Affiliate Sales Through Blog

[jdsonline]

Has anyone had good luck with affiliate product sales through their blog? I'm especially interested in seeing if I can leverage my RSS subscribers to increase affiliate sales.

[sukosaki]

I guess my first question is, do you have subscribers? I don't mean folks that signed up as part of a contest, are they signed up because your content is good?

Secondly, do what is your niche? This is very important in that you would want to promote products related to that niche only in order to make any decent money based on subscribers.

I think there are plenty of people that have had some success with the blog and affiliate products, as long as they match the niche, I think you will do ok.

[Educator]

FWIW, by primary source of revenue is paid site advertisers .... second Adsense.......and a very distant third and last are affilites. I've only found one that has provided any significant revenue.

What I don't like about affiliates is that when you get down to it I am providing free advertising for them with a chance of some revenue back. However, that's not the type of visitor we tend to get, i.e. not one who will buy anything on the spot.

And, don't get me started on the whole 'cookie saved for 30 days' type of assuance. I've had some bad experiences with that sort of relationship.

Now, if you own a web store, one that you spend the time in updating the adds / specials / etc. with this coupon and that 'no shipping if purchased this week' type of promo's then one might do OK.....but for the effort involved one would need an extremely high volume web site IMO.

I'd rather put the time into article research and writing.

[Shopping4Coupons]

I personally do a lot with affiliate marketing and make between $500-$1000 a month on my blogs. I have found that there are 3 main reasons that people may click on your link and make a purchase. I have the data to back it up and I have thought long and hard about it.

1 Impulse, they see something cool and they buy it. maybe a banner on your side bar catches their attention.

#2 Looking for more information about a product they already know, perhaps you have a review site and they click on a text link within your post. They don't really know you are getting a cut of the sale but they just happen to make up their mind to buy and they happened to click on your link last.

#3 They are looking for a deal on an item and they find your site in the search engines, you offer some sort of discount and they make a purchase from your site.

Here's the money breakdown, at least the way it has played out for me dollar wise.

1= 10%
2= 20%
3= 70% +

The main reason this is true is that customer #3 has already made his mind up that he wants to make a purchase, #2 is still thinking about it and #1 you just caught off guard.

So yep that's right, that stupid little coupon code blog of mine is where I'm making most of my money, some of it is coming from product review sites and other sites of mine collect up tens of thousands of impressions, a few clicks and no sales.

[sukosaki]

Excellent breakdown for sure. I would say that should answer anyone with the same question.

[myqute]

Well, once when I was still on IMVU, I had gaming affiliate buttons on my blog and on my IMVU profile page. Sales was brisk before my sponsor decided to call an end to the advertising campaigns.

I didn't make a lot though - about US$346 per month. My friends said it was better than their adsense which brought them less than US$20 every month. With Adsense, you need HUGE amount of traffic in order to earn a lot.

[sadiessay-so]

To really get good use of AdSense you need traffic. You can also use PayPerPost.

[thenicheblogger]

I am in a niche that will likely target buying visitors. I basically just started the blog though so only time will tell.

[flashgordon]

So far my only affiliate sales are via Amazon. Not the best in terms of money, but each month I seem to make a little more, and since the links (not the cookies) are permanent, there is potential for long-term increased sales down the road....

[thenicheblogger]

Yep I think with blogs it's all about long-term goals. We don't make any money overnight with this type of site. But as your readership grows, and as your incoming links and search engine results improve you can start to see the worth of your efforts.