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Has anyone ever had great success through links to affiliate programs?
To have any success I would assume that your site's content should be specialized and affiliate 'products' targeted to users. Is this assumption correct?
What sort of $$'s are possible / probable per 1000 impressions / views?
Do affiliate programs 'cheapen' a site?
Other comments / tips?
:) I made like 20.00 every few months from the credit card affiliate programs (: Took those down and sold my own advertisement for a lot lot more ;)
We had a recent discussion and income per unique visitor was from 2 cents to about $1.50 as I recall.
Will vary with product and site.
Not if you use it in a way that doesn't cheapen. Most affiliate strategy is just to through up some banners...won't work usually. You need to work the program into your site.
OK, now that you got our attention with that title, go out and make some money and then tell us how you did it :)
There are a lot of members here at WebmasterWorld that do affiliate marketing for a living. Instead of having a site about widgets and then trying to find appropirate affiliate links, many members find out what "STUFF" sell then make a few sites about "STUFF".
Thanks M_M for the usage of STUFF.
thanks
Yesterday would be:
20020408
That is the stragegy I use ..my domains reflect the product. my domains are of course the top "keyword" for that product...
Instead of building sites with thosands of pages ...my sites are all but a few pages deep
I disagree with some idea that it is somehow spam or unethical to build product specific sites and link them together
In my case each product deserves it's own site ..IMO
The problem I am having is that all my sites interlink between each other.I built them without considering that google would some how discourge you from keeping YOUR traffic YOUR traffic !
The idea that somehow google is an information source and other engines are "commercial" is throwing me for a loop .. nearly every site is selling..simply because people hide their commercialism behind faux content is misleading and I would consider to be more disturbing.
The idea that someone outside would link to my products from their web site is not realistic....they would simply ad the same affiliate program to their site...
I have no problems getting first page ranking for each product..but occassionally EVEN if I hold #1 positions my site (under it's search keyword)it may end up completely missing for a month or 2 ..then shows back up..
Hardly spam..these are specic products people are looking for ..the most logical path is ..register a domain that reflects the product, actually make the site reflect the product and use the appropriate keywords.
I was under the impression that the race is to the customer? !
I am not about to hide my products behind some faux "content" ,it isnt what the customer is looking for..
Think of it like this..
You are out shopping for a new jeep cheerokie... do you want your sales person ( a web site)to take you to the new jeeps or do you want him(web site) rattling on about consumer reports for the new buicks ..
I do understand how this approach can be abused ..but to penalise everyone else is a worn out approach..
excuse the drifting from topic.I tend to rattle on at times.. ;)
I experimented with different approaches (banners, for example) before settling on my current formula, which is:
1) No banners. Most of the affiliate advertising on my site consists of annotated text links, either in the right margin (under a "Book & Buy" logo) or on relevant pages of my site.
2) Handpicked affiliate programs. All of my affiliate links are for services or products that my readers are likely to find useful--e.g., car rentals, rail passes, hotel rooms, passport expediting, and hostel cards. My readers are planning vacations, and they'll happily click on relevant affiliate links--but they have no interest in buying inkjet cartridges or computer memory while they're visiting my travel site. (I also make a point of selecting reputable partners whose affiliate sites offer a good "user experience." In other words, I try to pick vendors that I'd be willing to use myself.)
3) I write my own copy--and since my site is a "content site," not a storefront, I prefer informational copy over hype.
Other thoughts:
- I believe that credibility is very important on a content site, so I go out of my way to give my readers choices even when I may not profit from what they choose. For example, when I link to a page at my hotel booking partner's site, I'll include a link to the hotel's own site if one is available. This way, readers can compare the booking partner's discount rate to the hotel's own rack rates or special packages--and they can book direct if the hotel has only a few vacancies and isn't accepting discount bookings. I may lose a few sales this way, but I figure that honesty and credibility pay off in the long run.
- Affiliate programs won't work for every site, or at least not for every "content site." I'm lucky in that my readers need transportation and accommodations (at a bare minimum) when they travel overseas. So, even if my readers don't spend their money on anything else, there's a reasonable chance that they'll book their cars, rail passes, and/or hotel rooms through my booking partners.
My twist on this is to make it well known to my visitors that they will be buying the product through my affiliate partner, and I'm making a trusted referral. That way, when they wind up at the merchant's site, they aren't surprised and they feel they more comfortable buying from the merchant.
It's my job to see to it that the merchants I'm dealing with can give the customer good value and close the deal.
Absolutely. I don't want people to think I'm the vendor--partly for editorial reasons, but also because only the real vendor can provide customer service.
As the owner of an editorially driven "content site," I regard affiliate partners or vendors as advertisers--more specifically, as advertisers that I've chosen for their suitability to my topic and audience.
So, what does the fine realistic peoples of this forum think about this?
Unfortunately, affiliate programs have contributed to the massive amounts of bulk spam we deal with every day. The hand-picked and highly accountable affiliate programs are still pretty good. They are usually the ones with decent payout as well.
Yes. I had already left any merchant that pulled any of the known tricks like short cookie duration or bait-and-switch. Then I dumped all the minor programs that required me to change the affiliate code for no reason. Next, I decided I wasn't going to spend any time on programs that couldn't produce a minimum of $100/mo. This left a few core merchants that dovetail nicely with my sites and "just send the check."
