Linking and then asking for payment to keep the link?

2 replies
A few of my big competitor bloggers have product reviews or multiple-product roundups that include both affiliate links and non-affiliate links to merchants' sites where they can be bought.

The pages all include some affiliate links too, so at first I figured they were just trying to round things out and make it look less biased by including the biggest products/merchants they don't have affiliate deals for. The merchants in question do not seem to have affiliate programs and/or have told me they do not.

But then I thought, maybe the two parties have a monthly or CPC deal rather than affiliate commission? Maybe the merchant is getting enough traffic from the link that the blogger was able to convince them to pay for it at some point? I would imagine there's a whole strategy for this already and a name for it.

Have you ever successfully negotiated a fee from a merchant, probably after establishing consistent traffic flow to the merchant? i wonder how much traffic/earnings it would take?

FYI I earn an average of $0.30/click through affiliate links. The merchants' margins are limited in this industry, and affiliate commissions are typically 5%.
#link #linking #payment
  • Profile picture of the author YoniLive
    I've never heard about this strategy, but it does sounds like something to try for yourself.

    If there was a big blog, with big amounts of traffic flowing through it, and they post a link to one of my products, then contact me about paying them for it:
    Firstly I will check out the statistics - how much traffic am I getting through their post, how much this traffic converts, etc'.
    Secondly, I will just offer them to be my affiliates, and try to convince them that it will be more profitable for them.
    If they refuse, and will only accept a direct payment - it depends on the statistics I checked out earlier.
    If the statistics say that it is profitable for me, and I will earn more than I pay the blog, then I will feel like I'm getting blackmailed, and I'll hate the blog owner - but I will accept their offer, simply because it is profitable.

    In conclusion, it doesn't sound like the best idea - but you'll only know the truth after you try it.
    So go and try, do some experiments, and tell us what you've learned here on the forum.

    Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    My friend makes quite a good regular income from having text links on his site which link to related sites. The advantages of text links include:
    • They're less likely to be removed by Ad Blockers.
    • People who click on text links have higher engagement (so they're less likely to be buyers).
    • Text links don't clutter your site and they're faster to load.
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