Been using affiliate partners for some time now and have some interesting reflections. (well, i guess you'll tell me if theyre interesting or not)
[sidenote - I have many active websites covering a multitude of subjects.]
1. Affiliates who are only selling low value goods to your customers (who in turn only pay you a low commission($2 per sale)) are not worth bothering about. This is because they have a minimum cheque value of say $50 and you can bet your bottom dollar that the vast majority of referral sites never reach that amount - thus they never have to pay for the business provided.
2. Travel package companies and insurance companies offering big commissions should also be avoided at all cost unless its on a ppl deal (which is as rare as hens teeth) - this is because once you refer your customer it is common place for them to encourage your customer to leave a tel no and then they call the customer back to finalise the deal thus rendering your cookie useless.
lol, its just something I like to do when someone posts something I find valuable ... just a way to show my appreciation. not alot.. but I barely have any left right now lol.
On the contrary, I find that a lot of the programs that pay lower amounts convert better. I've been building affiliate program sites for almost two years. If a merchant doesn't convert for me, I ditch 'em. Sounds like you had a bad experience with one. I'd recommend to move on and find another program. There's more than one merchant usually in each catagory so it should be easy. I don't get your title though. What do "arabs bearing gifts" have to do with affiliate programs? Sounds almost racist.
Sorry I thought the results of the search were pretty self explanatory.
Original saying "beware of Greeks bearing gifts" from mythology - achilles, I think it was. Many, many versions since including "beware of geeks bearing gifts"
I think the Arabs part comes out of the middle east somewhere
jeepers, talk about political correctness gone sideways......
Anyway, if I might return to the topic in hand?
I get your point Spike and I too have been working with affiliate programs for some time now.... I disagree about the solution simply being to change the affiliate you work with (i.e. a new one from the same genre as the one you already have) because a, if this were simply the case then there would be no point to this thread and b, (in all due respect) this solution would be obvious.
However, the reason for the thread and indeed this further reply is that I have found certain types of industry - motor insurance, package holiday companies etc tend to encourage the use of the phone (and im sure this is not simply to get out of paying commission) maybe its because what they sell is complicated or people have too many personal questions which are not covered in their faq section. All well and good, Im sure, only trouble is, this disables your cookie = no commission.
To substantiate my theory, I have an extrememly well vistited site ive had since 1999. And just for research more than anything else I have personally rotated the banners each month to a different affiliate always from a different industry. Now taking aside trends, familiarity with the site content and things of that ilk the banners have a median return of 500 click throughs a month. Returning an average of 10 sales. If i then take out the affiliates, the like of which i speak, average sales leap to 35 per month.
In the 4 months we have had on the site, what I would now class as 'stealth affiliates' (to save any further racist conflagurations) i.e. affiliates that encourage a telephone conversation to take place, we returned only 8 sales. And this from a constant click through rate of just over 500 a month.
So you see.... I guess the message in this thread is that your affiliate should really be tailored not to the content on your site but more the likelyhood of you ever getting any money .i.e. Lets say you have a illness journal / forum site and you placed medical insurance affiliate banners on the site which then get 50 clicks a month - Sounds appropriate right? Wrong! If you believe in what I say here you'll be better off posting a banner for an online poker site that gets 5 clicks a month where you'll get $150 for them simply uploading the software..............
And incidentally, wanna laugh at my most valuable site
dont worry about it man, the leftists "protect everyone" will get there own. But i think they are more just worried about the impression something ike that could leave on a casual visitor to the site.. not about being nazi PC freaks
What do you mean? I am not sure if I get what you mean but if its against arabs or people of the middle east I just have to say shame on you.... our ceo is Iraqi in fact his father fought sadaam hussein and his father is one of the biggest business men in iraq and I must say middle eastern people are loyal, respectful and kind and I try to outsource business to the middle east not because its cheaper but because its better quality alot of the time.
I had to read your last reply a couple times to get what you were saying. I respectfully disagree. Having advertising similar to the theme of your site is the way to et more click, hence more money. Say you have a site about stocks; then you should have advertising for e-trade or schwab or something like that. It's the natural 1-2 punch: (1) you set them up with your site content and (2) you slam it home by putting the solution right next to the content. It's a formula that has worked for me for two years. I can't believe that putting a poker ad next to stock content is going to get a lot of hits - maybe a few. But maybe a few is all you need. I'm sure some stock dudes would be gamblers as well.
As far as the telephone goes, you gotta check out the page your affiliate links link to. If it has a prominent telephone number on it, and the affiliate doesn't ask phone callers for affiliate code (there are some that ask, it's better to look for another affiliate program. Too many unscrupulous affiliate programs out there, I believe, steal affiliate commissions by not giving credit for phone sales.
Yes, always check for dirty tricks on your affiliate links by using a masked IP.
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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties. Sir Francis Bacon
so, ok spike, what part of my thread do you disagree with................?
Seems like you say "I respectfully disagree" and then back up everything I have said...?!
As (i hope) with everything ive said, i was only ever giving practical advice from experience and from being a professional marketeer.
In this example i.e. the medical forum example, I was only giving an analogy and I think/hope everybody took it as such....
And i must say, any analogy i have given was certainly never meant as a literal example, just to say "yeah, you knock yourself out chasing CERTAIN affiliates who are making out of your good name orrrrrrrrr, why not take the money from the affiliates who just want the traffic i.e. avoid the similies and take the guys who pay the bucks!"
You do not loose any kudos on your site (or at least I have found this to be the case) if you post banners from unrelated (or slightly related) advertisers!
Oh, and ps, in case youve forgotten Spike, thanks for letting me be one of your enom customers.
And, if anyone wants another example to work the math for themselves, affiliate (a) (an insurance company) pays $30 for every new policy taken out [i.e a completed and might i say complicated sale] AND!!!!! ....... affiliate (b) (an online poker site) pays $170 for basically getting your customer to sign up............
Hey, I'm just trying to give another point of view. The bottom line is, it really depends on the site, and you basically have to experiment till you get the right affiliates on your site.
Question: On the SouthHampton site, do you make more with the poker link, or through all the flying/travel related links?
good points 
