This is stop number four on our Affiliates Blog Tour. We’re zooming around to some of the greatest blogs in the work at home community, sharing how to advice for new affiliate marketers.

Thanks to Arika for hosting this stop on the tour!

In the last stop of our tour we talked about using content that affiliate programs create for you; articles, blog posts, email promotions and the like. Good programs provide good content!

If a program really wants to go to the next level equipping their affiliates, they’ll create more in depth content in a variety of formats. Special reports, ebooks, audios and videos are all great examples of high value content an affiliate would love to be able to give to their circle of influence.

How Affiliate Programs Offer Freebies

Option #1: You Give Away a Branded Resource

Usually, if an affiliate program gives you a special report or ebook to make available to others for free, they will build in some sort of branding. That means your affiliate link is actually embedded in the links within the content. Anyone who gets their hands on that document is going to be exposed to an affiliate link so the affiliate and the affiliate program wants the product to be distributed far and wide and will have no ‘opt in’ requirement attached.

Here’s an example of a freebie created to promote a membership site that is branded with an affiliate link freely distributed by the affiliate.

Option #2: You Promote a Free Offer Page

If the affiliate program wants to capture contact information for anyone who gains access to their freebies, they’ll set up a page that sells visitors on their need for the freebie and collects their name and email address.

You can see an example of a free offer page here.

Some programs offer a mixture of both. Items are created specifically to be branded and sent out far and wide while other items are developed primarily to gain email list subscribers.

Promoting a Freebie Make Me Money?

Affiliate programs use cookies to track referrals. A cookie is a tiny bit of code recorded on your referral’s computer that identifies them to our shopping cart when they come back sometime in the future.

Each program has a set period during which a cookie is good. Some are 30 days, some 90. A few are as short as a few hours and some, like ours, are not given an expiration date at all. We call that ‘lifetime cookies’.

How it works:

• You tell your readers about a free ebook using your affiliate link. Let’s use our Hot Mama Makeover as an example.
• Your reader visits the link, likes the offer and drops her name and email in the optin box. In that moment, our cookie is set on her computer – coded with your affiliate number.
• Your reader receives the freebie by email and enjoys it. She’s a happy gal with pleasant thoughts about you and us.

Within the text of our free ebook are several recommendations for other resources that we have to offer. She may click on one of these offers and act favorably right then and there – or she may notice these offers again a few weeks or months later. It doesn’t matter when, if she takes advantage of a Mom’s Talk Network offer, you’re going to earn a commission on that sale.

That’s not all. Since she subscribed to our mailing list when she requested the freebie, she will also be receiving occasional emails from Mom’s Talk Network. We’ll send her cool resource links and every once in awhile, we’ll promote something special that we’ve created. If she buys, you earn.

We’ve had over 10,000 moms opt in for one of our freebies over the last three years and have converted over 700 into customers at some level. Some buy ebooks, some sign up for teleseminars and some sign up for coaching.

How cool is it that you get to tell your people about great free resources and gain the potential of lifetime residual affiliate commissions at the same time?

Some Freebies Earn You Lead Commissions Too

Some great affiliate programs, like our Mom’s Talk Affiliates, offer a ‘pay per lead’ option. We not only create a variety of freebies for you to recommend – we actually pay you for each lead you generate. Every time a new mom signs up for a freebie through your referral link you earn a 25 cent commission. It may not sound like much, but those quarters can add up pretty fast!

People Love Free Stuff

If you’ve ever felt intimidated my affiliate marketing in the past, thinking that you’ll have to talk people into buying something – this is your chance to stick your toe in the water without risk. It’s easy to tell someone about a free offer, especially when its for something they’re really going to want to get their hands on.

Tishia Lee, Affiliate Manager for Mom’s Talk Affiliates and Kelly McCausey, owner of Mom’s Talk Network are touring the work at home web with great tips on affiliate marketing, check out the full tour schedule here.