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A Hundred Clicks but Zero Sale
budaspam-affilorama
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01 Jul 13 9:51 am

A Hundred Clicks but Zero Sale

I'm relatively new to the affiliate thing. I have a puppy training site - specifically about bite prevention (http://www.puppydontbite.com/).

I'm 99% certain that my HopLinks are set up correctly, and I have tracking software that tells me how many banners get clicked on.

In the past 2 weeks, I've had over 100 clicks, meaning that 100 visitors clicked on a banner ad and went to the affiliate offer. I'm only promoting the 3 best converting affiliate products in my vertical...they all have gravity of 20 or higher.

And yet, I've not made a single sale. Not a single sale in the past 2 months actually - although my tracking only goes back 2 weeks.

Perhaps there's a disconnect between my copy and what the products offer (although I don't think this is the case)

Perhaps my hoplink isn't configured correctly (but again, i don't think that's the problem either since i verified them using Clickbank's recommended method).

Perhaps a conversion rate of less than 1% is normal...but that seems really low. Remember this is not a 1% clickthorugh rate. This is 1% of all people who have clicked on the banners and affiliate links, visited the product page, and not bought anything. ANd it's not 1%...it's actually 0% since i haven't made a single sale.

Once I get 1 sale - just 1 sale, then I'll know that the affiliate thing is legit. And i'll invest time and money into autoresponders and newsletters and more content. But before committing those resources, I really want to see a little bit of traction.

Any one else in the same boat?
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cecille.l
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01 Jul 13 10:28 am

 Hi budaspam-affilorama,

I'm sorry to hear you haven't made a sale. These 100 clicks... are they only on one particular product, or a total for all the three you promote on your site? You may be losing a bit from the Kingdom of Pets sales page because it has an option there for users to get a free report, instead of purchasing the product. The same goes for the other two products. They both have options for getting free information which users will only be too happy to sign up for. So, what *may be* happening is that users click your affiliate link, then sign up for the newsletter/free report/video.

One way to go around this is to make sure you are tapping in to your target market. Work on ranking for keywords that have high buyer intent, those that are into purchasing right away.

Hope that helps. Have a good day!
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Cecille

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budaspam-affilorama
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01 Jul 13 10:39 am

 it's across all 3 affiliate offers (Dove's Dog Training Online, Doggy Dan, and Kingdom of Pets).

That's really sneaky of Kingdom of Pets to do that. DO you know if affiliates receive legacy payments for this....ie. person A signs up for the newsletter today - but doesn't purchase until next week. Do we get credit for that later purchase? If not, I'll stop promoting them ASAP.
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budaspam-affilorama
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01 Jul 13 10:47 am

 sorry let me clarify. i send someone to the product page on Monday. They sign up for the newsletter (on the product page) but don't buy anything.

Thru their newsletter, Kingdom of Pets continues to market and advertise towards that lead....and that lead ends up buying something 3 mondays from now.........do i receive credit as the affiliate that brokered this introduction? or am i cut out of the loop entirely?
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cecille.l
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02 Jul 13 2:30 am

 Hi budaspam-affilorama,

I'm sorry, I can't say for certain if you will receive a commission for sending leads to Kingdom of Pets. I suggest you get in touch with their affiliate support and confirm if you are receiving commission of leads that sign up for their free newsletter/report.

It's also possible that you will get a commission, even if the user initially signs up for the newsletter. The cookies stay for as long as a month (you still need to confirm this with their affiliate support) so if the user decides to purchase, then you get the sale.

Hope that helps. Have a good day!
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Cecille

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budaspam-affilorama
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02 Jul 13 5:12 am

 I found this on their site....hope it's true

When a visitor clicks through to the Rocket Languages site using your unique affiliate url a cookie is stored on their computer. Then, if the visitor buys from Rocket Languages any time within the next 60 days you get paid a commission. It’s that easy!

We continually optimize our site to ensure the best conversion rates, and all of Rocket Languages’ courses have free trials with accompanying introductory newsletters which increase the chance of conversion within those first 60 days.

it would be awesome to receive a sudden surge in sales later this month from newsletter registrants.

thanks for your help
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cecille.l
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02 Jul 13 8:45 am

 Hi budaspam-affilorama,

That is for a different product though, or is Rocket Languages related to Kingdom of Pets? As I mentioned in my previous post, it's possible that you get the sale even if the user does not initially purchase since cookies can stay a week or longer. In this case, 2 months.

