Affiliate Three » Ramblings

Income report: December 2009

James — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:53:58 +0000

It’s done! I’ve finally reach the $500 per month milestone that I wanted to achieve. It’s taken me a year and a bit to get here and I’ve learnt a huge amount on the way. With introduction of the new QCP system from eBay, my first month looked bad, but I’ve recovered and QCP is now working very well for me. I’ve also been diversifying over the last few months after the QCP change, which was a blessing in disguise and I learnt very quickly that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. I’ve also been purchasing some more premium domains monetising them through Amazon, eBay and other affiliate merchants. The breakdown is as follows:

eBay -$497

Adsense – $37

Amazon – $7 (don’t laugh)

Overall, a sucess, although I’m still in progress of some more diversification, as one can see from the eBay earnings.
Happy New Years, may 2010 be an excellent on for you all!

More updates

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:43:49 +0000

A few updates – I’m still not having much sucess with anything other than eBay (which I’ll talk about later). I’ve launched a few niches sites, some of which are getting good traffic (30+ per day) others less (5+ per day). Unfortuantely one of the higher traffic sites just fell from the Google SERPS, so it’s trickled down to 2 or 3. I’ll leave that for the moment to see how it pans out. The sites are monetised through Amazon and other UK affiliate networks, but so-far they’re bringing in very little.

On the eBay front, I’ve slowly been increasing my EPC (it’s around 0.15 US cents), so that is good news. Traffic is also steadily increasing, so eBay is looking good so far. Lets hope it lasts!

As mentioned previously, I’ve been buying up some domain names. I recently picked up two gems, one with 201,000 exact searches per month and the other with only 5,400 exact per month, except with a twist – the words are reversed for a combination which brings 27,100 searches. It’s really an experiment to see if domain keywords can be reversed, but I’ll find out soon!

I’ve also parked some of my domains using the Google Adsense for Domains (which I’ve only discovered recently). I doubt they will bring in much traffic, but at least they’re not parked at the providers (name.com and 1and1.com) where they get no action.

Updates

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:38:48 +0000

Since the EPN QCP fiasco, I’ve been focusing my efforts on building other sites, mostly geared towards the Amazon Affiliate program, as well as any affiliates in the niche I’ve chosen. My EPN sites have received very little attention, save for a few tweaks and the addition of Adsense and Chitika ads, as the payment per click for these ads is often higher than what EPN is paying. Also, the addition of these ads hasn’t seemed to reduce (if any) the amount of clicks I get on EPN auctions, so I’m winning both ways (if you can call it that). I’m happy to note that my latest stats, which came right at the end of October, if applied for November, will put me on track to equal my revenue under QCP as I did under the old (read: I know how it works) EPN affiliate program.

The other affiliate sites mentioned above have been in various niches, discovered through a combination of Market Samurai and the Google Adwords tool. I always do comparisons of potential traffic through both tools, as Market Samurai sometimes reports higher clicks per month than Google and vice-versa (remember, always use exact match)

I’ve also been delving into buying other domains and have picked up a couple of what I think are gems (over 40,000 exact searches per month in the Google Adwords Tool, exact match) and have decided that buying domains with a minimum of 40,000 exact matches for the chosen keyword is the way forward. I’ll be spending more capital on these domains in the future and will be willing to pay for premium domain names.

Revenue is down this month, purely down to the massive drop in EPN revenue. However, EPN revenue and Adsense/Chitika revenue has been creeping up now that I’ve optimised my EPN sites. The other niche sites are doing well, getting traffic and making a few sales here and there. Since this is a part-time hobby, I’m still covering my (miniscule) costs with a bit of money to put back in every month – I’m taking a long term view, since over the last year I’ve been learning an incredible amount and also learning about the up and downs of affiliate marketing.

BTW, if you haven’t checked out the 30 day challenge, it’s worth doing so

EPN RIP – 1 October 2009

James — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:13:10 +0000

As most of you are aware today marks the move for the majority of publishers over to the new Quality Click Pricing (QCP). Many of the small to medium affiliates have suffered massive drops in their earnings, as have some of the large publishers. EPN used to be a fantastic affiliate, however now they are more like Google Adsense, getting paid for clicks “based on their long-term value”, calculated at the time of the click – make alot of sense doesn’t it? Add to the fact that eBay have been very cagey about exactly how their QCP system works, especially about how small and medium sized publishers have been suffering massive drops in revenue under the new system. Large sales which brought in tens of dollars before are now bringing in tens of cents, for all types of publishers.

EPN are kidding themselves if they call themselves an affiliate anymore, you don’t sell goods on their behalf anymore, you drive clicks to eBay auctions. I suspect the reasons EPN decided to go this route will come back to bite them later. I also suspect that in a year or two when eBay have continued their decline they will come back to this moment and ask themselves whether they went down the right route.

