In my mind it is a turbulent time to be in the affiliate marketing niche. Several states (including CA, IL, NY, AR, NC, and RI) have passed affiliate nexus laws. If you are not familiar with this legislation it is basically a law that seeks to force online retailers (like Amazon) to collect sales taxes. Constitutionally sales tax does not have to be collected from customers who live outside of any state where that retailer has a physical presence… think warehouses, shipping centers, and corporate offices. These laws seek to force them to collect the taxes by saying that using affiliates as independent sales people creates “presence” or nexus in the states where their affiliates reside.

For all the reasons why this is horrendous news for affiliates read Sales Tax Laws May Kill Affiliate Marketing. Even worse news is that recently an Illinois Senator took this shakedown attempt national. To put it simply though imagine that you are a big corporation and a state law passes in California that states your business relationship with John Doe in that state now requires you to collect sales taxes for all California customers. Jumping through those hoops will cost you money and lots of extra work so it is not hard to figure out the easiest course of action… simply fire John Doe and avoid all that extra money and paperwork. That is exactly what large retailers are doing. They won’t be strong armed by state governments, they simply fire their affiliates and devastate thousands of small businesses that reside there.

So, the million dollar question is.. what do you if your state passes an affiliate nexus law and you got your walking papers from Amazon and other large retailers? Here are some ideas:

Move to Another Location – This is the most obvious one and if you make a substantial income with affiliate marketing it may well be worth it. Of course this law may follow you to the new state as well, so keep that in mind. You may choose to live in a state where your largest affiliate company has a physical presence but you may lose your relationship with others. Another option would be to move out of the country. Just make sure the income tax there isn’t greater than what you pay here or it may not be worth it. There is also the possibility of incorporating in another state but you should talk to a tax professional about the legalities of it.

Find Affiliate Programs in Your State – Any retailers based in your state must collect sales tax already so they are unlikely to fire affiliates from their own state. It wouldn’t make sense to do so. This may not be as profitable as before but you may be able to get creative and salvage some income. You can always try niche sites that center around what is available in your state.

Sell Digital Products – This option may not be available for long since many states are looking to tax digital products as well but for the time being you may have luck promoting ebooks and info products as an affiliate.

Sell Your Own Products – You can also make and sell your own digital products. Think eBooks, eCourses, teleseminars, audio recordings, plr articles, etc. And of course you can sell physical products by opening a retail shop online.

Sell Ad Space – Many bloggers and site owners already do this to some extent but it can be a great source of revenue if you have a high traffic site. You can sell the ads yourself directly or you can use an ad network. You can do both even. Offer banner ad spots as well as text link ads and you may just come up with a steady new income stream. Forming a products and/or services directory on your site is another option. Small businesses would then pay a small yearly amount to be displayed on your site.

Sponsored Posts/Paid Reviews – When companies contact you with press releases or product pitches send them a form email informing them of your compensation rates for helping them to promote their products or services. Many will simply ignore you and move on to find other bloggers who will do this for free but some may take you up on your offer, thus providing new sources of income.

Membership Sites – If you have managed to establish a nicely trafficked site or a sizeable online community it may be time to create an inner circle. This can be done via a private forum or a password protected area on your blog where you share specialized content with paying subscribers. It can also be a place where you offer coaching and personal assistance with those interested in your niche. If you run a recipe blog for instance this can be a place where you offer exclusive recipes, step by step instructions, videos of you cooking and sharing tips, menu planners, shopping lists, and other value added features. Your particular niche will determine if this is feasible but many bloggers and site owners have had great success with offering their best content to paid subscribers.

Squidoo and HubPages – Both of these sites allow you to create your own content and be paid a percentage of commissions from ad clicks and affiliate sales. You basically split the profits from your pages 50/50. While it may seem foolish to create profitable pages on someone else’s virtual real estate this is a great option to have if you cannot collect these commissions in your own state. Product reviews and write-ups do especially well on sites like these and they can be very profitable. And another tip… you can make your own online purchases through your Squidoo or Hubpages affiliate modules and get money back via commissions.

