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I'm committed to spending 10% of my revenues on advertising but I'm not blindly throwing it at the wall to see what sticks. Inktomi paid-inclusion has been effective but I smell their attitude toward affiliate sites changing. Most of the PPC traffic doesn't make good bottom line sense in my business model. I'll probably try the Fast pay for inclusion soon. I've never got into the e-mail scene.
I don't even try the Yahoo and Looksmart directories because I've read they don't accept affiliate sites.
Does anyone have suggestions for effective advertising for affiliate sites?
I've just spent the last 3 hrs trying to set up my own newsletter... I'm going the cheap way by having users opt-in their name and e-mail address to a form then importing the name and e-mail to Pegasus mailer so I can send my newsletter to the mailing list. Of course you could always just hire a mailing list manager or buy a mailing list script or some other easier free way that I haven't looked into, but I just like to suffer.
I'm going to offer up some valuable freebies (oxymoron?) as an incentive for subscribing. That way hopefully I'll have access to more potential customers that normally I would never see again after they decided to leave my site. And who knows if my e-zine or newsletter gets popular enough I could even generate money from advertising.
Also you could advertise in highly targeted ezines or newsletters (whatever your niche there's bound to be a few). You could disguise your affiliate link by doing a redirect from one of your webpages. I don't know from experience but from what I've read the advertising rates seem reasonable.
I have some links somewhere of good directories that list tons of different ezines/newsletters classified by subject. I think some even tell you the number of subscribers and advertising rates. I'll try to drum up those links and sticky you them if your interested.
I hope that's an idea :) I'll check back here soon to see what some other folks got to say,
Greektomi
You could disguise your affiliate link by doing a redirect from one of your webpages.
Rather than disguise the link, I've had much better luck pointing out that it is a compensated link. I don't know how that would work on every site, but for this site in development I had one book I wanted to promote early, and it has sold several copies. There isn't a lot of traffic to that site yet, its unfinished but the conversion rate for that one product has been good.
I'd provide a link to show the treatment, but that is frowned on and I surely don't want to be seen as promoting the book here. Qualifying the link as compensated seems to be the deciding factor in the sale though.
DG
On a website I could see how this could work, but in an e-mail affiliate links can look darn unruly. But still I do see some undisguised links in quality newsletters.
I think you could probably elaborate without giving an exact treatment as long as you didn't list any real links or real companies. Just use relative terms.
Greektomi
[ezine-universe.com...]
[bestezines.com...]
[ezinesearch.com...]
I have nothing to do with any of these sites, in fact I visited them for the first time right before I posted this just to make sure they were kosher :)
Greektomi
Wow, you all are pouring forth some great ideas about newsletters that I haven't got into.
One thing that I learned early was not to disguise that you are an affiliate. Be what you are. Say you are an affiliate. Then endorse your merchant. Buyers want an endorsement, even if you are getting paid to endorse. They know you won't endorse a rip-off (and don't).
In developing a client's site and newsletter we opted for a pretty straight forward approach as well. The book affiliate allows for store-front creation, individual book marketing and allows people to post book reviews.
We incorporated the books they wanted to market into the newsletter, complete with "member reviews" readers could see by visiting the links to the storefront and posted a disclaimer in bold print announcing the links as compensated.
The site is a craft site and as more products were added to the marketing structure they too were incorporated into the newsletter as compensated links. The member reviews had to be published on the client's site as opposed to an affiliate storefront but the readership seems to like the forthright approach to marketing. They really like being able to buy a product and then being able to post a review.
I wasn't hired to SEO the site, just write copy so I can't tell you much about the traffic, but I've been assured that the member list is growing and that the newsletter is a large part of the revenue structure.
DG
I do the PPC stuff for my affiliate stuff, but it gets expensive and will take all your profit quickly. I'm always looking to reduce that and increase free or cheap advertising (aren't we all)
For lack of a better term, my network of sites (a series of destination guides with a regional theme) is often classified as an e-zine. I sell ads in them and I can tell you that the news from behind the curtain is that They WORK! While I realize this won't fit for all types of affiliate advertising, if you can find a site that has the target audience you need (should be easy with advanced search, you guys are pros), do it. As for format, I suggest boxed text ads.
The reason I advocate a redirect is simple. What looks better and is easier to understand?
this:
or
[yoursite.com...]
(both fake links)
I believe the answer is obvious.
Maybe not so much on a website where you can change the link text, but in an e-mail it just kicks you in the face.
Greektomi
True, but I think to be successful in the long run, you have to route this traffic through a website of your own with some level of stickiness so that some day you can have repeat traffic of your own. I haven't been real successful at the stickiness business myself, but am working on it.
I think there's plently of platforms for someone to advertise their program in. Just pick the right one and watch your affiliate membership grow. Most webmasters don't want the hassle or actually have the time to run their own program. Some people put up a website in their part time as a second income. I said to myself that "I would never run my own affiliate program" when I first started off on the net.
It's all about numbers, the internet is a strange vast universe that surprises me everyday. Anything that's gold on the net will multiply it's self double-tripple-fold...
