Did Using An Affiliate Network Increase Your Revenue?

[olimits7]

Hi,

I'm just trying to get some feedback on people who have used or are using affiliate networks for their ecommerce website.

1. Have you seen an increase in revenue by using them?
2. Would you recommend using an affiliate network?

Thank you,

olimits7

[edited by: eljefe3 at 2:22 am (utc) on Nov. 27, 2008]

[eljefe3]

I can't directly answer your question, but your offer would have to be worth it for an affiliate to try you out. Simply putting up an offer and hoping that affiliates will come will result in disappointment. You'll need to make sure you have a high EPC, the network will give you prominent placement etc. By doing these things, you'll stand a better chance of succeeding, but you need to ask yourself why an affiliate would want to sell your product instead of your competitor.

[olimits7]

One thing I noticed about my industry, is I saw a couple of my competitors affiliate programs range anywhere from 2%-5% of sales depending on how many sales there were.

But after doing the math on my end, this would take a big chunk of my profits away if I used an affiliate network. I don't get how my competitors can afford using an affiliate network to bring in sales; unless they are getting better wholesale prices than me...hmmmmm.

[bmcgee]

No offense, but do you really have no customer acquisition cost? If you advertise somewhere (online or offline), it is costing something for the customer.

Affiliate sales are fed to you at zero cost, except for the commission of course. Further, these can become repeat customers possibly without the need to pay commissions on future sales.

And that isn't worth 2-5%?

[olimits7]

Good point...didn't take into account that chance of repeat custoemrs.

[Marcia]

I'd like to mention that simply signing up with an affiliate network doesn't guarantee that high producing affiliates will promote the program. There's still an effort that has to be made to recruit quality affiliates, and rules have to be put in place and enforced for PPC bidding policies.