What would you do if you had a high converting product? (with a steady 3% conversion rate) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Option#1) List my product on Clickbank and offer 50% to my affiliates. I will promote my product via adwords and let others promote it via PPC, article marketing, SEO etc… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Option#2) List my product on Clickbank and offer 75% to my affiliates. In this case I won’t be competing against my affiliates on adwords. In this case my main concern would be to help my affiliates close the sale. (I will create banners, write articles, emails, PPC ads, video training for my affiliates, etc..) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Option#3) Run all my marketing campaigns without the help of any affiliates. I will promote my product via adwords, media buys, SEO, article marketing, etc.. In this case I will use Authorize.Net as my Payment Gateway. (Authorize.Net has lower fees than Clickbank) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Option#4) ??? Any other ideas? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this matter. Best regards, John
I think your second option is best. If you have an army of affiliates, then you will make more money than just trying to sell the product by yourself. If the product truly converts as easy as you say, then getting affiliates wont be that difficult, especially if you put in the necessary efforts.
I would do one of two things, here, and I'm not quite decided which. The first possibility, for me, is your option 2 above. If it converts decent targeted traffic at a steady 3%, not only will you gradually get an army of affiliates (especially if you look after them as you suggest), but (even more importantly) you won't lose any of the affiliates you get. Affiliate turnover on Clickbank will not be a problem for any affiliates getting 3% conversion, because they don't get that on almost anything else there. They'll love it. They'll step up their efforts with it and drop other products to promote it more and more. I do think the 75% commission is a good idea to attract them in the first place, though. Remember that paying 75% commission as a vendor at Clickbank only really costs you about 55%, overall, of the affiliate sales because of Clickbank's incompetent affiliate-tracking always working in the vendor's favour: even vendors who do no promotion at all themselves get their proportion of sales that Clickbank haven't managed to accredit to the affiliate. For myself, the second option I might consider is just promoting it myself, but Big Time, to the exclusion of everything else. And if I did that, I wouldn't use Clickbank at all, and I'd use an encrypted .exe-file delivery system for it (something like eBook-pro, of which the new versions now work for Macs as well as for PC's) so that it can't end up on any torrent sites, file-sharing sites, or be stolen and re-marketed, which could just turn into a major problem with a product like that. This is, of course, a slower, more ambitious approach (and not one to do with a PDF, not even with a download guard, because with a PDF you can't prevent anyone from passing the product on to other people/places after they buy it, which can cost you a lot).
Did I just read there was a product converting at 3%? Yowza! Are you going to tell us what's your product, anytime soon? Or the niche, at least. If there's mutual benefit to be had, we might as well cut to the chase, wouldn't you agree? Nice way of stepping up your product, BTW!
It all depends on where the campaign were going in my hands alone. If I were representing the product solidly, by the time I GET my affiliates, I'll already have a host of resources for them from along the way. I would however, opt for choice #4 - I would actually pay out 90% commissions to affiliates - I would let them swamp adwords and all other media channels... the product would become a phenomenon... All the while I could be working on releasing a series of complimentary products - some with affiliate programs, some without.
Thank you for your replies. I'm really sorry guys - but I can't reveal the niche I'm operating. I can only say that it's a market with medium competition & medium levels of market saturation. If I introduce the product to the affiliates, I'm afraid the market will quickly become saturated, resulting in higher PPC costs. Right now the CPC is between $0.50 - $0.90 (on google content network)
I would go for option 2 also. I'm no PPC pro but .50-.90 on the content networks seems like an awful lot to me! (keep in mind I'm a cheap bastard!)
I'm not a PPC expert either, but this is a very competitive niche. On google search the CPC is between $1 and $2.
To me, this sounds like it could be a very realistic concern. But (in spite of the impression given by some affiliate conversations online) only a minority of Clickbank affiliates use PPS, I think. There could still be huge benefits from having affiliates using 6 or 7 other promotional methods. Also, although it's true that some affiliates may not like it, there's nothing to stop you from listing it on Clickbank with an affiliate-page, affiliate-support and everything, and still promoting it yourself either directly as the vendor selling it through another source or even as an affiliate yourself?
Either 2 or 3. If youd do #1 and your product is successful, you will see a lot of cheap copycats coming out, and they will all offer 75%. If you're able to pull out a successful campaign go with #3 . And just scale your campaign and enjoy the profits without any competition. #2 Is also a good solution, assuming you'll first on the market, you'll have the head start and gain a lot of momentum and affiliates, so it will be hard for the copycats to catch up
Having been an affiliate for a while now I recently started focusing on becoming a vendor and building 2 products at the mo. Currently I am facing the same dilemma, but my main concern is with bringing it to Clickbank is the horde of copycats that will follow you once they see your public sales stats. Most people tend to highlight the advantages and the army of affiliates blablabla. But, for example look at Earth4Energy and Greendiyenergy where the guys are sending each other DMCAs etc etc. all in public http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1507099 Or checkout legalaid's post here: http://www.clickbanksuccessforum.co...?p=23481&sid=3b3f1ce74eff6334a0218a71ae843db6 That's a big WTF So you might get lots of sales, but you have to be prepared for the increased competition from copycats if you experience the slightest success, because it will be public...So, in effect, you will have to continually reinvest part of your revenue to innovation and product improvement. Even as such, it may still be worthed. If I hit it fine with Adwords on my products I will consider bringing it to Clickbank, but will see. I may just stick with Google as the only partner
Hm... if the product is already converting well and selling so nicely, if that's such a golden niche you've come across that you won't even mention what it is, I don't understand why'd you bring this topic up in the first place. You should obviously keep doing your thing covertly and collecting all the rewards - thus choosing number 3 without thinking twice about it. I may be growing skeptic, but where you typed "what would you do if you had a nice converting product", I see only a seasoned marketist pulling off a sleight of hand where he actually means "I'm running this new product, and you'll all beg me to promote it when I'm done teasing your minds".
Smitten, I'm not here to recruit affiliates. I'm here to make friends and sometimes I will ask for their opinion. I'm really sorry If I offended you in any way. I actually have a lot of respect for all of you because you hang out in this forum. Cheers! John PS: I'd like to take this opportunity to bid you all Happy Holidays and to wish you a prosperous 2010!!
@johnjohn24: I took no offense, nor did I meant to impose any of it. All I did was a bit of scrutinizing, that's what we do here. Cheers, P.