Re: affiliate junk

From: Bahman Eslamboly <lawtalk_at_lawguru.com>
Date: Thu 27 Sep 2001 18:04:02 -0500

ROB FRANKEL <rob_at_robfrankel.com> WROTE:

>With all due respect -- and Glenn is about as deep into
>this as anyone, so I don't use that phrase lightly --
>I think the problem is two fold:

>1. There's a totally wrong perception about what
>affiliate programs are and how to make them succeed.
>Unfortunately, the vast majority of people got into the
>affiliate gig thinking that slapping up a banner was all
>it took to make money. It doesn't. If you read
>anything by Allan Gardyne, you know it takes a business
>mind to make it work -- and there just aren't that many
>good business minds out there. There are, however, a
>lot of disgruntled people who complain a lot.


Hello -

As Rob Frankel pointed out in his September 13, 2001 post
"...the vast majority of people got into the affiliate
gig thinking that slapping up a banner was all it took
to make money. It doesn't."

In our experience Mr. Frankel is absolutely right. Most
of the revenue programs started to pay off once we
started to really integrate them into our sites and
spending many hours fine tuning them. Putting a banner
up will sometimes generate a "base revenue", but you
can increase that many times over by integrating the
sales tools and sales messages into the content and body
of your site - well beyond what a banner could do.
Continuos tinkering with the placement of the affiliate
programs can increase revenue even further leading to
increased metrix such as higher number of sales per
100 visitors etc (i.e. thus selling more product to
the same number of visitors).

Although this is an entirely separate discussion, my
theory has always been that for many sites total revenue
is going to be comprised of several different sources.
In fact revenue for our two flagship sites
<http://www.lawguru.com/> and <http://www.findforms.com/>
comes from about a dozen different affiliate programs
(can you find them?). In fact by the time Engage Media
stopped producing banner advertising revenue for us, we
already had made up for all of the lost revenue through
various affiliate programs we had started. As the saying
goes, we don't put all our eggs in one basket.

Naturally, it almost goes without saying (but I will
say it anyway) that you must choose your affiliate
programs carefully to make sure they are compatible
with your site sand your audience. You should also always
try to negotiate the best possible deal in terms of
commissions (i.e. don't simply accept the first
commission figure they present to you). You might be
surprised how much better you can do than their first
offer. Many times you can also get them to make
concessions beyond a favorable commission rate (i.e.
exposure for your site on their site in exchange for you
joining their affiliate program).


Bahman Eslamboly
Attorney at Law
Los Angeles, California

LawGuru.com - http://www.lawguru.com
FindForms.com - http://www.findforms.com/
e-mail:lawtalk_at_lawguru.com



Received on Thu Sep 27 2001 - 18:04:02 CDT