Forum Moderators: skibum
My problem is determining a good affiliate that will appeal to a large audience and will pay on time. I know people don't want to give away trade secrets here but if anyone can at least tell me what affiliate niches to stay away from (too spammed out, don't pay, low conversion rates, etc.) it would really be appreciated.
Feel free to sticky me with specific affiliate programs that you can recommend for me.
I can see where you are coming from.
However 1 of the main bits of advice I would give is:
1, Choose the market that you actually have knowledge about.
Some of the worlds best affiliates are members on this board, and I am sure they will agree when I say that "Know your Product" goes a long way to making $$$.
Advertising alone is not a viable model, other factors need to be taken into account if you are looking to make serious $$$.
Shak
1, Choose the market that you actually have knowledge about.
I will agree that knowing your product goes a long way if you are building a content rich website around it but otherwise how important is it? Wouldn't it be good enough to know where and how to advertise the product in my case.
Advertising alone is not a viable model, other factors need to be taken into account if you are looking to make serious $$$.
As for your second comment that advertising alone is not viable model I disagree. I am sure there are many affiliates out there that just know how to work the advertising field, have contacts, have seen what works and what dosent, and have stayed away from the tremendous work of making content rich websites. For example there are many professional email marketers out there (not my case specifically) but I think thats a good example.
I could be wrong however, I would like to hear other peoples responses.
Whatever vertical you decide to focus on, make sure you have access to their network conversion stats, before you commit.
A third party site, such as CJ.com publishes Merchant conversions in an EPC (Earnings per Hundred Clicks) format.
You can view EPC for any Merchant, for a few different time ranges also. This is helpful, because you can see if the merchant remains strong "overall", and is "hot" recently also.
LinkShare is a Publisher's nightmare! They don't give you any statistical information about Merchants. Beware....
As for Vertical markets, you may want to investigate the Online University/Distance Learning market. There are several CPA deals available in this sector for publishers.
I don't know what your experience is in "buying" online advertising, but "let the buyer beware". It's not for the weak at heart, or those with empty pockets, if you want to succeed.
I know where you're coming from, my friend. I have spent five years earning a full-time income from affiliate programs and have come up with a number of crooks/low converters.
I would advise you to check out [associateprograms.com...] as they list some excellent affiliate programs there. Also the advice about checking out the EPC at CJ is good.
Let me know if I can help you in any way as I know the pains of trying to find an honest, reliable affiliate program :)
Regards,
Nadeem Azam
