The Nicher

As a noob affiliate marketer, and a WordPress devotee, I’m always looking for plugins to make my life a little easier.

I came across a program called WordPress Affiliate Pro, and while I haven’t bought it yet, I’d like to.

Usually these things come across as the perfect way to throw away money- being ebooks with nothing new to offer, or a program that can be gotten free somewhere else. But this one is different, or at least it seems to be.

There are two main types of affiliate ads: banner (it’s still called a banner ad, even if it’s 125X125), and text.

In either case, it takes forever to log into the affiliate account to grab the code, search out the appropriate keywords, copy/paste/insert link- and you have to do it for each location on each post and page that you want the ads on. Even if you keep a file of the individual codes for easy access, it still takes time to get the links live.

The WordPress Affiliate Pro plugin does all of that for you. You simply install and activate the plugin, and then follow the video’s instructions for adding keywords, affiliate codes,how often you want the links to appear, in what color, etc- and then the plugin does it for you.

For example, all of the links you see here? Yeah, I could have done that through the plugin. And I could have done it across the whole site, instead of just this post.

You know how all those text linking programs like Contera won’t accept you unless you have something like 1000 uniques a day?  Yeah, no issue with that here.  And you’re getting the full commission by using your own links.

Right now, they’re offering a free trial- a pop up window when you load the page says 30 days free, and at the bottom of the pitch page it says money back guarantee after 56 days (why 56? I have no idea).  The page doesn’t read like a sales pitch, it just lists all the benefits to the program.  And really? Since he explains why you do things like color the links differently, etc, you’re getting extra information on marketing.  How could that be a bad thing?

And, get this- he actually is willing to install and activate it for you (with purchase, of course).  I’m not kidding.  I’m really bloody tempted to try this out myself, but the buy price is a little steep for me in my current marketing efforts.  Right now I’m working on my stores rather than my blogs, but if I start focusing on blogging for income? Well, it would be pretty hard to pass up that plugin.

Just read the page; you’ll see what I mean.

Yesterday, I came home to find a check sitting on the floor beneath my mail slot. Despite the fact that it said “ClickBank” on the envelope, my work worn mind thought it said Commission Junction.

Now, I haven’t checked either account in quite a while as neither has been performing for me. Opening the envelope to find a check that was worth more than my CJ payout level, but less than my CB level continued to mess with my mind.

Once I realized that it was CB, I was livid. I had nearly twice the amount in my CB account than the check was made out for.

I checked my CB account, and sure enough, they’d deducted over $10 in fees. I knew that they’d been deducting $1 a month since I hadn’t met the requirements for pay out, and they justified a little over $3 in excess charges which is mentioned in their payment terms. But there’s an additional $7.50 which has no explaination.

Granted, I’m glad that they released what was left in my account, since I haven’t had purchases from 5 different cards yet (seriously, their terms are whacked, and I wouldn’t use them at all if it weren’t for a very lucrative program that affiliates through them), and I can even deal with them deducting nearly half of my money when they spell out why.

But that last $7.50? I really want to know why that was taken out. That one just burns my buns. I don’t do affiliate marketing for a living, but I still need my money. If I didn’t, would I really be marketing? Well, maybe, since I actually enjoy the creation process of these websites, but I certainly wouldn’t devote as much time to it as I do.

Clickbank: up yours.

Being a beginner, and knowing that many, many people are trying to learn how to be professional affiliate marketers, I thought it would be helpful to post some of my stats.

 Now, all of my free time has been going into writing my blogs (I have quite a few), building my BANS sites, loading crafts onto eBay and Etsy, and crafting.  This should make it very clear that my affiliate marketing is only a very small portion of my time.  To be successful at it, you really need to devote several hours a day (at least in the beginning) to your marketing efforts.  I, however, do not advertise, and most of my sites have very little in the way of keywords, or, indeed, content, as my time is mostly spent elsewhere.

None the less, I’ve managed to turn a small profit entirely using BANS.  Since the program has now paid for itself in the last month, I thought I’d post last month’s stats.

So, how many clicks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a affiliate program? Let’s find out:

Store #1: 23 clicks = $27.55

Store #2: 64 clicks = $4.73

Store #3: 1 click = $0.54

Store #4: 19 clicks = $0

Store #5: 2 clicks = $0

 Now, that’s how many clickthroughs the stores got, not how many visitors or page views.

Store #1 had the best pageview/clickthrough/profit out of all the stores.  Nearly everyone who viewed the store clicked through, and several made purchases.  I was lucky enough to stumble upon a very, very tight niche.  Really, no one else is exploiting it, and that may be because there’s not much profit to be had in it.  However, that store is what pushed the edge in making my affiliate marketing account solvent.  There is very little content, merely a paragraph or two before each store page, but the niche is good.

Store #2 garners quite a few page views, and clicks.  Not as many purchases.  In fact, the page that collects the most search engine traffic is the one that I tacked on as an afterthought.  That page is responsible for all my traffic and profits for the site. I have no idea if the searchers purchased what they clicked on or not, but it doesn’t really matter.  The key is to get customers to click through, and then buy anything.  As long as the cookie is active on their computer, you get a cut whether they buy a yacht, or a deck of cards.

Store #3 I set up in anticipation of cornering a good niche.  And then I got bored.  That site is more or less empty, and so I use it to track my own purchases.  Since I get a cut of anything I buy through my own affiliate links, I like to keep my purchases separate- so I use that store.

