I agree with TigerPublishing & Chri5123. As our company is both affiliates and vendor, we know that 23% conversion is not difficult to achieve. As what Chri5123 mentioned, we do have affiliates that are converting very well and we also have affiliates that send a lot of hops but just do not convert. These super affiliates that converts do not just use PPC as the only marketing method but uses many marketing methods, and that's why they are converting. In fact, as an affiliate, we have a PPC campaign that have been converting consistently for us at above 20% for the last 3 months. Vendors will always look at their stats and then provide the highest best conversion percentage as a goal and benchmark for other affiliates who may be interested in promoting the product. So basically a 23% conversion may be coming from a top super affiliate whereas in most cases, most affiliates will do 3-10% conversion.
This is just a trick to make more affiliates come on board to start promoting. Some vendors will even buy their own products whit few affiliate accounts they have created!!! Just to boost the conversions then post the screen shoots here.
I am always skeptical of the allegedly high conversion rates, but that is just my nature... I guess with anything over the internet, you need to be careful of who/what to believe...
The thing is there are tons of affiliates out there who are good at PPC and tons more that are not. The good ones aren't paying $1.50-$2 per click unless they have a high converting page and offer. They know kindergarten math too The good ones are using long tail keywords that convert and paying pennies for clicks. They actually know how to do good keyword research. That is why they are "super affiliates". They are good at what they do and they get paid well for it. What I'm saying is that there are ways to get cheaper clicks even in Adwords. So many factors like Quality Score, search volume, and other things affect how much you pay per click. People who don't know these things are wasting money and wondering why they aren't rich yet. The people who ARE bidding $1.50 per click have a high converting lander/offer and it's profitable for them. If this were easy this business would have been overrun by internet gold diggers by now. It's not.... The best affiliates make the most money. Period. The rest feed off their scraps. Here's a quote I live by: Affiliate marketing is simple, but never easy. It's learnable, but the less work you put into keyword research and the less you learn about the PPC engines and how they work the less money you'll make.
Never believe any vendor that claims 1:20 or even 1:30. There are a lot of sleazy vendors out there that will say anything to make money. There is NO product on CB that consistently converts at those rates. Theyre clearly just using doctored 'statistics' to fool affiliates. For example: I had an affiliate who sent 1 hop and made 1 sale.... my product is converting at 100%!!!! Use common sense and you'll be ok.