affiliate programs..pop-ups...etc Best answer on the web
- click through my site to one of my advertiser's sites?
- click through and sign up on the advertiser's mailing list?
- click through and make a purchase?
Please estimate: Assuming an average (middle of the pack) search
engine ranking, how many average visitors per day to the average
single page (affiliate advertising click through purpose only) web
page?
Any idea what the average internet purchase price is (for all products from all sites that have affiliate programs)?
Approx how many total companies/advertisers are there that use a
broker? (I saw approx 1200 on Commission Junction) a. Include porn
related sites B) Exclude porn related sites.
Approx how many total companies/advertisers are there with individual
affiliate programs that don't use a broker?
I've heard that a huge percentage of the internet is porn site
related; do your answers include or exclude porn related
companies/sites. If exclude, modify answers to
Most of the info I have seen about the affiliate game is from the boom period (pre-March 2000) and is very optimistic (to say the least). But times have changed dramatically since the dotcom bust in 2000. How lucrative is the affiliate game now? Assume I currently own twenty good single generic word domain names that were each valued for between $10,000 to $100,000 during the boom I want to put up a single
page (affiliate advertising click through purpose only) web page for
each. I'm not going to market any of the web pages. My traffic will be contingent upon people entering the domain name in either the address
line or in a search box. How successful can that approach be? How much can I expect to make if I put four advertisement clickthroughs on
each. Finally if I were to use pop-up advertising on my sites who are the major companies in this area and how much can I really expect to make.
Thanks,
Joel
Perhaps the following business resource might enable you to obtain an insider's look at affiliate programs. The individuals are known to me personally, clients of mine in a different work sphere. Staff has graciously allowed me to share this info with you directly. The Hulsey's would be my personal background resource for affiliate programs of the sort you've mentioned. They've indicated a willingness to share insights about Internet Marketing with you, but actual clickthru figures would be considered proprietary information. In other respects, I believe you'll find them a helpful resource. They do consult professionally in this field.
Jim and Sue Hulsey
Hulsey Enterprises
P.O. Box 15152
Little Rock, AR 72231
(501) 835-2103
jim@goseeus.com
Best regards,
larre-ga
>>I am looking for a response from someone that understands this market personally and in additon to relevant sites can provide their
expertise on the subject.<<
Hi. My name is Mark, and I'm the CFO of an Internet-based marketing media corporation.
>>What is the (industry standard) % success
rate, i.e., how many out of a hundred visitors to my site will:
- click through my site to one of my advertiser's sites?
- click through and sign up on the advertiser's mailing list? - click through and make a purchase? <<
There is no comprehensive collected data that addresses the entire spectrum of web sites. It often depends on the product, the presentation, and consumer. Some items are hot sellers; for example, DVD retailers, CD retailers, PC retailers, and airline tickets vendors. These items do well online, while most people don't by cement mixers online. Consumers do, however, buy all sorts of things online. I even know of a fellow who bought a house online, sight-unseen. The problem you face is getting someone to click through. In the adult industry, this is particularly difficult, because adult web sites abound. They all look the same, and they all want money. In my personal experience, unless you have very unique content, less than One in 1,000 will click through. (ADULT INDUSTRY) Less than One in 10,000 will make a purchase.
(ADULT INDUSTRY)
As for the mailing list, it depends on what you're promising the consumer. Promise the consumer what they are interested in and you might achieve 0ne out of 3,000 uniques. I know these numbers may seem depressing. The adult industry is not a tough market to get into. At times it may seem that there are more adult sites than there are Internet users. And savvy Internet users know that there are lots of places to look to find free adult entertainment.
As for non-adult sites, it really depends on the quality of your traffic. We advertise with banners on a related-topic web site. That web site gets 130 average uniques daily, and sends us on average 2 visits per day. (It can be difficult to get a person to click-through!)
