Forum Moderators: skibum
I promote several affiliate programs on our site. My tendency till date has been to use ppc marketing for generating sales. Off late, I have been observing a trend. In the beginning the programs perform well and I make money but over a period of time, I land up spending more money on advertising than I make from the affiliate program. It seems I am getting them rich and burning holes in my pocket. I do monitor my ppc spending and keywords and adjust them on a regular basis. It's just that after an initial upturn, the sales go down.
Does the Law of Diminishing Returns hold true? Is ppc advertising ineffective for affiliate programs? I was wondering if you guys are experiencing the same problem. How do you promote affiliate programs?
I'm not sure if you really mean the Law of Diminishing Returns, which state (very generally) that at some point, additional incremental input (e.g., advertising dollars) will produce a declining incremental amount of output (e.g., sales dollars). For example, running 50% more ads may only produce 25% more income.)
Your observed time-based phenomenon may be real enough, though. It could be market fatigue... increased competition leading to a lower conversion rate... reduced consumer enthusiasm... hard to say. It could be that over time, you are seeing some of the same searchers multiple times, perhaps leading to lower conversions.
I always get the most sales after I first put up a new page and then it tapers off quite a bit after the first few weeks. The only solution I've found it to keep putting up more new pages all the time to attract new buyers.
I thought WOW - IF I ONLY SPEND $30 - $40 A DAY - I'LL make $1600 a day and over a little bit over a half a million a year.
Needless to say - it didn't work out exactly like that.
New stuff always seems to do better for me. I gave up trying to predict what would do well - and just promoted everything new I could.
I think your problem here is is surfer fatigue. Give your campaign one month on one month off. Just see what happens.
No logical explanation I can find!
I agree with your observation. Sometimes, I feel they might be encouraging sales the first month and then maybe holding back after the first few sales. I think this practice is more prevalent with smaller companies. Larger ones are more reliable. Even though we use third party tracking systems, reporting a sale or lead is still in the hands of the company.
Just gotta keep trying new ones I guess.
I was making enormous amounts of money on dating site affiliate programs a few years back. Then, clearly, everyone realized how lucrative this area was and started bidding on the search engine placements, putting up links, and now I make literally 10% of what I once did.
Oh, and on a random question, Omkar, are you Scandinavian? Just a guess from your writing :)
May I ask how 'enormous' that is?
I am just curious how much people can pull in from dating affiliate program.
Enormous for ME was >$5,000 just in dating site revenues per month with very little work on my part (probably a 4-5 hours a month).
For instance, SocialNet.com (no longer in existence... imagine that!) paid us Webmasters $1.00 for every FREE signup (their revenue model, as you might guess, was predicated upon eyeballs :D)
So, of course, I did what any smart business student would do. I bought up tons of traffic on Overture (then "GoTo") and so on at prices like 3 cents per visitor, saw at least 20% of the clicks converting (hey, it WAS a free dating site!), and thus made ($0.20 - the cost of the visitor) per person.
As I stressed above, however, this delightful opportunity does not present itself anymore from what I can tell. And I'm sure if others know about similar opportunities, they're not talking :D
No I am not Scandinavian (what makes you think that?). I was educated in a British system though. In case I sound different :-)
An online company is a leader in Internet loans. Following their reputation, I enrolled in their affiliate program (they pay on a per lead basis).
I randomly monitor programs that pay on a per lead basis. As a test, I filled out the loan application myself. Needless to say, I am yet to be credited for that lead.
I wrote to the Program Manager. It's been over a week and I still haven't heard from them.
Ofcourse, I will be dropping the program soon.
- It's important to give individuals a decent chance before passing judgement.
- Communication from both parties is key.
- Sometimes great people aren't great for each other.
- Sometimes folks seem wonderful but are really losers.
- If it really doesn't work out with one party, move on; there are plenty of fish in the sea :)
P.S. -- Omkar, I have many Swedish friends and have lived in Germany for a year. I thought I recognized some of your speech patterns as clearly European, and in particular, Swedish, but it looks like I was only partially on to something :D
[edited by: eljefe3 at 1:21 am (utc) on June 24, 2003]
[edit reason] no specifics please [/edit]
