Forum Moderators: skibum
Too obvious? Yeah. :)
However, sometimes it's easy to get distracted and forget what the main goal is - to make money.
If you test, dump what's not working, and repeat what works, and constantly apply yourself to improving those 3 points, the money will flow.
More sites, more pages, more uniques, more money.
ConvRate * Visitors * Payout = Revenue
and in the spirit of brandboerge's post, visitors = source1 + source2 + ... + sourceN
1)Understand or find a topic that may do well.
2)Build site on that topic
3)Get traffic to the site
4)Monetize the traffic with what makes the most sense.
5)Tweak and test your monetization with different aff programs, contextual, whatever.
6)Repeat 5 until you have maxed the potential, including getting better deals from aff partners.
7)Start over with nubmer 1 - new site.
Is it correct to build and forget?
Some topics are "evergreen" and don't require a lot of maintenance.
This is something to take into consideration during the planning phase. Any project that works out will require ongoing promotion at some point, and some will need constant updates.
Regardless of these and other aspects of a project, the above list works on them all for me. It's "in a nutshell" for making more with a site, exclusive of givens such as promotion and maintenance.
- If your merchants offer a tiered system, it may be worth biasing your site towards one or two of the best converting in order to reach the higher segments.
- Improve SEO on pages that convert well.
- Constantly experiment with pages that don't convert. Try new merchants, new layouts and if all else fails, just use adsense.
- Place affiliate links above the fold.
wellzy
Sample Data
Old Customers: 10
New Customers: 14
Old # of Purchases: 5
Increase # of Purchases 20% = 6 purchases
Old Customer Ave. $ Purchase: $10.00
Increase Customer Ave. $ Purchase 20% = $12.00 Ave. $ Purchase
Old Revenue = $500
New Revenue = $1008
Old Margins = 30 %
New Margins Improved 20% = 36 %
Old Profits = $500 x .3 = $150
New Profits = $1008 x .36 = $362.88
$362.88/ $150 = 242% Increase in Profits
More in supporters: Increase leads, sales, conversion, and margins [webmasterworld.com]
[edited by: Drastic at 7:12 pm (utc) on July 14, 2005]
[edit reason] added snippet per stuntdubl request [/edit]
1. Thinking outside the box. Just because your site is about X doesn't mean you only have to stick with affiliate product X. Think along the lines of "People interested in X also bought Y. Click here to see more Y."; where Y is the most expensive, best converting alternate product you can find.
Sometimes the alternate product can make more than the focused one.
2. Find ways to retain your visitors. This is different for every site, but it's worth the brainstorming.
3. Get people to provide word of mouth marketing for you. Anywhere possible give users the ability to recommend your site or more specifically a product on your site to a friend. With a carefully created email template, it can arrive as a solid recommendation from a friend (obviously don't take it too far and be deceptive).
4. Cross promote.
5. Entice the return. If you can manage at least weekly updates, post a bold note that says "Visitors: don't forget to come back on Thursday, July 21st when our new blah blah will be online with specials and the best something that is enticing to you... to make you come back."
6. Learn who your visitors are. Capture data and poll visitors.
A lot of people think that in web-based AM the computer does it all - not true. Conversations with affiliate managers can substantially increase your revenue through a channel.
Add value.
Know your products.
Know your competition.
Actually, this works for everything, not just affiliate marketing. Less deep, and probably more like what the original poster wanted..
1) Learn PPC. Backwards.
2) Become real friends with your merchants, and work with them to try and make it work for both of you.
3) Watch your ROI, not your competitors.
And finally, 4) Invest your proceeds in appreciating assets, not yachts and Bentleys!
Actually it's almost a year old, now that I think about it. Hmmm. :?
Know where your visitors are in the buying process by the keywords they type in to find your website from search traffic. Double up on those money keywords by buying them in the PPC engines. Serve up aff links or contextual ads appropriately.
Never give up but take a break once in a while and go get some exercise.:)
Don't ever take on big debts based on the anticipation of future affiliate cash unless you very are well diversified.
Excellent point, ski.
Other than the normal keyword channels and hot topics du jour, do you have any suggestions for getting the creative juices flowing on these new ideas?
"take a break once in a while and go get some exercise.:)" Good advice, skibum.
I take a break from exercise and relaxing once in a while to do some work, better balance IMO!
what is the ROI that you affiliates look for? Someone told me that any publisher could easily earn $0.35/1000 impressions from banner networks. Thus publishers using affiliate programs would like to earn atleast $0.45/1000 impressions. Is this true?
lack mat
I personally don't look at impressions for tracking affiliate programs. I look at clicks, and earnings per click.
It's my job to get the targeted clicks to you, so on my end I focus on CTR. The EPC is determined by how well you do your part. CPM is a measure of both, and doesn't tell me who is doing their part well.
No offense, but $.45 cpm is not worth my time.
Please somebody do the math and tell me if I am better or worse than the suggested "norm"?
Please somebody do the math and tell me if I am better or worse than the suggested "norm"?
I reckon your bank account probably tells you this is above the norm ;)