Hope that helps. Have a good day!
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Cecille

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budaspam-affilorama
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02 Jul 13 8:48 am

 Good question. It is on this page, which is branded both as Rocket Languages and Kingdom of Pets - http://www.kingdomofpets.com/aff/
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cecille.l
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03 Jul 13 3:44 am

 Hi budaspam-affilorama,

I don't have access to their affiliate area but it does say the same thing on the page you referred me to:

When a visitor clicks through to the Kingdom of Pets site using your unique affiliate url a cookie is stored on their computer. Then, if the visitor buys the product you’re promoting from Kingdom of Pets any time within the next 60 days you get paid a commission. It’s that easy!


So I guess even if the user signs up for the free newsletter, then buys within 60days, you get the sale.

Hope that helps. Have a good day!
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Cecille

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tankctrlr
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04 Jul 13 12:40 am

 Isn't Kingdom of Pets Mark Ling's site? Unless he sold it or something, I could of sworn I've seen him in a video walking us through it somewhere, and I have it in my "sites to emulate" favorites folder with his name on it, I must have saved it ages ago lol.
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cecille.l
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04 Jul 13 4:58 am

 Hi tankctrlr,

I didn't know Kingdom of Pets is Mark's site... so I asked a senior staff and apparently, it is! I have only seen him walk us through his WOW Blackbook site as well as his Beekeeping Bees site. Totally didn't know he's into pets too!

Thanks for sharing! Have a good day!
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Cecille

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aletta
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05 Jul 13 2:19 am

 Kingdom of Pets and Rocket Languages are all part of Mark Ling's empire. They're actually run by the same people out of the same offices... just down the road from our offices. I expect that the Kingdom of Pets affiliate program is run in the same way as the Rocket Languages affiliate program (although you should still check) and they just copied/pasted stuff from one affiliate site to the other. (Happens to the best of us!)

When someone goes to their site and signs up for their newsletter, your cookie is still active. It'll remain active for the length of time specified in the affiliate's area.

The only way your cookie would be erased is at the end of the cookie validity period, or if the visitor clicked on someone else's affiliate link. (That will overwrite your cookie. Two people can't earn commissions for one sale!)

Newsletters can be handy because it means the subscriber gets nagged a bit more about buying, and may increase the chances of them buying, compared to if they just decided "no, don't want to buy today" and disappeared forever.

It's just a different (slightly longer) way to the sale.

With regards to your original question... another thing I would look at is the particular pages that are sending the clicks to the merchant site. I have pages on one of my sites that can send loads of hops.... thousands even.... and never make a sale, because these people just aren't in a buying mood right now.

I have other pages that will convert 1 in 20 visitors I send to the merchant, because these pages are oriented at people who are already thinking of buying.

So take a look at the pages that are sending hops to the merchant. If you haven't done so already, make sure you've set up tracking IDs on hoplinks from different types of pages: Eg, a particular ID for your "information" style pages, another ID for your "review" or "product name" style pages. You'll be able to see which pages are sending the most visitors.

Another idea: If they offer it, you might be able to send visitors directly to the newsletter signup form, rather than the sales page. You might try doing this from your more "general information" type pages, where visitors might not be at the desperate buying stage. That way these visitors (who may not convert as well when sent directly to the sales page) will receive a lot more "priming" for the sale, over a longer period of time.
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PremiumMember
jmpruitt
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05 Jul 13 3:33 am

 although we talk about an average of 1% conversions, this is also over time. I have had pages that sent 1000 visitors with no sales, and got 10-15 sales in the next 100 visitors.

I agree with what Alletta said about reviewing your pages, and analyzing the buyer intent of your particular keywords. also, what is your traffic source? different traffic sources tend to convert at different rates in different niches. I have seen lots of traffic from twitter, but they rarely convert as well as search traffic or FB traffic. ]

Now its down to tracking and checking. it was 6 months before I started seening sales, and things were a lot easier, so just keep trying, and don't give up. its just time to test and analyze what is and isn't working. celebrate the small victories. you have been able to get people to convert to clicks on your links. many never make it that far before giving up.
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budaspam-affilorama
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05 Aug 13 6:11 am

 almost 500 clicks now on my affiliate links. about 50 order form impressions. not a single sale yet.

sigh.
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cecille.l
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07 Aug 13 10:19 am

 Hi budaspam-affilorama,

I'm sorry to hear that. Have you gone over your buyer intent keywords and the articles that contain these keywords as Aletta suggested? How is your subscriber list? You might want to do a quick email promotion through your list.

I know how frustrating this is. It is so easy to give up now, but I hope that you find the motivation to keep moving forward. Keep in mind our suggestions, particularly James' and Aletta's.

I wish you all the best!
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Cecille

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