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Electronic cigarette CPA does not convert?

by FredJones
12 replies
Friends, I am having a rude shock this week. As many of you know my SEO skills are wonderful, and I had relied upon those skills to start a webpage this year and have reached the bottom half of the first page for the keyword "e cigarette" 3 days back. I am at second page for "electronic cigarette", "electronic cigarettes" and "e cigarettes" among the other main keywords.

And the shock is...

I am getting a decent traffic from Google.com (130+ per day), a good click-through (shade less than 20%), have a wonderful review page (remember, I am a reasonably experienced hand and have a fair idea on what converts when it comes to sales, though I am a greenhorn in CPA and this was the first time I was working on what I call a REAL CPA niche) and then...

None of the prospects are converting. I am using Azoogle (Epic) as my CPA source, and promoting one of the few offers you would see there.

So, is it that CPA for electronic cigarette converts badly? Orr is something else wrong?

Remember, I am getting almost 20% CTR from a laser targeted organic traffic from a detailed review which is maybe 1500-words long and the "click here" only at the bottom of the page, which means people are probably reading the page/review and clicking through rather than being forced to click as their only option of forward navigation.

It is the conversion that is the problem, not the CTR.
#cigarette #convert #cpa #electronic
  • Profile picture of the author FredJones
    Also, allow me to clarify just to put in the perspective - I had not made the basic mistake of scaling my SEO efforts without testing waters. The initial traffic that I had driven to it had converted at a decent percentage - with 5 conversions from around 200-250 targeted visitors. That's when I had decided to scale it.

    So now I am left wondering whether that was an accident or not.
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    • Profile picture of the author the one they call D
      you have to remember to take into account whether your keywords are buyer, browser or information seeking keywords. "e ciggarette" isn't exactly buyer specific so you might be attracting more information seekers than you would like. split test your offer perhaps it is the offer that is not converting.
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      • Profile picture of the author FredJones
        Agree with what you are saying - but it is the split test thingy that I am looking for - whether there is someone willing to share such results who has already done this test.

        I do understand that questions of this nature put some people on the defense so not sure whether any Warrior who has already done this would be brave enough to answer this anyway. Just hoping someone will...

        Originally Posted by the one they call D View Post

        you have to remember to take into account whether your keywords are buyer, browser or information seeking keywords. "e ciggarette" isn't exactly buyer specific so you might be attracting more information seekers than you would like. split test your offer perhaps it is the offer that is not converting.
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  • Profile picture of the author dddougal
    impossible to tell without seeing your copy but like the other guy says, your keywords aren't buying keywords, they are people looking for information.
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  • Profile picture of the author imback
    Hard to say, but what you can start doing immediately is collecting those e-mails with an opt-in form and you will be able to promote several different offers to test.

    Some people are looking for e-cigs to stop smoking...some want them bc they are cool...and some are just interested in the story.

    You can promote other stop smoking products, ebooks, cpa offers.

    Trust me you can monetize this traffic


    Good luck,

    CHAD
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    Maybe it's your targeting?
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  • Profile picture of the author imback
    Look at his keywords....targeting wouldn't be the problem. Now if he went paid then he could laser target.


    CHAD
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff S
    My friend is in the same space competing for the same terms since Nov 2010. He was in spots 2-4 for "electronic cigarette" and doing quite well. He started with Blu, but as you might know they suffered stocking issues early this year and it cost a lot of affiliate commissions. Another manufacturer contacted my friend because of his rankings, he did a A/B split across both, and the second mfg. performed better (and also were willing to pay higher % since it was a direct relationship). His site only served banner ads, everything else on site was geared towards SEO (unique content, internal page linking, META, backlink across various ecig keywords to main and interior pages).

    He was hit by Panda, sunk down to 50+ ranking for 6 weeks and is now climbing back up.

    His content wasn't compelling (ie. copywriting to drive buying behavior), it was just basic content so I can't imagine conversion rates were too high, but his $xxxx/mo revenue was worth his efforts.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jonathan Mizel
    Try split-testing 3 - 5 different offers. See if Azoogle and other networks have different promos for e-cigs and rotate different affiliate links (behind your SEO page). Then you'll actually see what's converting.

    Sometimes the traffic is good but it's the network or vendor (or simply the copy). If you are getting 30 - 50 visits a day and aren't making anything, I'd try a different offer fro a completely different network.

    Jonathan
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    • Profile picture of the author FredJones
      Originally Posted by dddougal View Post

      impossible to tell without seeing your copy but like the other guy says, your keywords aren't buying keywords, they are people looking for information.
      True, but the volume of traffic ultimately comes from the main KWs and surprisingly the total #conversions work well simply because of the sheer volume (while the percentage conversion is relatively lesser for sure compared to "buying" Kws), at least that's my experience in the direct (affiliate) sales space. But there are definite conversions normally (as seen for info KWs in other niches) as long as their is a product to convert and it is not a pure research KW with nothing that one could possibly buy. I have been hoping to see the same here.

      Originally Posted by imback View Post

      Hard to say, but what you can start doing immediately is collecting those e-mails with an opt-in form and you will be able to promote several different offers to test.

      Some people are looking for e-cigs to stop smoking...some want them bc they are cool...and some are just interested in the story.

      You can promote other stop smoking products, ebooks, cpa offers.

