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Finally getting sales after 2 years!!

by Snow_Predator
35 replies
My first ever attempt on IM was a complete flop. I set up a blog using the Google Sniper method, promoting a product on Clickbank.

For some 2-3 years, I was ranked on the first page for my moderately competitive keyword, and I DIDN'T GET A SINGLE SALE! I even wrote to the merchant asking him if his affiliate links were working. I even posted on Warrior Forum asking if this darn merchant was stealing from me!

Even after some 2 years+ of not making sales, I looked at my site and thought it was just brilliant. A very impartial review, and to this day, after all I've learned about copywriting, I don't see anything strikingly wrong about my review site.

Now, just a few days ago I started making one sale per day for just 10 visitors per day to my site. I'm ranking #1 for my "moderately" competitive keyword (yeh, and only 10 visitors per day, but such is the competition for Clickbank products).

This came after the merchant changed his salespage. I haven't changed my site since I set it up 3 years ago.

Now the lesson I learned from this is you gotta make sure the merchant's salespage is darn good before you put a lot of effort into promoting his product. I know that everyone tells you this, but you don't really learn properly until you experience it for yourself.

Hah, and all this time despite my own site looking great in my eyes, I always thought it was my site that must have sucked, but it didn't, twas the merchant's salespage to blame.
#finally #sales #years
  • Profile picture of the author Vincenzo Oliva
    There you go, lesson learned. Find or create a reliable scorecard to evaluate an offer page for it's potential to convert. Your sales are only as good as the products sales page's ability to close the sale.
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  • Profile picture of the author BradBergeron
    Congrats Snow and I'm glad you learned this important lesson! Your job is to peak interest in his product, the merchant's job is to sell the product. You can peak as much interest as possible, but if the merchant doesn't follow up on his job, then you don't get paid.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin6672
    Congrats on making some sales!

    This is the exact reason I create my own products after I test the niche to see if it's worthwhile. It's much better to have 100% control even if you don't get it 100% right. It all come down to taking action.
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    • Profile picture of the author Snow_Predator
      Originally Posted by Kevin6672 View Post

      Congrats on making some sales!

      This is the exact reason I create my own products after I test the niche to see if it's worthwhile. It's much better to have 100% control even if you don't get it 100% right. It all come down to taking action.
      Yeh, you're totally right there. I have made my own product and through it I've made more sales than in all of my affiliate venutures combined. The tracking possibilities are also far greater, the amount you learn is phenomenal. I need to improve my own salespage though, when I'm getting at least a 0.5% conversion rate, I'll then start employing affiliates on Clickbank.
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  • Profile picture of the author MichaelAppleton
    Well done snow, a great little earner you have there then. Build on it and scale upwards
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  • Profile picture of the author MassiveMarketer
    Congrats! Well the good thing here is you learned something and definitely you'd be able to make use of it the next time. It's just starting for your. Who knows what more you can do.
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    • Profile picture of the author regska
      Congratulations! You'll never be where you are now if you haven't experience that. Lesson here is to make sure that the sales page is good, not just the product. Sales page is where we talk about the product and the benefits, so we should make sure that we are delivering the message very good.

      People will not be interested if the sales page is bad, even if you have the hottest product. The first thing that they will see is how you deliver the message before they can notice the product.

      So the best thing to do here is to have a very good product, and a very good sales page as well.
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      • Profile picture of the author oneplusone
        Experienced marketers like myself are well aware of the dangers of bad copy.

        Sadly many newbies often overlook this, they do EVERYTHING right but don't quite understand that ultimately good persuasive copy is needed to "close the deal" on the salesletter and for people to get their cards out and buy.

        When I promote as an affiliate I occasionally create my own salesletter for the offer, because if I see a weak salesletter and use my own copy the conversion rate will be much higher.

        Bad copy is like a bad song, you can give it plenty of airplay but hardly anyone will buy it.
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        • Profile picture of the author attractionmarketing
          First of all well done your patience has paid off, I must admit when I am deciding which products to promote I look to see if anyone else has made a sale, this can give an indication as to how well the copy converts, I also read the sales letter through and If it would convince me to buy then I test it out with a few campaigns and buid from there.

