Dear Lizmall,
Thank you for your question. The answer is not so obvious, and there
is no "one size" answer fitting all sites regarding affiliate
programmes. It depends on several factors, that you must think of.
First, you have to consider different aspects regarding the
demographics of the visitors to your site. Are they young? old? Why do
they come to your site? What kind of content are they looking for (you
can know that, partially, by looking at the site's logs)? How long do
they stay on the site? Do they click on links there? How many of them
are unique visitors? How many come again?
It relates to another question: "I need to shut it [the site] down".
Why? If the site is shut down or doesn't attravt visitors, who'd click
the links, and who would generate traffic to affiliate sites and money
to your pocket? If you meant that you have to stop working on it
(because of other obligations, such as school, family or work), you
still don't have to "shut it down". You also don't have to choose only
one affiliate programme, as you'll see later.
Rupert Farrow has written an article, which stresses the benefits of
good research on your site's keywords, visitor's demographics and
topic. It praises, by the way, a tool called Site Build It!, which
generates affiliate links:
Rupert Farrow, "My second web affiliate programs experiment earns
$1,000 (Update: up to $3,400) a month"
<http://www.associateprograms.com/search/affiliate-programs.shtml>
Site Build it!
<http://buildit.sitesell.com/>
You also have to think about the image you'd like to create to the
site. I would imagine that a site directed at children would not do
wisely, if they chosoe casinos, porn sites and alcohol stores as their
affiliates, and not (only) because of demographics, but because of
image problems. In addition, by linking to adult sites, you are taking
a risk, that some search engines would screen you out as an
adult-oriented site. As mentioned by the commentator, some
adult-oriented affiliate programmes have been know to increase profits
significantly.
Thirdly but sadly, you have to realise, that 60,000 a month is lot for
a site and very impressive, but might not yield that many hits and
profits as you would have hoped to. There are "online legends" about
people who'd made thousands a month from affiliate programmes, but
unfortunately, most make very little money and 60,000 a month is not a
number of visitors usually associated with these "success stories". If
you "shut down" the site, the number of visitors might only decrease.
Read a disillusioned article about the profits made from affiliate
programmes here:
The World of Affiliate Marketing
<http://www.homesfornh.com/weblog/archives/category/consumer/>
Moreover, affiliates change their policies, and things that are good
for one merchant might not work for another. For example, some
affiliates have had cookies, that "remembered", which site directed
the client to them, so if a client buys on a second or a third visit,
the associate would still receive commission. However, many sites now
maintain these cookies for a very short period - and the associate
gets nothing at the end.
As I said before, there is no one recipe. Your choice of affiliate
programme must rely on they specific type of sites that your visitors
are more likely to seek. Two affiliate programmes mentioned by you
(and several more that you haven't mentioned) "use" your content and
demographics.
AdSense uses the content of the site (and of the specific page) to
create the ads. This mean that your visitors, having read an article
about raising a llama in your apartment, would receive links to ads of
stores providing llama food, llama toys, anti-alpaca sites and other
accessories for those llama enthusiasts. (maybe it is time to remind
you that Google Answers Researchers are not Google emloyees, and
unfortunately,we'll get nothing from recommending AdSense.
Fortunately, we will not be in trouble if we advise against it,
either).
See:
AdSense Earning Graph
<http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/09/06/adsense-earnings-graphs/>
- "Two ProBlogger readers have decided to graph their Adsense earnings
(without actual dollar amounts) [...] Of course there are no numbers
indicating earnings levels - but the shapes of the graphs are
promising."
"Matthew Haughey, who runs Google ads on his TiVo-related Web site,
pvr. blogs.com, says, "I'm making hundreds of dollars a month, but
most people are making $5 a week."
(SOURCE: Kathleen Pender, "Bloggers find ways to profit", Sunday, San
Francisco Chronicle, May 30, 2004,
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/30/BUGO76TL221.DTL&type=tech>).
Associate Programs.com have a great guide to Google AdSense, where
they claim that high profits from the programme are theoretically very
feasible:
How to boost your AdSense revenue
<http://www.associateprograms.com/search/adsense.shtml>
AdSense competitors
<http://www.associateprograms.com/search/adsense-competitors.shtml> -
programmes similar to AdSense
Amazon, the oldest affiliate programme in the business, and other
stores, act in a similar way regarding relevance to content, but here
you'd have work a little. You have to add links to relevant books
about llamas and against alpacas, to the popular movie "My Llama and
Me" and so on. That means, that you have to think of a content
suitable - for each article or page on your site - on Amazon, and
perhaps also refresh it once in a while, in order to get visitors
clicking links again.
Amazon doesn't pay much, and most people know the site (and how to go
there) without your help, which is a problem. Most make very little
money through this affiliate programme: " Amazon pays between 5% and
15% on the sale of their goods. Basically, you get 5% for all goods
except books that are sold at between 10% and 30% off. If you link
directly to these, you will make 15%. [...] Amazon also now has a
sliding affiliate scale available that lets you earn between 4% and
6.5% on all sales depending on the number of sales you make each
quarter.