A friendly web site in the same field (residential construction) conducts 60,000 user sessions each month, and makes 80,000 referrals. Why is it able to send so much traffic to advertisers? Because it is a niche site. People who visit that site visit it because they are highly interested in that area.
>>Please estimate: Assuming an average (middle of the pack) search
engine ranking, how many average visitors per day to the average
single page (affiliate advertising click through purpose only) web
page?<<
Middle of the road ranking does not translate into middle of the road traffic. Middle of the road search engine rank for a nationwide jobs/employment site would probably be 1,000 times higher than a middle of the road ranked loggers association site. If you are not familiar with average traffic of web sites, you might try viewing the stats of some sites. The average traffic of most web sites is under 100 unique visitors per day. A nicely ranked adult site may get 1,000 visitors daily from search engine traffic alone. If you are serious about getting traffic, you can take active measures to increase that traffic. Marketing with Google Adwords, ETC.
>> Any idea what the average internet purchase price is (for all products from all sites that have affiliate programs)?<<
My educated guess would be between $10 & $20.
>>Approx how many total companies/advertisers are there that use a
broker? (I saw approx 1200 on Commission Junction) a. Include porn
related sites B) Exclude porn related sites<<
More than it is practical to count.
>>Approx how many total companies/advertisers are there with individual affiliate programs that don't use a broker?<<
That would probably be getting into the millions. It is very easy to buy and install affiliate program software on your server, and it does generate traffic. And because you usually don't pay out until the commission reaches $200, a lot of referrers never get paid.
This comes straight from the mouth of the director of a large affiliate network: "We hope we track 90% of all affiliate sales, but realistically it's probably more around 70%."
>> have seen about the affiliate game is from the boom
period (pre-March 2000) and is very optimistic (to say the least). But times have changed dramatically since the dotcom bust in 2000. How
lucrative is the affiliate game now? Assume I currently own
twenty good single generic word domain names that were each valued for between $10,000 to $100,000 during the boom I want to put up a single page (affiliate advertising click through purpose only) web page for
each. I'm not going to market any of the web pages. My traffic will be contingent upon people entering the domain name in either the address line or in a search box. How successful can that approach be? How much can I expect to make if I put four advertisement clickthroughs on
each. Finally if I were to use pop-up advertising on my sites who are
the major companies in this area and how much can I really expect to
make.<<
If you're going into adult, you may not make much at all. Most top referring sites in the adult industry are making a couple hundred a month. The vast majority of referring sites don't get a check at all.
If you're in a niche industry, and you're site is able to provide unique and useful content, and the products offered by the advertiser are good, you might make a decent living. The vast majority of people don't. I have a friend who advertised for an affiliate broker for three years and finally accumulated $10.
Some webmasters design their own banners, and market the advertiser's products aggressively, and make $60,000 every year.
I must warn you, the Internet is not the pot of gold many assume it is.
You obviously know of the dot com crash. Keep it in mind and learn from others' mistakes.
Good luck.
Mark
This is great question, with many angles. I have broken down the answer in a bullet type format to ensure a proper response to each of your 'sub-questions'. If you need clarification, please feel free to ask for it. I am using many of the 'industry standards', drawn from my own personal experience for much of this information as requested. I own several niche web portals and have held 'helping hand' and high level affiliate positions with online advertising agencies in the US and the UK.
- Click thru my site to one of my advertisers sites?
In the internet advertising industry this is commonly referred to as CTR. ( Click Thru Ratio ) The industry uses the number 1000 as the base standard, so the numbers I will use throughout will be based off this as well. For every 1000 times an advertisers banner is viewed on your site, how many clicks will be performed? You asked that your statistics be broken down for every 100 visitors, so you can simply divide by 10 for a rough estimate. Be aware though that this method is not always directly linear, due to the time span associated with those visitors, and numerous other factors - much too lengthy to list. This is science in its own right.
