Slightly Shady SEO | Blackhat is Back, Baby.

Ok, so here we go. I’ve been playing with a bunch of new affiliate programs lately, so I thought I’d share. I’m well aware this is not all of them that are out there, but these are the ones I’ve used, or at least have gotten a firm impression of(I’ll use some associates for the ones I’m not as solid on).

But all the traffic in the world doesn’t matter if you can’t convert it into money. People get hung up on adsense, but there’s dozens of other advertising networks out there that can help. Especially in the current anti-paid link world, it’s important to know these.

I’ll cover a few favorites first, but rest assured these are not whorey reviews, and many will have negative points listed.
*Note: For the purposes of this entry, a “CPA” offer is one in which money doesn’t change hands immediately or at all, and the affiliate is paid for the sign-up. I’m well aware this can sometimes refer to a purchase.

• Affiliate Programs and CPA Programs
  
  • Joe Bucks/MarketHealth - 50% Commission(’nuff said) **EDIT: JoeBucks conversions dove, no longer active promoting it
    
    • JoeBucks is a”health” product affiliate program. But good lord, these guys have it down. They have 99 products to promote
      ranging from Acne Products to Wrinkle Removers to Colon Cleansers to Lip Pumpers to Weightloss to Penis Pills.
    • JoeBucks currently offers a branded store, which means you give them a name (”Acne Gone” for example) and they give you a zip file of their default site with all the names/images changed to match your product name. You can then modify the content to be whatever you so desire, and upload it to their hosting. As always, you get 50% commission, but the advantage of being able to promote a store, not a “thin affiliate” page.
    • If you don’t want a branded store, you can use theirs and just send links with your affiliate ID
    • Conversion ratios are decent. Right now on one product(via PPC) I’m shooting a 1:36-1:45 conversion ratio.
    • The negative of JoeBucks is that it’s quite commonly used within it’s niche(not quite to saturation though). They have used their affiliates to turn their products(especially acne care) into a pseudo-brand name. Actually, I got a search in recently on an unrelated site(damn) that referenced the product by name.
  • NeverBlue
    • I’m relatively new to NeverBlue, but at the urging of NickyCakes(a major fan of theirs) ran some test campaigns recently so that I could get you guys a proper review.
    • The overall gist of NeverBlue is a combo affiliate program, and CPA program(for those unfamiliar with CPA, it’s generally getting someone to fill out a form with zip code, email, or perhaps more, and getting paid due to that)
    • They offer about 697 different products/CPAs as of this writing. The highest paying lead(not sales) based offer pays out $38 per lead.
    • These guys have more variety than any CPA-base program I’ve ever seen. Everything from inkjet printer cartridges, to build-a-bear to SilverTag auctions(a favorite of many a Facebook marketer)
    • They boast a quite high conversion ratio, and a smaller affiliate base than most companies of their level.
    • Their per sale setup is not as large as their CPA, but there’s still has several offers that are not seen frequently in other affiliate programs
    • I’m not experienced enough to find negatives for these guys yet, so I’ll let this sit until I am.
  • ClickBank
    • ClickBank is the king of the dirty little 1 page sales letter. You’ve seen them. One long arse page hyping the product with a few fudged “testimonials”, and probably the signature of the owner/hyper.
    • Specializes in e-books, and other such things you don’t have to ship.
    • Terrible interface. Just shiite. Affiliates and Publishers should never have an identical panel when they login. Also, they need to show you the products you can promote when you login, not make you dig for it.
    • I’ve heard people who get ClickBank to promote their e-book or whatever have had infinitely better luck I have had selling their product.
    • I have had absolutely crap returns on ClickBank. However, I’ve heard from many that they do much better. It’s pretty product specific.
  • Commission Junction
    • After having to write that miserable review of ClickBank, I’m pleased to be able to write this one. Commission Junction has an almost obscene number of products to promote.
    • There’s enough stores that it’s easy to find a niche
    • Publishers include many big names including banks, large scale electronics dealerships, ebay, and other such lovlies.
    • They have an XML ad feed as well, which I admittedly do not know much about, so I will not cover it here.
    • The negatives of Commission Junction is a wildly varying affiliate commission. Some go 40%+, and some do 2%. Also, it has a mind-boggling amount of members, so even seemingly tiny niched products end up having competition. In addition, my experiences there have given me pretty shoddy conversion ratios. The addition of more product specific links would be absolutely lovely. Also, their tracking software doesn’t update frequently; once every 24 horus.
