Affiliate Odyssey

The first decision to make with any new affiliate campaign is the niche or product to target.

There are 3 strategies I think have merit:

1. Temporal - look for a niche which has high consumer demand and urgency based on a specific date/season. Obvious examples of this are Christmas, Easter, World Cup Finals, snowfall, etc. For this campaign, I’m tempted by Valentine’s Day as it falls in the middle of the month and would act as a great indicator of sales up to, including and then after the 14th. The lingerie, chocolate and fragrance markets are ideal candidates and there are plenty of merchants supplying these markets on all the affiliate networks. The downside is that once the 14th is over, the site is unlikely to generate much income until the next Valentine’s.
2. Specific - look for one product with a great sales page, good conversion stats and decent affiliate commissions. Clickbank’s plethora of e-books and other digital downloads promises great things but I’m still unconvinced that, particularly UK-based consumers, will buy e-books given our inherent cynicism and skepticism. The area which does interest me is nutrition. I’m becoming increasingly addicted to Ju Jitsu and as I progress through the belts, I’m finding that my fitness and strength is being challenged with each new technique. Building up some muscle and getting healthier is key and so it would be reasonably easy to set up a campaign around a product range such as MaxiMuscle which has a beautifully designed website and should convert well with good commission. This strategy lends itself to the small, 5 page mini-site, focussed on sending PPC traffic to the merchant.
3. Authority Site - a strategy favoured by Amit Mehta and Jack Humphrey, this involves building a content rich site and adding to the content consistently until it becomes dominant in its niche. This strategy is not a way to make a “quick buck” but, over time, can generate enormous income. The essential element here is to have interest and/or knowledge in the subject area, making it easier to keep motivated over long periods of content generation. I find this strategy very appealing but whether it’s the right choice for this exercise I’m not so sure. On the one hand, the campaign may have poor results for the 29 days of February but on the other, the links from Eric’s site may give the site a much needed “leg up”.

So which strategy should I pursue?

Find out tomorrow…