I have two questions to ask you. One. How much time do you spend branding your affiliate programs? Two. How much time do you spend preparing to advertise your affiliate programs?

Which of those two questions do you think is the most important? I say the second. Without doing your preparation "homework," you will lose your focus.

The affiliate programs that you promote are "your" products. Take the instant to learn everything you may about that item. Even though you are not actually selling the item (you should be PRE-selling), you still must understand what you are talking about.

The best way to do that, of course, is to own the item yourself. But whether you own the merchandise or not, study the sales copy that was written by the owner of the product. You will be able to lead your potential buyers toward "the click" much easier if you know why you want them to click on that hyperlink.

When preparing an advertising campaign, inquire of yourself what you want to achieve. That is your desire.

Now write down the steps that you positive need to take to get to that wants. Do not lose your memory that there can be more than one way to get there. Use your imagination!

Lets say you want to make use of ezine marketing. There are several options that you might choose. You might use free of price ads, purchase ads through ezine co-ops, buy top sponsor and solo ads directly from each newsletter publisher, or write articles and send to the publishers.

Choose one of the options and follow through with it. Then choose the next option, then the next. Do not let the memory slip to track your ads to see which selling method is working best for you.

Try other avenues of advertising as well. Explore new ones that you find and track the results. The more you have - that are working for you - the more commissions you will make.

By preparing the framework for an branding campaign, you might make use of that framework for later advertising - with minor changes to accommodate the new data . I make use of it as a "task list" to follow. This helps to keep me focused on what I have to do.

Do not get me wrong. Advertising or branding is important. But you MUST know what you want your prospect to do. Take your prospect by the hand and lead him or her to the click. The instant it takes to prepare for an selling campaign will be well assessment of worth it.