I am planning to (gradually) start adding affiliate links and pages to a 5 year old gemology, jewelry, precious gems, pearls information site .. asia-gems.com It seems that Shareasale has a variety of good programs for jewelry, diamonds, precious gems, pearls, etc .. And while diamonds may sparkle, I plan on mostly targeting the $50-150 range. I assume that I will need to do some SE advertising (Overture? MSN? Google?), although my ad budget would be quite limited. I would really appreciate some suggestions from successful affiliates on how to make my marketing plan work best.
For that price range, a jewelry merchant that has done well for me and is at Shareasale is emitations.com As far as PPC, jewelry is a tough market because of the usually higher bids and you get more lookers than buyers, but it can be done. Out of the 3 you mentioned I like Google the best. MSN is good since I've found the bids to be a little lower overall but it can be a mood changer with some minor bugs still and the reporting is really behind.
Hi TrustNo1, Emitations caught my eye as well, although I haven't seen any of their merchandise personally. I think that is a great idea. I'm an Accredited Gemologist, although mostly as a hobby, and being here in Thailand have seen thousands of fine colored gems. Problem is, colored gems can vary 1000:1 in quality and that is hard to represent via affiliate sales. Then there are the lab created and diffussion heat treated issues. While I believe I have the content on my site to support diamonds, I think they are tough items to sell online, especially larger loose diamonds .. although I hope I am wrong. I had Mondera on the site very briefly, about 2 years ago .. but dumped all my affiliates after Linkshare pulled a couple of very sneaky moves .. Do you have recommendations for PPC other than those I mentioned?
"I'm an Accredited Gemologist, although mostly as a hobby, and being here in Thailand have seen thousands of fine colored gems." You know Chris and AMWSO who help with the Mondera program also help with Emitations http://www.amwso.com/ that's their site. And on top of that, they're in Thailand too. They're very helpful also, I'll message him for you. As far as PPC, i just stick to the main 3. The other 2nd and 3rd tier PPC are pretty much junk traffic. I find you can get some low bids by just choosing super targetted keywords which is good two-fold since you'll get lower bids and the more targetted keywords you have the better chance for conversion.
Hi Grunt, Patrick here, I'm the affiliate manager for Emitations.com, and as Trust No.1 pointed out also based in Thailand. Feel free to drop me an email at patrick < at > emitations.com for more details on the program. Best Regards, Patrick Goodfellow Emitations Partner Support Manager
Do make it a point to have good jewellery etc.-related content, ie. information on the site. This would serve to warm up the visitors into the "open-to-buy" frame of mind. (Helping the visitor make an informed decision as to what to go in for or what to purchase; you could come out with a friendly advice here and a tip there.) Writing articles, likewise, is a good way of promoting your site. You could go a step further by incorporating in-demand keywords in these articles.
I will, Patrick. I think you guys have some body pierce jewelry as well? My site covers everything from basic gemology to the real diamond scams to colored gem grading to "Buying Your Engagement Diamond: for Men Only"
Hi ajoshi, Yes, I have lots of articles as well as technical data. I am presently working (v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y) on an article on Jade; jadeite and nephrite. Part of what I am trying to learn are the nuances of when and how to use a text link and when and how to use a display. I'm also racking my brain for topics that haven't been done to death, on which I can create some interesting articles, or have a pro create them for me.
I had ocassion to check out emitations.com today. Two things really turned me off: -Liveperson -Contact us - 800 number in the header I'm not going to give you my hard earned customers. I will avoid any affiliate who uses 800 numbers.