      Trust me you can monetize this traffic


      Good luck,

      CHAD
      Brilliant thought Chad. This is something that I wanted to do but after the sales start trickling in. Looks like I may have to haste it.

      Originally Posted by jeffrey73 View Post

      SEO doesn't give you much targeting options, other than the keywords he's targeting.

      I agree with Chad. With keywords that broad it's better to run the user through a cycle, and push the offer later.

      Half the battle is already won, he's getting the traffic.
      Thanks for the encouragement !!

      Originally Posted by Jeff Scott View Post

      My friend is in the same space competing for the same terms since Nov 2010. He was in spots 2-4 for "electronic cigarette" and doing quite well. He started with Blu, but as you might know they suffered stocking issues early this year and it cost a lot of affiliate commissions. Another manufacturer contacted my friend because of his rankings, he did a A/B split across both, and the second mfg. performed better (and also were willing to pay higher % since it was a direct relationship). His site only served banner ads, everything else on site was geared towards SEO (unique content, internal page linking, META, backlink across various ecig keywords to main and interior pages).

      He was hit by Panda, sunk down to 50+ ranking for 6 weeks and is now climbing back up.

      His content wasn't compelling (ie. copywriting to drive buying behavior), it was just basic content so I can't imagine conversion rates were too high, but his /mo revenue was worth his efforts.
      Sounds great. My content is probably great (very detailed and informative for sure, and a similar content converts very very well for another physical product) so I would suppose for my content it will do great. I am suspecting the offer page now. I don't mind disclosing the offer - it is Prado. I hope I am breaking no ToS anywhere by mentioning this name, but if I am then please feel welcome to point out and I would be happy to edit and remove this name.

      I think I know your friend's site (if memory serves me right, the site then at #2 disappeared during Panda). I guess I know a good bit of what he did for SEO also till then (though remember only the more important points). If I got it right, he climbed up to #2, jumped down to #9, and then disappeared. Lol, I did study the market when I jumped - it is just tough luck that I am facing and I do hope this will go away!! As long as the problem remains with an offer or so, it ought to and I have started seeing something (mentioned near the bottom of this post). I was hoping to really start a CPA understanding and experience with this, and that's what is getting hurt.

      Originally Posted by Jonathan Mizel View Post

      Try split-testing 3 - 5 different offers. See if Azoogle and other networks have different promos for e-cigs and rotate different affiliate links (behind your SEO page). Then you'll actually see what's converting.

      Sometimes the traffic is good but it's the network or vendor (or simply the copy). If you are getting 30 - 50 visits a day and aren't making anything, I'd try a different offer fro a completely different network.

      Jonathan
      Perfect suggestion. I have started doing that. I added a second choice option yesterday - something from Commission Junction - and guess what? I had 2 sales with less than 20 visitors sent to that site (less people were going as it is mentioned as a second choice). Agreed that they are tiny sales (2 totaling to 8-9 bucks) and agree that this high percentage with the CJ offer may not hold on for long but they are sales and need to be tested over and over again. This also indicates that it is the offer and not the content or the traffic. On the first and older offer, so far 316 visitors sent in June with 0 conversion. Isn't it amazing?

      Thanks again my friends, really amazing suggestions from amazing people.
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    • Profile picture of the author FredJones
      Came back to update the thread since this case now deserves an update.

      The message I quoted below in this post is the one proved to be the gold pot. As I mentioned, I had already changed my network by the time I had read this post, and had gained confidence that I was doing the right thing by reading it.

      In fact, since I have been doing selling all through till date and not CPA, plus since I know I had what I thought to be a killer sales copy in place, I decided to switch to 2 offers, both pay by sale rather than by lead. So they are typical pay-per-sale affilaite programs unlike the typical pay-per-lead CPA programs.

      One offer was from Commission Junction (an e cigarette seller there), which becamse my second choice, and another one a very popular online e cigarette seller that sells online which is right now my first choice.

      As I had already mentioned, the second-choice company had seen me make 2 sales with the first few clicks. Right now I have sold a few more, so sold a total of $50 in commissions on this network.

      But the first one is the amazing part of the story so far. I sent 113 visitors to it recommending it as the "first choice", no sell. Then I thought, what the heck, since this company has some discount coupons let me try it. I added the coupon around 36 hours back from now.

      And since then, I have seen 10 transactions from around 31 visitors sent. I don't know how to read them yet, because they say 10 transactions all yet to be approved (hope they all get approved) and they say 2 new customer sales - hopefully the scenario will become clearer once I understand how to read their selling stats (and they use IDevAffiliate platform), but the number is sheerly encouraging post-coupon.

      By the way, it also seems that my sales copy had no problem, and the keywords are also just fine - it is the offer that was not in the right place (assuming that this company really means 10 commissions by their stats, and hope they do mean that - this number has been going up all the time but being Sunday I guess sales are not getting approved right now as a sale approval needs to be manual at the seller's end).

      Thanks once again for all your support and suggestions.

      Originally Posted by Jonathan Mizel View Post

      Try split-testing 3 - 5 different offers. See if Azoogle and other networks have different promos for e-cigs and rotate different affiliate links (behind your SEO page). Then you'll actually see what's converting.

      Sometimes the traffic is good but it's the network or vendor (or simply the copy). If you are getting 30 - 50 visits a day and aren't making anything, I'd try a different offer fro a completely different network.

      Jonathan
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