Affililate Programs

[scottle]

I have had affiliate programs & parking. Parking is easier & you get paid on clickthroughs. Affiliate programs, in my experience have been more work (content sites), with little revenue. In my case, I have targeted sites & only have a clickthrough <2%. The numbers don't compute very well. As I see it I send 100 targeted leads to the merchant who can put them on an email list for no cost to acquire them. Am I wrong about that or do some of you have your own email program & write general content emails to your base with coupon promotions, specials, etc?

[biggedon]

if you use affiliate programs and have targeted traffic and/or keyword specific domains for those specific advertisers' products, then you should redirect that traffic straight to each affiliates url code.

rather than letting the visitors hit a page first, then decide to click on a banner or link within those pages.

[gawnd]

not sure i agree with biggedon. i put my own mail list opt in on pages i know get targeted traffic.

i also don't rely on banners, but instead targeted articles or reviews that funnel the traffic to affiliate text links. i also avoid putting adsense or other ppc on these pages. it doesn't always work. some programs or the combination of your traffic and the program just won't work. only way to know is to test. but when you find an affiliate program that jives with your traffic it can bang out results way higher than ppc.

but you're right, it does take more work. but shouldn't it take more work to be successful?

[scottle]

Thanks for the comments. My traffic is very targeted as those are the only domains I buy. I have been using a combination of affiliate & parking programs for several years but the buy rate vs the roi has sucked except for Oct- Jan. I look at stats & feel I lose a lot of sales with the look at work, buy at home. Do any of you use ppc to promote your sites? I have considered but with low conversions the return is doubtful.
I am interested in the email program you have set up. What program do you use? How frequently do you send out one? I have approx 40 targeted sites for the same product so I have to automate as much as possible.

[HarveyJ]

It depends on what sort of program you're running.
If you've got type-in traffic around a popular site, and that site has an affiliate program that works in <iframes> or forwarding, then just use that. It's where the people wanted to go in the first place, so you may as well make your percentage off it.
It's almost effort free, really.

Some of the programs I run DO require a little legwork to get going, but it's still less than making a site presentable enough to flip, and for some I figure it's worth keeping simply because I'll make more in 3 years then if I'd flipped it (I like to think longterm, as I know there'll be market demand for those ones... They're not churn-n-burn).
The stuff that I know won't last too long (like a couple WYD campaigns I a fortnight ago, which basically dropshipped LandOverBaptist stuff) get enough traffic and inbound links to make them worth flipping off elsewhere.

The idea that you need a mailing list, or opt ins, is real in-the-box thinking for affiliate marketing, and really has that pointy headed ebook mentality, in my way of thinking.

Hell, thanks to the prevalence of ways to get people to go online from their phones now, aff marketing is really starting to become a more and more viable thing if you're clever and don't stick to sticking money in your shoe *cough*

[scottle]

Been out of town for a few days. Thanks for your comments. I am looking at working with a new merchant who thinks they may come up with a program for me. If it is not the typical program I'm going to give it a try. One thing I have found with the affiliate merchants is that they always say contact them if you have suggestions, etc, but they very seldom respond.