Forum Moderators: skibum
If Pepsi said to the Washington Post, "Here, run this full page ad in the Sunday edition and we'll give you 5% of sales to consumers who were pointing to the ad with their right index finger at the time they bought the 2 liter of Pepsi", do you think the Washington Post would run the ad?
No. Advertising creates brand awareness. It should cost.
Who's going to marry Sally when Mary, Jenny, Molly, Barbara, and Gina are giving it away for free?
What I have found that works, is using text links and preselling the merchant's product or service. Make your own ad. Find something you can recommend yourself, let your presell be more content and promote the merchant.
The advertising industry is not going to conform to what we want, we have to conform to what it offers.
I have had good success with CJ. But just like anything else, there are good merchants and there are bad merchants. Promoting the right merchants with the right methods pays great dividends.
CJ has its flaws -- it's totally gutless about taking a stand against parasiteware, for instance -- but I make a nice living with CJ, so I consider it a friend, warts and all.
These affiliate programs are exploiting webmasters.
Just say no.
If all the big guys say no, the exploiters will be left with a lot of low-traffic sites, and sells will fall. The factory workers unionized, why can't we?
Gotta disagree with this ... despite some of the problems I outlined above, it's possible to earn good money with affiliate programs if you know what you're doing. That means learning and doing what it takes to make them work, not just slapping up banners and waiting for something to happen. Some merchants are duds (for a variety of reasons), but there are gems out there who really DO close sales and pay commissions when you send them well-targeted traffic.
I'd better stop now or I'll end up writing another treatise.
Just don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I use both CJ and per impression advertising, also something that works is flat monthly advertising fees :P
Don't be too quick to assume it's the merchant's fault. It might be, but not necessarily. It could be that your traffic is not as good a fit for that merchant (not as well-targeted) as you thought, or some traffic is less "spendy" than others (example: teenagers), or some topics/categories always attract more lookers than buyers. Example: my sons spend hours surfing performance truck sites, but to my knowledge have not yet purchased any truck stuff online.
Shortcomings on a merchant's site can often be shored up by good "pre-selling" at the affiliate's end (not hype - that's something different), so test something different about how you're presenting the product/service. Or test a different merchant altogether.
Free branding will only happen if you let it, and I think it's a self-correcting "problem" anyway. If your site is a good enough fit for the merchant that branding is actually worth something, your traffic will convert to sales at reasonable rates, assuming there are no specific problems like stingy cookies, tracking errors, or maybe something stupid in the merchant's sales process.
Test, test, test ....when you find something that works, keep doing it, and when you find that something doesn't work, try something else. All the rest is details.
Merchants pay us for performance ... we have the right to pick and choose the merchants who perform for us too.
When you're talking about affiliate programs, be careful -- be vewwy vewwy careful -- about how you define "serious traffic".
I detect some numbers snobbery in your closing comment, but in the affiliate game raw visitor counts mean little. The number that matters is a good conversion rate. Your friends might be impressed by a site that gets thousands of visitors a day, but it's more fun to impress your bank teller.
Targeting is king.
My point is that what you've said is contrary to my experience and that of many others. There are numerous webmasters making a good living as affiliates, many contributing to this board. There are an increasing number of merchants who treat affiliates as true partners in business. Some of the attitudes you've mentioned do exist. I stay away from merchants who are merely out to exploit affiliates for the branding.
This is a growing field, and I proffer the opinion that there will be more and more merchants adopting affiliate marketing as an integral feature of their business plans.
You may not be a good candidate for affiliate marketing because it requires a great deal of focus, experimentation and patience. It takes a long time to reach the point where a decent cash flow materializes. We've always said that you shouldn't quit your day job until you have a solid income base. You sort of have to make a career, or second career, of it.
I guess what I'm saying is don't knock it unless you've tried it. Hurting the web? I don't think so.
Who's going to marry Sally when Mary, Jenny, Molly, Barbara, and Gina are giving it away for free?
Probably not me.
Some merchants are duds (for a variety of reasons), but there are gems out there who really DO close sales and pay commissions when you send them well-targeted traffic.
My thoughts exactly.
An affiliate who is serious should be doing systematic trouble-shooting long before the stats get to "thousands of click-throughs and no sales".
Careful testing is one of the things that separates the pro's from the wannabees.
Your realization of $5 million in profit yearly as an affiliate truly places you in the most rarified strata of affiliate marketing. If this is in the past tense, did you find an even more lucrative activity, and would you care to share what that is? Is there an IPO in the offing when the market turns?
I agree further with Ms. Buckworks that volume of traffic is not determinative of affiliate income. Focused activity is what produces.
Thanks for your kind words about my site. And, yes, creation of original content is not a strong suit of the vast majority of site owners.
It's not my site making $5 million. It is an exploitive corp which makes big promises and then takes phone orders and mail orders.
I'm personally against over-commercialization of the Internet. I'm pretty happy just to get more traffic than competing sites. Its more fun than business, I guess.
Reality is the way things are whether we like it or not. Reality dictates that traditional economic activity, enhanced by the special attributes of the internet, is what will enable it to thrive and become an economic behemoth in this century. Its an ideal vehicle for commerce.
Personally, I'm both having fun with the creative side of it, and making money in the process. Gotta love it!
I am proud of my not-so-commercial sites. I work on them every day, from dawn to dusk. I love it when I get emails saying how wonderful my sites are. I got this one yesterday:
"Keep up the great work. Your website is fantastic!"
It makes me happier than any amount of money from my other site. When I talk to people they definately make a distiction between "commercial" and "non-commercial" sites. I usually have some sort of advertising on my non-commercial sites, but it is in no way obnoxious, and takes up little space on the site.
I don't think the site would be so popular if advertising was a primary feature of the site.
mosley700, I respect what you are saying, but totally disagree with you.
People do purchase online (certain types of products, but not all products are effective for online marketing).
Affiliate programs do work, and can make a great revenue for your site.
I have only been doing this for 5 months now, and am making a great income from relatively low traffic sites only with affiliate programs. I would never sell cost per impression advertising on my sites because it doesn't pay me enough money. What do you get for cost per impression? $2 per thousand impressions? Some of my sites make $200 per thousand impressions ($1-2 per click) and upwards by sending the traffic to highly targeted and effective affiliate programs.
The trick is only picking affiliate programs that convert well.
The other part of this discussion is the problem with scumware reducing commissions. Yes this is true. Probably half of commissions are taking by scumware ... that is a conservative estimate given the number of people that have Gator, morpheous ... etc etc installed. However affiliate programs are still more profitable for publishers even despite these problems.
That's my 2 cents worth.