Market Locally – In addition to finding local affiliate programs you can also reach out to local businesses and/or start a blog or web site about your city or township. This will give local businesses more incentive to seek you out for paid ads, sponsored posts, and product/event reviews. Some opportunities that come your way might not be paid, they may just offer you something of monetary value in return for a review or endorsement but when the opportunities are local it may help your bottom line regardless, in services or products that you didn’t have to pay for. Mom blogs especially, that are location specific, can be a great way to leverage free services and entertainment for your family.

Group Deal Sites – This is another option that will not result in cash payments but it can result in shopping credits. Group Deal sites (think Groupon) are popping up all over and there is usually incentive to share these deals with friends via email, blog, Facebook, and Twitter. When someone you referred buys the daily deal you get credit that can be used on future purchases.

If you want an affiliate based business to survive and thrive you may need to get creative find new income streams. Do you have any ideas or tips to share?

I have made no secret of the fact that Amazon accounts for a pretty significant chunk of my earnings as an affiliate marketer. I have had one blog post generate over $2000.00 in a single month when that post went viral. During the ‘Back to School’ season I can easily rake in an extra $1000 or more from one or two posts on my blogs about school supplies. I have the same success during Christmas as well, in regards to green Christmas gifts. Even during non-seasonal times I make a very nice amount each and every month from Amazon… enough usually for my rent and all my utilities.

I never had a guide to help me make Amazon sales, I just learned via trial and error. The first two quarters I was promoting Amazon products I earned whopping 7 dollars and some change. I also used the same tracking IDs on all my sites so when I did start making sales… I had no idea where they were coming from. But nowadays, newbies to Amazon don’t have to take a shot in the dark. They can get step by step instructions for Amazon success.

One of my two favorite guides is Info Product Killer. In my review I mention two ways I implemented the ideas found in this book and I shared the results with exact dollar amounts. I followed up the next year with this post. The pages, sites, and Squidoo lenses I made using IPK strategies are STILL making money so that is a great testimony for how well it works.

My second fave Amazon sales resource is new but oh so very valuable. It is called Amazonian Profit Plan and it was created by two Aussie affiliate marketing women who started a small network of niche affiliate sites together and they are now making over $10,000 a month from Amazon. The book outlines how to craft Amazon product reviews that will sell and then how to drive traffic to those pages. The key to their success seems to be the criteria they use to select the products, the way they craft the reviews to make them valuable to the reader, and the formula they use to drive traffic to those reviews. I realize my Amazon success has been very much a fly by night operation so it fascinates me when people create success with methodical, calculated formulas.

This book teaches you:

• How to choose the right Amazon products
• How to determine what keywords and keyword phrases you should target
• How to spy on your current competition and beat them on the SERPs (search engine results page)
• How to drive traffic to your reviews and get inbound links

Once you use the formula and start seeing traffic and sales you rinse and repeat with new products (the book suggests only 5 at a time). I REALLY like this formula because it is actionable and broken down into easy to follow steps. I have no doubt that anyone who took this much time to create such an action plan DID in fact see amazing results.

Both IPK and Amazonian Profit Plan are wonderful products and methods. I doubt I will follow either exactly as described but I take the most valuable tips and insights and put them into place when I have the time. I say this only because my fly by night method leaves me with loads of free time and almost nothing on my “To Do” list… which is highly valuable to me… but $10,000 a month from Amazon??? Hmm… I might have to rethink that one!

I have said it before but it warrants a few more shouts… I LOVE seasonal affiliate sales! Well I love all affiliate sales but seasonal affiliate sales provide a huge boost in earnings a few times a year.

The back to school season is a big seasonal earner for me. I would guesstimate that I made AT LEAST an extra $1000 from late July to mid September. I celebrated by buying myself a new camera lens for my DSLR.

I also see increases during Halloween and Christmas, especially the latter. Remember my review of Info Product Killer last year? It teaches you how to create niche web sites, especially Christmas sites. I used the information to create one niche toy site and a Christmas gift guide on an existing site. Today I ran a couple reports to see how much I earned from these in total. I earned $122.52 from the Wall-e site and $804.55 from the gift guide. Since it only took me 5 hours to put them together I earned $185 per hour. Not bad! I Paid for a domain and the Info Product Killer product and made an $840 profit. Again.. not bad! It can pay to invest in quality learning materials. And remember this was in additition to the monthly income I usually bring in… it was a BONUS.