The overall internet advertising industry banner click through rate is about .2% - .5%. Assuming you are not promoting this site as you stated, not targeting to a particular audience, and just placing a banner to your advertiser, you can expect the base rate of 2 - 5 visitors for every 1000 banner views, or about 1/4 - 1/2 of a person to visit your advertiser, for every 100 visitors your site sees. This of course can greatly vary upon your approach to making the actual ads, and how demographically you have targeted them. This base percentage has seen a sharp steady decrease since the advent of the internet. I own several high profile websites, with thousands of visitors from every country, and my statistics back up these numbers as well. The more I pay attention to what was clicked, and the more I target those specific ads - the more return I get via advertiser visits.
Many companies and individuals do see a considerably higher CTR, and I'm expecting a few comments to prove so. It depends on the type of creative, who you are targeting and so much more than I can simply list here. An example would be if you used a text based advertisement. Text ads see a sharp increase over the base CTR of banners, simply because they are usually more descriptive, and offer more insight to the end source where the consumer/visitor will end up landing. Rich Media ads such as Flash often intrigue the user more than regular static ads, and have proven to be a bit more receptive. This however is not always the case.
Have a peek at this great gathering of internet statistical analysis sites http://www.internetstats.com/topic_template.php3?keyword=11
Here is a great read for info on making a banner ( for you or your advertiser that you are envisioning ) using market research to guide you http://www.advertwizard.com/info/resources/banner_tutorial.phtml#research
And a few resources confirming the .2% - .5% overall CTR
Bcentral Who says banner ads are dead? by Monte Enbysk
http://www.bcentral.com/articles/enbysk/106.asp
Clickz Are Click-Through Rates Really Declining? by Jim Meskauskas
http://www.clickz.com/media/plan_buy/print.php/835391
WebDevelopers Journal from June 2000 ( Still amazingly about the same ) http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/banner_ads/banner_advertising_industry_stats.html
- click through and sign up on the advertiser's mailing list?
Another great question, that once again relies on how well the product ( list in this case ) is targeted. If visitor 'A' is looking for race cars, and your list is about race cars, then you will see a significantly higher sign up ratio than if your list was about dating. Using psychographics in addition to just demographics will improve your chances of converting a visitor into a mailing list signup. The internet consensus for a target mailing list , visitor to sign up ratio stands at about 2% and upward from my personal experiences. So this would leave you with 2 signups per one hundred visitors to your site, or 20 per 1000, assuming your list is very highly targeted demographically.
So in your case, if your advertiser owns a mailing list for 'pizza', and your site is about pizza sauce makers - you should see a higher signup rate than if your site were about toilet paper manufacturers. Make the list match the site theme/general consensus and you can expect some high signup conversions, and a better overall customer delivery for your advertisers. If there is no site content to back up this list though, you will see condierably lower results. The variables in the area are massive, and you would need to experiment on your own as I did to gain maximum results.
There is not much more to this area of marketing from a signup ratio perspective. The bottom line is results, and the results will always be a direct reflection of how well the list/product is geared in light of your visitors purpose in coming to your site(s).
- click through and make a purchase?
It's refreshing to see someone doing their homework. According to a survey conducted by Bizrate ( high profile online business service agency), over 90% of shoppers abandon their carts before they checkout. So from this data we assume that only 10% make it through the purchase. It may seem a little outdated, but my numbers are still amazingly similar. How does this data translate into your effort? Well - the visitor clicks on the link to your advertiser. Assuming a perfect condition, whereas your product matches the desire 100%, then you can expect 10% to click through and make a purchase. We must keep in mind however, that you are dealing with a new factor - which is the fact that you will be sending shoppers via an affiliate link. Conversion will work much the same so long as the product your sending your visitors to match the expectations without flaw.
Some companies ( Mostly specialty shops ) have conversion rates as high as 25% as outlined in some of my resource links below. This should definitely give you some clues as to how you should/would approach building your project and site links to advertisers.
