Recently I conducted a training webinar in which I cover what I believe is one of my biggest failures online. I never concentrated on building a long-term in-house affiliate program for my own products and services which probably cost me millions of dollars in online sales.
You can watch the entire replay of the webinar below:
Looking forward to your comments or thoughts.
Best wishes,
Gauher Chaudhry
The following is a guest post by Max Vorobyov who is a conversion specialist. Max has worked with many CPA networks and their in-house traffic teams to help increase conversions on all in-house PPC, PPV and CPM Media Buys traffic. In this blog post, he shows comparative characteristics on how they managed to double the number of in-house sales by applying 3-level-deep conversion optimization strategies for three types of profitable traffic – PPC, PPV and CPM Media Buys. The three levels are – traffic sources’, creative and landing page optimization.
Each and every day countless millions of dollars, Euros and Pounds change hands in the online universe. Affiliate marketers is one of the largest forces that is responsible for a large chunk of the money being transferred every day between buyers and sellers.
However, not every affiliate marketer is a success. The purpose of this article is to help you become more successful. You will see how a CPA marketer optimizes (maximizes) conversions for different types of traffic. You see, good-old days when a marketer could’ve slap a page/web site together, send some traffic to it and 40 days later cash a check – are long gone now.
This article is not going to talk about SEO (search engine optimization). It will show you what other marketers are doing with traffic, creative and a landing page to literally make their fortunes.
Let’s see what could be done to minimize spend and maximize conversions on the first – traffic sources – level:
PPC: You only deal with one traffic source — a search engine that you buy clicks from. For the sake of giving a solid example let’s look in PPC’s purest form – search engine traffic only. The keywords you bid on are your traffic sources. Traffic source “red shoes” may or may not convert as well as “buy read shoes”. While optimizing a PPC campaign at the traffic source level – a CPA marketer will pause “bad” (non-converting) keywords and only leave those that convert.
PPV: The 800×600 pop-up ad is shown to visitors of a) specified web sites and/or b) specified keywords. Savvy affiliate marketer will watch his conversions like a hawk eventually disabling traffic sources that suck money out of his pocket and leave only those that put money in his pocket.
CPM Media Buys: Display advertising world with its wonders and mysteries. An affiliate marketer picks and chooses web sites (traffic sources) where his IAB standard size banners 300×250, 160×600 and 728×90 will be displayed. After gathering initial data, numbers will clearly show which individual sites (traffic sources) are producing and which aren’t. Sites where traffic doesn’t convert are disabled.
That was easy, wasn’t it? Now, let’s talk about optimizing the creative:
PPC: As we have agreed earlier we’d look at PPC traffic in its purest form – traffic from search engines. While there is a choice over text ads or display ads, search engines mostly display text ads. Smart PPC specialists split-test different ad copies and base their decisions – as to whether or not cut the ad off – on factors like CTR and Conversion Rate. Higher CTR means lover CPC but conversion is the king. Creative is optimized by split-testing of text ad elements such as headline and body copy. Best performing ads that get clicks and convert – stay. Least performing ads – get paused.
PPV: No easy answer because there is at least a dozen strategies affiliate marketers use to make money with PPV traffic. The way you optimize creative for PPV traffic depends on your business’ strategy. The 800×600 pop-up will open whatever page you direct it to. In some cases you may not need any creative optimization at all. Or, on the other hand, if an affiliate marketer is in list building or short-form lead generation – several custom 800×600 landers should be in rotation and constant testing.
CPM Media Buys: Creative optimization for CPM media buys is one step more advanced compared to the PPC example above. An affiliate marketer will need an AdServer. AdServer is a software application that delivers banner ads to the requesting web pages. It is used for displaying and tracking impressions of your banners. The rest of the optimization strategy is similar to PPC creative optimization. But, in CPM media buys case, marketer works with banners. The goal is to maximize CTR while maintaining profitable conversion rate. Banners with low CTR and low conversions get cut off. Banners that produce desired ROI get more impressions… New banners, based on the best converting design/message, should constantly be tested as well.
