How Do I Make More Affiliate Sales? Easy Ways to Optimize Your Efforts
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I've gotten a few interesting questions over the last few days about selling affiliate products, this one came in this morning and seems to cover a few good points that lots of people struggle with, so let's cover it quickly and see if there is a little light at the end of the article marketing tunnel for everyone.
Hi,
I have been article marketing for a couple months now for affiliate
products like Clickbank etc.I have enjoyed some success, but there are a few things I do notice about
article marketing that I would like to fix so I can take myself to a better
level.1. About half of my articles actually seem to turn out good.
2. Traffic from articles seems to drop to a trickle after a couple weeks
3. Re-writing winning articles multiple times for submission to other
directories is a huge pain and time sucker how to get around this properlyThanks,
TroyLet's cover these point by point:
"About half of my articles are good."
About half of Kobe Bryant's jump shots go in, about a third of A-Rods swings are hits and about a quarter of my jokes are funny. Affiliate marketing (and even more specifically article marketing is a NUMBERS game) No more, no less. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it is simply a function of scale. Look below at the two articles submitted in the last week (and only appeared live within the last couple days) One is a total, abysmal flop….the other I'm getting great traffic and a pretty killer conversion on the CTR. The truth is, as much as you try to optimize for this stuff, there are so many variables that you simply can't control (and some you simply can't track) that you simply have to take the fruits of your own intellectual observation, and couple them with a relentless and furious need to succeed. I, as I've covered on here ad nauseam, optimize as MANY components of my own campaigns as I can, take a studious approach to what I see happening in real time, and make modifications on the fly accordingly.
I still have a ton of flops – articles that simply don't get the eyeballs…or when they do, they aren't profitable. You can't look at affiliate marketing in singular shreds of fancy fabric, (articles that you THINK are going to crush – but don't) it's the tapestry itself that has enduring value. Said differently – I don't micro maganage, I simply look at the individual pieces as part of the larger unit, and trust that as a whole, all will perform as expected if I've done my job right.
Here is a simple rule of thumb you can apply if you are doing a ton of off site content creation.
- Go to the article directories and find a random collection of recently written articles in your topic of choice.
- Get a rough estimation of the average amount of views each is getting per month.
- Make a prediction (or commitment) to a certain CTR (click through percentage in your resource box)
- Figure out what the general EPC is for the program you are promoting – CJ et al will give you this, Clickbank you have gravity, etc – but you can look at your stats historically if you have some data and figure this out.
- Formulate based on the above, how many articles you need to write, if your article views are average to your peers, and your CTR is where you want it, and your EPC is on par with the program mean, to make one sale per day. And then two sales. Keep going until you have the amount of content you need to create to get where you want to be.
- Double that number and get to work… (always err on the side of more work – less money. and you'll eventually reverse the equation)
2) Traffic from articles seems to drop to a trickle after a few weeks
Simply stated, this is a function of poor keyword research.
If a lot of your traffic is coming right away, and dropping considerably over time you are doing inefficient keyword research. Why? It's quite simple – the traffic you are getting in the very beginning is primarily being driven from the directories themselves, and the content aggregators who are running your stuff high on the time stamp. While you will get traffic, (and to a lesser degree drive sales) from these folks, they simply don't convert at the sorts of levels you need to build a business. (Think of it in terms of how many people actually go to the Clickbank marketplace to buy products directly. they don't, they go to YOUR site to buy when you've created content related to the offer and they've discovered you serendipitously, or through hard work!) Same thing here If you are doing your keyword research properly…the REAL valuable visitors are those who are coming 5 days down the road and beyond, the ones who are SEARCHING for your keyword titles and looking to buy the programs you are promoting. (Or want to lose weight, become psychic, make more money at home, etc)
This is where the "bum marketing" criteria kick in, and do have real value in loosely emulating…although I stretch my own competitive streak to the higher echelons of these recommendations…just because, as they say – you have to go out on a limb, to get the fruit. Change the keyword research you are doing, and I guarantee you see longer term traffic (arguably it should go up) as a result.