I really want to get on the ball and make a few more this year. Unfortunately, it is hard for me to be inspired by products I wouldn’t buy or use myself. Somehow I don’t see making dozens but that’s okay. AND instead of making whole sites I can take a shortcut and create a Squidoo page.. they do really well seasonally too. I am already seeing my monthly lens earnings go up.

I did a little research for this year and found one of the HOT toys for xmas 2009 will be the Twilight Barbie Dolls, so I threw together a site for them in less than an hour. Then I put together a quickie Squidoo page, and linked to the new site from a few existing ones. I may try to get an article or two up at ezine articles as well. So I am off to a running start and I love the product too. Now I just need to find the inspiration to make a few more, update my ones from last year, and I will be set to make a nice chunk of change again this Christmas…

Are you an affiliate marketer? If so, you need to be aware that state governments are enacting legislation that could effectively kill your business. I am greatly concerned about this since I would say 50% or more of my monthly income stems from affiliate sales.

As an affiliate I post links and banner advertisements on my sites to Amazon and various other online companies. I send them traffic and potential sales and when a sale is made, they in turn pay me a commission… anywhere from 4% to 75% depending on the company and product. I get a big fat check every month from Amazon and smaller but still very nice checks form a host of other places. But my profession as an affiliate marketer is under attack in many states and sadly many affiliate marketers just got the axe.

First some background though. Online stores like Amazon, Zappos, or Barnes and Noble are only required by law to collect sales taxes in the states where their company resides. That is their tax “nexus”. If they are based in Idaho for example then they only have to collect sales taxes on purchases made by people in Idaho. Sales from Ohio would fall outside their tax nexus and they would not be required to collect sales taxes on those purchases. For years, states have been looking for a way to to get those taxes and the new economic crisis has given them the incentive to try and do it. Unfortunately for affiliate marketers they have decided to use us as the means to do this.

New York and North Carolina recently passed legislation that identifies affiliate relationships as something similar to an employee relationship. Using this logic North Carolina and New York can now require online companies to collect state sales based on the fact that they have “employees” (affiliates) in those states. Well, these companies are not stupid… they saw that they were being railroaded into a new tax nexus by way of their affiliate relationships and in response they are simply firing their affiliates and avoiding the taxes. They avoid a new tax nexus and affiliate marketers in those states are essentially without a job anymore.

Yesterday Amazon.com fired 1000 affiliates in North Carolina. Termination letters have been sent to affiliates in Hawaii from Zappos, Amazon, Endless and several other smaller merchants. This may very well be the sole source of income for these people and now due to a poorly written law they have no income anymore AND the companies avoid paying the taxes anyway. The affiliates lose, the states lose (the sales taxes AND your income taxes), and the companies go on with business as usual. Half a dozen other states are poised to pass similar legislation.

I am simply horrified that these laws are being passed and I am so sorry for affiliate marketers living in these states. I know several affiliate marketers that live in Hawaii and they can only afford to live their because they work online as affiliate marketers. Local jobs are almost non existent in their areas.

If you make any money from affiliate marketing, if you work online, or if you just hoped to make money affiliate marketing some day then you need to write the legislators behind these awful bills. Affiliates are not employees, they are advertisers. Does contracting with a radio station to buy advertising make them your employee? Heck no! The affiliate marketing profession is being used as a weapon to collect state revenue and we will be the ones hurt.

Talk about it, blog about it… we need to stop this before more states adopt it and affiliate marketing is dealt a death blow.

And now more then ever we should all find ways to diversify our income so that if this law passes in our state it will not leave us without any income.

Visit the Performance Marketing Alliance for details.

To get around a lack of quality promotion materials or the fact that I am using an indirect affiliate service like Amazon I have started to use my own affiliate banners.  They look good and they are unique to me so my visitors know I REALLY DO like these products. Here are some examples I just started using last month.

When I first started an online business five years ago I imagined that I would profit by selling my own products and by selling advertising on my web sites. I knew that I did not want to offer services like coaching, admin help, or design. I was a VA for while until I decided that it was time to put all the light night hours and effort into my own business, not someone else’s.

