Forum Moderators: skibum
Originally I am a marketing guy, turned into web-related stuff some time ago. And now I am considering getting some cash out of affiliate programs.
At this point I have just one question: is anybody here who makes a (decent) living out of affiliate sites in Germany or on the german-speaking market (Austria, Switzerland)?
I don't want to know numbers or niches or affiliates, just a plain YES or NO. (If you feel free to share numbers - i don't mind ;-).
My (so far not supported) guess is, that serving a 250 Mio. people-country like the US, it would be much easier to get the necessary amount of visits.
I might be wrong (hopefully am) and I'm looking forward to one or two thoughts of you.
jazzbo.
>250 mill
well, you target really germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland, and other german speaking folks. It adds up to very roughly 100 Mill. Not such a bad (potential) audience.
Of course Germany is not that developed as Scandinavia, Netherlands, UK and USA in terms of e-commerce, online shopping, online billing etc.
Percentage of online population is depending on measurements somewhere around 45-50%, still growing.
This just as background info, now let the affiliate experts kick in!
zeus
What percentage of those folks can understand English websites?
If your audience can be hooked with a text link in German which ends in "an English language site" then the answer is YES.
zeus
the German are not that great in english
Being German I tend to disagree ;). Itīs really a matter of the targeted audience.
While I have no actual data to support my statement it seems feasible that the percentage of people who understand English quite well will be rather high among the users of the WWW in Germany as will be the case in most other European countries.
Andreas
I agree that it is a matter of topic whether the audience is understanding (or speaking) english or not.
But if you want to sign up with affiliate-partners doing eshopping you are pretty much bound to German content and affiliate-partners because shipping through Europe is a pain (regarding cost and time), so most of the partners are focused on one country.
But what I have been thinking about is: when we have fewer German-speaking people (absolute numbers) accessing the internet than English-speaking, there should be fewer people over here trying to make a living out of affiliate sites. As a result sales through an affiliate site could be comparable to US or UK sites.
Guess I have talking myself into giving it a try or I'll never know, right?
Think SERVICES with no shipping.......
a big yes - for your main question. It depend on your targetet market how succesfull you are.
For the german market use only "German speaking sites".
Sites in other language will end in a disaster.
TLD "de" working better then others.
ulrich
thanks for your reply.
> Sites in other language will end in a disaster.
That was exactly what I was thinking myself without having tried out anything. I'll give a try.
jazzbo.
