I get more sales than sign ups, but the sign ups definitely help. That's one of the nice thing about the eBay program; if your customers sign up and bid on anything, you get $25! White hat? Gray hat? I don't know what's what. I'm using traditional methods in a non-traditional way. Did you ever see McGuyver? He could take a wind-up clock, some paper clips, and a handful of marbles and make a cool gadget to shoot the bad guys. None of the tools he used were particularly dangerous, but the combination was. Was McGuyver white hat or gray hat? Just think of this as the McGuyver method (I probably should trademark that term). For those on the fence, here's some unsolicited feedback from buyers on another forum: Hope that helps. Kent
Wulfster, i don't mean to doubt you but don't you think you're being too vague? i was reading your article on the squidoo page and this caught my attention. Really? Your first sale on the first day? Do you know, it hard enough to get 1 visitor to your site on the first day of launch and your'ere talking about making a sale from BANS site. Its hard enough to get visitors to a content based site in week, let alone getting a clicks on your adsense ads from even the first 100 people to your site and you're claiming about making sales to your BANS site on the first of launch. The reality is even if you did ppc from the first day to drive traffic to your site it is nearly impossible to get a sale on the first day and you're claiming that you're consistently making sales? You know its hard enough to get someone to fill out their name and email for an opt-in list so forget making people punch in their credit card numbers. Okay so you know how to get visitors to your non-content based BANS site. Im sure that has something to do with ppc. But how do you know those ppc clicks will convert right away or or consistently? Because i know they won't. I implemented a BANS like site (computer electronic products) on my own using CJ web services. Guess what i drove highly targeted visitors to my site using ppc and guess what i made 0 sales for 3 months the site was up. Wulfster, i don't mean to to judge your methods of get visitors and sales but if you so confident, iwant you to share with us how you do it or just give us a glimpse into your secret of making sales because i very eager to hear about it.
What are you doing? Rather, not doing? I built a eBay site just using the editor kit (before BANS was even created) and it was monsterously successful within a week. Stop leeching off of people trying to get ideas for free. Get off your a$$ and make it happen! Congrats, Wulfster.
I think it's time to close this thread, it's becoming pointless, and with many fantasies in the middle. It's another thread of "oh my god i did it again!".
it might be helpful to post a list of your bans sites. how niche do you go - how far down the catergory tree to you pitch your sites?
This is a very interesting post - controversial and has merit. My two cents on the matter: Though I'm new to CJ I've been with CB for a while and have been successful as both vendor and affiliate. One thing I can say is YOU HAVE TO THINK LIKE THE BIG FISH! I'm not sure what analytics CJ/EBAY uses let you analyze markets/what's hot/selling, what's new etc. however I feel the most important 5 elements are indeed: 1) Market demand (popularity of the product among both consumers AND affiliates). 2) Targeted traffic to targeted offers in high volumes consistently. 3) Well built sales and promotional material. 4) Arm yourself with variation - Not just BANS or just specific products, and diversify your marketing efforts (not just ppc or just article/bum, but any way possible, offline, print, radio, video, optins/followup, running naked down a football field with your .com on your back during prime time TV - can't buy that for the $5000 fine it costs!). Utilize your vendors affiliate marketing materials to the most and make your own if they don't have much and yet the product is great. 5) READ a lot, research your products and vendors, ask for personalized support if you cannot convert. Vendors would be CRAZY not to help affiliates with their campaigns. There are ALL KINDS of formulas out there, and while the original post is both a bit hard to believe and is indeed a pitch, it does hold merit and I will attest to its possibilities on any marketing effort. CJ, CB, EBAY, AZOOGLE, IT DOESN'T MATTER! If you are great at marketing and understand business, how to analyze data well (demand/competitors ad campaigns/identifying new products before the masses/sales hotspots and timezones/etc), then turning over a 1-5% on every hundred highly targeted clicks is possible even on your first day! My first day with CB I made 4 sales, was the best day of my life! Not because I made $140 on a $12 adspend and a nice landing page, but because I researched a lot before I started and proved to myself that affiliate marketing works! Now I can do this 10 fold!! Then 20 fold!!! Don't ever give up on your efforts just re-focus, READ, and as a final TIP: "The best way to learn how to be an amazing marketer is to find a product that has sold and is reputable among other affiliates, and research that products affiliate resource page(s). THINK like the owner of the product. Why? Because if he/she managed to make this product popular on their own, then attract a bunch of great affiliates, he/she probably knows lot's of valuable information on internet marketing. Instead of buying all these 'overnight millions' books and trying to follow their tactics, think like the product owner and duplicate their efforts with your own product/idea, and you would sell it creatively to both consumers and affiliates - You will learn your most valuable information watching other affiliates promote your products " Make it a great day, if you haven't converted a dime yet, you may be trying too hard - work smart not hard. Knowledge and research is the foundation of any success, going into this IM game blindly and throwing ppc or bum around without proper knowledge is corporate suicide, and a roadmap of buying crappy products along the way to 'help' you get there... Norb.
confused, what about the UK they have an affiliate scheme on CJ just for Ebay.co.uk so i'm guessing BANS works with that?
Can anyone compare BANS to PHPBAY? (www dot wiredstudios dot com). PHP bay is configured to work with oscommerce templates or wordpress which may be good for seo. I'd like to hear others experience with both.
OK I'd like to chim in for niche selection for BANS, the secret of earning thousands with BANS (as I witness a friend who did it succesfully), also applicable to other niche: Identify the demand! Find the popular products in your niche, and build BANS around them! how to identify the popular products? easy, go to top online stores, check their top selling products, you will pretty much get a clue. Even eBay has such chart too! Ok i will give you a tip here, this is a very useful website for you to research: http://buzz.yahoo.com/overall/ Go to "video games", you will get good ideas on what's hot in gaming industry now. Another way is, go to niche forum, see what people are talking about. What are the products in their wish list? what are the products that everyone is raving about? I've wrote an article for this subject, if anyone interested please PM me.
I must agree with that. Bans is a great piece of software, and i say it's possible to do a sell on the first day, but for that you need a lot of factors: 1) old domain with a name related to the niche and if possible with traffic 2) some good stumbleupon exchange 3) some good digg exchange 4) some good mass rss ping We end on the first thing being said: TRAFFIC, without TRAFFIC bans don't do nothing.