Affiliate success on content sites

[rlkanter]

I've tried a wide range of products/services, primarily through text links, and had almost no success with affiliate programs. Is this common for content sites, or I have just not found the right affilate program yet? Right now I'm looking at something like 0.01% ctr if that.

Thanks.

[georgiek50]

You are most likely targetting the wrong program. It took me 3 months to realize what "targeted traffic" really meant after researching the keywords that people were using to get to my website. I wasted a lot of time on things that rightly should have interested my visitors but actually didn't on my specific site. Keep testing and recording results and when you hit that successful program, exploit the hell out of it and try to find more like it.

[Vlad]

I just joined CJ and Amazon last week for my content sites. So far, amazon looks more promising as people look for information when they come to my sites and tend to buy the books on the topic.

After a week of testing:

Amazon - $2.00
CJ - $0.00

I know it's nothing but, I only have the ads for Amazon on 2 pages as I had very little hope for them, vs. CJ ads are almost on every page. However, CJ stats take awhile to update from what I see.

My amazon ads are right on the subject and the CTR is very high.
CJ ads are hard to match for my content and the CTR is way low.

I'm still new to this but, for now I'm going to concentrate on Amazon since it converts better. It may not be the best way to go, but it might be for my type of site.

Adsence is the best performer right now of all 3.

I think the trick is to build your site around a "HOT" product, which at the time I did not know and built my sites on what I liked and knew about. But, it's still time well spent.

Next site will be the money maker I hope.

[wellzy]

With CJ you can use specific books also. Search for product links. If you can find some with a decent payout this may work well for you. Product links seem to work better than the banner links for me.

wellzy

[Teshka]

Adsense, and to some extent Amazon, works best on my content sites that weren't designed specifically to sell something; the average article might be something like Health Benefits of Hiking.

In an attempt to diversify and make more with affiliate programs, I've started writing some of my articles to be more product specific, ie, How to Purchase the GPS Device For Your Needs. Links to GPS items are sprinkled throughout. I've found this to be much more successful insofar as affiliate sales go.