Turning a Content Website into an Affiliate Website

Hopefully I got my facts straight....

[wfernley]

Hey everyone,

I have a content website that is now performing very well. I currently make money off AdSense but I would like to increase my earnings by doing Affiliate marketing.

I have tried to do some research but I am still a bit hazy about what Affiliate marketing really is. I apologize for my ignorance.

Please help me get the facts straight and tell me if this would work. I would like to have AdSense on my pages and affiliates on my product pages - basically a "Buy Now" button that goes to an online store and when the customer purchases the product, I get a commission. Is this what Affiliate Marketing is?

If I am wrong, please let me know how I can increase my earnings on my website. I also considered starting up an online store but everyone told me Affiliate Marketing would be easier. I'm not sure how to get started and if there are any fees involved. Also, should I go with a program like LinkShare or CJ?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Wes

[eljefe3]

Wes,

Yes affiliate marketing is being a commissioned salesperson. You earn when someone buys something via your affiliate link.

Many affiliate sites carry both adsense or ypn as well as affiliate links so if the page doesn't earn one way, it can earn via the other way.

Ideally you'll have products that will be of interest to your visitors. One other consideration that's important is the cookie duration as most programs use cookies for tracking. The longer the cookie, the better. Try to avoid those programs that only have a 1 day cookie.

[wfernley]

Thanks for your help!

Well I'm looking to go through CJ for affiliates.

I was reading some of the stats and it sounds like you dont make a lot of money doing affiliates. As in, I would be lucky to make $15 a day. One of the very few affiliates on CJ that sell products like the ones on my website only have an average of $15 made for every 100 click throughs. My website gets about 700 visitors a day, I don't think I would make all that much cash from this.

[eljefe3]

Yeah so that's .15/click and depending on where the ads are and how your copywriting skills are, you'll be happy to get 5% of all your visitors clicks on the link. So that's around 35 clicks a day X .15/click. Not going to set the world on fire, but every extra $150 month helps.

Not sure if your niche will allow for more traffic or not, but a huge increase in traffic will be a huge increase in revenue.

You could also try and find some private deals for yourself and work something out with the merchant.

[wfernley]

Yeah that is very true. Well I don't think I could get a 5% CTR because I want most of my clicks to go through AdSense.

I still am looking into affiliate programs and maybe like you said, I can get some private perks from the merchants as well.

[maximillianos]

My advice from years of trying various affiliate programs... steer clear of CJ and Linkshare, etc. The big affiliate directory houses don't seem to pay out well for newbies. Do some research and try to find some smaller niche affiliate programs that manage their own system... or perhaps cut a custom deal with a merchant directly. The less folks taking a cut of your commission... obviously the better!

[gamiziuk]

wfernley, you didn't say what your website topic is, but you could also look into Chitika ads. Chitika's ads are PPC (like Adsense) while most affiliate programs are pay-per-sale.

Chitika's ads can be run either as contextual or non-contextual (you insert keywords for non-contextual mode). If you run Chitika's ads as non-contextual, they are compatible to run along with Adsense on the same pages.

Most of my sites are about travel/hotels, so I display Chitika ads showing travel products. (Cameras, camcorders, GPS mapping, etc.)