Swipes, Banners or Links ???

Being an avid affiliate marketer, I am curious to know what others
feel is the best (or better) promotional material to use or even to
offer to your own affiliates?

Do you do better with Email Swipes? Banners? or Plain Links?

More importantly, what converts better for you?

Please note, I am looking for more than just the boring "email swipes
for my list and banner ads for my website" type of answers.

Tell me what methods you use, where and why? And what seems to
convert best for you? Least?

As a vendor I offer all three as then you cater for different groups i.e. email marketers, website owners etc... In my opinion email marketing is the most effective and brings in the most leads - largely because of the trust relationship already established on a good email list... Typically I see the following pattern:

1) Email marketing and banners brings in new leads...
2) Some of those prospects may search online and end up on review sites set up by other affiliates..

Basically if you don't offer email swipes and banners then chances are you'll end up with affiliates creating mini review sites on keywords tied to your product... The inherent problem is the ability to attract new leads...

As an affiliate and depending on the product, time, effort I wish to invest - I take a combined approach - using my own platform CB Clicksale which automates it:

1) Set up a landing page optin, use paid ads and build a list which is highly targeted.
2) Setup a review site and offer bonus incentives.

Basically (1) gets leads and then onto (2) which aims to convert leads to buyers with referring them on....

As I've already built a list, I use that again for related products with then rinsing and repeating...

Hope that helps!

As an affiliate...

Everything you mentioned and a variety. Banners at the very least. And in the most usable sizes these days, such as blog side bar sizes, 250x250, 300x300, ect. So many marketers have blogs these days. Animated banners are much better, much better. A variety, different text copy, so affiliates can test to see what does best for them. For those that actually do test ads.

Email swipes just for ideas, like to write my own. But sure helps to get the flow going, and somethings you might not think about to include or talk about.

That's mainly what I use. Though, I do see and hear of people who want social post swipes as well.

As a vendor, I offer all, least I try to. Actually I asked some one in this thread for feedback, never heard back.. hhhm

It totally amazes me how many affiliate programs offer little to no promotional material. And they expect affiliates to promote? Really? Clickbank programs are bad for that. Others like JVzoo can be lack-luster as well. Well of course it is the actually the vendor not the platform, but it's sad promo material for so many products.

Ron Killian said:

I do see and hear of people who want social post swipes as well.

Click to expand...

Being a reseller, I remember a while back, of course when each was new and in their infancy, I remember
tons or reseller offers that were Twitter Swipes. Remember those Ron? I wonder why they fell by the way
side...

Ron Killian said:

As a vendor, I offer all, least I try to. Actually I asked some one in this thread for feedback, never heard back.. hhhm

Click to expand...

By the "tone" of that response, I have to assume you are referring to me, lol. In all honesty, I must have
missed that request, however, now that you mention it, I do think I remember it, lol.


EDIT:
@Ron Killian: I just checked my emails and I see the PM message, so, I will definitely PM you in a bit. Sorry about that, and thanks for the "nudge" lol. Always a pleasure chatting with you.

Don't you talk to me in that "tone" of voice mister. My kids are grown now, can't really say that any more. Well, some times still need to put them in check.

I don't really remember a flood of Twitter Swipes. I've seen a few, must have missed it. I did create some myself and sell as PLR, but never really saw them sell much. Was planning on making a bunch, but don't think it would be worth it. Plus too much to create and not enough time.

Well, probably the usually, the hot and not of social networks. Comes out, goes away, comes back....

No worries on the delayed feedback. I get it. We all get busy, sidetracked. Happens to me all the time

As an affiliate, I just use vendor banners and links (obvious). I'm a nice guy, but I get really pissed when a vendor doesn't have the common sense to make the basic-size product banners. I've always written my own e-mails -- until recently. I tried it just the other day to see if it would increase my open rates and stuff. They've been in the business much longer than I have, so I figured they knew what they were doing (always talking about their open rates and conversions). It felt weird and didn't change much, so I'm going back to doing it myself.

Joey

As an affiliate I am using all three of the methods. But if you ask what is my preferred method (and what converts better for me) I would have to go with contextual links. Maybe the links convert better because I like to use them more or maybe this is a general fact.
Banners tend to be affected by banner blindness. I look at what I do when I`m surfing the Internet and I can safely say that I haven`t clicked on a single banner in the past 6 months. And don`t even get me started on ad blockers.
Email swipes are a better option but again, the low open rates and all the headaches an email campaign brings don`t seem too appealing for me (that doesn`t mean that email marketing is dead or something like that)
As I said, contextual links are the best option for me. If I write a great story/review for a product that I want to sell it`s impossible to not have a good conversion rate.

Actually, just thought of a couple more things you could add to the list, Blog posts or articles.