What do I mean by Affiliate Marketing Live? No, it's not a suggestion for another affiliate marketing conference, it's to do with talking to your users, live and in real time.

Increasing numbers of websites offer the facility to speak live to a customer service representative in a chat window on their website. When I was more active with my computer support business, I had a Live Chat option on my website which meant I could try to convert visitors into clients.

When a user came onto the website, I would see from my control panel that they were on there, and I could see their IP address and browser information. Actually seeing the IP was interesting because often it would auto resolve it and tell me the hostname and it was obviously rival companies.

And I didn't need to wait for them to click on the Live Chat button - I had the option to initiate a popup box inviting them to a chat. In the chat, I could fill them in on details of services available, give them URLs, collect their email address, log the chat and generally establish a relationship which might lead to business being done.

So I got to thinking how this could be exploited for affiliate marketing. How useful would it be for you to talk to your users, advise them on the best products and then give them the URL to a recommended product? I think this could be a great to offer a personal shopping service and increase conversions.

What are the drawbacks? Well, it will require a lot of your time so the things you are selling would have to be worth in terms of commission. You don't need to sit there 24/7 though - most of the chat services offer the function whereby if you're logged in, the button on your site says you're available and if you're not, it says you're not available - simple.

It would really work best if it was in subject area in which you had expertise and could genuinely give advice. I'm thinking high end laptops, bikes and TVs would be a good way to go (probably not on the same site though). If you had a lot of traffic, you might soon become overrun, so would this be a better solution for a very niche, low traffic, high product-value site.

One of the live chat solutions is from a company called, well, Live Chat Software. Check out their website, give it a go and speak to their operators and try the 14 day free trial if you think it's something that could benefit your site. I might give the trial a go one one of my sites soon and I'll let you know how that goes.

Labels: affiliate marketing, affiliate tools, ideas, live chat