Selling Magazines and Newsletters

Looking for conversion data

[turtle1776]

Has anyone here sold newsletters, magazines, or books using Adwords -- either as an affiliate or as the publisher? If so, would you mind posting any conversion data or other feedback from the experience?

I have searched the forums and haven't seen anything on this.

[inferno]

i would be utterly shocked if anyone would share such private information.

[turtle1776]

Good point, though generic information / wisdom without reference to a particular magazine or newsletter might be useful.

Anyway, here is some more information in case anyone is interested ...

First a little more background: I am considering launching a small niche print magazine (actually newsprint) as a spin off to a web site that currently pulls in 100K users per month on average. Adsense $ are weak because it is not a very commercial niche. My current business plan would involve marketing it via the web site + PPC ads (i.e. Adwords and Overture). I already have a decent sense of CTRs, at least on my site. I am trying to figure out what generic conversion / subscription rate to expect based on the results of other publications.

As with all things, when looking at others' experience I expect to see great variation in results based on the audience and the niche, and whether the information is already freely available on the Internet.

Anyway, here is some information I have gathered so far:

Magazines
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Below are Magazine Agent.com conversion data for their affiliates for the top ten magazines, traffic wise. Posted January 2005. Data is from November 2004. I am fairly certain that most of the traffic listed here is from PPC ads like Adwords. From [forum.#*$!.com...]

If that link gets messed up, the site is Abestweb.

Title: Conversion (Traffic Rank)
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Sports Illustrated: 2.3% (6)
Cosmopolitan: 1.9% (10)
Time: 1.2% (8)
People: 1.1% (3)
FHM (For Him Magazine): 0.7% (5)
Maxim: 0.5% (1)
Stuff For Men: 0.4% (7)
Consumer Reports: 0.3% (2)
Seventeen: 0.3% (4)
LowRider: 0.2% (9)

Note that the higher conversions appear to be associated with well-known titles, three of which are owned by AOL-Time-Warner (SI, Time, People).

Books
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Amazon.com claims an average conversion on their web site of 3%, but their affiliates seem to experience something closer to 1% on average, based on what people are writing on their boards.

Newsletters
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I have nothing on this, but print newsletters tend to have very small circulations and very high prices (in the $100+ range), so I suspect the conversions depend heavily on the price.

Anyway, feedback and thoughts are appreciated.