  • CPAEmpire
    • A lot of my attachment to CPAEmpire is actually based on the company’s origin and CEO. It’s currently headed up by Scott Richter. For those of you who do not know him, he (and his companies) are traditionally the first to embrace, make bank with, and eventually get sued for, every up and coming marketing tactic that has appeared over the past decade. E-mail Marketing? Sued up and down. MySpace? Sued. However it appears he’s gone more towards the “straight and narrow”, running a surprisingly stable company. I haven’t sent much traffic there lately, but for a bit it was a sustaining force for me.
    • CPAEmpire runs a small amount of per sale offers, but as the name implies bases around CPA/lead based offers.
    • They are probably the last remaining company that offers a significant amount of zip and e-mail submits. Payouts per lead range from 0.45 cents each, up to $4.50 each, which a heavy clustering around $1.50 per submit. They have a variety of offers in the “Win a Free expensive product here” category, and a good offer on Ringtones($10 per cell phone submit). Their highest paying offer is a $60 per signup NutriSystem offer with a “Free Week”
    • Conversion ratios are quite nice. Typically, mine range from 12% to 36% on targeted PPC traffic.
    • When you sign-up, you are assigned an affiiate manager. I can’t speak to all of them, but I know mine(Brandon) would absolutely bend over backwards to help if I asked him to.
    • There are 2 negatives of CPAEmpire that are worthy of mentioning.
      1. Their stats tracking software sucks. And I mean sucks. There’s a tremendous lag between the clicks/leads occuring, and showing up. If I am running a test campaign, or trying to figure out which offer to run on a website, I do not want to have to sit around for hours wondering if I’m losing money.
      2. When their offers don’t convert, they really don’t convert. I’ve had to do more rigorous testing of an offer here before running it than anywhere else I’ve experienced. On the flipside though, many convert quite well, and never lose ground.
  • COPEAC
    • Copeac is more or less like CPAEmpire, but with less offers. Many of the offers are not a part of CPAEmpire’s list, so for anyone looking to push CPA with any intensity, Copeac is a good account to have.
    • It suffers from the exact same software base as CPAEmpire, and as such as the same crappy and unpredictable clicktracking/reporting
    • EDIT: Found a few offers Copeac runs that no one else does. Now one of my top producers
• PPC Programs
  • Adsense
    • Did you really expect me to waste my time reviewing adsense? For shame!
  • PeakClick - I really like this PPC program, so forgive it if it sounds overly positive
    • The Concept
      • PeakClick is the anti-adsense. The same MFA(made for adsense) that will get you banned from Adsense itself are what PeakClick is striving to get.
      • They provide an XML Feed you can connect to. The idea is you search their feed(via PHP; don’t worry, they provide a script) for whatever the user searches to arrive at your site. They return a set of ads tailored to match whatever you searched for
    • The Reality
      • A lot of people get scared away from PeakClick because it at first appears to pay shoddy. However, not quite the case. It has two feeds. The basic feed, which often pays a penny or so per click, and the advanced feed, which pays surprisingly well for a PPC engine based around MFA sites. In order to get the advanced feed you need a CTR of about 10%(not hard if you don’t have to have content on the page), at least a moderate search volume, and you must query their search for exactly what the search engine search was. They only accept search engine traffic.
      • Payouts vary wildly, but it’s pretty easy to target them. Some keywords are locked in around 5 cents, but some obscure terms come out surprisingly high (”used tires” comes in at 23 cents).
      • The highest payout per click right now(that I could find via my random searches) is about $2.11. In the past, I’ve seen it up to $4.55. The highest paying terms are quite different from adsense, so the saturation for many is lower.
      • It’s built for longtail, so “used tires in willmington, kentucky” comes back at the same price as “used tires” (although with some topics it will be slightly below)
      • They payout in Euros or dollars(your choice)
    • The Top Webmasters (Note: This is the top 20 Webmaster’s earnings for today, and it’s only 3:20 in the afternoon)
      
      Mmmm tasty.
    • The PeakClick Conclusion
      If you can provide the traffic and don’t want to risk your adsense, then this is a very viable option for you. The CTR is easy to achieve, and redirection from a *different* site to a landing page you make is not hard at all.

Now Signup, and Get Promoting!

-XMCP

Posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 4:00 pm in the category:Product Reviews, affiliate marketing. Comment RSS 2.0 feed. Comment it , or trackback this post.