I quickly found that selling my own physical products was too demanding of my time. Selling my own info products was hard too because I needed to come up with good ideas and at the time I was short on ideas. What I didn’t “get” was that I didn’t have to come up with the ideas but eventually I did catch on. I decided to try my hand at this affiliate marketing “stuff” I was hearing about. I joined a couple programs and added a few links to my sites. For months I earned nothing and I was just about ready to call it quits on that experiment when I decided to send an email to my small list and include an affiliate link. Immediately I got a few sales. They were really small sales that only brought in about $3 each but it was progress. The best part was that this money was completely passive and this was the biggest perk for me because even securing advertisers was too hands on for me.

I joined other relevant programs, added more links to my sites and slowly but surely I was seeing some money every month. I knew that the niche I had chosen for my web site was severely limiting the type of affiliate programs I could work with though, so I decided to start another web site. This one ended up being my cash cow and right from the start my MAIN objective was to bring in affiliate income.

There was just no need to create my own products when I could sell other people’s products and let them do all the hard work. Of course now I DO have my own products but I am still an affiliate marketer first and foremost.

This week one of the BEST and brightest affiliate marketers on the net has opened a new affiliate marketing membership site called Affiliatenaire. Jimmy knows affiliate marketing and has a reputation for selling thousands of products and memberships in days. Everyone knows that when he sells something it is the gold standard…the real deal. Perhaps they are like me and are also enthralled with his mesmerizing Matthew McConaughey voice, hehe.

I have no doubt that Affiliatenaire will sell out quickly (just like Membernaire did) as he is only offering 1000 spots. The program is an an intensive monthly course on affiliate marketing. You get one lesson each week and if you act on everything he gives, you can start building an affiliate marketing empire in only 2-3 hours a week.

This course would be great for beginners but even better for people who are using affiliate marketing techniques already and want to use some of the tactics the pros do. I plan on doing the full course myself as I have never joined one of Jimmy’s programs or bought one of his reports and NOT learned some amazing new things. The first lesson is over 20 pages long and is really good stuff.

With the economy the way it is I know I am trying to secure as many sources of income as possible. I need to get creative and diversify even more to protect what I have worked so hard to build. Here is to another great year in online business!

Check out Affiliatenaire for yourself…

The creator of this system shows proof on the sales page that he made over $100,000 during the holiday season using the process he describes in detail in Info Product Killer. He claims it only took about 3 weeks to get everything set up and I believe him after making 2 of these sites myself. I regret not making more!

The system consists of dozens of pdf guides and step by step videos on how to create small, super easy niche sites that revolve around physical products. In his videos he shows toy sites quite a bit. He networks them together so they can give each other link juice and he creates some quick but quality content and he waits for the money to roll in. The videos follow him on his computer screen as he sets them up. There is also a lot of info on choosing hot products, how to set up keywords, getting links and traffic, how to do headers, how to use AdWords if you choose to, and where to get content.

So to test it out I decided to start small and create one brand new site and one new section on and existing web site. Both revolved around toys. I started small so that I could see if it worked without too much of a time investment. I guess I was pessimistic.

The first thing I did was add a niche green toys guide to my existing site. I did get creative and use some of my own touches but I think I followed the ideas pretty well. I even used one of the free web site templates that are included with the product. I just edited it to look more like my existing site and then I added the content and products. Unlike many of the sites shown in the product I pretty much stuck with only 2-3 affiliate programs instead of the MANY that are shown in the videos. After finishing the gift guide I linked to it from some of my other sites and Squidoo pages and added a nice banner to the sidebar of all the other pages and I was curious to see how it would go because this section of my site gets only a fraction of the traffic that my blog does. It took about 3 hours to do and I think I got it done by late October. The net income from this set of 4-5 pages thus far is $372.45 from Amazon and Shareasale.

The next project I completed was even faster…only about 2 hours. I purchased a new domain and I chose to promote Wall-E toys. I used content I had already written…just gave it a refresher, then I linked to it from several of my own sites, made a Wall-E Squidoo page, and added a free reprint article to ezine articles. I made a banner in about 5 minutes and just copied and pasted all the Wall-E products I could find via Amazon. I REALLY doubted I would make anything but hey, I was willing to try. From this site I made $51.22 from Amazon. I paid $7.50 for the domain.

