Revenue from CPA

Cost per action - is it free advertising

[Entelekhia]

I have had about 50.000 clicks to my ads and no revenue what so ever. All the ads relate to my page really well, but still nothing. Are there really anyone getting money from there things? I have accounts with CJ and Performics.

[sean]

Free advertising? My merchants would beg to differ. :-)

Wow, that is way too many clicks not to get a sale. Surely your merchants must be converting at a higher rate or they would go out of business. Somehow, you need to get on the right side of the bell curve.

This may be a silly suggestion, but are you sure it is not a tracking issue, such as an HTML editor that is mangling your links?

[Michael Anthony]

Many people make plenty of money from CPA programs, but those needing the customer to buy something are much harder to work with than those that just pay per lead or enquiry.

As we've said time and time again on here, it's not about impressions or unique visitors, it's about sales.

Have you tried making a test purchase yourself to test the tracking? If you contact the merchant direct they will be keen to help too, as your loss is their loss.

[Entelekhia]

"This may be a silly suggestion, but are you sure it is not a tracking issue, such as an HTML editor that is mangling your links?"

What does this mean?

[Procyon]

I think what sean is getting at is that the tracking codes in your ads that identify *you* to the merchant could possibly be being 'eaten' or corrupted somehow, meaning the merchant can't identify you and thus can't pay you if you make a sale.

Of course, if you are able to track your clickthroughs on CJ, then this probably doesn't apply to you.

[Entelekhia]

Yeah, CJ and Performics are showing impressions and clicks.

If there's 50.000 clicks on different kind of ads, you would think that was at least ONE buy... It feels bad because Burst is doing quite well for me but they can't deliver more than about 20% of impressions. There's about 200.000 impressions per day with default campaigns and no sales. That feels like free advertising...

[Procyon]

All I can suggest is that you start testing new ads/merchants/ad placement etc.

Try new things, see what works, drop stuff that doesn't work. Do that over and over.

Are you using banners? They aren't so good anymore...

[webmastertexas]

Yes, you really have to try out a lot of avenues. If one doesn't seem to be working, try something else. You can always come back later. In the two years I've been online, I must have gone through literally dozens and dozens of programs and affiliatse. CJ, Linkshare -- you name it. Now I think I've finally found those that works, and I'm pretty much sticking with them. But it's really trial and error.

[sean]

Okay, since the clicks are from the network tracking, that rules out the WYSIWYG conspiracy theory. However, Michael's advice of a test purchase is still good. Glitches are not uncommon.

Hmm... you are using CJ, so what is the range of EPC for the programs you are using the most?
("ballpark" numbers... not too specific)

[skibum]

50K clicks w/o a sale is waaaaaaaay to many. In most cases with reasonably targeted ads, 500 clicks and sometimes even 50 clicks ought to generate at least one sale. Try some different programs, make sure the programs relate to the content of the site, make sure the cookie length offered by the merchant is reasonable. Pre-selling the merchants of specific products may also prove to be helpful if that kind of content woud fit in with the site.

So far, yes in this case it is free advertising.