200 Clicks to a CJ Advertiser and Only .50 Cents?

[dakman]

Hey guys... so I did the test to see if CJ is really tracking... It seems like its not .. First thing I've noticed is I've sent almost 200 clicks via ppc and CJ only logged 100 or so. Next thing is out of 200 clicks I only had got one conversion from Eharmony's affiliate program which amounted to gumball income .50 cents? for 10 dollars of adwords traffic. Also, its not $1,000 item either that the user has to buy... This site has a free sign up page.

Eharmony claims to be the #1 affiliate program in the matchmaking segment. It seemed like it had good earning potential with a .50 cent per lead payout and decent commission on paying user account. If CJ was tracking the conversions I would be doing pretty well I'm sure.

Anyone else experience this? Do you guys recommend I get off CJ and join Linkshare? Or should i go direct?

Thx for your help!

[activeco]

I've been very long with CJ, but never scored some significant results. In fact I often felt cheated and some people actually proved it. They were cheated on a large scale. I know of a reputable person who has started campaign against them and even has been following them on various events, spreading anti-CJ flyers, etc.

On the other side I don't know of any other 100% reliable affiliate program which one should stay behind.
Recently, the member of this forum recommended shareasale, which looks promising, although somewhat limited in offerings.

[Craig_F]

I haven't had good results with CJ, but that could just be my fault. However, I just checked that eHarmony free sign up page and got a security warning, that can't be helping your conversion rate...

[skibum]

Have always done very well with CJ & never had an problems with them. If tracking is screwed up, it is more than likley on the merchant end because the tags are not properly implemented. Keep in mind for eHarmony it takes anywhere up to 40 minutes to go through the whole profile signup process so it's not a quick reg form. There is also often a lag time between the time a person signs up for free and kicks the tires enough to actually become a paid member.

Conversion rates from paid search on dating sites seem to be around 1 in 20 from click to free reg. Then maybe 1 paid from every 10 free reg. With eHarmony, if you get people looking specifically for eHarmony, both conversion rates tend to be much higher but their payouts are nothing to write home about.

[dakman]

Thanks guys. Made me feel more confident in CJ since I have like 5+ adwords campaigns running to them. I guess I'll purge eharmony's and try a advertiser that has an easier signup process. That may help my conversation rate.

Any one have experience with an out of network program... Friend Finder, or Amigos.com?

I guess the pay up to $2.00 and pay affiliates over 1 mil a month.

[skibum]

Just gotta test different programs and see what works. It's a challenging industry to crack since there are so many dating sites all fighting for quality traffic.

[dakman]

Yea you're right... Thanks for your help..

[FourDegreez]

I've sent 1,331 clicks to eHarmony this month and scored 119 leads, so that's about 1 out of every 11 clicks generating a lead. Scored a handful of sales, too, those are nice. But these numbers are still nothing to get excited about.

eHarmony's registration process is rather onerous, so that has a negative effect. There are better converting programs in this area.

With FriendFinder you can go direct or through CJ. Through CJ it's sale commission only, but direct they offer lead-based commissions. I'd prefer lead-based, myself and I've written to them asking if I could get that set up through CJ... never got a response. Sale-based commission has earned me nada through them. Don''t consider it.

[dakman]

oh ya i know.. % of sale i think sucks.. its all about per lead payout.. friend finder pays you per member anywhere from $.50 cents to $1.50 .

[FourDegreez]

Through CJ they pay 100% of sale, or so they say, though I've sent 465 people their way and have not gotten a single sale. I'll probably drop them. Other programs are performing much better. If you can narrow the niche down further, lead commissions are higher. There's a Jewish dating service paying $5/lead, for example. It's a highly competitive area in general, though. Damn near impossible to rank well in organic SERPs, even in highly-targetted geo niches.

If you get anywhere with FriendFinder leads, let me know. =)

[dakman]

We'll See ... :)