Azoogle ads - still no commissions, but…
by Sapphire (July 26, 2007)
600+ clicks over four sites and I’ve yet to make a commission from Azoogle. But I think I know why, and if I’m right - it’s not bad news.
I’m currently running it on four sites: this one, ChillyCool, Project B-2 Bomber, and Project Mai Tai. I’m running mostly the exact same ads on each site. Certain ads (like Panda Research offering you cash on the spot) consistently outperform the others on all four sites.
But here’s a gem: Mai Tai gets about 1,000 uniques per month while B-2 gets well over 10,000. Mai Tai gets about ten times as many clicks as B-2.
I’ve mentioned some of this before, so it may sound familiar, but I wanted to put it all together. Because I think this means that Mai Tai is the right kind of site for ads. And that’s a huge lesson for me. B-2 is an awesome site with an awesome community of posters and commenters. I’m sure there’s money in it somewhere down the line, but not in ads. People come to that site to read, discuss, debate, get impassioned. They don’t come to shop, and even if you offer that exact thing they’ve always wished someone would invent in an ad in your sidebar, I doubt they’d notice. So there’s no point going bananas trying to sell affiliate stuff on that site. It’s got the traffic, but it’s not the right traffic. 100k of that “wrong” traffic and yeah, it would make some sales from ads. But that’s still not B-2’s destiny. It doesn’t matter what I run ads for or where I position them or what color the site is. It’s not an ideal ad site.
Mai Tai, on the other hand… for some reason that tiny audience is really interested in those ads. I’m not sure why, but I’ll toss out all the reasons I’ve thought of (and again, I’ve mentioned some of these before so you’re not having deja vu):
- Articles are generally very short but always (I hope, and the bookmark rate suggests) useful. Maybe after a short but useful tidbit, people’s eyes tend to roam the screen, happily predisposed to check out other things (say, banner ads?) that might also be useful?
- Maybe its niche attracts consumate shoppers, always on the lookout for stuff to buy.
- The content is upbeat, all about solving problems.
Of course, that still leaves the question: why haven’t I made any commissions with all those clicks? With only 1,000 uniques, that’s hard to answer. Maybe I’ve got the wrong ads. Maybe the actual offers just aren’t as seductive as the banner ads and I need to find better ones. Or maybe I just don’t have enough traffic yet. I think I’ll wait until Mai Tai is at 5,000 and see how sales are doing then.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing
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