[...] Now, the vast majority of Amazon affiliates make little or no
money from their affiliate program. " (SOURCE: "Amazon.com Affiliate
Program Review", <http://www.webmastersreference.com/amazon-affiliate-program.shtml>).
Also read:
Sean Michael Kerner, "Affiliate Week Profile: Amazon Associates",
e_Commerce Guide, March 28, 2005,
<http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3493196>
Dave Taylor "How do I quickly build Amazon affiliate links on my
pages?" AskDaveTaylor.com,
<http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_do_i_quickly_build_amazon_affiliate_links_on_my_pages.html>
Scott Alan, "How To How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an
Amazon.com Affiliate Site", About.com,
<http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/homebasedbusiness/ht/amazonaffiliate.htm>
To get proportions about the profits generated from Amazon.com links,
understand that a site owner who has 12,000 to 15,000 visitors a day,
and recommends DVD and books on his site (that's why people are
there), "get maybe $100 a month from the Amazon links, sometimes less"
(SOURCE: Kathleen Pender, "Bloggers find ways to profit", Sunday, San
Francisco Chronicle, May 30, 2004,
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/30/BUGO76TL221.DTL&type=tech>).
Now, compare that to your 60,000 *a month*, and understand that you
have a long way to go to yield profit from Amazon.
However, the conclusions from Amazon, and similar affiliate programmes
that are relevant to you, are that it involves lots of work, and might
not increase your profits. This, in contrast to AdSense, which doesn't
involve a lot of work (it figures out by itself which ads to put), and
is recommended on many e-commerce sites.
A second type of affiliate programmes would be to link to sites
directly. Again, it should fit your content, but casinos,
adult-oriented sites, and eBay usually fall into this slot.
The market leader in the field of associate and affiliate programmes
is Commission Junction (CJ). Devin Comiskey wrote, that "[f]or anyone
looking to make some big bucks through affiliate advertising, one
destination that you must seek is Commission Junction. With a number
of online giants behind it, a detailed reporting system and a huge ad
selection, Commission Junction offers a bevy of choices almost
guaranteed to boost your bottom line." (SOURCE: Devin Comiskey,
"Affiliate Week Profile: Commission Junction", eCommerce Guide,
<http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3494641>).
Again, not every business posted there could increase your profit, and
you have to check the terms for each, but it is a useful tool for
choosing affiliate programmes.
Commission Junction
<http://www.cj.com/>
LinkShare offers a similar deal:
<http://www.linkshare.com/rc/index.shtml?>
Commission Junction, among many other businesses, offers the eBay
affiliate programme, which might be especially good, if your site is a
shopping mall, as your username suggests. There is no hard data on
eBya affiliate profits, but these are reported to be good. See, for
example:
eBay's Affiliate Program
<http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=28>
Sean Michael Kerner, "Affiliate Week Profile: eBay Affiliates",
e-Commerce Guide, March 30, 2005,
<http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3493876>
You've also mentioned Casino affiliate programmes, and there are a
handful of them online. Gambling sites could yield good profits. "The
average affiliate", so claims a site dealing with the poker industry,
could make up to $10,000 a month.
Poker Affiliate Programs
http://p067.ezboard.com/bbestaffiliates
DotAffiliate
<http://www.dotaffiliate.com/articles/casino.html>
One however must be cautious here: both sites are biased, support
these affiliate programmes and are supported by them.
To summarise, excluding adult-oriented, gambling seems to be, from the
information collected, the most profitable. However, it carries the
risk of tainting the image of the site; and the reports on profits are
clearly biased. AdSense offers the minimal amount of work in
comparison with the possible profit. However, the most profitable way
would be to integrate several affiliate programmes.
See more advice:
Associate Programs - Newsletter
<http://www.associateprograms.com/search/newsletter.shtml> - the
newsletter offers advice on every newsletter on new affiliate
programs, which ones to choose, what to beware of, etc. For example,
in the latest newsletter they offer an interesting advice: creating
many websites with *very* unique topics, and relying mostly on
AdSense, which they recommend:
Would you like dozens of websites?
<http://www.associateprograms.com/search/newsletter270.shtml#a1>
Adel Awwad, "How to Choose a Reliable and Profitable Affiliate
Program", <http://www.ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Choose-a-Reliable-and-Profitable-Affiliate-Program&id=59896>
eZine Articles - Affiliate Programs
<http://www.ezinearticles.com/?cat=Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Affiliate-Revenue>
Affiliate Directory
<http://www.affiliatesdirectory.com/>
ClickQuick
<http://www.clickquick.com/> - reviews on affiliates programmes. Gives
you an idea on how much money could be made through this affiliate
link.
A bit old analysis is provided at:
eCommerce Guide, Top Affiliate Programs, March 15, 2004
<http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3325841>
I hope this answers your question. Please contact me if you need any
clarification on this answer before you rate it. My search strategy
was:
["most profitable" "affiliate programs"],
[ebay +affiliates average "made * per month"],
[amazon +associates average "made * per month"] (and variations
thereof with other affiliate programmes)
[casino revenues affiliate profitable] (same: with other affiliate programmes) |
