conversion rates: affiliate vs. e-commerce

[Makaveli2007]

I just read a thread about 'average conversion rates' in the e-commerce forum (yes, yes 'average' is hard to determine...).

They were talking about conversion rates for their e-commerce stores of around 2%.

However somebody mentioned, that content-rich affiliate sites might generally have lower conversion rates, because many people check out the content and are not going to buy as opposed to pure e-commerce.

So, what would you guys consider an 'average conversion rate' for a content rich affiliate site promoting a product at 20$ in a not too competitive industry? I don't need to get hung up on an exact number, I'm more interested in the ...dimensions..or ranges..

[ronin]

I'm happy with anything above 1%.

For most products I promote, I average about 1-2%, usually not less, occasionally more.

[Makaveli2007]

So..say I have a cool site about a niche topic, that's good enough to make people come back multiple times..and want to sell an e-book, the price of which is 20$.

Is a 1% conversion rate realistic expectation for that?

P.S.: I think, I should add, that most of my traffic comes/will come from the exact name of the niche topic (there are hardly any long-tail searches) something like 'internet law' or 'belly dance' - a 2 word kw-phrase

[skibum]

It really depends on the nature of your traffic. If you have a site about camcorders and you get a lot of traffic from people searching for "camcorders" or "how to use a camcorder" the conversion rate might be well below 1%. If you get people looking for "Panasonic PV-GS320 Mini DV" and you have lots of info and price comparisons, you might hit a 5% conversion.

[Makaveli2007]

Yeah, I know it must depend heavily on the nature of the traffic, that's why I gave the e-book example.

Say you have a 20$ e-book for 'self hypnosis' and you get most of your traffic from people searching for the term 'self hypnosis'

(however, it's not a thin affiliate site, but a content rich/useful site, people will want to look at more often)

What would you consider a decent conversion rate for such an item? My guess is, that a good percentage of the people will not want to know about it more deeply and wont be interested in buying an e-book...

However, what should I expect from such type of traffic? 1%?0,5%? 0,1%?

[Beagle]

I'm not sure if you plan to have only one product available, or if that's just part of your example, but if you have a site that's "good enough to make people come back multiple times," and you're only selling one (nonconsumable) item, you'd have to judge your effectiveness by percentage of actual people who buy the book, no matter how many times they came to the site, which is different from a site (either ecommerce or affiliate) with multiple products available so customers can buy different things on subsequent visits. That would make comparison pretty difficult, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

[Makaveli2007]

I am talking about only one product (at first), though I'd like to build an e-mail list and follow up with some fitting offers in the future.

But for this site, I think one product (an e-book) might be the best approach to not make visitors think too much and get confused (the product I'm thinking of is the only one, that fits the site's theme 1:1).

Anyways, I was thinking of the conversion rate per I.P. adress/person so-to-speak, no matter how often that unique I.P. adress/person comes to the site.
(not sure if I could use the expression unique visitor here, as most webmasters seem to use this on a per-day-basis?)

I just mentioned, that it should be a good site with recurring traffic, because most people don't buy the first time they see a product, but become more likely to buy the more they are exposed to the product.