Forum Moderators: skibum
I just can't understand it; about half the ads are related to my niche (non-financial) and the other half are financial (all of which have decent clickthru rates).
All I can think is to contact these advertisers and try to setup a CPC campaign, but isn't that why they are doing a CPA campaign? So they'd get user actions?
Any ideas on what I can do?
Yeah, I thought maybe that was it too... but I have over 1500 clickthrus without a purchase/lead. Most are for subscription purchases or financial products (credit cards and whatnot).
Like I said, most are getting good CTRs, but zero conversions. I think that's so weird. Has anyone ever had problems with mechanics? Like the window its supposed to open gets blocked but the click gets registered?
Yeah, I've been hearing about that. And I even switched to exclusively linkshare for a while to see whether it was happening to me too... but I got the same results from them (although they are known to be equally as bad).
Can anyone recommend an alternative to Linkshare or CJ?
Drop CJ like a rock is all I can tell you.Similar results here. After lots of time wasted in experimentation, I have taken a slightly different approach: CJ is not here to bring me directly money; I display some (max.2-3) of CJ's world renowned merchants with well known brand names related to my industry and I do not hope to make any sales out of them; their only purpose, as far as I am concerned, is to support my own product's image with their well-established brands.
I have sent them over 15,000 clicks (as per their own records) and have only $19 to show for it!
In other words, you can't persuade your audience into buying a product, they have to be already looking for it when they get to your site. How often do you buy something off a banner you see on cnn.com for example? You are there for news, not to buy anything, so the same thing may be happening to your site.
Thanks for the opinion, but this is supplimental advertising and follows a different behavioral theory then targetted content advertising (which you have described).
You don't see only coffee commercials during Friends and business book commercials during The Apprentice...
Has anyone had any success with alternative programs to CJ or LS?
Same here MarkWolk, I have limited them to a small area on my site and use them for the "looks"
I just feel so pissed! Did a thorough check and found that so far I have given them 18,000 clicks, in Google Terms that means between 2 to 4k $
kiladen: On targeting, this still does not explain making $20 on 18,000 clicks over a few months period.
If I machine gun spray the sky with 18,000 bullets (lowest than low targeting) I am likely to hit some birds (or planes)! Which I did not as said before..
One has to be lacking knowledge of targeting, their visitor trends and preferences, or anything about marketing what so ever and persistent as a mule in not testing different advertisers and sectors on CJ.. to miss so much income.
In my own defense I was forced to run them for over 4 months before judging the outcome due to advertisers not reporting live results, and cookies tracing "Referral Period", took a while but was an expensive lesson!
IMO as I said before CJ is a publisher ripp off fest by advertisers who do not have to report all or any conversions, signups or sales.. Which will hurt the whole network on the long run when thy run out of new publishers testing their service -or will they?
Otherwise CJ themselves are "in cahoots" when they show high "Network Earnings" meter and figures for some advertisers.
Unlike AdSenses where publishers post (here) many success stories details and tips that you can try and see working for yourself, I am yet so see any CJ success stories backed by verifiable tips.
Was that a rant?
We do ok with web hosting related programs on CJ when sending them organic search traffic. Conversion is running at about 10%.
Sorry, but I had to laugh (cynically!) when I saw this. CJ are still dishing out the same old, same old. After months of great CTR but no sales, I tried purchasing through my own links and sure enough, the click-throughs were recorded but the sale weren't.
Contacting their "support" brought the same reply as quoted above, and CJ blamed me for not using the links properly. When I politely informed them I'd already tried this, they changed their tune and blamed the merchant for not recording sales. Any further attempts to contact "support" resulted in stony silence. CJ may work for some, but for many others, zip.
If any of you are UK or Europe based, try Tradedoubler. They're not currently in the US, but I understand they're considering going into the US market. Fantastic support, no tracking problems, lots of merchant feedback and offers (which I never got from CJ or its merchants) and they seem to be working really hard to bring more advertisers online.
This is exactly what I am talking about, no offense shri, but in hosting of all businesses, 10% CTR is a feat, 10% conversion unbelievable even with organic traffic, and going though CJ and its likelihood of being recoded and earning you actual real (non monopoly) money appears to me like a ferry tale from my own experience and other reports with all due respect.
As I was saying we only hear about this stuff, but you never find anyone telling you how they did it like the members do with AdSense right here in the same forum.
I quit CJ a few months back and signed up for Adsense instead. Not able to retire yet, but compared to CJ, 100% better!
[edited by: jcoronella at 10:24 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2005]
I quit CJ a few months back and signed up for Adsense instead. Not able to retire yet, but compared to CJ, 100% better!
But the 2 are not mutually exclusive, are they? You can run G or Y ads and still have afilliate ads on the same pages.
I personally have not participated in any affiliate programs. I was thinking that, once I monetize my sites, the first line of attack will be G, Y and/or Chitika. My affiliate participation is planned as secondary. Any recommendations besides CJ or Linkshare?
[edited by: jcoronella at 10:26 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2005]
[edited by: jcoronella at 10:27 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2005]
The market seriously needs another affiliate marketing network that tracks well and pays to augment AS, YPN and Chit.
[edited by: jcoronella at 10:28 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2005]
But the 2 are not mutually exclusive, are they? You can run G or Y ads and still have afilliate ads on the same pages.
Gruntled, I do still run affiliate ads along with Adsense (can't use Y as it's not available outside the US yet), just not CJs as they don't pay.
I decided to drop them as a result of reading elsewhere on the www that I was not alone in my bad experience with them.
As I said earlier, CJ may work for some, but there are many folk out there who've had problems with them.
Again, beer advertisers don't only look for television channels which focus on beer making, etc. They focus on channels where the viewership is ALSO interested in beer. (i.e. they dont target kids programs or christian life channels)
I seriously wish some of these web techies would realize that there is a trillion dollar industry at the source of affiliate marketing with tried and true sciences, practices, and behavioral studies: Advertising.
Thus, can anyone suggest alternative affiliate providers or CPC non-text providers? I know there are a TON of independent affiliate programs available (currently trying PartyPoker and PartyBingo programs), does a compilation of these exist anywhere?
malachite, cheers to that!
Targeted traffic. Our visitors are looking for a host, they search, find us and get the reassurance that the hosts we're recommending are solid.
10% of those who click through .. not 10% of the visitors end up buying.
We only recommend three hosting companies and two domain registrars and these are fairly well known brands.
Goes back to what I posted in the supporters forums... affiliates jobs become so much easier when they push a well known brand.
Yeah. Took me two years to find the right niche that worked on CJ.
My best merchant is still Amazon and you'd be surprised how many more people refuse to belive that we can convert about 8% of the traffic we send to them.