We really got to like you EPN, you will be sadly missed.

Fear uncertainty and doubt or what I think about eBay and QCP

James — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:54:27 +0000

If you haven’t heard, the eBay Partner Network (EPN) is moving affiliates over from their current commission based system to something called Quality Click Pricing (QPC) from 1 October 2009. Their announcement in September was a surprise to most and old news to others, as EPN had been beta-testing with selected affiliates (read: high-volume affiliates), giving us “newbies” ample time to figure out how this new (read: no-one except EPN knows how it works) system works so we can prepare for the impending doom (insert healthy doses of sarcasm here). And if you’re a eBay Motors affiliate, you’re really out of luck.

Obviously there has been much talk about this, both in the Phpbay Pro forums (users only) as well as the EPN forums. And whilst the “pinks” (EPN staff) have been especially helpful (another dose of sarcasm would be appropriate here), there still remains some confusion over how it all works. So, that begs the question, how does this all work? I’ll be honest here and tell you – I’m not exactly sure - however, I can speculate from reading many threads and posts from other members that quantity over quaility is best, quite contrary to the name which EPN has given to their new “system” (Derren Brown would be proud). It seems one of the things coming in from EPN affiliates is that you need to make up the shortfall in EPN earnings with enormous amounts of clicks as opposed to more quaility traffic.

I have however, waded through all the FUD and have the following tips (disclaimer: these may not work for you and it may change after October once EPN get their act together):

- some affiliates are grouping smaller campaigns into one bigger campaign, enhancing the higher click amount paid over multiple campaigns;

- try and get users to take action immediately after clicking the auction link, as according to eBay this is what determines “quality” traffic;

- don’t get ACRU’s (it appears that click earnings tank after this);

- “thick” (i.e. content-rich) affiliate sites may not be worth it over “thin” affiliate sites that generate lots of clicks; and

- low ticket items are preferable, as people click-and-buy these far more often than big-ticket items.

That being said, some affiliates are looking elsewhere, as pay-per-click programmes are not uncommon and some are reporting better earnings per click than EPN under the “enhanced” system. Some have recommended Chitika. With October approaching fast, it’s a good time to start thinking about it.
What are your thoughts? How are your earnings doing?

Affiliate Workspaces and more

James — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:28:12 +0000

Following on from my previous post about my affiliate workspace, I thought I’d do a follow-up with some other workspaces which inspired me. I’ll also do another follow-up shortly with some more details of my workspace and also some better shots. So without further ado, here are some other workspaces (if you find any more, please leave a comment!

Dave Pit’s setup

Darren Rowse of Problogger fame 1, 2 and Darren’s own workspace video

Time for Blogging setup (loads of links from there)

Productivity 501 setup

Lifehacker has a whole series of featured workspaces

Affiliate Tip workspace

Zac Johnson

Massive thread on WickedFire

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did, let me know if you find any more great workspaces!

My Home Office setup a.k.a my affiliate workspace

James — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:14:29 +0000

I stumbled across Dave Pitlyuk site the other day and was inspired by both his web site and associated sites, as well as his home office post, so I decided I’d take up his tag offer and show off my affiliate/blogger workspace. So without further ado, I present my workspace.

Front shot (click for larger version)

This is a front-on shot, which contains my 23-inch Dell LCD, running at 1920×1080 (full 1080p) resolution. I also have a Cisco VOIP phone, which I use for incoming calls. A standard Microsoft mouse and keyboard combo complete the picture (there is also an Axis IP network camera, temporarily placed on the left while I find a good spot for it).

What makes it all happen (click for larger version)

This is what drives everything, it’s a Core 2 Duo E6300 (quite old these days) running 4 gigs of RAM. I’ve got a 500 gig hard drive in there (with another 1.5tb on the home server). This is where most of the work gets done, however I also have a Dell XPS Inspiron M1330 in crimson red, running 2 gigs of RAM for when I’m in need of getting some work done on the couch or on the road. Both machines are still running Windows XP, I skipped Vista and am waiting for Windows 7.

Any comments? Let me know!

We are live!

James — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:00:36 +0000

It’s time to celebrate the going live of Affiliate Three dot com. I’ve only been making money online for about a year now, but I’ve been online and “lurking” for over ten years now. I’ve progressed from simple Adsense and ttzmedia.com enabled sites through to affiliate marketing, trying my hand at Amazon and now the Ebay Parter Network (EPN). The knowledge I’ve gained has been invaluable and it’s been an exciting time through which I’ve learnt alot.

I thought I’d share this knowledge through this outlet, aptly named Affiliate Three, named after the number of hours per day I try to spent (in addition to my full-time job) trying to crack the affiliate marketing game. Read on for some useful tips and tricks that I’ve come across and will come across in the exploration of the affiliate marketing. I’ll try not fall into the old cliche of a “making money online” blog, I promise!

Welcome to the journey!