          Originally Posted by oneplusone View Post

          Experienced marketers like myself are well aware of the dangers of bad copy.

          Sadly many newbies often overlook this, they do EVERYTHING right but don't quite understand that ultimately good persuasive copy is needed to "close the deal" on the salesletter and for people to get their cards out and buy.

          When I promote as an affiliate I occasionally create my own salesletter for the offer, because if I see a weak salesletter and use my own copy the conversion rate will be much higher.

          Bad copy is like a bad song, you can give it plenty of airplay but hardly anyone will buy it.
          Wow I have never thought of rewiting the sale letter, do you let the vendor know? and do you then just link your sales copy straight to the checkout page? ie bypassing the vendors sales page.
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    • Profile picture of the author Pradeep Bhagwat
      Atlast after two years you are making sales is very good news. If we take your journey to success as a case study, then it underlines importance of salespage. It is very useful conclussion for everyone. Thanks for sharing this.

      - Pradeep
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    • Profile picture of the author MarketingTactics
      First - Congrats! I think that your story prove that patience is a key factor in IM business. it's take time to succeed.

      Think where you been today if 2 years ago instead of building 1 website you would build 10?

      The conclusion - patience and taking actions = success.
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  • Profile picture of the author GoogleWarrior
    Way to GO! Congratulations!
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Million
    Hey Snow,

    I would also take from this that it's imperative you keep building sites and testing out all kinds of offers on a regular basis, rather than putting your eggs in a basket and waiting... just think how many winners you would have had in 2-3 years if you did one site a week!

    Also another reason to split test primary offers...
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  • Profile picture of the author JackTriggs
    While its good you're making sales, now's the time to really knuckle down so to speak, and really start taking steps towards huge growth
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  • Profile picture of the author Suzanne7557
    Ok, I have a product on clickbank reiki chick training. I started the site 2 months ago. Not a single sale. I've gotten a few reviews and advice from another forum. What exactly makes Great! sales page? I've followed others as examples.
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  • Profile picture of the author 04real
    Originally Posted by Snow_Predator View Post

    My first ever attempt on IM was a complete flop. I set up a blog using the Google Sniper method, promoting a product on Clickbank.

    For some 2-3 years, I was ranked on the first page for my moderately competitive keyword, and I DIDN'T GET A SINGLE SALE! I even wrote to the merchant asking him if his affiliate links were working. I even posted on Warrior Forum asking if this darn merchant was stealing from me!

    Even after some 2 years+ of not making sales, I looked at my site and thought it was just brilliant. A very impartial review, and to this day, after all I've learned about copywriting, I don't see anything strikingly wrong about my review site.

    Now, just a few days ago I started making one sale per day for just 10 visitors per day to my site. I'm ranking #1 for my "moderately" competitive keyword (yeh, and only 10 visitors per day, but such is the competition for Clickbank products).

    This came after the merchant changed his salespage. I haven't changed my site since I set it up 3 years ago.

    Now the lesson I learned from this is you gotta make sure the merchant's salespage is darn good before you put a lot of effort into promoting his product. I know that everyone tells you this, but you don't really learn properly until you experience it for yourself.

    Hah, and all this time despite my own site looking great in my eyes, I always thought it was my site that must have sucked, but it didn't, twas the merchant's salespage to blame.

    Excellent discovery and a very nice thing to share. So basically it was the exact same product but just a different sales page? When you first saw the salespage (back when you started with the program) did you yourself feel like buying from the merchant or were you iffy about buying as well?


    JP
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    • Profile picture of the author Snow_Predator
      Originally Posted by 04real View Post

      Excellent discovery and a very nice thing to share. So basically it was the exact same product but just a different sales page? When you first saw the salespage (back when you started with the program) did you yourself feel like buying from the merchant or were you iffy about buying as well?