This company has a plethora of data that you would definitely be interested in as far as sales conversions are concerned. There is a one time $90.00 fee for access to this data, but it seems well worth the price if you want finite details on an infinite market.
InterMarket Group
http://www.intermarketgroup.com/reports/icbcont2001.htm
Percent online shoppers survey
http://retailindustry.about.com/library/bl/bl_bizrate1023.htm
Bizrate.com -- October 23, 2000
Imagecast - The problems we solve. 25% conversion references ( Date and author unknown ) http://www.imagicast.com/solution/problem.html
And some more sites that lead to detailed statistics about completed sales versus visitors etc... http://retailindustry.about.com/cs/stats_b2cecommerce/index.htm
About.com -- No date available, but continually updated.
- "Assuming an average (middle of the pack) search engine ranking..."
Traffic is a whole different field of analysis, but I am positive your question is geared toward how much return on any given site - regardless of subject, will be received for a medium placed position. Middle of the pack - I am using Alexa.com as a basis for my site data. My sites have a Google Page Rank of about 6 to 7 and rank in about the top 250,000 sites on the internet. I would call our position exactly what you are seeking - an average site with average search engine rankings for a variety (hundreds) of keywords and terms. In theory we'll assume you have a site about 'widgets' ( that is your sites theme ) and desired keyword target in search engines. We can't talk specific numbers but we can talk CTR for your position, and use some of our numbers to verify this theory.
A first page middle position for 'widgets' would put you at number 5 for any given term or keywords. Since we show up at number 5 - 7 for many terms we know that we only receive 25% ( educated guess, as some of our top 3 placements receive 200-300% more ) of the actual visitors that see our listings. We typically see about 2-5 unique visitors for all of our search terms ( about 25% ) , and you could expect to see something similar, except it would be drawn off the field of traffic levels pertinent to your site theme/service area - 'widgets'. You can check out this site to see a sample of aggregate search query data made that may be relevant to your site (s) -
WordTracker
Tracks various internet searches for number of keyword requests
http://www.wordtracker.com/
- "Any idea what the average internet purchase price..."
As Mark stated, this information would normally need to be more industry specific. However there are sites that do compile data from top retailers and record their sales information in statistical format. After simply looking at this information ( Top 100 Retailers ) it's relatively intuitive to assume the average price/sale fits right into the $20 - $40 range. Almost of the companies listed within these resources have an affiliate or partners program of some type in place, and simply joining some of these programs may give you access to the information you are seeking.
You had mentioned CJ.com, and they are a great place to start looking for more in depth information in this area. You would have to surmise your own data, but it's still a good resource. This page outlines the average sales in 2000 and the 2000 holiday season. With over 26.2 million transactions processed, and the average sale before the holidays was $46.54. CJ has quite a good reach as far as advertiser services go (ranked #187 on the internet by alexa.com with about a 1.7% internet reach), so this data is a good free sample of a broad range of advertisers.
CJ stats story page
http://www.affiliatehandbook.com/nws/20010121_cjstats.html
Listing of Top 100 Retailers and their 12 month average sales
http://www.stores.org/archives/00top100int_1.html
CJ Alexa ratings
http://www.alexa.com/data/details?q=cj&p=DestSearch_W_t_40_M1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cj.com%2F
- "Approx how many total companies/advertisers are there that use a broker?"
A - Non Porn
Without paying for access to this information it really is a data collecting game for us smaller guys. I made up my own little analysis using my time on the internet, and my contacts as a platform. My sites are personally affiliates/partners with hundreds of sites. (No adult) Every time I saw a site that we wished to affiliate with, I searched the site for an affiliate or partners program. I had about a solid 90% success rate. Of all these programs, only a small portion ( probably about 10%) had their own programs in hand and under their control. The rest were brokers such as BeFree, Linkshare, Cowabunga, and of course CJ. This data can be considered as taken over time - about 4 years.
