Affiliate marketing: Squeeze pages vs. content sites? plus... resources?
Hey All -
First post. Yay!
Hi fellow Warriors, please allow me to introduce myself:
My name is Matt, and honestly, I'm a bit embarassed it has taken me so long to become a member here at WF. I've popped in as a guest now and again, but for some reason never actually created an account.
Quick back story: My regular "Job" that I've been doing for 20 years is in IM (actually, in the beginning it was just "M" as there was no internet to speak of in '92! lol). I do site design, programming, DB architecure, offer concept, copywriting, etc. I've built out a ton of sites from the ground up, and a lot of them have been very successful.
But, of course, my work has always been primarily for someone else's benefit. Because our business is a family company, that someone else happens to be my Pop, so it hasn't really ever bothered me overly much. I mean, it's all about the family, right?
But still, I figure it's high time to start developing my own online presence!
Anyway, I mentioned that we've built out many websites and programs, and we've had (usually) great success with them. But, we've always focused on building out our own unique products, and relied on JVs/affiliate/viral/CPA for traffic. So, truth be told, I have some large, gaping holes in my IM knowledge.
One area we've never touched is straight up Affiliate Marketing. So, I feel like a complete newbie here.
Nevertheless, this is where I'd like to jump in and get something successful going.
Over the years I've dabbled here and there... Grab a clickbank product link, or a product from some affiliate network, buy some ads, get a bit of traffic, maybe a sale or two... But, never enough commission to justify the ad cost.
Some of you probably already see the problem... I was sending ad traffic directly to the vendor, so that THEY got all the advantage of the traffic - which I paid for!
So, I'm approaching this differently this time, and what I should've been doing from the start... Build the list first, then offer multiple and various affiiate programs over time.
But, where I'm waffling right now is: Should I setup a basic squeeze page, send traffic there, and force the list signup before offering content? Or, should I build out a site with content and provide a list opt-in on the site.
I'm curious as to what is working for you.
Seems to me that CPC/CPM advertising would be better sent to a squeeze page, but search engine traffic is probably better to go to a "content" site. But I could be wrong about that.
And for those of you doing affiliate list-building with the squeeze page thing, what do you do with the new subscriber after they opt-in? Obviously you give them the ebook, or report, or whatever you promised them, and then they get put into some kind of drip mailing system, but I mean where do you send them immediately after submit? To an offer straight-away, to a content website, or just a thanks-for-subscribing-here's-your-ebook page? Just curious what is working for you.
Also, I'm planning on building out sites in several niches for this endeavor and am wondering how others have done this... i.e. rapidly deploy several custom sites and/or squeeze pages in various niches?
I've always contructed sites from the ground up, custom graphics, custom programming, etc. but that just takes too much time to quickly build out multiple sites.
What I'm hoping is to learn about some resources others have used to do something like this.
For example:
I'd really appreciate any help or guidance here from those who've been there, done that!
Thanks,
Matt
First post. Yay!
Hi fellow Warriors, please allow me to introduce myself:
My name is Matt, and honestly, I'm a bit embarassed it has taken me so long to become a member here at WF. I've popped in as a guest now and again, but for some reason never actually created an account.
Quick back story: My regular "Job" that I've been doing for 20 years is in IM (actually, in the beginning it was just "M" as there was no internet to speak of in '92! lol). I do site design, programming, DB architecure, offer concept, copywriting, etc. I've built out a ton of sites from the ground up, and a lot of them have been very successful.
But, of course, my work has always been primarily for someone else's benefit. Because our business is a family company, that someone else happens to be my Pop, so it hasn't really ever bothered me overly much. I mean, it's all about the family, right?
But still, I figure it's high time to start developing my own online presence!
Anyway, I mentioned that we've built out many websites and programs, and we've had (usually
) great success with them. But, we've always focused on building out our own unique products, and relied on JVs/affiliate/viral/CPA for traffic. So, truth be told, I have some large, gaping holes in my IM knowledge. One area we've never touched is straight up Affiliate Marketing. So, I feel like a complete newbie here.
Nevertheless, this is where I'd like to jump in and get something successful going.
Over the years I've dabbled here and there... Grab a clickbank product link, or a product from some affiliate network, buy some ads, get a bit of traffic, maybe a sale or two... But, never enough commission to justify the ad cost.
Some of you probably already see the problem... I was sending ad traffic directly to the vendor, so that THEY got all the advantage of the traffic - which I paid for!
So, I'm approaching this differently this time, and what I should've been doing from the start... Build the list first, then offer multiple and various affiiate programs over time.
But, where I'm waffling right now is: Should I setup a basic squeeze page, send traffic there, and force the list signup before offering content? Or, should I build out a site with content and provide a list opt-in on the site.
I'm curious as to what is working for you.
Seems to me that CPC/CPM advertising would be better sent to a squeeze page, but search engine traffic is probably better to go to a "content" site. But I could be wrong about that.
And for those of you doing affiliate list-building with the squeeze page thing, what do you do with the new subscriber after they opt-in? Obviously you give them the ebook, or report, or whatever you promised them, and then they get put into some kind of drip mailing system, but I mean where do you send them immediately after submit? To an offer straight-away, to a content website, or just a thanks-for-subscribing-here's-your-ebook page? Just curious what is working for you.
Also, I'm planning on building out sites in several niches for this endeavor and am wondering how others have done this... i.e. rapidly deploy several custom sites and/or squeeze pages in various niches?
I've always contructed sites from the ground up, custom graphics, custom programming, etc. but that just takes too much time to quickly build out multiple sites.
What I'm hoping is to learn about some resources others have used to do something like this.
For example:
- Wordpress vs. something else like prepackaged HTML templates?
- If WP, are there any "theme packs" or plugin packs out there you guys would recommend? One thing I definitely want to do is be able to track campaigns, I'm sure WP can accomodate this, but not sure what plugins will accomplish this.
- A decent, but cross-niche PLR package for free reports and maybe other site content?
- A royalty-free clip-art library? Do y'all have a line on something all encompassing or do you use something like Dreamstime where you essentially pay per image?
I'd really appreciate any help or guidance here from those who've been there, done that!
Thanks,
Matt