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Who Promotes a $7 Product for a 25% Commission?

by Dan C. Rinnert
37 replies
On ClickBank, that works out to be about $1.37.

Maybe they're just HopLink ads? I can't imagine that anyone would start promoting something when all they'll get out of it is $1.37. You'd have to have a heck of a lot of sales to make that worthwhile.

I wasn't planning on using any affiliates at all on this product, which is why I had the commission at 25%. And, I figured that, if anyone used their affiliate ID to buy the product, I didn't lose too much.

I really didn't expect any one to actually promote the thing. I was surprised to see any affiliate hops when I was checking my stats. And, these aren't affiliate IDs that I recognize from the usual sources that list new products and such.
#25% #commission #page not found #product #promotes
  • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
    Dan, the same reason that people will write articles for $2.

    In some countries, $1.75 or whatever it comes out to, is a lot of money.

    Nothing surprises me anymore.
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    • Profile picture of the author rapidscc
      Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

      Dan, the same reason that people will write articles for $2.

      In some countries, $1.75 or whatever it comes out to, is a lot of money.

      Nothing surprises me anymore.
      Hi Steven, Warriors

      I think you can count out the Philippines on this one..Heck it's $1 = 46 here but I wouldn't promote something for that amount..not by a long shot

      Maybe the affiliate made an error or something?

      All the best,

      Omar
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  • Profile picture of the author nicholasb
    it would depend on how much I could earn on the back end and if any of it was recurring

    I have made a lot of money promoting 1 dollar trail offers just because of the back end and recurring streams

    if there is no backend offer to get paid on I would not promote it
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    • Profile picture of the author Mohammad Afaq
      I wouldn't be interested at all in promoting this kinda product. For a measly 1.37 I can't even start a PPC campaign.

      I think that it's just not worth it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

      Dan, the same reason that people will write articles for $2.

      In some countries, $1.75 or whatever it comes out to, is a lot of money.

      Nothing surprises me anymore.
      I guess it is better than 7-15% you might get promoting a paperback on Amazon.

      Originally Posted by nicholasb View Post

      it would depend on how much I could earn on the back end and if any of it was recurring
      No backend. No recurring. It's just a $7 product.
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      • Profile picture of the author Lance K
        Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

        No backend. No recurring. It's just a $7 product.
        I'd assume it's more about the possibility of banking a little good will for sharing than the commission. Even at that, there's likely a missed opportunity there.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
        If thought I could sell 1,000 or more units to my list I'd do it. $1,370 is worth a few minutes typing.

        Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

        I guess it is better than 7-15% you might get promoting a paperback on Amazon.
        You know what sucks? Most authors only make a 5% commission. I'm lucky, I get 10%, but there's a caveat with that. Affiliates get 7-15% of the retail price, while authors get 5-10% of the wholesale price. What that adds up to is that an affiliate makes 2-5 times as much from a book sale as the author does.

        Of course, the author gets a share of every book, whereas the affiliate only gets a share of sales he or she generates, but still...
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        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

          If thought I could sell 1,000 or more units to my list I'd do it. $1,370 is worth a few minutes typing.
          True, but now it'd be down to $360.

          You know what sucks? Most authors only make a 5% commission. I'm lucky, I get 10%, but there's a caveat with that. Affiliates get 7-15% of the retail price, while authors get 5-10% of the wholesale price. What that adds up to is that an affiliate makes 2-5 times as much from a book sale as the author does.

          Of course, the author gets a share of every book, whereas the affiliate only gets a share of sales he or she generates, but still...
          It's like info-products. If you give affiliates a 75% commission, they're getting the lion's share. Of course, if they do well, you can live with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author mhendenterprises
    $1.37 once doesn't sound like much, but $1.37 10 or 20 times starts sounding like something. Sometimes that's all it takes to feel like your heading in the right direction.
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  • Profile picture of the author Elmer Hurlstone
    Dan,

    This is hypothetical, although possible.

    Someone promotes your product, in addition to others and, with appropriate effort, is able to get and maintain decent search engine placement.

