This time last year I set up a page on my cruise website to capture leads and averaged 22 per day throughout January. This week I am trialling Affiliate Marketing and have now used different companies during each day.
In the last two days I have sent over 300 visitors who want to get a price to these companies and according to the affiliate marketing companies not 1 has become a lead.
As my site generates 50% of its traffic from search terms which include a date, I know my visitors tend to know when, where or with whom they want to travel with. Hence the number of leads I was able to generate without showing prices.
So Does Affiliate Marketing work? If not how does the process break down; is it just when people phone up using the number on the website maybe? Hence loss of the credit for the lead.
Any theories?
I have created many websites, including for cheap cruises, cruise deals and a new one attacking cruise holidays.
What is most likely happening is that people are using your site to do their research and then once they've seen all the prices, going via a cashback/voucher site to make their booking!
I think the main problem is that people have already visited the website previously and therefore someone else's cookie prevails.
Your comment highlights the greatest disadvantage of affiliate networks: loss of sales to referral technicalities. Something we are working on overcoming.
Your sales complete via deeplinking and/or cookies. Meaning that any interruption will first of all eliminate you from the equation - your customer may have completed the transaction over the phone, returned to the purchase later, etc' - you have lost...
Using an engine which integrates "affiliate" suppliers, but completes the transaction on your site - is the way to go in assuring the largest amount of retained sales.
Check out www.carsolize.com and it\s latest news letter: http://eepurl.com/chZjL
Not really sure if i'm on the right track here but focusing on your last point:
"So Does Affiliate Marketing work? If not how does the process break down; is it just when people phone up using the number on the website maybe? Hence loss of the credit for the lead."
It's in the travel companies best interest to get the website visitor to pick up the phone. Higher conversion etc.
Forgive me if im barking up the wrong tree?
It's in the travel companies best interest to get the website visitor to pick up the phone. Higher conversion etc
Yes, but that is no good to an affiliate who supplied the lead as they do not get paid unless there is a dedicated line for that affiliate. But then that does not work either; I have seen it in action where people are being paid commission for sales, they rush to get the call and often fail to note down the phone number used for the incoming call. This again means no credit to the affiliate.
It really depends on the niche. Personally I've had more success doing intensive keyword research and finding a niche with very low competition.
Since your niche is very competitive you should study your competitors and their backlinks. The best way to do this is using a program called Market Samurai. I'm not sure how much it costs but I know it enables you to climb the serps in a lazy fashion by seeing and then replicating (and improving upon) the SEO techniques of your competition.
Without meaning to sound rude yaletown_fella I am a SEO, please do not try to teach me something that is irrelevant to the question asked. You are obviously trying to get people to buy Market Samurai.
It does not matter what niche you are in; there are occasions in all forms of affiliate marketing where it does not work; this thread was to establish a debate on whether it does work or not.