Affiliate Product Choice - When to give up?

by sylviad

Posted: 13 years ago 7 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi,

After selling an affiliate product for some time and your sales drop, what do you do?

Recently, mine have dropped to near zero and after looking around, I see that there's a ton of competition for one particular product now. I also see that the seller has changed his landing page which I do not think is very good.

This entire niche has grown in popularity among marketers which I'm sure has a lot to do with my results. Yet, I am still on the first page of Google more than once for the same site for my few top keywords and am getting traffic. I'm also on the first 3 pages for certain keywords. I do need to find more and better keywords, though.

How do you proceed to determine why your sales have dropped and what you need to do?

At what point do you decide to stop marketing that affiliate product?

In this particular niche, the products I'm promoting are some of the best available. Most likely, I'll leave them on my sites, but will be looking for other products, although I haven't had much luck finding many that are equal in quality.

Thanks for your help.

Sylvia

#affiliate #choice #give #product

pdrs 13 years ago

If the sales have dropped and there are better products, take advantage of your rankings to inform your customers that while 'product x' is still a good product, there is also 'product y' which looks to be even better. All while using your affiliate links of course.

This way you can still pickup sales from people who want to buy the original product and most likely capture people who may have moved to the newer product(s) after reading about them on someone else's website.

Plus it makes you look more credible if done properly
- Thanks
- 1 reply
Signature

RemoteControlHelicopterReviews.(com/net) - Up for sale! No reasonable offer refused. Great branding for a super hot niche!
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4056666].message }}
- Michael Shook 13 years ago
  
  Perhaps it is time to create your own competing product. I don't know what the product is, but that might be a possibility
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
  Signature
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4056698].message }}
  
  sylviad 13 years ago
  
  Thanks, everyone.
  
  I guess what I'm wanting to know is if you have a process you go through to determine what is the problem and how you investigate - ie:
  
  1) your own landing page
  2) the affiliate landing page
  3) the increase in competition
  4) or something else
  
  My landing page has done very well with good conversion so far, so I don't think that's the problem.
  
  I did mention to one affiliate manager of one product that there were issues with his new landing page - people had to search to find valuable info unless they signed up for the free newsletter plus the links to purchase were buried. He's since changed it which helped for awhile.
  
  The competition has grown exponentially, but my winning keywords are still relatively low - and for the high competition ones, I'm stilling coming up in the top 5 listings on page 1. This kind of surprises me because one keyword has over 500,000 competition and I"m sitting at #1.
  
  I can't think what else might need to be reviewed to determine the slump in sales.
  
  Do keywords people search to BUY something go out of favor after awhile? Maybe I need some new ones? I am looking and already see a few really good ones that others have missed.
  
  Originally Posted by JMichaelZ
  
  Perhaps it is time to create your own competing product. I don't know what the product is, but that might be a possibility
  
  That's exactly what I started to do but admit I need to get back to work on it.
  
  Sylvia
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
  Signature
  
  :: Got a dog? Visit my blog. Dog Talk Weekly
  :: Writing, Audio Transcription Services? - Award-winning Journalist is taking new projects. Warrior Discounts!
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4067648].message }}
  
  Unobtainium 13 years ago
  
  Dont forget all products have a life cycle, saturation speeds this up. They all die eventually from a natural death.
  
  If you have targeted traffic, jump around with products you will find a new keeper.
  
  Thanks
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4067870].message }}
coco28 13 years ago

Is it worth contacting the seller and asking if he can put the landing page which you had most success with on another page of his site? If you have had a lot of success selling his product he might listen to you.

Otherwise, I would just change your site to point your links/content to his competitor...
- Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4056707].message }}
Mike McAleer 13 years ago

Just keep looking for something that converts very well. You can't go wrong with that.
- Thanks
Signature

Recent domain flips : $8->$1000 Social recruiting Software dot com $8->$2000 MobileSalesSoftware.com
Invest in domains without the hard work !
Email for details...Mike McAleer at me dot com
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4056759].message }}
omk 13 years ago

Well is there a chance that the product owner is cheating you on sales? You may want to do some detective work and even use a different account to run a test.

There's actually a technique used by a lot of the sharpest guys/gals out there.
Become an affiliate for a niche product. And if your sales do very well over a long stretch of time and it's something that you can duplicate or create a competitive product for - if u have the means and resources, then that means it's time to stop being an affiliate and time to create your own similar lucrative product.
If you think you were living large making money as an affiliate for this product, wait till you start selling your own. Do your research beforehand, because often times, competitors never take the time to research all the factors that make a winning product successful.
- Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4068134].message }}