By now an affiliate marketer has only interested buyers coming from selected traffic sources clicking on the best performing creative.
The next big step is to improve landing page’s conversions:
PPC: Super-affiliates use tools like Google Website Optimizer, Vertster, Split Test Accelerator (to name a few) to increase the number of conversions that a landing page generates. Simple A/B split-tests or more advanced multivariate testing experiments identify the best converting combination of elements. Each and every element of a landing page like: headline, sub-head, product images’, call to action, background colors, audio/video – influence consumer’s decision to buy or not to buy the product. Each and every element is tested by super affiliates. “Killer landers” aren’t stumbled upon, they are engineered…
PPV: Once again – no easy answer. Some affiliate marketers are doing extremely well with direct linking landing pages supplied by the affiliate network. Others doing even better with custom host-and-post pages. Another group of affiliate marketers build huge lists or generate quite a bit leads using custom landers. I’d say the landing page optimization strategy for PPV traffic depends on the campaign’s as well as marketer’s personal goals.
CPM Media Buys: Multivariate testing script or software application absolutely must be used because A/B split testing is not enough. A couple of thousands of clicks will show what combination of elements work. I’ve seen a few landers where 80% of the content was loaded into the multivariate testing tool. It was basically a template full of JavaScript or PHP code where the new combination was showed and tracked every time.
See a more detailed example of how 3 levels of conversion optimization could be applied for the CPM media buys – read the special report with 59 screenshots spread over 25 easy-to-scan-through pages http://bit.ly/kOZYHO . No opt-in required.
Affiliate marketing is fun. It also requires a lot of work. However, the work you put in, the optimization you do can (and will) pay off many times over in the form of money, lifestyle and, most importantly, respect of other marketers.
Comments? Please enter them below.
A few days ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing two of my favorite guys when it comes to getting free traffic with SEO traffic. Jason Katzenback and Jason Potash have been building their online business over the last few years using free traffic from the search engines. They have created countless software and training programs to help people get more free traffic such as Portal Feeder, Web Mayheim, Traffic Kaboom, Comment Kahuna and now Auto Link Juicer.
You can watch the entire replay of the webinar below:
Here is the link to get Auto Link Juicer
I would love to get your feedback on this webinar in the comments section.
Gauher Chaudhry
I recently started sending out HTML messages to my email lists in order to measure the open rate of the messages that I was sending. So you can imagine my surprise when I started getting data indicating that my emails were being opened only about 10% of the time. Now, although Aweber is probably not 100% accurate, I highly doubt these numbers are too far off based on the click-thru rate (CTR) of the URLs placed in the messages,
I have concluded that email marketing is not as an effective means of communication as it was even one year ago and unless I start implementing a method of getting new subscribers by the hundreds every single day, this rate will probably continue to drop.
Let’s face it. If you are also doing any sort of email marketing, your prospects’ inbox is already cluttered with dozens of emails from other marketers (some offering value and others pitching poor quality products). It is getting more and more difficult for your emails to be seen amongst all this noise. And the fact that your prospect’s time is valuable, they are now very selective of what they choose to open and read.
About a year ago, I did a survey to my list and asked them what is the number one item that dictates their decision to open an email and read it. Most people indicated that they first look at the sender of the email and then the subject line before deciding to open and read an email. I agree 100% because as soon as I see the name of the sender, I can tell if the email will be a waste of my time or not. You see, the content that you send out in your emails ultimately dictates how your readers perceive you when they see your name pop into their inbox in an email.
Now, there are other means of communication online other than email. Twitter and Facebook are still okay, but they don’t constitute *direct* contact the way email marketing does. And in my marketing studies, Twitter and Facebook still do not compare to email when it comes to results. I have sent out webinar invites on Twitter and Facebook only to see a handful of signups as compared to the hundreds that sign up via a quick email.
So I have decided that I am giving up on using email as my *only* means of direct communication with my prospects and customers. I will still continue to email my prospects, but I have decided to start focusing on a communication method that guarantees me a open rate of at least 95%.
