Improving Affiliate Commissions on My Niche Website/Blogs?

[chelle66]

I have been on commission junction and clickbank for about 8 months now and promote the products on my various websites. I have done this with banners in sidebars etc. as well as writing keyword targeted articles that should bring people ready to just click and buy.

Unfortunately, I am just not doing a very good job with affiliate programs. I've made $27 in clickbank sales and about $20 in CJ commissions. Adsense is the only thing that seems to be making me money! I have a new ebay site i am hoping won't fall into the same pit of doom. (it needs more content and link building and is literally a few weeks old but there have already been ebay clicks so I find that promising!)

Any suggestions on how to improve these affiliate commissions? I'd like something a little more diverse than just adsense, but nothing else seems to convert & pay! (I do get clicks on the ads/banners - just not sales!)

thanks in advance!

 

[Linda Buquet]

chelle are you getting enough traffic and clicks to be able to judge how well things are working? Do you realize it can take newbies 500 clicks to make a sale. After you're a pro and if you pick a good merchant conversions should be more like 1 sale out of every 100 - 200 clicks.

I wanted to ask that Q 1st because some affiliates get frustrated because it's been 6 months with only 1 sale but the real problem is not enough traffic because they've only gotten 50 clicks in 6 months.

If you are getting thousands of visitors and clicks and still only 1 sale, it can be a variety of factors. The merchant may not have good conversions or their tracking could be broken or they could have commission leaks. Or it could be your traffic isn't targeted enough or you are getting targeted KW traffic but the KW you are using are attracting more people in the lookie loo or info gathering stage, as opposed to the buying stage. Too many possible variables.

I'm sort of shooting in the dark and pointing out some potential problems…
Just guessing things that could be an issue.

Best thing is after you have 10 posts, post a site review so we can see the site you are talking about and the niche. Tell us how many visitors, impressions, clicks, sales and then we may have enough info to allow us to give you more specific info.

 

[chelle66]

Thanks for the response Linda...I took a quick look at my CJ stats and you are right - I have not had 500 clicks yet. Most are between 33-150.

I was thinking I have enough traffic - 27,000 hits in the last 30 days, but maybe I need more and/or better converting programs. I noticed one of my programs had 22,000 pageviews and only 5 clicks - time to get rid of that one I think!

Affiliate marketing is not my strong point, which is why I'm here

 

[Linda Buquet]

. but maybe I need more and/or better converting programs. I noticed one of my programs had 22,000 pageviews and only 5 clicks - time to get rid of that one I think!

Better converting programs won't help if the problem is you are not getting the clickthrough.

Largely everything that happens on your site including getting the clickthrough to the merchant is up to you. (Things you control like key word selection, targeting, ad placement can all have an impact one way or the other)

After they click to the merchant then the click to sale conversion rests mainly with the merchant because you can't control anything once they are on the merchant site. (Although if you do a good job at targeting and pre-selling BEFORE they get to the merchant, it can have a positive impact on conversions.)

So if YOU aren't getting the clicks does not mean the merchant is bad. If you haven't gotten them to click through then conversion isn't the problem. Plus getting more traffic won't help much if they aren't clicking through.

Could be your keywords, your targeting or ad placement or the type of ads you decide to display. It's like a puzzle and all the pieces need to fit. Some niches too are just not good sales niches. For instance entertainment sites are notoriously hard to monetize because while you can get lots of traffic to them, they are coming for fun not to buy stuff.

What it takes more than anything in the beginning is trial and error. I feel pretty certain though that if and when you ask for a review and we can see the niche and what you are doing we may be able to help a little more.

 

[Hamaru]

It is probley the product that you decide to market. I have been with Clickbank for almost 2 years now. Picking the right product is just as important as the marketing. I use software to choose my product.

 

[fxtrendline]

clickbank

It is probley the product that you decide to market. I have been with Clickbank for almost 2 years now. Picking the right product is just as important as the marketing. I use software to choose my product.

newbie here how much did you make a month from clickbank ?