      JP
      I was convinced to be honest and went on to buy the product. The salespage simply happened to appeal to me personally, but I suppose it didn't to many others. And yes, it was the exact same product with a TOTALLY different salespage. I'll give you a hint - video marketing freakin works! lol

      I should add that I used the product for myself and totally fell in love with it. It's one of the VERY few products on Clickbank that are exceptionally good. That's another reason I'm so happy it's finally selling.

      I didn't want to give up on this particular product for a LONG time! Because I believe in it. But in the end I just gave up and left my review site on the side. I actually came close to not renewing the domain just a couple of months ago!

      I then did go on to build other similar sites for products that I knew totally sucked (but had high gravities)! But I kinda put my conscience aside and I hated it, despite getting more sales than my first product.

      Mind you though, the only time I started to get repeat and consistent sales was when I put my own product out there.

      Trouble with affiliate marketing is that a lot of people will see your site, even if it ranks for a buying keyword, but decide to buy later, at which time they may not buy with YOUR affiliate cookie embedded in their browser, so you don't get any commission.

      However with your own product, it doesn't matter how they end up buying it, you'll still get paid!
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      • Profile picture of the author ikelove
        Originally Posted by Snow_Predator View Post


        Trouble with affiliate marketing is that a lot of people will see your site, even if it ranks for a buying keyword, but decide to buy later, at which time they may not buy with YOUR affiliate cookie embedded in their browser, so you don't get any commission.

        That's why you put up a squeeze page to get the name and email of your visitors and build a list so you can sell to them again at a later date.
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        • Profile picture of the author Snow_Predator
          Originally Posted by ikelove View Post

          That's why you put up a squeeze page to get the name and email of your visitors and build a list so you can sell to them again at a later date.
          Yes, I need to give that another try. My first email campaign flopped, most likely because I followed Robert Deiss' advise to promote something in every email, and to email every day! I suppose Robert Deiss' material isn't for beginners. His material probably works better for those who already have a reputation (himself as an example) in their market.

          Thanks for the reminder, I do planning on returning to email marketing.
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          • Profile picture of the author Matt Morgan
            Finally getting sales after 2 years!!
            Better late than never

            Congratulations!
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          • Profile picture of the author Super Affiliate
            Originally Posted by Snow_Predator View Post

            Yes, I need to give that another try. My first email campaign flopped, most likely because I followed Robert Deiss' advise to promote something in every email, and to email every day! I suppose Robert Deiss' material isn't for beginners. His material probably works better for those who already have a reputation (himself as an example) in their market.

            Thanks for the reminder, I do planning on returning to email marketing.
            Truly having your own big list is the key to big fat commissions month after month. It's hard to keep on feeding your subscribers with good contents but it will definitely reward you every time you send out a promo. : )
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          • Profile picture of the author addice
            Cograts Snow_Predator! So jealous of you! (*joking!)

            How about posting your squeeze page link at your signature? Would love to see it! ^_^
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  • Profile picture of the author Snow_Predator
    thanks for all your encouraging replies folks. As advised by most, I will go on to scale things up. I'll write articles and add them as subpages to my site, then do some major SEO backlinking to get them ranking, thereby increasing traffic to my site.

    But I wont promote any more Clickbank products as an affiliate for a while. I'm gona focus more on my own product and focus on developing my copywriting skills. I may come back to being an affiliate later, but I may find that I don't need to. See how it goes.
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  • Profile picture of the author cragar
    I have been working at making $$ on the net for over 2 yrs myself and it feels good when you get something for your efforts. I am hoping that you will continue to get additional sales. Now that you know your site is working(thanks to a renewed salespage) I would suggest putting some effort into ranking it with additional keywords. Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
    Congrats man!

    Assessing the vendors salespage is VERY important. If it doesn't make YOU want to buy, it may not make anyone want to buy.

    The best way to see if a vendor has their sales funnel and affiliate section setup properly is to buy the product from your own link. I know that's generally frowned upon but it's important.

    You weren't going to buy the product anyway so it's better to get half your money than none.

    It will show you if your affiliate commissions are actually going to be paid to you.

