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In the latest news on 04 April, it was reported: Washington (AP) that employers have slashed a total of 80,000 jobs in Mar 2008 alone. This figure is the highest in 5 years and the third straight month of losses. National unemployment rate in USA rose from 4.8 percent to 5.1 percent sending a strong and obvious signal that the economy is entering recession.

You may be wondering what this has got to do with Affiliate Marketing.

Firstly, a shrinking US economy means that people are tightening their belts. If the consumers do not consume as much, it can mean slower sales for you. Bad News!

Secondly, if you are a non-US resident affiliate marketer like me, then the weak economy will mean a weaker US currency against your country’s dollar. This means that you get lesser commissions in dollar value.

So how can you protect yourself and make your affiliate marketing efforts recession-proof?

1. Target the Recession-relevant Niches

The Chinese has a saying: “Every crisis presents an opportunity” How true it is! While the economy is slowing down, services and products like mortgage refinancing, debt consolidation, auctions, etc are booming and seeing a lot more business.

Build more Adsense sites targeting these topics! A case in point: I own a debt consolidation website that pulls in about $300 to $500 a day in Adsense income these days. Before the recession hits, it was earning about $50 to $70 on average daily. The jump in profits is a whopping 600%!

You can also find relevant affiliate products at ClickBank, CJ or other affiliate networks and set up niche affiliate sites to corner these niches. Your prospects tend to be desperate, and desperation can drive you more sales!

2. Find Affiliate Programs that Pay You in Your Local Currency

Perhaps it is time to start scouting around for affiliate programs that pay you commissions in your local currency.

3. Expand Your Virtual Real Estate

People tend to cut down on spending during an economic downturn. This is where the opportunists often strike in one clean sweep. In the offline world, property slumps and a bearish stock market often offer great bargains. Those with deep pockets will take the chance to keep buying stocks and properties with inherent value. When the market turns around, they will make a killing!

The same applies in the online world. Now is the time to grow your virtual real estate, ie grow your network of websites, blogs and so on. When the economy recovers, you are well positioned to capitalize on surge in spending. You can either start building my niche websites to promote affiliate programs, or create your very own products. It takes time to create products and websites so no time is better than now to start working on it.

Alternatively, head over to SitePoint or DP Forum and do some bargain hunting for quality websites that webmasters are giving up.

4. Change Your Attention from Selling Products to Pay Per Action

People may not be spending as much money as possible to buy stuff but that does not mean that they have stopped searching for services or stopped spending at all. There are tons of people seeking for help on how to refinance their home, how to manage their debt, how to pay less taxes, how to find cheaper insurances, how to find a job and so on.

Look for affiliate programs offered by merchants at CJ or other affiliate networks that pay per lead. Getting a person to sign up to request for more information is way easier than getting someone to buy something. You will realize that this is a great way to recession-proof your affiliate marketing.

5. Improve Conversions & Drive More Traffic

I noticed that conversions for products nowadays have gone down generally. This means that you need to promote your products to more prospects before you make a single sale.

Instead of lamenting on that, work on 2 things: improve your conversions and drive more traffic. Remember: Affiliate marketing is a numbers game.

You can improve the look of your websites by adding nice high impact graphics to attract your prospects or set up a series of auto-responder messages. These are 2 simple tricks to increase the conversion rates.

Spend more time writing and submitting articles for traffic, participate in forums, blog commenting, and other traffic driving techniques to ramp up the traffic volumes.

Building more websites to target different sub-niches will also help to increase your earnings. For example, all along, you may have been targeting the dog training market. Why not also target healthy dog food and other related products?

Why not pick up a copy of my ebook “Secrets of Affiliate Marketing” and pick up some tips to grow your income systematically?

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