I love Clickbank! When you’re looking  for great information products to promote to just about ANY niche market, there’s sure to be some cool e-book or software resource in the CB database that in a few clicks can be linked up on your site. And Clickbank merchants pay among the most generous commissions on the net.

Imagine how stunned I was to read this shocking fact that was emailed over to me this morning. Clickbank’s Vice President of Business Development recently admitted that most affiliates don’t make ANY sales.  I mean, I knew something about this, but I had no idea how bad it really is.  Here’s the hard data:

Clickbank has 1.2 million affiliates, and only 110,000 of them make at least 1 sale every 3 months. The others don’t make anything at all.

And here’s the really scary part:  Only 1% of Affiliates make enough money to live on.

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I’ve already written about how it’s possible to identify niche markets just by keeping your eyes open every day as you work, play, live in the offline world. Here’s a way to be very intentional about it.  If you’re a Borders freak (or Barnes & Noble, etc) like me, you’ll love this one!

The magazine stand at your favorite bookstore is an awesome place to do some quick niche market research. Just browse the shelves and see what topics people have created magazines about. If a market will sustain a subscription magazine, there are guaranteed to be enough people out there interested in the topic to make a great possibility for you to consider. What you’re actually doing is capitalizing on the money a publisher has undoubtedly already spent to research whether a niche is viable.

So, take your notepad and just jot down some of the interesting topics that catch your eye, which you will then bring home and do your own normal keyword research on to see how the market looks online. A couple of pointers:

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Newbie affiliates often seem to be very nervous about PPC advertising (Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Services, etc.)  That’s understandable. If you don’t understand how it works, or don’t know how to set it up right, it could drain a lot of cash from your credit card.

But it doesn’t have to be scary at all. Just follow a few simple guidelines:

1) Start off small. You can set up a campaign that suits your budget limits. No more than $5 per day if you like.

2) Build up to a larger budget ONLY as you see some success and your profit is paying for the added advertising.

3) Monitor your campaigns for effectiveness, and “split test” different ideas as you go. (Split testing is a whole subject for another day.)

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One of the premier sources for affiliates to find information products to promote is, of course, Clickbank.  But when you think of Clickbank, with 12,000+ products in their database, how do you choose which particular ones you are going to include in your sites, to pre-sell and link to?  “Eeny meeny miney mo?”  You need to be much more intentional than that.

Here are some simple criteria to think about:

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You’ve seen the sales copy everywhere, right? “Make a fortune overnight as an affiliate marketer without even a website.”

Let’s break that down for a second. CAN you make a lot of money as an affiliate? Yup. Can you do it overnight? Probably not. Can you do it without a website? HIGHLY unlikely. Sure you can make a few bucks, but let’s get a reality check here – if you’re going to make a go at this business you’re going to need to build websites. That’s right … with an “s” on the end (plural). Stick around this blog long enough and you’ll hear that I advocate LOTS of sites. Spreading the eggs across many baskets. Why? A couple of reasons …

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