Yes, an astounding 95%!
This can be achieved with mobile text messaging as almost everyone reads their text messages and unlike a computer, most people carry their cell phones wherever they go. I invite you to be one the first to join my new mobile text list so that I can send you unique marketing content, product specials and great deals via text messages.
Click Here To Join My Mobile Text List Free
Along with sending you unique content and special deals on my products via this new text message list. I am also working with other marketers to get special deals on their products just for this new list.
Please note that depending on your cell phone carrier and where you are located, standard text messaging rates may apply.
So although I will continue to send out emails and cringe when I see the open rates, I will focus on building a mobile text list that gets results.
Please share with me your thoughts or comments on this new approach.
Best wishes,
Gauher Chaudhry
The vast majority of the Internet marketing courses that have come out recently revolve around the merits of affiliate marketing and how that is the way to make big money on the Internet.
Affiliate marketing can be very lucrative, but if you have been doing affiliate marketing as long as I have, you will know that there is a dark side to affiliate marketing that a lot of these courses fail to mention.
Let me explain.
Over the past 18 months, I have been personally ripped off as an affiliate by various merchants and CPA networks.
And I am not the only one.
This happens to affiliate marketers every single day and is part of the being an affiliate marketer.
Let me share with you some of my recent experiences.
I did a promotion for StatsJunky and their software program almost 18 months ago and generated a five-figure affiliate commission for my efforts.
Unfortunately StatsJunky never paid me and just kept making excuses and false promises that I would eventually be paid. I spoke with other affiliates of the same program and they all confirmed that they were not paid.
I promoted many Internet marketing related programs to my marketing lists and had problems getting payment from some of the owner’s of the products I endorsed.
Do I get steamed about it – heck yes!
If you are promoting any cost per sale offers, I highly recommend that your work with a cost per sale network such as Commission Junction or Clickbank so that you have some level of protection.
If you decide to work directly with a company that has their own in-house affiliate program, make sure you do your background checking on whether they pay their affiliates on time.
Another sad reality that you will soon realize in the affiliate game is that products that fail to meet the expectations of the customer end up with high refund rates.
I have promoted many of the major launches and have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions (sometimes with just one launch).
So you can imagine my surprise when I see a 55% refund rate (this is the stuff you never hear about after a major product launch) and get emails from people who bought through me explaining their reasons why.
Here is a list of major factors that they point out as the reason why they refunded:
1. Did not meet expectations – therefore not worth the price
2. Poor customer support
3. Missing content that was promised
These are ALL things that as an affiliate you have absolutely NO control over.
I am also a very active CPA marketer, but find very frustrating when CPA advertisers start scrubbing (removing leads) or CPA networks that reverse leads after the fact claiming that they were low quality.
This is especially frustrating since I use paid traffic to generate most of my CPA commissions.
I had one CPA network contact me and tell me that the advertiser was refusing to pay the $75,000 the owed me in CPA commissions for a 30 day period. There excuse was that the leads were of low quality.
I went back and forth with the CPA network explaining that why did the advertiser continue to let me run traffic to the offer for thirty straight days if was backing out for them?
Luckily I was working with a fairly large CPA network that took care of this and managed to get the advertiser to pay and most importantly, got me paid.
My word of advice if you decide to promote CPA offers is to make sure that you work with the large corporate style CPA networks rather than the smaller “Mom & Pop” CPA networks because they can cover your backs if the advertiser refuses to pay.
Small CPA networks simply don’t have the resources or financial means to cover your losses.
Unfortunately I have run traffic through some smaller CPA networks in the past that did refuse to pay me and I was out tens of thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions.
The other thing that burns me is the lack of respect that affiliate marketers get today. Of course, some of that is a result if shady affiliates who created fake blogs and articles to dupe people into purchasing products and offers.
Unfortunately major sources of traffic such as Google have now made it part of their mandate to weed out affiliates who use their Adwords PPC platform.
Trust me as I heard this from a reputable source that knows a Google insider who has confirmed this. This is a shame considering it was affiliates who built up Google Adwords to where it is today.
