Tangible versus Digital Products and Affiliate Sale Promotions

A key factor in determining one's participation in affiliate marketing is making the key decision whether to promote tangible products or digital products. Knowing what affects the sale of tangible products versus digital products helps in this decision making process.

Tangible products are what you can physically grasp. Used in everyday life tangible products would include items like pharmaceuticals, food, clothing, automobiles, again anything that you can put your hands on. There are millions of different tangible products if one thinks of the items that they would find in the likes of a department, auto parts, or grocery store.

On the other hand, digital products are those that you cannot physically touch (although some exceptions must be made for things like accompanying instruction manuals, CD's, DVD's, etc.). Examples would be software programs for your computer, digital pictures, music, intellectual property, and other forms of electronic media.

One of the biggest conce
s that affiliate marketers may have is the age old question. "Which product will generate the most in profits, the tangible products or the digital products?" Fortunately the answer to this question can be "both!" What matters the most to the affiliate marketer is the fact that sales are being generated, and if they are doing their job right, the sales will be there.

A great product without an audience is just one that gathers dust for someone or one that sits on a hard drive. That's why the marketing part of affiliate sales is so important. You need both a good product and an effective marketing plan.

One should not lose sight of the fact that getting the word out about the product and making the links back to the point of sale is what is important. Promotion is the key to driving sales and the key is, where you have received permission, to post to every email inbox, Facebook page, tweet, RSS feed, or any other legal vehicle to promote the product.

One should make sure to insert an affiliate link in any newsletter or blog that you might be using to promote the product. One never knows when someone will access this information on the web; it could be hours, days, weeks, months, even years.

As long as the product is still available you will earn your percent of sales if someone makes the purchase by accessing through your link. In many ways, an affiliate marketer is like a traffic director; what you need to do is to show people the way.

What you want to look at no matter which type of product you decide to promote is what the dollar amount in commission is that you'll make on the product. You might think 50% sounds great versus 10%, but when you do the math, the 50% is for a $10 item, giving you a $5 commission, whereas the 10% is for a $1,000 item - so your commission would grow to $100. You could always do what many marketers do and promote both tangible and digital products. There are many that complement each other.