Are you still offering bonuses with your products?

Are they still effective? Good, appropriate bonuses are. Are they necessary? No, they never were necessary.

The purpose of a bonus is to add a little something extra to sweeten the deal and maybe tip a few fence sitters your way.

Is the main product complete without the secondary product? Can the buyer get the promised benefit?

If the answer is no, make the secondary product a bonus.

Can the secondary product stand on its own? If someone had the secondary product without the primary, would they find value in it?

If yes, OTO. If no, bonus.

At least, that's how I see it.

I don't think they're "necessary". (If they're "necessary", that's probably indicative of some underlying problem with the whole sales process.)

I think they're effective if they're appropriate and relevant and there aren't more than two of them (and one's better still, in my opinion).

I think having four or five not-too-relevant bonuses comes across to many potential customers more or less as a sign of desperation, detracts from the product offer, and loses both credibility and sales.

I know from earlier conversations here that at least some people offering large numbers of bonuses have found an increase in their conversion rates by removing most of them from the sales page (though it's sometimes been an uphill struggle to persuade them to try it!), and I think that should surprise nobody, really. In other words, it's relatively easy to overdo bonuses.

I agree with John's comments above: if something's integral to the product and/or necessary for it to be used/interpreted as intended/desired, then it should be a bonus. If it's entirely separate, then it can be an OTO.

we are doing 5 simultaneous launches now. We believe all the value should be in that one single product. People are generally too busy to go through tons of bonuses and they tend to get overwhelmed and put off by this.

Offering a bonus is all well and good but I find the problem most marketers have is they offer all these bonuses and the prospect ends up confused, thinking "am i buying this for the product or the bonuses?"

If someone thinks that to themself chances are they won't buy because it means that the marketer feels compelled to offer up a bunch of bonuses because the main product itself isn't worth much...

Using bonuses is STILL a great idea and sales tool but you should offer bonuses that compliment the main product. For example, if you are selling a product on how to lose weight then a bonus could be a daily check list or a step-by-step action plan to follow, see what I'm saying?

Your bonuses should always compliment the product and make it easier for the customer to take action.

Well, some authors have become #1 Best Sellers by offering
$1,500 in "valuable bonuses" for making a $13.95 purchase.

I'd say they are still valuable.

-Ray Edwards

Something I've just seen yesterday and that put me off, as a customer: bonuses that I can actually get for free somewhere else. In this case, they were the "bribe" other websites were offering for subscribing to their lists. What bonus is that? That you spared me a couple of minutes to sign up and get it myself? But some people just believe the more, the better...

Ray, I don't question your expertise, but doesn't that look a bit suspicious to you? So I buy something for 14 bucks and I get bonuses that are worth more than 100 times that amount? There's something fishy about it - either they were inflating the perceived price, either they were selling themselves short, but that's my customer's opinion, and should be treated as such.

Bonuses aren't necessary but they add a little value to your site. Most customers probably wouldn't bother with them and just focus on the main product. It's the fact that you're getting something extra for free causes you to purchase subconsciously.