I wrote a quick blurb on Snowdrop’s website describing the three ways to be successful in affiliate marketing.  Here’s my main point:

Beginner affiliate marketers rarely see high returns in their first few months because they focus too much on increasing sales volume and not enough on decreasing the cost of a lead/action.

I think it boils down to this: because online advertising is so easy to track, analyze, and tweak, it’s insane not to be ridiculously efficient when purchasing a lead.  And that’s what you’re really doing – you spend money on advertising to purchase a lead, and you succeed if the cost of that lead is less than the revenue generated per lead.

That’s why I’m always confused when I hear about companies that have fixed budgets for advertising.  In reality, a business should have a fixed budget for “experimental” advertising, but an unlimited budget for successful advertising.  For example, if every time you handed me $1, I gave you $2 back, would you cap yourself at handing me $100 per day or would you continue to trade me dollars for more dollars ad infinitum?

Discussed in this post » advertising, affiliate marketing, snowdrop