The Post-Holiday Shopper Is the Thrifty Shopper

Take advantage of consumers still in the spending mood by promoting merchants with special sales and coupons. Many merchants also have a bigger advertising budget for the new year and will be running bonus commissions and incentives for its best affiliates. Check with your affiliate managers to see what types of offers and incentives you can take advantage of during the first quarter.

Many super-affiliates are savings sites that offer exclusive coupons or discounts for a variety of online retailers. To make your coupons or offers stand out, try adding a personal touch by posting a favorite coupon of yours every day and write a basic review about the merchant. You can start your daily coupon post without any programming knowledge. Sign up for a free blog on sites such as Blogster.com. A blog is an online journal that you can update and share your ideas with the world without any programming knowledge. Best of all most blog sites are free, which means any commissions you make are pure profit!

Take Advantage of the Heart

Consumers are taking to the Internet for more and more purchases including roses and chocolates. Valentine's Day drives more flower and chocolate purchases than any other holiday so take advantage of this traffic and start promoting Valentine's Day offers early to maximize your ROI and revenue streams. Don't be caught in the onslaught of other advertisers. Talk to your merchants early to start promoting their offers, before the offers get stale – a sure way to get recognized as highly valued affiliate.

Choosing a gift for one's partner can be difficult, so give consumers gift-giving advice by suggesting gifts for him and her. Valentine's gifts for her can include jewelry, flowers, chocolate and more; while gifts for him can include fashionable clothes, electronics and jewelry. If you're an affiliate with more advanced programming skills build a simple gift selector utilizing data feeds provided by your merchants. You can also have a coder on freelance site such as Guru.com build one for you. An ideal script would pull categorized products by price and allow website users to select the gender they are buying for, their price range and a keyword and return available products. To maximize your revenue simply list your higher-commission products first.

Once you have your gift selector built you can rotate products out as the seasons and holidays change – always staying ahead of the competition! Be sure to include some personal content and/or product reviews, which will increase visitor retention well after the holiday they are shopping for.

Take Advantage of the IRS

No, don't stop paying your taxes. Instead take advantage of the many online tax filing services that allow individuals to file and pay their taxes online. Online tax services are some of the most undermarketed offers, which are huge opportunities to be had – considering that every U.S. citizen earning wages must file taxes.

As an affiliate you may think you have a unique tax situation by working as a 1099 contractor; however, there are hundreds of thousands of other independent contractors out there ranging from Web developers, to advertising consultants, to affiliates like yourself. Whether you are a seasoned marketer or a newbie affiliate, take advantage of the process of filing your own taxes by posting an online journal about the steps you take along the way and links to resources you found useful. By promoting your affiliated merchants you will instantly have access to a positive revenue stream. Your journal targeted to independent contractors is a great way to build a network of subaffiliates and loyal site visitors who will come back for updated knowledge throughout the year.

Wrapping Up

It's not too late to start your online post or forum. Take the time to build content and a user base now and reap commissions for quarter one holidays and events now and for years to come.