    It will let you actually see the product so you can really decide if it's worth promoting.

    Lots of marketers don't care if the product is good or not as long as it sells. I prefer to sell things that I believe in so that the person that buys it is happy with it and doesn't go looking for a refund.

    As Scott Million said, build these suckers weekly or at least on a regular basis.

    2 sites per month x 3 years x 1 sale per day at $20 = A LOT of money.

    (I'm not going to build a differential equation to calculate it, but 72 sites making a sale a day at $20 x 30 days = $43,200/mth Not bad...better get started.)
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  • Profile picture of the author good2go4
    Firstly congratulations - you must be thrilled - there might be hope for my affiliate sites yet, lol. Well done.

    A couple of people in this thread have mentioned the idea of checking the vendors sales pages using the "will I buy it" framework to assess it - to be honest that is where I think I go wrong because I am an advertisers dream reader - I believe what I read and I get caught up in the logic of the idea and out comes the credit card again - so is it possible that another more feasible guideline could be put in place to determine if a sellers sales copy would work or not?
    Best wishes
    lisa
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    • Profile picture of the author Snow_Predator
      Originally Posted by good2go4 View Post

      Firstly congratulations - you must be thrilled - there might be hope for my affiliate sites yet, lol. Well done.

      A couple of people in this thread have mentioned the idea of checking the vendors sales pages using the "will I buy it" framework to assess it - to be honest that is where I think I go wrong because I am an advertisers dream reader - I believe what I read and I get caught up in the logic of the idea and out comes the credit card again - so is it possible that another more feasible guideline could be put in place to determine if a sellers sales copy would work or not?
      Best wishes
      lisa
      Thanks, I am thrilled. I can't say if there's hope for your affiliate sites, but I can definitely say there's hope for you! Some sites will simply NEVER make it and it's up to YOU to learn how to discern this and not try to save a sinking ship, but rather to focus your efforts on new ventures.

      Regarding your request for a more feasible guideline... the only way you'll really be able to tell if a piece of copy is truly good, is if you learn to write copy yourself.

      Study copywriting. Read the Gary Halbert letter and do everything he instructs, Gary was a true genius. For a more modern touch, I suggest John Carlton, who is my favourite living copywriter. His 'Kickass copywriting' series is amazing! Both Halbert in his letter and Carlton in his Kickass copywriting audio series give you a reading list to set your foundation as a copywriter.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ofthemix
    Congratz! It's always nice to see your efforts paying off. It just sucks you had to wait for the vendor to kick their sales page into gear before it happened.
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    • Profile picture of the author FredJones
      This is something I always ensure - that the product I am selling actually sells. And looking at the vendor's salespage is a critically important thing in the process.

      Think of it - if you were in the shoes of the buyer facing the same problem, does this sound like a legitimate solution to your problems, reading the seller's page?

      If not, then I would not buy.

      And this is the precise reason - whenever I enter a digital product market as an affiliate, I take a careful look at whether I have sufficient number of alternative options (sellers) so that I can switch to another vendor if my current vendor does not work.
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  • Profile picture of the author averagejenny
    Congratulations Snow and all that hard work paid off for you.. It comes to show you as long as you stay consistent, the rewards will follow. It may take some time but it is worth it.
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  • Profile picture of the author simbat
    Being on the first page is not necessarily means success. there are many other factors that should be checked.
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  • Profile picture of the author alanaj
    Congrats Snow_Predator!
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  • Profile picture of the author pd5009
    Lesson Learned, and money earned Congrats for your sale!
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  • Profile picture of the author Ronny Kibet
    great and thank for that information i also kind of felt into the same category as i picked a niche with an idiotic sales page.i changed to a differnet product just to see how things goes and bum, cash rolled in the next day.
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  • Profile picture of the author mnonline
    You did a great job there warrior Now it's time to optimize it for better performance. Add something extra to boost your income if necessary. 1st position is the best as it can get. You should ask some warriors here for advices how you can get the most out of your site

    To your success,
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