help: Sales Come to A Screeching Halt

15 replies
Ok...so I set up my first affiliate site, and it was making consistent sales for about three weeks. Then out of nowhere Sales have come to a screeching halt. Over 2 weeks without a single a sale.

I would at least think one sale would have been made, but none? Idk what I should be doing, or perhaps looking at to get better conversions. Can anyone offer any advice as to what I can do?

Thanks a Ton Warriors
#halt #sales #screeching
  • Profile picture of the author Davion Wong
    I am not sure what can be wrong, but sales have slowed down a fair bit since the start of July. Could be the vacations, or the slow economy. Or it can just be that the niche you are targeting is a seasonal one.
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  • Profile picture of the author PrettyJenny
    Have you checked all of the affiliate links to make sure they are not hijacked? I know in the summer it's slow, but 2 weeks continuously without any sales are weird. Are you sure you still have the same amount of visitors to your site?
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    • Profile picture of the author Prateek Dwivedi
      Originally Posted by PrettyJenny View Post

      Have you checked all of the affiliate links to make sure they are not hijacked? I know in the summer it's slow, but 2 weeks continuously without any sales are weird. Are you sure you still have the same amount of visitors to your site?
      How do you check for hijacked links? I'm using PHP re-directs for my links, which I thought were supposed to help prevent hijacked links? But nevertheless is there a way to check if they are hijacked?

      As for visitors, visitors have slowed down considering google is doing it's dance with my site, but even when I was getting the amount of visitors that I'm getting now; 40 or so a day I was still making sales.
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  • Profile picture of the author i am nex
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    • Profile picture of the author Prateek Dwivedi
      Originally Posted by i am nex View Post

      You might want to rethink your marketing plan, if you have one.
      If you rely on free advertising, it may work at first, sometimes better than PPC.
      But after a while it dies down, as PPC will thrive, usually.
      My primary mode of marketing has been article marketing using SEO as I'm not making enough to support PPC. Is that what you mean when you say Free Advertising - SEO??
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  • Profile picture of the author johnjimat
    this thing was actually normal in affiliate marketing. sometimes we got more than a month without sale. i want to know, have you done email marketing?because now people are more careful to buy a product. so we must do a follow up to them
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    • Profile picture of the author Prateek Dwivedi
      Originally Posted by johnjimat View Post

      this thing was actually normal in affiliate marketing. sometimes we got more than a month without sale. i want to know, have you done email marketing?because now people are more careful to buy a product. so we must do a follow up to them
      Hey,

      To answer your question, no I haven't built a list for the sites that I'm running. I had one on my first site but saw no profit from it, so I canceled my aweber account.
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  • Profile picture of the author angela99
    Originally Posted by maulsl88 View Post

    Ok...so I set up my first affiliate site, and it was making consistent sales for about three weeks. Then out of nowhere Sales have come to a screeching halt. Over 2 weeks without a single a sale.

    I would at least think one sale would have been made, but none? Idk what I should be doing, or perhaps looking at to get better conversions. Can anyone offer any advice as to what I can do?

    Thanks a Ton Warriors
    This is very common. I've no real evidence as to WHY it happens, but suspect it may be because you've tapped that particular audience using that mode of promotion -- everyone who's looking for the product(s) and reading articles (since you're using article marketing) has for the time being bought what they're going to buy.

    In other words, you've snagged the low-hanging fruit.

    My tips (these have worked for me):

    * Vary your marketing. Skip article marketing for a month. Focus on other promotional methods: forum marketing, social media marketing etc.:

    * Look for new products in a new niche, and promote those for a couple of weeks. Then look for new products in another niche etc. The idea is to work in lots of niches, so you have lots of different sources from which you're making an income.

    Keep going -- you've made a great start. :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author Prateek Dwivedi
      Originally Posted by angela99 View Post

      This is very common. I've no real evidence as to WHY it happens, but suspect it may be because you've tapped that particular audience using that mode of promotion -- everyone who's looking for the product(s) and reading articles (since you're using article marketing) has for the time being bought what they're going to buy.

      In other words, you've snagged the low-hanging fruit.

      My tips (these have worked for me):

      * Vary your marketing. Skip article marketing for a month. Focus on other promotional methods: forum marketing, social media marketing etc.:

      * Look for new products in a new niche, and promote those for a couple of weeks. Then look for new products in another niche etc. The idea is to work in lots of niches, so you have lots of different sources from which you're making an income.

      Keep going -- you've made a great start. :-)
      Hey Angela thanks for your assistance. I think varying up my marketing would be a good idea - I'll do that. I'd like to ask is "social media marketing" things like twitter, and hubpages, and squidoo etc.? If so I've been using those as well.

      Aside from the marketing methods that you outlined, as I'm only familiar with article marketing, and now forum marketing would you mind pointing me in the right direction that lays out the different modes and methods of marketing a website?

      Thank You
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  • Profile picture of the author thatgirlJ
    Here are some things to check:

    Affiliate links in tact?
    Position in the search engines?
    Any means you've used to market suddenly cut off?
    General trends in that area declining?
    New competition?

    There is bound to be something you can pinpoint Good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author geolt7
      I have been experiencing the same thing too since June. Overall sales dropped by 30-40% and so far there is no sign of improving. I have yet to discover what is wrong. Traffic has been pretty consistent though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Franklin
    Whenever I see a slowdown in any of my niches, I immediately test new marketing methods. They don't always work but once I hit a goldmine method that increases traffic and sales, I ramp it up!

    So, think about the various methods out there that can boost your traffic flow....There's more to driving traffic than just article marketing and PPC.
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  • Profile picture of the author petevamp
    Sales are going to come and go for instance I built a site from the ground up wensday. Started my ad campaings late wensday nite when everything was finished. Thursday I screeched out 5 sales before 4 pm cst then the next 4 days not a sigle sale. Same traffic no changes. As someone stated above you may try changing your sales approch by giving them a free offer just to get them on your list. Then after they are on your list you send them to a sales page. Even if they do not buy today atleast now you can sell it to them again tomorrow or 3 months later. Eventually they are going to buy something. Even if it is not the product you intended tosell to them.
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