B- Porn Sites
I would have to make a relative educated guess and say that almost 90% of pornographic sites use in house systems to track their affiliate data. There are a few options for adult site owners via the broker method, and most of these sites seem to like to keep profits to a maximum, cut costs, and offer better rewards to affiliate sites. Accordingly - most pay very well.
Most of my data includes porn sites. Porn sites are included in the aggregate data of many statistic tracking companies that I referenced (it is a retail business in most instances) - to include:
http://www.alexa.com
http://www.nielsenmedia.com
- "How lucrative is the affiliate game now?"
The game hasn't really changed much. There are affiliates that still earn. It's just time to get smarter, as the market is very saturated with affiliates trying to make money, and all of them are using the same methods. I earn thousands of dollars every month from a variety of merchants. The key aspects to remember are:
- Keep it simple
- Sell the product or service
- Match your site content
If anything has changed, it's the volume of success rates we are seeing. There are not many pages (as there used to be), of people scanning thousand dollar checks to prove to you how much they are earning. Affiliate marketing has become a full time dedication. You need to keep your site(s) up to date with fresh content, and be willing to adapt to the instant changes the internet has been tossing us. It's just not as simple as placing a link, writing good metatags, and hoping for good search engine placement anymore.
These guys at Clickz still have a weekly informative article, all about affiliate marketing. It is simply some of the best reading that I have found -
Clickz Affiliate Martketing
http://www.clickz.com/aff_mkt/aff_mkt/
To offer you a living proof example that affiliate programs are still lucrative, I will send you to Associate Programs. If you want to drop the the owner a few questions, I am sure he would love to answer. I have had email correspondence with him a couple of times in the past few years, and he makes a living using others affiliate programs. He's been doing this since at least 1998. Drop him a line and he'll be glad to be a living testament to the current strength of affiliate programs. At one point he had a full opt-in list of 18-20,000 subscribers. His list was superbly clean, and offered great conversion for him because he kept it simple and staright to the point. I was a member of his list before, and you may want to join to see what sage advice he can offer. (I'll be rejoining myself after I am done with this) This is not a personal referral - I simply have followed the owners advice for some time now with great success.
http://www.associateprograms.com
The ClubMom affiliate program is a great example to use in this case. Sean ( last name withheld ) has been running this program for years with great success. See what top affiliates on this site earn, simply for linking to the ClubMom site, and converting users to members. This is a niche program with a niche crowd of affiliate sites gaining a high signup conversion. If you do the same with other programs, and market it effectively, you will see great results. As you can see the top site earned over $2300.00. We can not see the conversion ratio, but one can assume it's rather well.
http://www.clubmomaffiliates.com/
You may also want to contact and browse this site. I have found it to be a great resource for many different affiliate tactics, mostly in the way the site is presented to the visitors. He sells himself very well, and there are still many successful affiliates doing the same. http://www.affiliatematch.com/about.htm
In short - the affiliate earning business is as big as ever. It just requires a different approach than in the past. Simple links without helpful backing of descriptions, features and benefits to the end users will not lead to success.
- "How successful can that approach be?"
Your approach may be successful, but only for a limited time. Search engines and directories are getting closer to delivering searchers directly to their needs. This means alot of the smaller sites, with little to no content will have no good positions while battling with the sites that do have content.
Consider the consequences of building a site with no content -
- Users come to your site and see four banners. Once in a while they click through, but see no sense of purpose to your site. - They won't be coming back once they get to the destination site, because they know of your lack of content. - They may remember and brand your site as a wall of links. You lose a potential customer due to lack of interest. - Other sites need to make reference to yours in order to build quality traffic. You'll get very few ( probably none ) from experienced site owners with opinions and websites that matter to search engines. - In the end - all you are doing is Brand Building for the destination site, and taking focus off of yours. You'll show little conversion with concern to repeat visitors as stated above.
- "if I were to use pop-up advertising on my site..."
