mcandy 15 years ago
Thanks Mark for the insight. Excellent for newbies like myself.
MAX TURNER 15 years ago
Thanks for those enlightening tips. It proves that affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn if you understand the necessary techniques. Thanks Mark

Regards Max Australia
NETFORCE10.COM 15 years ago
Hi Mark,
Very interesting post, specially that they make all their money solely from 1 or 2 niches.
I am very interested in getting more info anout the video sales copy, because indeed it has a lot of viral potential. Also interesting is that they are hardly doing any SEO, but pure PPC...
While I have been working for 3 years on my own SEO program, called NETFORCE10, that will be finally ready by 01 of March 2010.
Hahaahahhaha. Life can be hard!
Thanks Mark!
Without any doubt, AFFILORAMA is the best Internet Marketing Information site on the web.
Chris McNeil 15 years ago
Great info man. Thanks
DrM
bob orbea 15 years ago
Really good info in the sense that these bighitters are making money in areas available to all. The key note here is the PPC mentioned by Mark. Eventually, you have to spend money on this business and that means advertising with PPC. No matter how these guys tune their marketing methods, it all comes down to spending $$ on PPC. Organic is fine if you want to wait and wait for results and making peanuts a month. I tried PPC last year, the results came fast and was able to fine tune where the money was but it gets expensive. The results are gold in learning where to put your energy in chasing those buyers.
jimtsa 15 years ago
I hate videos that cannot fast forward. It just turn people off.
I think readers are smarter than you think and they dont wish to waste their time to watch a video that doesn't give them the time duration.
John 15 years ago
Thanks for the info,I'd like to knw how many potential buyers are driven away before this point. you know how!
regards

John

Thanks

.............................

plr articles

Dish Network Cleveland 15 years ago
Ah, This is spot on! Clarifies
several contradictions I've heard
john 15 years ago
the sharks eat the minnows every time.As for video marketing I like it,seo is easy if you have the right mentor,which thanks to a webinar with mark and a IM colleague I am begining to major in it.
Dish Network City of Industry 15 years ago
Ah, This is exactly what I was looking for! Dispells
many contradictions I've read
andyw 15 years ago
After reading you blog, Your blog is very useful for me .I bookmarked your blog!
Wishes your valentine day to be joyful!
john doyle 15 years ago
Mark;
AS a newbie i appreciate the articles. You tend to clarify my thinking.
Thanks, johndes
Dish Network Salinas 15 years ago
Ah, This is exactly what I was looking for! Puts to bed
many misnomers I've read

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