Forum Moderators: skibum
I recently joined the expedia program - it all started well enough - I received 2 sales from my first 160 click throughs.
However, since that early success, I've now had over 2000 click throughs without a sniff of a sale
I can't believe you can start off averaging one sale in 80 click throughs and then go 2000 without a sale - the longer it goes on, the more convinced I am that something is not tracking my sales correctly
Obviously, I can't go on giving away all these visitors for free!
160 clicks was too small a sample to try to determine an average. Try contacting another affiliate and ask what their experiences has been.
Yes 160 click throughs is certainly way too small to guage an accurate average -
I was really basing that 1 sale in 80 figure on past experience of other programes - I know that any decent program should be able to give you a sale about once every 80-100 clicks.
My links are HIGHLY targeted - they are not banners at the top of the page - they are text links, targeted to specific cities, integrated into the content.
I am getting about 35% click through rate.
At the moment I am standing at 2 sales from 2200 click throughs - which is working out at about a $1 EPC
If this is normal, then there is no way I am staying with the program - I am kind of hoping that there is a problem somewhere.
I do know that Expedia only enables cookies for a single browser session - I knew this was lousy before I started - but I figured that this negative would be cancelled out by a much higher conversion rate - since expedia is probably the most trusted travel site on the net
I'm not sure who to ask first - expedia, reporting.net or another affiliate!
Not getting 1 sale in 2000 clicks shows a definite problem. Have you placed a sample order to see that you are getting proper credit? This is one of the fist things that I recommend before jumping fully into any program.
A check on my June Expedia stats at BeFree shows I earned about 2-1/2 cents per air travel visitor sent to them, which is very poor.
I send my air travel visitors to a jump page where they can select from Hotwire (a Linkshare merchant) who quotes low prices but selects the airline and Priceline (also a Linshare merchant) where you can bid and take your chances on the airline and travel times, along with Expedia.
For hotels, I do OK with HRN (Hotel Reservation Network) that runs their own affiliate program and pays out 5% of the room charge upon checkout. I don't promote hotels for Expedia, but do get a rare hotel sale there from the airline visitors that I send them.
I'll warn you that the travel industry is very competitive. I throw it into my affiliate program mix for some diversification but revenues from it are nothing to get exited about, and I have to work hard for what I do get.
----
Sounds like a good idea - but how exactly do I place a sample order - if I don't wish to book a night in a hotel?
I guess I could book and then cancel - assumimg there were no cancellation charges.
msg #:7 6:47 am on July 18, 2002 (utc 0)
For hotels, I do OK with HRN (Hotel Reservation Network) that runs their own affiliate program and pays out 5% of the room charge upon checkout. I don't promote hotels for Expedia, but do get a rare hotel sale there from the airline visitors that I send them.
----
Thats interesting - could you give me an idea of the conversion rate you get with HRN - but most importantly, the EPC
I am thinking of moving over to to the hoteldiscounts program - mainly because it is handled by CJ who are vastly better than befree.
CJ quote the hoteldiscounts average EPC at about $7
-----
I'll warn you that the travel industry is very competitive. I throw it into my affiliate program mix for some diversification but revenues from it are nothing to get exited about, and I have to work hard for what I do get.
------
I don't think the problem is the travel industry so much as just being an affiliate full stop! I'm so sick of the way all programs rip us off
My site provides advertising directly to the hotels - but I am experimenting with some affiliate income as well - mainly because I have not been operating too long yet, and it helps to 'fill up' the site at the moment
If I can't find a program that rewards me fairly, I will forget them all and do it myself!
The earnings aren't great but when I have a little idle time I often spend it trying to drum up some more travel traffic.
-------
Thanks Mayor
I've just joined the program at CJ - and then the guys at HRN also advised me to join the direct program instead.
They said their direct program was more customisable - which it certainly is - but I was not keen on the less than detailed stats.
You have no way of knowing how many click throughs you are generating each day - which is a major pain if you want to judge how effective your links are.
Also, they have cookies set to a single browser session - something that expedia does too - and possibly the reason my sales are so low
So for these reasons I am going to start out with the CJ program - highly detailed stats, plus a 3 day cookie (not brilliant, but a lot more realistic)
Incidentally, the guys at HRN say their conversion rate is in the region of 1-3% - If by that they mean that YOU, rather than THEM, make 1-3 sales per 100 click throughs, then I would have no problem with a single browser session cookie!
However, it seems optimistic to me - do you have a rough idea of how many click throughs you send them?
Does that 1-3% conversion rate sound realistic?
Personally, I would be ecstatic with an average 1% conversion - at about $13 per average sale (their figure, not mine), I would have made about $330 in the last month - instead of the $20 I've made with expedia!
Hi Anotherone
I don't think that is the problem - having lots of links will certainly lower the percentage of click throughs to ad views (although it raises the overall number of click throughs)
But once the people are there, you should still get the same conversion rate from clickers to buyers.
On the same pages, I also have a link to SkyAuction - in fact I have slightly more of those on the site than expedia links - and they are also probably slightly less targeted.
However, this links performs fine - in fact my EPC from this link is slightly above the average quoted at CJ
My wildest guess is a hundred a day (highly targeted visitors), and I earn about eight bucks a day, so that would indicate something like 8 cents a click through.
Lack of detailed click-trhough stats on the direct HRN program is one reason I don't promote them more than I do. It's all a guessing game. But I have a general fuzzy feeling that the revenues I earn from them has sort of been worth the effort, when I need a break from working more quantifiable revenue sources. When I'm writing a web page promotion about a travel destination, for example, I can kind of dream that I'm there ... sort of a cyber vacation ... on a poor webmasters budget lol :)
-----
Sounds OK to me - right now I would be very happy with 8 cents per click - what do you find the best strategy when targeting the links.
With the HRN program at CJ you can target links to the individual cities booking engine - or you could send people directly to their 'Hot Deals' page which list special offers in all of their cities.
I think either of these options will give a better EPC than sending visitors to the home page
With the CJ program, you can't link any deeper than that - ie to individual hotels.
People looking for "discount hotels" will be sent to the home page.
People looking for "Las Vegas hotels" will be sent to the Las Vegas page.
I don't go any deeper.
Steve
