We have come to a time when seasoned affiliate marketers are not just marketing anything. (Like they used too.) But, these days they are looking for a few important aspects with the offers.

1. EPC
2. Continuity
3. Guaranteed Pay-outs

Many affiliate marketers are getting sick and tired of emailing down blackholes.

Here’s a few things to take in high consideration:

Many affiliate marketers spend large sums of their time, effort and money building up their email lists. So, sending an email and not getting paid or having it not make them any money means one important thing: Opportunity costs.

Because they could have just mailed something they knew that makes them money or even mailed something of their own and made 100% of the money.

Let’s take a look at these three essential areas that you must cover whether you are creating an affiliate offer or looking for one to email out:

First, EPC.

For many affiliate marketers that look at their email list like a REAL business, they focus and manage numbers. They pay close attention to their email delivery rate, their clicks and the amount of money they make per each click.

EPC stands for Earnings Per Click.

That means that for every click they send they get back X dollars or cents.

So, what numbers should you be looking at getting per click or EPC?

Well, it really varies on the affiliate marketer. But, I have noticed that if something is getting over $1 a click it gets more attention than other offers.

My personal rule of thumb is to make sure that I get at least $1.50 a click. Now, here’s where many guys fail. And something to take into consideration…

THE DOUBLE EDGE SWORD:

If we just look at the EPC on a given day and don’t take in consideration the long term value of the EPC then you can lose money in the long run. Let me give you a good example:

I mailed an offer for Patric Chan, it made me $0.70 per click. So I dropped the offer the next day and moved to another one that was paying better.

I logged into my affiliate account 3 months later and his stick rate on his continuity program was very high and I was still getting paid. Now my EPC on that offer was well over 1.50. I was shocked and excited.

Here’s why it’s a double edge sword, because a lot of offers you’ll mail will have a continuity piece to it but a lot of times they won’t have a good stick rate.

That’s why I never usually take that into consideration to give an offer the benefit of the doubt but in this case my theory was wrong. So, you know what I did? I emailed him and asked him if his offer was still going – it was so I mailed it again. This time harder than before.

Second, Continuity.

A lot of affiliate marketers do in fact pay attention to continuity. Because they like getting paid again and again. Especially if they are using a guaranteed affiliate pay-out system such as Clickbank.
Think about this, you mail something for a low ticket you can get a lot of buyers and a lot of people on the Continuity.

Although here are some things to take in consideration. The biggest thing to take into consideration is the stick rate and how clear they are on the continuity.

Sending your subscribers to an offer that’s not clear on the Continuity, will piss off your subscribers and they may never buy from you again.

Third, Guaranteed Pay-outs

Next let’s think about guaranteed payments. This right here is probably the number one thing affiliates marketers are looking for because it does not matter how good the EPC is or the Continuity if you don’t get paid.

How do I look for Guaranteed payments.

If it is somebody I can strangle quickly, like somebody in the area.
Somebody who is an affiliate of mine as well, because if they don’t pay me I can take it out of their affiliate checks.
People that are using third party affiliate programs where you are pretty much guaranteed a payment.
Examples would be Clickbank and Paydotcom.com.

Clickbank cuts a check and mails the payment to you themselves. Paydotcom is a third party managing the affiliate program. The person with the program you are promoting pays you but, you can get Paydotcom in the middle if there is a problem.

Bottom line marketers want to get paid.