Re: Affiliate Junk - Do the Math

From: Wayne Browning <coffeenews_at_homepagers.com>
Date: Tue 02 Oct 2001 12:00:36 -0500

JOEL GEHMAN <joel_at_affiliatehandbook.com> WROTE:

> Trying to calculate the success or failure of an
> initiative - in this case the apparent health of the
> entire affiliate marketing industry - on the basis of
> the earnings enjoyed by an "average" participant is
> doomed to almost certain failure.

I concur and my obvious simple statement drew response,
but it was intended to point out the folly of stats
overall. Glen's statements, while perhaps more evolved,
really amount to the same as so many factors are not
available to review. How much a successful publisher had
to spend in terms of ad inventory is one and there is
quite a list one could develop. But you won't see me
denying the reality that 10% of affiliates earn up to 70%
of the revenues. I also believe that many affiliates run
too many ads at one time, do little to promote any one
individually and then expect all to do well. Free sites
are a good example, most run literally hundreds of ads
and have no real content offerings . They may be busy
with good daily traffic and still do didley. It's
important to look at your audience to determine the
'potential" of any ad. But what is missing in all
statements to date is the rate or pay level of these
programs at CJ, most of the retail nature and working
by commission payments. It does not work for many content
publishers unless they turn their sites into a "content
niche" or even a portal for an individual advertiser they
know does something in terms of ROI to them.

   Running commission offers for 90% of sites will not
pay the rent. Yes there are 10% that will do well but the
question is, are we speaking to the 10% or 90%:-) I manage
the online affiliate program for a major psychic network,
I know full well from hands on experience what various
affiliates are going through. We do it a bit differently
though. We do not sign up the mass of sites, we solicit
our partner sites one by one for various reasons. We have
found that we have about 75% of our partners making good
revenue, the ones that do not we agree to part company with,
we rather work with those that the program works for rather
than deal with 10,000 sites from all demographics and
daily unique visitor levels. In our case we have a technical
reason for this as each affiliate we ask to join costs us
a fee to maintain a set up for them as we use 800/900
numbers to run the offer. We're a little different in our
approach in that we are not looking to sign up any and
all sites as affiliates and then spread thin offers, we
rather work with a group and grow gradually watching to
see as each new partner joins that he/she will be one that
we keep along for the ride. It works well for both ourselves
and the partnering sites, we don't waste their time or
resources. Since we do incur a cost per partner we are
forced to look at each one, work with them and help them
evaluate whether this offer is a good one for them and
therefore their site a good match for us. It does not work
out every time, but you might say the system that we use,
having to watch costs on each new unique set up, has allowed
up to weed out the inactive partner sites. and look at a
happier overall work relationship with existing partner
sites. We see from our managing the program that the
demographic is the most important factor , traffic levels
being secondary. Anyhow these are good comments and it's
interesting to see the various points of view and from
whom they come from in terms of their involvement in the industry.

By the way if any of you are looking to run our offer, we
won't let in everyone but if your site has decent traffic, a
demographic that enjoys astrology, new age topics , feel
free to ask. my email is : info_at_homepagers.com

Regards,
Wayne Browning
Homepagers



Received on Tue Oct 02 2001 - 12:00:36 CDT