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Newbie questions regarding Affiliate Programs and Marketing
chrisg
Posts: 1
Joined: 15 Oct 06
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13 Dec 06 2:32 am

Newbie questions regarding Affiliate Programs and Marketing

Sorry about the long essay of questions, I just think they all are about the same sort of thing. What is everyone elses thoughts on the following?

Is it possible/result of experiment whereby you have no ads, just your affiliate links, newsletter signup etc, compared to a site with ads well placed (optimized).

What sort of percentage of visitors stay longer at your site and give you more money or do they just leave? Do you end up driving your visitors away and lose money because they might have bought a product
you are an affiliate of, but instead just leave or click on an adsense ad?

Split-test?

I personally find that when I visit a site with no ads, I find it more refreshing & if it is well layed out, looks attractive and has valuable content I normally stay for quite a while, whereas with so many ads,
I get distracted with my train of thought and click an ad to see what it is about...

i.e. 50 cents odd for an add compared to say $10.00 plus for the sale & or even more for the newsletter signup.


My understanding is that ads are a great way of earning money if you have a average site or if you are targeting the wrong visitors to your site, or if this is the main aim of your site.

If you have an excellent site with lots of traffic, wouldn't it be better to have standard (non-Google) advertising and how much do companies pay for this - more than Adsense?


I believe the best place for ads is when the visitor has already signed up for something - newsletter, membership, forum, blog - where they will come back to the site in the future.


What sort of percentage of visitors that click on adsene ads come back to your site or remain browsing your site, sign-up to your newsletters or buy products that you are affiliated to ? Is this measurable?
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chatyak86
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Joined: 17 Jun 06
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13 Dec 06 2:50 am

 Ummm where to start on this one... I'm not sure if I follow some of your questions but I'll try......

If you are asking whether or not split testing a site with ads placed on it as compared to a site that has no ads, yes that is possible and you should probably do that anyways.

You can likely earn more from advertising rates from companies as compared to Adsense, depending on your traffic and click through rate.

There is no way to measure whether the person that clicked on the adsense ad came to your site again since you cannot track outbound clicks on adsense links... at least to my knowledge you can't.

Adrian
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sean06
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Joined: 16 Jun 06
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13 Dec 06 5:22 am

 hey Chris, have you already got a site thats getting a fair bit of traffic? If not, I'd worry about this first, then you'll be able to test things a lot better.

More visitors = More accurate split testing
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mimenta
Posts: 63
Joined: 11 Dec 06
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20 Dec 06 5:07 am

 You first need to consider what an ad is.
Rich text with links to product is really a ad too isn't it?

Well placed ads that relate to your site add to your credibility; you appear to be associated with the industry that is related to your topic and therefore are an authority.

I think you have raised a valuable point though - its easy to go overboard chasing the dollars, drown your site in ads and turn off the viewers who might be buyers in a less pushy environment.

Ads should be placed strategically so as the reader, you don't feel like you are playing Pin-the-ta-on-the-Donkey, looking for the information.
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