ShopLincs impact on CPA

Hi all,

I've added ShopLincs to my site for my best-selling product, to see what kind of revenue it will generate. But Amazon sales outweigh Chitika clicks better than 3:1.

I'm getting about $0.35 per click for this particular product on ShopLinc, but if somebody buys it from Amazon (via me), I get $15. My understanding is that if their last Amazon click is via ShopLincs, I get no CPA, and only get the $0.35 CPC.

So far, ShopLincs results have underwhelmed me, even though the CTR and eCPM rate is very good. And it doesn't SEEM to have hurt Amazon sales of this particular product, but I don't see how it won't. I've only had it up for a few days.

I dropped Shopping.com from most of my reviers for the same reason. They gave people an alternative pathway to Amazon, my biggest revenue source.

Am I missing something here, or would I be crazy to use ShopLincs?

 

When I evaluated Shoplinc versus Amazon, versus whatever else, it came down to figuring out the "true" CPC for Amazon. Clicks do not always equal $ from Amazon while they do with CPC programs. Therefore if you login to Amazon, run the 'Daily Trends' report across a long time period like August 1 through August 31. Scroll down to the bottom of the report and look at the total in the 'Clicks' column. Now run the 'Earnings' report for the same time period and find the total amount you earned for August.

Now you have the total amount earned from Amazon and the total number of clicks. A little division and you have your effective CPC for Amazon.

Now you can compare this to your average CPC for AdSense, Chitika eminimalls, or Chitiaka shoplinc during the same time period. This is how I evaluate which system has the potential to earn me the most.

It would be more accurate to compare eCPM versus CPC, however unless you are doing some tracking on your own, Amazon doesn't provide you with the number of Ad impressions.

(By the way, I didn't see the shoplinc on the site I presume you are using it on. Did I miss it or did you take it down?)

 

I had a feeling you'd respond ;-)

Thanks. I'll run some numbers.

The only page it's linked to is on my 60CSx review. It's down in the comparison shopping section.

 

Got ya, I see it now.

 

Chitika or ShopLinc come out ahead on this, but we're talking apples and oranges here. There are several factors at play:

• I have multiple Amazon links on the page, increasing the chance of a click. Of course, I have this for Chitika too.
• There is the "trust" factor. Amazon may have it more than anyone on the web.
• Then there is the law of serendipity. If someone has a bunch of stuff already in their cart and orders it within 24 (? 48?) hours, I get 4-6+%

I find it hard to argue with total income too. Amazon wins that one hands down.

Unless we're talking about something else, they do... it's in the link-type report.

 

You are right, there are several other factors at play, and yes, it ultimately comes down to which one puts more $ in your pocket. But it is very difficult to do complete tests without completely replacing all of one type of an ad, running it for a few weeks, replacing it with something else and comparing. Even with that there can be differences in the types of visitors over that time. In which case employing a technique to switch the type of ad each page view to determine overall revenue and then performing comparisons.. It gets tricky to do anything scientific.

The Link type report won't report impressions of a pure text link unless you have built a "impression counted text link".

 

I've been wishing my GPS site was on WP, instead of Typepad, to make site wide ad changes easier. But after my experience upgrading another site yesterday, I'm about to change my mind!

I must have done it right, because it does appear to be counting them. The eCPM ain't too bad either.

 

I am not understanding your other factors GPS. All that stuff aside, at the end of the day which is making you more money?

I can accept the trust factor, but the vendors on Chitika are not fly-by-nights for the most part.

All your other factors wash out in the numbers analysis.

The likely impact is the most profitable plan is a mixture of both. The reality is some people who click on Chitika ads will not buy anything. That is why you only get 30 cents - 50 cents a click. Conversely, you only get paid on Amazon when something is sold. I just think by utilizing both you are probably going to hit your largest revenue base.

Of course the only way to know for sure is to test it over an extended period of time. Test it with Amazon alone, test it with Chitika alone, and test it with both running together. As Tflight mentioned though, that will not be 100% accurate either.

Perhaps you could funnel the site more so you attract the more serious buyers up front and get them to go to amazon right away, and people doing more browsing might end up hitting a chitika ad. Don't ask me how to do that, but I would think that would help if you could actually pull it off.

 

I definitely get more from Amazon.

I have some brands/items that are hot sellers, others that aren't. I think I'm going to put ShopLinc on the latter, where I have less to lose (and more to gain).