Planning (wishing?) on the future

running an affiliate site at a loss

[hannamyluv]

Over the past few weeks, I have been exploring an interesting niche. A month ago, I decided to test a new thing for me, in this niche. I decided that I would run a campaign to create awarness of a site now, set cookies now, gather email addresses now and run the site at a loss in the hopes that come november-december, it will pay off. I am currently out about a grand.

This practice is a pretty common one in the normal business world when introducing a new thing. You expect that things will run at a loss for awhile and that things will come around as the thing (be it brand, product or site) catches on.

I know that many people here run an affiliate site at a loss, but I think that most of it is just because they may be trying to figure out what will make money. How many here intentionally have started an affilite site to run in the red in the hopes that it will pay off later? If so, did it pay off?

[eljefe3]

Interesting idea. I know in the retail sector you quite often have a loss leader that brings people in the door and then once they are in, you try to upsell them on something profitable. I would imagine that collecting email addresses would be the same as getting the people in the door, with follow up emails or repeat visits by these people being the upsell.

I too would be interested if anyone has had financial success with this method online.

[eyeinthesky]

If you do your sums, it should work.

I think it is just like someone who buys an established site (maybe like the recent $379,000 sale on ebay) and is immediately in the red.

Collecting email address through PPCs is the same. Don't expect a sale immediately, but with proper followup, it will be worthwhile in the longer run.

Risk and reward always go hand in hand :)