Using the method you described you stand to make very little. Most Pop-ups (if not all) are payed for based on a CPM method (Cost Per Thousand - M is the Roman numeral for 1000). With your potential site, you would only be showing one page, and one pop-up. It would take 1000 visitors just to get one portion of a payment. The advertising industry (pop ups) has a net CPM of about 50 cents - $1.00. So for every 1000 visitors to your site, you may see that much. There is much more to this though. Most ad companies base your payment on a percentage of what they make, with the 50 cents - $1.00 being what they expect to see. In times of low advertising, your CPM earnings would reflect what the agency in question is earning. So if they pay you 50% of thier earnings, and that is typically the 50 cents - $1.00 range, then you can expect much less when they have to sell their advertising space for much less to draw in more clients. It's a very fluctuating market, and most companies I have seen/worked with, change their CPM payouts regularly to coincide with advertiser demand.
Of course it's Marks opinion that pop-ups are a turn off, and I am inclined to agree. AOL just promised to stop showing pop-ups at a loss of 30 million a year, and that should be a good indication to you where the industry is going. iVillage - a leading online Women's Network, did the same back in June.
AOL to stop serving pop ups
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/962068.htm
iVillage to stop serving Popups
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1434851
You did ask for a list of Pop-up advertising agencies so I found a few of the bigger ones for you:
Popupsponsor
http://www.popupsponsor.com/
AdvertWizard (UK)
http://www.advertwizard.com
FastClick
http://www.fastclick.com
DoubleClick
http://www.doubleclick.com
ValueClick
http://www.valueclick
Burstnet Media
http://www.burstmedia.com
Advertising.com
http://www.advertising.com
Those are just a few of the big ones. Here is a site with a concise listing of advertising agencies available to internet publishers like ourselves, many with pop-up ad serving options :
Refer-it
http://www.referit.com/main.cfm?screen=displayList&cat=16&header=directory
How I found the answer ( Search Terms used ):
"mailing list signup percent success":
://www.google.com/search?q=mailing+list+signup+percent+success
"internet advertising statistics":
://www.google.com/search?q=internet+advertising+statistics
"mailing list conversion":
://www.google.com/search?q=mailing+list+conversion
"affiliate programs statistics":
://www.google.com/search?q=affiliate+programs+statistics
"internet average banner ctr":
://www.google.com/search?q=internet+average+banner+ctr
" internet statistics "average sale" ":
://www.google.com/search?q=internet+statistics+%22average+sale%22
"affiliate programs analysis":
://www.google.com/search?q=affiliate+programs+analysis
And of course my experiences on the internet since about 1997.
I hope I have helped you with your question. If you want clarification - please do ask for it. Good luck with your ventures!
SgtCory
Side Note:
As WebAdept mentioned "scumware" is horrible. But I must clarify - this is not a new development, as it's been around for years. These articles mentioned are a direct reflection that the industry is finally starting to take more notice. Visit these sites to learn more about 'scumware':
Thiefware
http://www.thiefware.com
Scumware
http://www.scumware.com
Good to see you around. I've been on a tight schedule otherwise I'd dig into this question of yours personally, as I've worked with several clients on getting and starting these programs. But, as I said, time is tight and we have several good researchers here that will give you as good or better answer than I could. But that's not the reason I'm dropping this comment in here. There has been a development in affiliate programs in the last few weeks, something that is called "slimeware" or "scumware", which you should at least be aware of as you venture into this area.
Read here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/27/084209&mode=thread&tid=98
and here
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/business/07ECOM.html?ex=1034740800&en=7c02182d3587586b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE and here
http://www.plastic.com/article.html?sid=02/09/28/01370820
more stories on this subject on the Google News service.
http://news.google.com/news?q=Limewire&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=n&oq=Limeware
Good Luck. I'm sure most of the larger affiliate programs will work something out on this, but its certainly not the end of this type of problem.
Thanks,
webadept-ga
ValueClick -
http://www.valueclick.com
Good Luck!
SgtCory
Regards,
editor480
www.foxpen.com
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