Demons Lounge – Affiliate Marketing Blog!

I have never previously worked with the Amazon Associate Program, and admittedly the main reasons for this is the the low commission rate and bad reviews (even in the Amazon affiliate forum). Recently however i have tested the program because i could find no other well known high street brands selling the products i required and so far to be honest i have been pleasantly surprised at the results.

My new website only generates a trickle of traffic and is far from optimized, it is what i might call a future project that i may or may not get round to realizing. So far in 532 affiliate clicks i have generated 15 sales. Not amazing admittedly, however of these 15 sales only 4 were actually for products i am actively promoting. I have sold guitars, television equipment, sofa covers and the obvious books and stuff all from a website that is totally 100% not related to any of these- impressive.

The Pros

Amazon is a well known brand and i am not sure a person exists that has not bought something from them at one time or other, therefore the thought of purchasing from them again shouldn’t cause too much of a problem.  Amazon may also show them other products they may also require and wish to purchase.  My test as stated above (however limited) shows that people may browse for one thing but actually decide to purchase another adding to your revenue.

The Cons

Amazon is certainly not the best affiliate program out there, they offer you a starting commission rate of 5% and only provide a 24 hour cookie – very poor at best. The disappointment however does not end there, they also cap earnings per product at £7.

In my opinion there is a time and place for using the Amazon Associates Program. In my test as detailed above i was selling a pretty low priced product and the average commission rate offered by Amazons competitors was just 5% flat with no chance of increase. In this situation i am more than happy to sell for Amazon and count myself lucky that Amazon will up sell other products on my behalf with no extra work required.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I have actually wanted to review this product for a number of months but for whatever reason it has always been put on the back burner. I am not being paid for this review and the product has no current affiliate program so you can be 100% assured that the review is of a genuine nature.

I have never been very good with code (whether html, php, or any of the others that i cant name but am sure exist), but have always wanted to learn how to use data feeds to create online affiliate stores. For those of you relatively new to affiliate marketing i will give a brief description of what data feeds are:

Data Feeds are essentially a feed from an online retailer that enables you to display products on your affiliate site. They are 100% self updating so when price changes occur they will also occur on your site. To effectively implement data feeds involves many hours of coding and styling so that the data feed products do not look out of place on your website.

When i began researching data feeds in the hope that i could learn to implement them on my websites i became very aware very quickly that this was never going to be possible, so i turned to looking for tools that could basically do this for me. Although at this time there were a number of tools claiming to be able to do what i was looking for on closer inspection it was obvious that the look, feel & functionality was never going to be such that i could compete with affiliates who were adept to using data feeds never mind the merchant themselves. I realized there was no product to help me and turned my attentions to other (non storefront) affiliate ambitions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 18% [?]

A week or so ago i reviewed the much anticipated Headway Theme when i probably should have been writing something about the Frugal Theme since this blog is now controlled by its Framework, better late than never i suppose!

Frugal originally appealed to me because of its clean and fresh feel, it is a Thesis theme (in looks) for non coders, as almost everything you want to do with this theme can be done from the Frugal administration & design panel. The comparison between Thesis & Frugal ends at the crisp clean design though as they are very different beasts. If you are an extremely competent coder perhaps Thesis will be more your cup of tea, however Frugal not only provides ease of use for non coders but also has a customizable stylesheet for those requiring to make tweaks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

I first joined PPC Classroom in 2008 when it first launched and have been returning to the members section & forum ever since. PPC Classroom has taught me virtually everything I know about PPC marketing . It is rare to find an affiliate training course that delivers exactly what is expected, however this course does just that.

If you are looking for a get rich scheme this is not for you, this is a quality training course teaching techniques that can help turn your business around – knowledge is power!

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Headway theme is a new premium theme that has so far caused a bit of a stir in WordPress circles. Headway is a fully customizable theme that requires no coding (a serious advantage for codeaphobics like me). This theme appears to be rivaling the Thesis theme on a scale that has (up to now) not been achieved, but with Thesis’s 2.0 release having been hinted about should you purchase Headway or await Chris Pearsons Thesis 2.0.

Headway offers a fully customzable theme that requires only use of their drag and drop interface. You can drag and drop to adjust your layout without touching the code. You can change fonts, colors, add favicons, add content to the header or footer, add script,  and totally edit everything SEO. Some of the sites built with headway look pretty much amazing!

So whats so special about Headway Theme?

Headway has been created as part of the new wave of content framework Themes, allowing you to fully customize your website design from the administration panel. Headway provides three back office design features for you to get to know (and love). Heres a short video showing some of the great features of the Headway Theme.

Some Example Sites Using Headway!

So do you buy Headway or wait for Thesis 2.0? To be honest it is almost impossible to say as their has been little written about what to expect in Thesis 2.0. I was very dissappointed with the original Thesis theme, however this is because i am not a coder and have heard from those with competant coding skills that it is the best Theme available.

But with statement like “I don’t think you’ll ever need to buy another premium WordPress theme again, once you have Headway. It’s way more than just a blog theme: it’s a blog designer.”- remarkablogger.com, can you afford not to buy this theme?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Today i have been testing the Faster Opt In Plugin which is a free plugin that allows you to build your list with an attractive pop up (as you may have seen on the home page of this site).

The only prerequisite is that you have an active Aweber (or other  email marketing solution) account.

The actual plugin has a number of configuration options:

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 21% [?]

Carter:Philips Affiliate Network Ltd was founded in 2004 and primarily deals with Financial related programs. Their big selling point with Merchants is that they do not charge any fee to set up a program with them, but instead make their money solely from the override which i believe is approximately 30% – roughly the same as most other networks.

When i approached them about promoting a particular offer in October 2008 they couldn’t have been more helpful. In one of our short discussions with regards to the network it became apparent that they were looking to expand and expand massively. Whether this will happen still remains to be seen, however in my couple months promoting the programs on their network i can honestly say i am very happy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14% [?]