So did I get rich? No….but I am still pleased. I made roughly $83 an hour for the 5 hours I worked on these sites. And honestly, compared to all the author does to his sites…I did a really half-assed job. I am lazy about details sometimes.

So…I wish I had made a couple dozen more because I think the trick is too have lots of these small niches sites. On their own they may not be making you rich but add them together and you have got some profit. And let’s not forget that these two sites will still be around after Christmas too…so I could be making some residual profits all year long.

Next year around mid August I will FOR SURE be making lots of niche Christmas sites.

I highly recommend Info Product Killer! Oh and I found this discount on code on the net: WSO777. It appears to still be valid and sells the product for only $79!

This is my absolute favorite way to make money online. I have owned my own company in the past…three companies actually. One sold physical products (my own and wholesale) and the other two were service businesses. ALL were successful but I wasn’t happy long term. I found something I truly love in affiliate marketing. I don’t have to serve customers, send orders, keep inventory, etc. I just write…which I love to do…and promote other people’s products for a commission.

The Secret Affiliate Code shows you how one successful Internet Marketer uses a special system to drive traffic to his affiliate sites, ranking number one in Google and raking in a ton of money….as in thousands in one day. Overall I liked the book. I think it would be an awesome read for someone who is just getting into affiliate marketing. But it also had some tricks for veterans to. It gives links to all the major affiliate companies, it explains how you can find high conversion products, and most importantly how to drive lots of traffic your way.

What I appreciate most is that this is not a book that touts some fast, easy way to make money. This system does require time and work…it is not plug and play. Some of it seems kind of tedious even but it is not black hat and it is valuable for those that want traffic and high rankings right away and can’t wait entirely on their awesome content. The book has quite a bit of info about setting up Adwords campaigns with pictures and clear instructions and tips to make sure you aren’t going to go broke paying for traffic. But for the most part this book is all about FREE traffic and links using web 2.0 savvy. It was also full of cool links I had never seen that will be useful in the future.

The price is right to…only $67.00…but special hint…go to the page and then click away to leave the page and a box will pop up telling you can get it for $20 off…so only $47. Enjoy!

It is actually very easy to do. Just login to your Amazon affiliate control panel, choose the appropriate tracking ID, and then start creating product links. Copy a text only version of the link and where Squidoo directs you to “Enter your poll response options” you enter your Amazon link instead of plain text.

Here is a picture of the process:

And here is a picture of the poll after the page is published and you get some voters. The best part about this trick is that the full affiliate commission goes to me. I don’t share it 50/50 with Squidoo as I would with many other modules.

 In case you were wondering these two images are from different Squidoo Lenses. Hope this helps you boost your Squidoo profit!

Technorati Tags: Squidoo, affiliate links, Amazon, modules, poll

I made some big boo-boos in regards to properly tracking where my sales come from though. Until very recently I never really took advantage of their tracking codes so that I can see which sites, Squidoo pages, blogs, etc are pulling in the sales. Depending on the product I can pretty much guess some of the time but not all. The need to use these tracking codes became really apparent after I received several offers to buy one of my sites. I am not ready to sell for personal reasons but I realize that since all offers were nice 5 figure sums I would need to demonstrate the site’s ability to turn a profit and it is kind of hard to do that when all of your sales from your large network of sites all get pooled together. So I have started using Amazon tracking codes and will begin the tedious task of replacing existing links very soon.

It is actually pretty easy to do. When you log into your Amazon affiliate control panel you will see a blue box at the top that shows you are logged in under your affiliate ID. Beneath that it says Tracking ID and hyperlinked next to that it says “Manage”. Click on that and you will see a listing of all your tracking codes. You should have at least one. Then click on Add Tracking ID and you will get to add a custom tag that describes whatever site, page, blog, etc you will be creating links for. I just created one recently for my Squidoo pages so it had the word Squidoo in the tag.

Once you have your new tracking code you use the drop down box (inside the blue box) and you select you select the tracking ID of your choice and start building links with it. Easy as pie….if only I had done this from the beginning.

Technorati Tags: Squidoo, Amazon, affiliate marketing, tracking IDs