Now don’t get me wrong, I still LOVE affiliate marketing as it has made me a huge sum of money over the years – I just like be a product owner more.
I just wanted to share with you some of the bad experiences I have had with affiliate marketing and some of my tips on how you can avoid some of the problems I have had with getting paid.
I once had a candid conversation with a friend Steve Clayton (one of the Blueprint guys) who told me that he quickly switched from being an affiliate for a dieting program after generating $1 million in affiliate commissions for the product owner.
He told me that he had found out that he was only the third top affiliate for that product, meaning that there were two affiliates who generated more sales then he did for the product owner.
It is crazy to think that there were three affiliates who were responsible for almost $6 million in sales alone!
And the product owner was just sitting back while affiliates drove all the traffic and sale.
Pretty sweet position to be sitting in – if you ask me. 😉
I also had other close friends who were generating as much as $5 million a year in CPA commissions. They came out with their own course and were asked why if they were busy making $5 million with affiliate income, why bother creating their own product?
Their reply was simple. Why not if they can make another $5 million selling information on how they run their successful affiliate business? They went on to make another $5 million selling their own product in less than three weeks.
Smart thinking if you ask me.
Do you want to know a little secret?
I can pretty much predict who will win a major product launch by just watching the previous product launches.
The winner is usually a person who just recently finished their own product launch.
Why?
Because they just built a huge, responsive prelaunch list with their own product launch because they had their own product to sell.
There really are a countless number of reasons that you should seriously consider becoming a product owner if you haven’t already.
As a product owner, you control the list and entire sales process.
When I used to work in the corporate world as a consultant to small businesses, we always took our clients through an exercise that would show them how they could increase their revenues and profits.
All of the steps I used to teach offline businesses can be applied to online advertisers.
The interesting thing is that these concepts are quite simple and not rocket science.
Let me explain to you the four factors to product owners should concentrate on that will increase revenues and ultimately profits.
1. Get More Customers
Not too complicated – right?
Just get double the traffic and if your conversion rate remains the same, you will double your customers and revenues.
Now as an affiliate, the more sales you make, the more commissions you will get. But at the end, you are just one of many affiliates that could be promoting the same affiliate product so who do you think is benefiting in the end?
The product owner of course.
In fact, with all the traffic that you have sent to the product sales page, you might have built a nice hot list of prospects that you will NEVER have control of.
2. Increase the frequency of transactions with each customer
Here is where you as an affiliate really lose out. Unless you are with an affiliate program that pays out lifetime commissions on ALL their products (yeah right), you will rarely see any affiliate commissions on additional products that are created and sold to the customer.
3. Increase the price of your products
You have absolutely no control over the price of an affiliate product that you are promoting. This is left up to the advertiser who decides what he or she would like to charge.
And since most advertisers are not sophisticated when it comes to split-testing to find the optimal price to sell at – once again as affiliates, we lose out on missed sales.
4. Systems
Systems within an online business include everything from the sales letters, squeeze pages, back-end funnels, autoresponders, customer support channels – all which bring in millions of dollars in sales for the product owners.
You as an affiliate have no control over ANY of these systems and probably don’t even see a dime in affiliate commissions from anything that happens after the initial sale.
If you truly want to build a lucrative online empire, I think affiliate income should be your secondary source of revenue whereas selling your own products or services should be your primary focus.
About six months ago, I had a good friend Peter Nguyen present at my live training seminar about moving from the affiliate marketing to becoming the product owner or advertiser (as they are called on CPA networks).
He blew the audience away with his wealth of knowledge that he has gained over the last few years working with dozens of advertisers.
In fact, it was Peter who encouraged me to create my own products that have gone on to do millions of dollars in sales.
Over the last 10 months, I have been working closely with Peter’s team to create an entire training course called Advertiser360.
This courses guides anyone who is interested in becoming a super advertiser by selling their own products and services.
The course is massive and is physically shipped out to customers, but also as a digital component that you get full access to.
Click For Advertiser360
Best wishes,
Gauher Chaudhry
