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This is my guest post that was published yesterday on the MediaTrust blog:

10 Quick tips that can help you get started making money in affiliate marketing today.

In the past, we’ve offered many in-depth articles on various parts of internet marketing, such as information on SEO, PPC, social media and marketing in general. With more and more people entering this industry every day, it’s easy to succumb to information overload. To many new affiliates, this information seems useless since they are not yet savvy enough with internet marketing to generate revenue with more advanced techniques.

To start generating revenue, a new affiliate does not need to understand the very complex inner workings of SEO, PPC, social media, etc.; they just need to understand a few key tips about internet marketing in general.

I’ve compiled a list of 10 tips that you can help you get started today:

1. Familiarity with HTML is a must in order to edit landing pages, place pixels, etc.

2. Hope is not a strategy for growth, planning and executing your campaigns is key.

3.  Do target online Moms. Why? 67% of Moms online look for help making a purchasing decision. (Marketing To Moms Coalition Survey 2008)

4. Target market is key – targeting a Mom on a free iPhone email submit will not convert well; lip stick samples will likely convert better.

5.  Always track your paid advertising, eliminating poor ad placements can make or break a campaign.

6.  Landing page CTR is very important, you want as many users seeing the offer page as possible. Use click heat maps to optimize landing pages. ClickHeat is an awesome free tool.

7. This is BIG. If you can target Australia or UK, do it, the competition is much less fierce. Or better yet, promote an offer that has a translated landing page (French, Spanish, German, etc) to other countries.

8.  Are you thinking about doing SEO? Before investing in SEO, make sure you test to see if the traffic converts for the keyword that you are targeting via PPC.

9.  Be aware of macro environmental trends that may cause a certain campaign to convert higher. For example, weight loss products typically convert higher in January, right after many people make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight.

10. Affiliate marketing income can fluctuate, find multiple traffic sources that are profitable to create stability in case one traffic source is terminated.

Okay, take a look-

This is what I saw when I logged into my Facebook news stream twenty minutes ago. An advertiser/affiliate spamming Facebook users with a trojan horse script.

I realize that the majority of affiliates do not participate in malicious behavior when promoting offers. On the other hand, there is a bad bunch of affiliates out there, with way to much time on their hands, making lame attempts at trying to spam consumers throughout the web, trying to convert their product.

This behavior really is hurting the industry as a whole, from advertisers, to networks, to affiliates, it effects everyone.

So, the next time you email your overseas programmer to create a script that spams blogs, Facebook, Twitter, whatever…, STOP.

Instead, take a walk outside, enjoy the beautiful June weather and only promote offers through the channels advertisers allow.