Affiliate Marketing Plunge II: Day 18
June 22, 2008 Posted by Tyler CruzIt’s time for another update on the Affiliate Marketing Challenge. I’d like to encourage everyone who hasn’t entered yet and is eligible (hasn’t signed up to MarketLeverage) to sign-up. There is an 8GB iPod Touch, Mino Flip Video Camera, $200 Market Leverage Rewards Amex Card, and a 2.0GB USB Pen up for grabs in addition to all the revenue you generate.
Several commenters have complained how participant CD8107 is “too far ahead” in order for them to have a chance. Well, not with that attitude you won’t. First of all, if you noticed, CD8107 made almost all of that amount on Father’s Day. You can see CD8036 already creeping up on him. Secondly, even if CD8107 does secure first place, there are still great prizes for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places! Don’t forget that!
Here is an update on the standings for RSS and E-mail subscribers who can’t see the regularly updated rankings chart on my blog:
| 1st | CD8107 | $996.60 |
| 2nd | CD8036 | $144.00 |
| 3rd | CD8322 | $84.40 |
| 4th | CD8065 | $64.40 |
| $1,403.60 |
This competition has been running great so far. I had actually wanted to run such a competition with an affiliate network for a while now, so when MarketLeverage approached me wanting to run a contest… I knew exactly what I wanted.
We’re only 10 days into the competition and so far I’ve signed up 40 affiliates to MarketLeverage. This is a win-win-win for everybody involved, and my only regret is that I wasn’t able to run it sooner as I’m sure I would have signed up 100 by now. We’ll have to see how many I sign up by the time the contest ends.
It just goes to show you how a little bit of creative marketing can generate huge dividends (literally!). MarketLeverage ran contests on around 15-20 blogs, and if we average the cost of each prize package to be $600 (I say cost and not value as I’m sure they get bulk discounts for the amount of stuff they buy), you can estimate a marketing spend of $9,000 – $12,000 for this contest.
In exchange, if we estimate that the average number of sign-ups per blog to be 50 (by the time the contest is over), that’s 750 to 1,000 new affiliates they added to their network! What a bargain – that’s a customer acquisition cost of only $12. And then there are the obvious side benefits such as the sheer amount of exposure and brand awareness generated.
So, if any other affiliate networks out there want to run a future contest with me, let me know. We’re only 10 days in and already 40 affiliates have registered, 8 of which are actively generating income to a current total of $1,403.60.
Slow but Steady Wins the Race…
Here are my latest stats, as of yesterday:
Yes, I am still in the red… now $400 in the hole. But look at my ROI 🙂
Taking the average ROI from my past post updates, it started at -57.12%, increased to -53.42%, then to -43.71%, and is now sitting at -36.83%. I’m actually thrilled with that progression. It’s a big improvement over my -78.21% from last year.
You’ll notice from that chart above that June 19th was by far my best day yet, netting nearly $70 with an ROI of +104%. I didn’t do anything different on this day… it’s just part of the ebb and flow of the game – the same reason the previous day had no leads generated. But it does show you the potential of things if I can optimize more.
I’ve actually done very little work to my campaigns this past week. I was busy working on MMAForums.net, taking care of my e-mails, and writing these blogs posts. I spent a good 4-5 hours last night working on my campaigns again and trying a couple new tools (new to me) and hope to work on them more tonight, so we’ll see how things go.
I’ll be truthful with you though – it’s not going to be easy improving on my current ROI… especially since I’m trying a few new campaigns now.
I know that I haven’t explained in-depth what I’ve been doing exactly, nor have I explained the basics behind PPC affiliate marketing to those that don’t really understand how it works or how you can make money with affiliate networks like MarketLeverage.
I plan on doing either a video or screencast post soon which should help address these questions.
Anyhow, wish me luck and stay tuned as usual to see how my numbers change.
Man, I would be really interested in running for 1st. I probably could make it, but my current affiliate program pays $35/sign-up, and MarketLeverage only pays $21/sign-up. (For the highest paying CPA that I’d be interested in running). So if I ran for 1st, I’d lose out on $600 if I made comparative sales, to make the $900 on commission. And with that, I could just buy an iPod. I’ll test it out to see if I make more sales, but that is a very poor incentive otherwise. Not your problem, just a problem with the advertisers at MarketLeverage and their payouts.
Have you asked ML if they would match or beat the price for you?
I think the product ML is selling costs less than the $35 commission from the other affiliate marketer. However, if the price is lowered, maybe more people will purchase the product, making up on lost revenue. So perhaps today I will take a 1 week run of the affiliate product and compare revenue generated to see where everything stands and who to stick with.
I see, so it’s a different product altogether? You can request ML to try to grab the offer. They will contact the advertiser and do their best to get their offer. They might be able to give you an increase on the $35 even…
I joined under you just to win the contest for kicks. If they had the main offer I run, I would be in first place in less than a day. They don’t have it though and its not an easy offer to get.
Any new testing, I’ll do on my account for this contest but I’m not sure if I’ll have the time for anything new this month.
Have you asked them to try to get the offer? ML is pretty accomodating, especially if they know you can push them volume..
Oh I am so close to hitting the top 4, I think I am at 63.00 right now with market leverage, but I think that is going to go up soon as I am running a few new campaigns as we speak.
When is the contest over again. I am trying for the flip camera.
Collin
http://www.feedflare.ca
What is your CD number? You can e-mail it to me if you don’t want to disclose it publicly for some reason.
I can tell you what place you’re in.
Contest ends July 10th at midnight Pacific time.
cd8047
Yes, you are in 5th place.. behind by only $2! Get cracking!
I would really like to see some detailed videos/guides on the whole process since I only have a really basic idea of how the whole thing is done.
Hey Tyler, I’d love to see a video or guide as well. I checked out the video’s you linked to in the previous post, but I still don’t what you’re doing.
Are you building mini-sites? Single page landing pages? Linking directly to the offer page?
This is my first time seeing this contest done this way before…please get in touch with me to let me know how it goes…it may be something i can do for my website!
Thanks and good luck!
LaPrentiss Sampson
fantastical result of CD8107 according to other guys!
I cant wait till i get some extra cash to try some affiliate marketing. I do pretty well with affiliate sales on my site.
Do you have any limits on how much you are willing do lose and such? What kind of offers are you promoting?
I thinks hes promoting credit card offers