Store #4 is a recent set up.  I’m not even certain if Google’s crawled it yet.  However, it’s my public store.  It’s my example of how simple it is to set up a BANS site.  It may not seem to be the most professional around, but it’s the first that I’ve paid much attention to- actually writing content for it, and designing an ok logo.  This is the store that hosts my About BANS page, which I plan to use to direct all interested parties to.  It also has a page hosting nothing but my own eBay auctions.  That’s also why I have so many clickthroughs on it, without any purchases.  This is the page I show friends in case they want to buy something of mine (since I’ll get a cut on top of the sale price).  This is the store that I don’t mind advertising around other marketers, because, really?  Who else would want that niche?

Store #5 was my very first experiment with BANS.  I set up a series of broad niches to experiment with the program.  When I deleted all my stores and rebuilt, this is the one I kept.  Mostly because I’d actually written content for it.  I don’t believe I’ve ever had someone purchase anything through this store, but that may change soon.

 See, I pay attention to the search terms people use to find my stores.  That particular store has 2 or 3 searches that turn up dead ends on my site.  I couldn’t figure out why.  So I did a little digging, and found that, strangely, what they were looking for isn’t found under the categories you would assume they’re listed under.  So I added sub pages using the correct categories and search terms.  The next time someone lands on my page looking for one of those terms- they’ll actually find what they’re looking for.  And if the price is right? I may just have a sale.

Bottom line? Well, there’s no magic number for page views or clickthroughs.  People are people, and no matter how much you pay attention to what they want, they’ll change their minds the second they’re asked to pay for it.  But in the mean time, 109 clicks produced $32.82 in profit for me. Here’s hoping to even more in August!

As of Sunday morning (July 27, 2008), my affiliate programs become solvent.

Some time between checking my stats Saturday night, and my stats Sunday afternoon, someone either made a huge purchase through eBay, or signed up for an account through one of my links. That final number not only paid off the $97 that I paid for my BANS program, but also for the two domains that I’d built my BANS stores on. Yay!

So what’s next? Well, obviously I plan to enjoy pure profit after this. And once I get a few of my shops looking presentable (since, strangely, my biggest converters are the least developed of my stores- I’ve even had a purchase from a site that had nothing but the eBay link on it) I plan to build a few landing pages and start advertising.

I don’t know what I’m doing in regards to advertising, but as I’ve finally figured out how to layer pictures in my photo editor, I think I may stand a chance at actually building the ads. And since I don’t believe in squeeze pages, I have a few ideas in so far as simple landing pages.

As far as I know, I don’t have the Ebay affiliate program on anything but my BANS sites.  But, for some reason, my BANS EPN updates won’t give me a confirmation screen.  So, I’m doing it the hard way.

 I’m deleting my BANS sites and re-installing them.  Yeah, yeah.  I know it sounds like waaaay too much work. But seriously?  All my income came from two sites despite my having 10 or so.  I had very little content, and what was there is a simple copy/paste.  So, I’ll have to upload the logos again, re-do the search boxes, and change the color scheme.  Irritating, yes.  But, not so bad.  After all, the color scheme can be done at work since it’s all online.  Copy/paste could be too if I put the content into an email first. 

 Plus, I just deleted- yes, deleted- 4 or 5 of my stores.  See that?  I can’t even count them, they meant so little to me!  As I said, only two of my stores generated cash.  Some of them I may rebuild one day, but for the most part they were the broad “niches” of which I spoke earlier.  I’d do much better to start from scratch anyway.  In the mean time, making the switch, heavy as it is, for the 6 that I have left will be much easier.  And, honestly?  I may delete a few of those and simply use the content elsewhere. 

 In fact, I just deleted one.  That leaves 5 for updates, and one of those is already installed. 

 Why am I talking about this?  I don’t even know right now.  I would normally say that the lesson here is to not bite off more than you can chew, but these were sites that I’d intended to build up over time.  If Ebay hadn’t decided to move their affiliate program in house, I may have never touched these sites again.  Not even to delete.  I guess I’ll just chalk these up to growing pains.

I was talking to a friend at work about my websites.  He knows that I’m a bit addicted to BANS, despite the fact that I haven’t made back my investment yet.

He’s been interested in making a living online for a while as well, but he’s better at planning than I am.  Me, I get an idea and I fly with it. He actually takes classes.  We’ve always said that if we were one person, we’d probably be rich.  I think as partners we’d kill each other. 

He was only interested in the basic numbers, so that’s what I gave him.  I said, domains are about $10 a year.  I know where I can get codes to get either 10% off, or domains for $7 a year through GoDaddy, so that’s who I use.  I also told him that .info domains are about $2-3.  I wouldn’t recommend getting a .info domain if you want to build up repeat viewers, but for a site that relies on search engines for traffic, you could certainly do worse.

Hosting totally depends on what you want.  I told him that I pay about $8 a month with HostGator for unlimited domains.  I also told him that if he wanted just one website to build up, he can get hosting even cheaper than that for just one site.  I didn’t tell him about dedicated servers and such, because I don’t think either of us expects to become popular enough to need it- and if we do?  Then we celebrate!

He’s also interested in my affiliate accounts.  All of them.  So I told him about BANS since I think the program is well worth the one time $97 fee.  Even if you didn’t want to sell anything through the site, you could pay much more than that for a website template.  You’d probably get something more out of the box and ready to go, but BANS is highly customizable. 

I also told him about Commission Junction and ClickBank.  I think his mind began to boggle at that.  They’re both free to sign up for, and you get a cut of any sales you make for the other companies that you’re promoting.  I don’t think he understands much about affiliate marketing since he kept asking me “and you don’t have to actually have a product, right?”.  I’ll need to talk to him about that a little more.

All in all, I told him that if he started a blog and started pimping products on it, (rather than purchasing BANS or anything else other than domain and hosting) he’d be shelling out $6-17 a month.  And you know?  I never realized just how cheap that is.  Where else can you start a business for under $20 but on the internet?