111–120 of 123 posts
Was there sales growth of 200K or not? Yes/No - it's that simple.
It seems like this would be the main thing to look at.
But instead the post goes into hypothesis - almost like either:
A) The answer is so blatantly No that it does not need addressing.
B) He's trying to sweep the above question away because he dislikes the idea of Affiliates driving previous visitors back for more business.
I remember posting coupon codes to their site and having them being taken down constantly because they weren't getting commission on them. They were original company specials so no affiliate was getting paid (including me) but I posted them merely for the people who were searching could save money. They gave users 50% off hosting and the links on the retailmenot page were simply regular links to the products page disguised as specials.
When I emailed them asking why they keep deleting my posted coupon they said that any specials need to be run through them and they need a way to track aka put their affiliate id on them.
Left a bad taste in my mouth.
This article is so bad. I mean, there is a lot wrong with the affiliate world. Believe me. And, it attracts more than its fair share of shady characters. But, this guy is reckless and woefully uneducated. I was all settled in for a sordid tale of intrigue or some yarn about a clever heist. I could spin a few of those stories myself. But, of all the things this guy picked on, it's that his traffic is searching for dis…
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make sales - think about it this way: you pay the network, which in turn pays the affiliates say 20%. These affiliates then use their own methods (their own sites, Facebook ads, AdWords, forum posts, a lot of stuff that you'd normally never think of) to drive traffic. They do all the marketing and you make sales - the only thing they don't do is manage your brand, if you are worried about that you're better off without affiliates online.
I was expecting to read about click fraud, but it was just a newbie's experience with running an affiliate program. Kogan had some wild expectation that the majority of affiliate traffic would be first-time visitors to his site. When he uses google analytics to estimate that only 1.6% of referrals were new customers, he trashes affiliate marketing as a business. Unfortunately, he spent no time thinking about how to o…
To his credit, he'd already established that changing commissions from 10% to 5% to 1% made almost no difference to the affiliate schemes behaviour. It seems reasonable to assume that "optimising his campaign to reward affiliates" for any particular behaviour is unlikely to be worthwhile, if 50% and 90% reductions in payouts dosn't motivate them to change anything... Perhaps an "experienced affiliate marketing user"…
I am sure that Kogan has been in business long enough to know not to take what a low-level sales person preaches as fact. Just like Kogan, the sales person also didn't seem to have a clue about affiliate marketing. And, why should he if he can sign new clients who will drop $40K out of the gate?
You have a discount code at your checkout? So basically instead of capturing the sale you're ASKING the buyer to google for discount codes. Think of a sneakier way to give people discount codes that doesn't show it RIGHT THERE ON THE FORM. It makes me feel like I'm getting ripped off when I see discount code and I don't have one.
Honest question: when you go to a grocery or department store and they ask if you have any coupons or a rewards card, do you feel like you're getting ripped off? I may feel like I've missed out, but never "ripped off." When I've reached the checkout page it implies this was the best deal I could find. I do appreciate discounts, but don't feel entitled to them, especially if I'm a first time customer (or opted out of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.kogan.com/au/kogan-discount-codes/ doesn't exist (anymore?): 'Sorry, we can't find the page you're looking for' Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/LSvh9Av.jpg You get, however, annoying pop-up window if you access this URL …
Remove the trailing slash (which reappears when the page loads - 304?). I guess there's multiple URLs and some rewrite magic to get to this page for maximum SEO.
You have a discount code at your checkout? So basically instead of capturing the sale you're ASKING the buyer to google for discount codes. Think of a sneakier way to give people discount codes that doesn't show it RIGHT THERE ON THE FORM. It makes me feel like I'm getting ripped off when I see discount code and I don't have one.
I always thought this about discount code boxes so when I finally had a store checkout of my own to play with I added something like "Got no code? Enter code YAY for a small discount :-)" and it gave 4% off (almost nothing at my margins). Surprisingly, under half of users even bothered to used it :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always thought this about discount code boxes so when I finally had a store checkout of my own to play with I added something like "Got no code? Enter code YAY for a small discount :-)" and it gave 4% off (almost nothing at my margins). Surprisingly, under half of users even bothered to used it :-)
Great margins … what was your business?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To his credit, he'd already established that changing commissions from 10% to 5% to 1% made almost no difference to the affiliate schemes behaviour. It seems reasonable to assume that "optimising his campaign to reward affiliates" for any particular behaviour is unlikely to be worthwhile, if 50% and 90% reductions in payouts dosn't motivate them to change anything... Perhaps an "experienced affiliate marketing user"…
If someone chooses to learn the affiliate marketing business through trial and error, more power to them, and I hope they have a lot of cash to burn. There is a lot more to affiliate marketing than giving X% commission for referrals. As I eluded to in my first comment, it is common to pay near 0% commission for return customers and a hefty % for first-time customers. This is a basic scheme that wasn't even attempted…
A question though, from someone who's inexperienced but very cynical about affiliate marketing – it that sort of option/complexity; to offer very low commissions for return visitors but large commissions for first-timers, actually available through the sort of "affiliate networks" you'd find by searching online?