    They sell one of your books every day for a buck-thirty-seven commission. Within a year they've grossed slightly over $500.00.

    A few sites like that and you're golden.

    Look at it as a numbers game.

    It likely doesn't happen that often but it's within the realm of possibility.

    Elmer
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  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    Hi Dan,

    I don't understand why they don't just get a great product with MRR and promote that for $7 and make the whole enchilada.

    George Wright

    Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

    On ClickBank, that works out to be about $1.37.

    Maybe they're just HopLink ads? I can't imagine that anyone would start promoting something when all they'll get out of it is $1.37. You'd have to have a heck of a lot of sales to make that worthwhile.

    I wasn't planning on using any affiliates at all on this product, which is why I had the commission at 25%. And, I figured that, if anyone used their affiliate ID to buy the product, I didn't lose too much.

    I really didn't expect any one to actually promote the thing. I was surprised to see any affiliate hops when I was checking my stats. And, these aren't affiliate IDs that I recognize from the usual sources that list new products and such.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    My guess is that it isn't being promoted individually, but rather someone has a script that displays multiple CB products based on keywords.
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    • Profile picture of the author Todd Sampson
      Yeah it is probably just from one of those scripts that display ads based on keywords, or it could be someone promoting other items in the same niche who just ran out of products to push to their list.

      -Todd Sampson
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        Silly me. Here it is five months later and I am just now realizing that I can lower the commission...

        Don't know why I didn't think of that before. Maybe I thought 25% was the minimum or maybe I just didn't care to change it.
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    • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
      Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

      My guess is that it isn't being promoted individually, but rather someone has a script that displays multiple CB products based on keywords.
      That would be my guess too. The hoplink widget things that you can put on your sites just look for keywords, not dollar amounts, so it is probably just getting traffic through those.

      My second guess would be someone created a post/article and quickly looked at Clickbank for a related item and quickly grabbed the link without paying much attention to the details. That would be more so if the product was really unique with little to no competition.
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  • Profile picture of the author drmani
    Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

    On ClickBank, that works out to be about $1.37.

    I really didn't expect any one to actually promote the thing. I was surprised to see any affiliate hops when I was checking my stats. And, these aren't affiliate IDs that I recognize from the usual sources that list new products and such.
    I was looking through my Amazon.com report, and in the electronics
    devices section, of products sold at retail prices ranging from
    $12 to $30, my 'advertising fees' (the term now used for affiliate
    commissions?!) work out to between $0.49 and $1.16

    Hmmm... Suddenly those $1.37 commissions on a $7 sale sure begin to sound
    attractive!

    All success
    Dr.Mani
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by drmani View Post

      I was looking through my Amazon.com report, and in the electronics
      devices section, of products sold at retail prices ranging from
      $12 to $30, my 'advertising fees' (the term now used for affiliate
      commissions?!) work out to between $0.49 and $1.16

      Hmmm... Suddenly those $1.37 commissions on a $7 sale sure begin to sound
      attractive!
      The new commission is 36¢. I don't think I'll have many affiliates at that rate.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alan Petersen
        Maybe they liked your $7 product and wanted to share it with their list/blog readers even if they're not making much money they're building a good relationship with their subscribers/readers by offering a low-cost but valuable product.

        Your list/subies love you then they'll listen when your promote the $17 product, then the $27, $47, $97, $997...
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      • Profile picture of the author vijaybh78
        Yes MRR does sound more good than 1.37 $ affiliate commission.
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  • Profile picture of the author rayx
    A lot of people view a product at that price as an easy sale (although it's not always the case)
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

    On ClickBank, that works out to be about $1.37.
    Not the question for me.

    1. Will my customers want this product?

    2. Will my customers buy this product?

    3. Is this product any good?

    At $7, it's a lot easier to answer questions 2 and 3, so the only thing that matters is whether my customers want it.

    Notice that I don't care how much I get paid for it.
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  • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

      Low-ticket items are easy to move quickly and low-risk for your customers.
      This one doesn't seem to move quickly enough.

