Affiliate Success- What Traffic Is Needed

How Many Is Enough?

[austtr]

I have been contemplating getting into the affiliate race and I can't help thinking that to be successful at it there has to be "critical mass" of visitors onto the site(s). If the visitor numbers are too low, there won't be enough return to make it worthwhile.

I suspect that most of the successful affiliates on these forums are USA based and draw from the USA sized marketplace. For those operating outside the USA and targetting their home countries, the market size is drastically reduced.

The tricky part is getting a feel for what the visitor figures should be. I know that's difficult to answer because where one affiliate may make $1 for every 200 visitors, another may make a $1 from every 20 visitors.

I just have this nagging feeling that outside of the USA, there may simply not be big enough marketplaces to generate good returns for affiliates.

Any experiences to share or holes to shoot in my thinking?

[buckworks]

The quantity of your traffic doesn't matter nearly as much as the quality of your targeting.

Targeting makes the difference between the affiliate who makes a dollar with 20 visitors or 200 or 2 visitors.

[Travoli]

bumped over to the affiliate forum -Travoli

Some sites do not need mass traffic to bring in good money. You must convince visitors that your site is the BEST site to buy from.

[Mike_Mackin]

austtr:

Some of the best programs are targeted at the USA consumer. YOU can sell to them 24x7.

Some of my best sub-dealers are from outside the USA and they get paid in REAL MONEY which in some cases can make them rich as compared to others in their home country.

ADDED
The place to start is [go.vicinity.com...] where you can get a US address [MAIL BOX] that will allow you to look like a US resident to affiliate managers and to Yahoo!

If you don't have a credit card you can work through a relative in the States or through a mentor who will accept your funds and then put the costs on his/her credit cards.

[erikv]

"...Some sites do not need mass traffic to bring in good money. You must convince visitors that your site is the BEST site to buy from...."

I'm sure you are right, but my own experience tells me you need at least a few thousand (preferably over 20,000 I think) visitors a month. And even then it isn't certain you're going to sell anything. I'll take my own site as an example. Two months ago I decided to apply the advice I learned about on these forums. I am now starting to see traffic increase (very slowly, although with the help of Virtual PC on my Mac OS X box, I was able to see my Google PageRank is 6/10) to more than 8,000 visitors a month.

When I started optimizing, I decided against starting an affiliation other than the measerly amazon account I already had. The new pages that I added a couple of weeks ago and which are very structured with lots of advise on the book I review and lots of links to help 'them' buy are --according to amazon's report-- frequently clicked on so the reader ends up at amazon. And then... he doesn't buy, but clicks on... VERY frustrating to say the least. So, all my efforts have now resulted in hundreds of clicks and 4 USD profit :(

[Jane_Doe]

Books can have widely different sales patterns depending on the site and the topic. Niche books can sell really well on Amazon. One site I have sells about 1 book for every 5 Amazon book clicks. Another site sells only about 1 book per 100 clicks.

[cheater copperpot]

I just started about 2 months ago. Since then I have averaged 500 hits per month. I make on average about $2.00 per visitor. Unfortunately I spend about 25% of my profits on PPC though. So it just goes to show you that if you find the right program and convert well then super high traffic isnt necessary to make some decent cash. Although if i could get 10k visitors per month and could keep the same $ per visitor, hmmm... =)

[profitpuppy]

I make between 15 cents and $4 per visitor depending on the product and how targeted the traffic ... If you can make 50 cents or more per visitor then you are doing pretty well ... this is difficult to do except for certain profitable areas

[onlineleben]

Traffic has to be targeted to result in affiliate profits. Especially with Amazon, who is heaviliy working on distracting the visitor from the originally referred item so that they do not have to pay out the full commission.
Myself I have good results with a small niche site that doesn't have real traffic for now(50 pageviews/day). Wonder what will happen when my PR increases.

[pharm_boy]

The right program, the right site and the right traffic can be pretty amazing.

We have one affiliate who's sent 2 sales in 11 clicks for $96 in commissions! Others don't even see 1 in 500 at the same site. Most fall in between.

I've only been an AM for a few months, and don't have all the answers, but I can offer what I've seen. The successful affiliates are all well targeted and do more than just place links on their sites.

Price comparison/shopping resource sites built around a specific product group, where the product discussed is one that the buyer is likely to need advice on before buying, and likely to turn to the web for that advice, seem like they do well. These sites can also gain the visitors' trust and pass that trust to the site selling the product.

How people find your site directly relates to what you can get them to buy. If someone searches for "where to buy a watch online" you could likely refer them to a popular watch retailer and get a sale. If they find your site via a search for "watch collecting price guide" you can't send them to the same retailer. "History of pocket watches" will not convert at all at that retailer (now maybe "The Illustrated History of the Pocket Watch" on Amazon...).

Is your target audience their target audience? If your site was taken out of the loop and the visitor clicked from search results to the site you're referring them to, would they be a likely buyer?

Best of luck!