Okay so we all know these past 6-8 months EPN has turned out to be a great affiliate program that turned really ugly. Has anyone successfully replaced their EPN ads with other relevant affiliate programs and has earned equal to if not more than EPN?
I've personally started moving away from EPN a bit, and started working on CJ specific program/storefronts. I've been using PopShops (Enterprise) to develop stores. Commissions are much much higher, but fewer in between than EPN. I know a lot of people go to Amazon, but I have the worst luck with that, and the 1 day cookie just doesn't cut it for me. hanji
Yea I know the 1 day cookie robs a lot of affiliates. I wonder why they don't change that - they would get a lot more affiliates like myself on board.
I'm adding Popshops to existing EPN sites. So far, only one of the sites is generating conversions, and they are much fewer than eBay conversions. While I'm not abandoning EPN, I'm not currently expanding that agenda and am focussed on diversifying. Those folks have written the book on how to kill off a great affiliate program. In some ways I feel thankful toward EPN for being so flaky, since, when I find something that converts well, I tend to work on that to the exclusion of other opportunities. They've forced me to look to other monitization opportunities. That has to be to the good.
If you can handle the longer payout periods amazon.com is still a good program to go with and has a huge variety of products.
Not correct. cookie is 7 days for sales and 30 for ACRU. this is for EPN, It is Amazon who has the one day cookie.
Problems with EPN notwithstanding, I currently can't think of another program where you have access to such a constantly-changing catalogue of products like on eBay. This is great for SEO because your pages always have fresh content on them, if you are displaying actual products, not just banners. With programs like CJ, Amazon etc. your content tends to be a lot more static and you have to work a lot harder on focusing on niches or individual products, creating content and attracting traffic to it. For me, an alternative to eBay/EPN would be another program with similar, auction-type listings, and I don't know of one right now...
No, I'm just adding Popshops. I use BANS or phpbayPro and have left all those product pages in place.
Yep. I feel the same way.. and doing the same thing. I've been slowly trying to include more PopShop pages in existing EPN store fronts. Also, I've been creating straight up popshop sites. Next I'll probably start converting EPN sites to straight popshops depending on the niche. PopShops are much harder to get sales in my opinion, but the high commissions really make up for the low click count and dry spells. I might only get 2-5 sales on a site/month.. but that would come very close to a 'average' site that was using EPN with many sales. I'm still trying to figure out what works.. and what doesn't. hanji
You really have to remove all EPN ads to see the true effectiveness of Popshops. I think I'm going to do this with one of my sites and see how it goes. If I do I will make a thread.
I mean you have to remove the EPN ads to test the real effectiveness of the ads since your EPN ads could be taking away good clicks, or even having that many ads on your site all at once might be detrimental. I'm going to do this with one of my sites I just have to think about which niche is the most appropriate to start with. I will remove all EPN ads and replace them with popshops and then test the earnings for a month or two. If they are about even might as well go with Popshops - who knows how EPN is going to scheme to hurt earnings more (like with the new ACRU structure).