Posts Tagged ‘affiliate marketing’
With the number of courses and affiliates entering the PPC, SEO and social media fray, it can be tougher for new affiliates to get traction with their new campaigns, considering unconventional sources of traffic can turn on the profitable taps.
Whether you’re banging your head against the wall, or merely looking at ways of reducing your traffic course, just stop and think for a moment: if you’re doing what everyone else is doing, you’re going to get what everyone will get.
For the purposes of this post, I’ll disregard going the:
- Media buying route (can be pricey for new affiliates)
- Private ad buys from small sites
- Social media ad programs like Facebook Ads and MySpace MyAds
This post is also not intended to list out the top 10 places to get/buy traffic, you’ll have to figure out the final piece for yourself.
Creativity and (more…)
If you’ve embarked on the affiliate marketer route, you might already be very successful with pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead/pay-per-action, and maybe even the new-fangled pay-per-call business model for a network or merchant-direct program. But are you awesome of the awesome profit potential of lead generation for local businesses?
There’re a number of marketers who’ve shared their experience in this space:
Taking an example. If you got a $100-200 payout for a finance-related lead, at a cost of $30-50 in lead generation costs, which works out to a 275% margin. Which sounds attractive.
However, the finance service provider might make a commission/profit in the magnitude of $1,000 to $5,000 on the customer, about a 19,000% gross margin. Factoring in a 20% default rate and operating expenses of 30%, the customer value is a healthy $1,500 (assuming the provider manages their risks prudently).
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So if you’re an affiliate, would you prefer to make a $150 commission per lead or $1,500 per customer?
Just remember that a number of CPA affiliates who’ve tried to (more…)
Affiliate Summit co-founder Missy Ward is at it again, raising funds for Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Los Angeles. To motivate supporters for the effort, a slate of experienced marketers involved in the affiliate marketing industry have put up their services and products up for auction.
The auction closes this Friday, August 28th, 1159pm. Some of the bid prices are ridiculously low at the moment, so if you put in a bid for charity, you’ll either get the product or service at a steal, or you’ll be doing your part to aim in breast cancer research and relief.
You can check out Missy’s fundraising auction post.
Here’re some of my personal top picks for the auctions:
- Two hours of consulting with Lisa Riolo: Lisa was formerly affiliate network Commission Junction’s senior vice president for business development and has had management roles at brick-and-mortar institutions like Bank of America and Peet’s Coffee. Besides the obvious affiliate marketing issues you might raise with her, she’d be pretty experienced in the operations side of running and growing a business too. The auction is currently in the $100+ region, and even if you were to contribute the retail value of $1,000, there’s no doubt that her advice would bring your business to the next level. (check out my Friday Podcast interview with Lisa R).
- Two hours of consulting with Lisa Picarille: Affiliates might know Lisa as the former publisher/editor-in-chief of Revenue Magazine, the performance marketing standard, as well as co-host of the Affiliate Thing and TheSpew podcasts. You may not know that she’s a wealth of experience with print, radio and online content publishing. Whether you’re a merchant, network or affiliate, you’ll be able to bounce ideas off Lisa which will help you on the media and content elements of your business. Again, the $100+ bid is ridiculously low, and even the $300 retail value is lowballing the potential benefits. I’d realistically value the advice you could get from Lisa at at least $1,000. (check out my Friday Podcast with Lisa P).
- Affiliate Summit West 2010 Platinum conference pass (Las Vegas): Gives you all-access pass to the conference sessions and trade show. If you network effectively at this event with merchants, networks and fellow affiliates, there’s no reason why your affiliate business won’t double or triple (at the minimum) from the networking you’ll be doing. In a number of cases, affiliate incomes have increased exponentially as a result of face-to-face meetups at the event.
- Thesis WordPress template/framework developer’s pack: Thesis is a SEO-friendly WP template that can be customized easily to replace other website publishing tools you’re currently using. I’m developing a new set of affiliate sites using Thesis and with the SEO features, it get much more visibility from organic traffic. Also, designer Chris Pearson has placed a strong emphasis on typography, so readability and usability are greatly enhanced. The lifetime upgrades and great support at the forum is worth its ticketed price many times over. Again, the bids are ridiculously low at this point ($30) on a $164 retail value. (read my Thesis product review for more information)
- Market Leverage A-List Experience: The highlight of this package is dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant at the Paris Hotel and Casino with Market Leverage social media manager, Dina Riccobono. If that’s not enough, you’ll also get coverage on MarketLeverage TV and be featured on JohnChow.com. With a little out-of-the-box thinking, this package can significantly boost your branding and bring a number of benefits to your business. (Disclaimer: I’m also bidding on this package). (Check out some of Dina’s tips from the Friday Podcast on videocasting and social media branding)
Although I’ve mentioned just a few of the packages up for auction, do check out the various packages available, you’ll be getting resources to grow your business and doing a lot of good for charity too!
One tired refrain heard among some marketers is that because they’re late to the game, all the “good” niches have already been taken. If you believe everything you hear, there’s “little” money left in CPA/Affiliate marketing because the boat has left for ringtones, dating, Acai, payday loans, etc.
Added to that, with Google AdWords Quality Score, the search network is a much harder game to play, compared to before.
While some of these “facts” have some truth to them, your success as an affiliate marketer mirror that of a brick-and-mortar entrepreneur. If every possible restaurant concept has already been created, why bother starting another?
If anything, this question is pretty self-reflective. If life is so hard, why (more…)
I’ve created a new podcast which will contain tips and techniques on enhancing your online business, plus some of my thoughts on issues affecting the industry. The podcast will only be circulated via an email list.
Check it out here: Members Only Podcast
Mike Filsaime and partner Joe Holland have recently launched a new “CPA affiliate network” to mixed reviews. But has it lived up to it’s hype? Let’s take a look.
After reading Ian Fernando’s scathing review last week, I wanted to take a close look at Affiliate Jump for myself.
Filsaime is an experienced internet marketer and has created products like Butterfly Marketing, Viral Friend Generator, 7Figure Income and Affiliate Conspirary. Given that Mike already owns affiliate network PayDotCom (where he’s still president and CEO), why has he launched another “affiliate network” Affiliate Jump?
Besides the obvious make money angle (for Filasaime), the jury is still out on the value the new “network” provides. Here’s my take.
“CPA Affiliate network” – I think the term is used loosely here. For one, there’s a $200 entry fee. Affiliate Jump ranks as one of the few (and possibly only) affiliate networks that requires affiliates to PAY to join.
The real world equivalent might be if you wanted to sell your house, you engage a realtor to market your property. You then CHARGE the realtor for the right to (more…)