      I may have to try a different price point. More sold at $9 than $7. I tried $5 but no sales at that level so far, but I'll give it a couple more days. Maybe I'll have to go above $9 and maybe even raise the commission. On this one, if I can clear around $3.50 per book, I'll be happy. I'd be happier at $7 a book, but that's another story.
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      • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

          Well, open it up to affiliates - do the opposite...offer a 75% commission and let them run with it. Or set it up with RAP at 100% commissions...
          I don't have an upsell or backend on this one, so RAP doesn't help me.

          I'll give upping it a try. I'm trying $17 at a 75% commission.

          Bummer. Minutes after changing it, I received an eMail on the product's sales eMail. Thought maybe it was a sales notice; nope, just spam.
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          • Profile picture of the author Tom B
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            Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

            I don't have an upsell or backend on this one, so RAP doesn't help me.

            I'll give upping it a try. I'm trying $17 at a 75% commission.

            Bummer. Minutes after changing it, I received an eMail on the product's sales eMail. Thought maybe it was a sales notice; nope, just spam.

            You don't need an upsell to use RAP.
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            • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
              Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

              You don't need an upsell to use RAP.
              If I'm using RAP with a 100% commission, where's the benefit to me?
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              • Profile picture of the author Tom B
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                Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

                If I'm using RAP with a 100% commission, where's the benefit to me?
                You build a list of people who purchased your product.
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                • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                  Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                  You build a list of people who purchased your product.
                  If I had a backend or something else to sell to them in this niche, that could be worthwhile. But, as it is, this product is it.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Tom B
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                    Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

                    If I had a backend or something else to sell to them in this niche, that could be worthwhile. But, as it is, this product is it.

                    Is there affiliate products you can sell?

                    Do you plan on creating more products for this market?

                    I guess I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish. If the market has buyers and products that are being sold then why wouldn't you want to create a list?
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              • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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                • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                  Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

                  Rotate the sales so affiliates get paid for every other sale...
                  That makes sense, though I've never liked that method. I'd rather do a 50/50 split so the affiliates will always be sure to get credit for the sales they've generated.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Lindsay
    How about looking at it from another perspective? Instead of using ppc for this type of offer why not only use free traffic generation methods such as article marketing.

    By doing this, conversion rates should be amazingly high because someone would be more much likely to buy right away if the price is only $7. Therefore you could actually make more money in the end from this than by promoting a more expensive product.

    Hope that helps
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom B
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      Originally Posted by Mark Lindsay View Post

      How about looking at it from another perspective? Instead of using ppc for this type of offer why not only use free traffic generation methods such as article marketing.

      By doing this, conversion rates should be amazingly high because someone would be more much likely to buy right away if the price is only $7. Therefore you could actually make more money in the end from this than by promoting a more expensive product.

      Hope that helps
      Why would free traffic convert higher then PPC? :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Lindsay
    Hi Thomas.
    Think about it like this. I recommended article marketing as a free traffic source because if you write a quality article, the reader will already be presold before she even clicks your link and therefore much more likely to convert
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom B
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Mark Lindsay View Post

      Hi Thomas.
      Think about it like this. I recommended article marketing as a free traffic source because if you write a quality article, the reader will already be presold before she even clicks your link and therefore much more likely to convert
      You can presell on a squeeze page when using PPC. I find it hard to believe that article marketing will convert higher than ppc when targeting the correct keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay Zee
    LOL. the post title for some reason reminded me of the scene in Austin powers:

    "who throughs a shoe... really?"
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    Why do you even care to have an affiliate program if you are going to pay next to nothing? I really don't get it. Just sell it yourself and don't even have affiliates at all. What's the point? Just the extra few bucks you can get?
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    • Profile picture of the author HCLee
      Never underestimate how good 7-dollar products can be. It may still be good to promote it if it has a residual income program in it and if the product is really hot that everyone uses it like Angela's backlinks.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

        The new commission is 36¢. I don't think I'll have many affiliates at that rate.
        Dan, you'll probably have the same script-driven affiliates you have now.

        Once the script is set up, the investment to promote whatever it picks up is $0 and 0 time. What's the ROI on that one?
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