Re-writing winning articles multiple times for submission to otherdirectories is a huge pain and time sucker how to get around this properly
Then don't do it. I don't. I re-write TWICE. ( and I use re-write loosely: New headline, same keywords, some new copy in the body, that's it) Once for submissions. Once for my own sites. I never build a campaign if I don't at least have the intentions of playing in that market on the site side of the street. This is my simple blueprint.
- Write article.
- Publish article.
- Ping the blog directories, do a little bit of social network submissions if appropriate (i.e. – top 7 ways to do X sort of stuff)…then I submit to ezinearticles.com – and that's it.
Don't make it harder than it needs to be. If I'm doing client work, I will submit to article marketer which will syndicate out to ALL of the directories in one fell swoop, after I've done the above, and I find that very powerful in some markets. But, like you, I am lazy…and usually will take the least amount of steps possible to meet my goals whenever I can..:-)
(You can even skip the site building part if need be – I often will simply send all of the article traffic at the root domain, which will simply re-direct to the affiliate offer directly. Ezinearticles.com will NOT let you redirect from sub directories, but they WILL let you redirect from your root domain. ( Of course, to be honest, working around this in any respect is easy…but I like to play by the rules with such a valuable source of free traffic..;-)
So what I would do in this respect is put the blog on a secondary directory (abc.com/blog) and simply use half of the traffic for re-directs, the other half to build your blog readership, where you also obviously have the primary affiliate offer prominently incorporated into the site.
1 article is really all you need, is the one sentence answer. Most of the secondary directories are junky anyway.
Hope this has helped T, and the other people who have asked similar questions..:-)
Comment by wangjel
27 May 2008
so lets return the comment to clean karma :d you seems to be a "marketingbusy"
i guess the best theme for you is futurosity because of that "verysimpleveryvisibleeverythingthelastmonth" kind of layout.
would use more the categories and tags to help usability, not navigation bars on the top. the good designed sites are turning around without "static elements, and the best way is: tags and categories. create the same categories and tags to every articles.
ub_Futurositymag have that state of clarity when you don't need a logo.
greatings Wangjel
Comment by ian
27 May 2008
Hi Wangiel -
Thanks for the recommendations! I was actually inquiring about another site I have though - more of a magazine style project. ( I know this one is messy!) I will drop you a note via email..:-)
Comment by Elijah
28 May 2008
Ian,
I was curious to know if when you're referring to landing pages, are you using the ones provided by the advertiser/product? Or are you creating your own, and then directing traffic to the provided squeeze page?
Second question; Are you putting straight up affiliate links in your resource box on eZine?
Cheers!
Comment by ian
28 May 2008
Elijah -
Per question #2 - they won't let you do it..:-) You have to either 1) redirect from the root URL ( they do allow), 2) send the traffic to a landing page of your own creation ( the traditional article marketing approach used by most - like this blog, for example would illuminate this approach in the resource box) or 3) use a link cloaking script that will essentially emulate the process of a naked affiliate link as you can cloak, use framed landing pages, etc which are harder to discern (quickly)and effectively are tantamount to straight to the affiliate.
(I recommend simply sending them to an opt in page, collecting the name, and THEN redirecting to affiliate landing page as this is kosher, effective and you can follow up with your own sequence as well)
Per question #1 - I occasionally use the landing page created by the advertiser, and if it's a proftiable niche and think I can do better (and plan on spending some time in the niche) i will make my own copy and again, using redirect - will send from my landing page to the order page on affiliate side (by passing several occassions of sales letters, opt in's etc)
With Article Directories - I work hard to follow the rules - especially with EA - they are a great source of FREE traffic and you don't want to poison the relationship with nefarious intent..:-) If i use an article blast service (ie - article marketer) I will occasionally use cloaked links straight to affilaite program - as once syndiation is finished I can swap out my landing pages en masse with the click of a button ( changing the destination link in my cloak adminstration)
Hope that was clear..:-)