Sabtu, 21 April 2012

Affiliate Marketing Practical: CTR, EPM & EPC

Image of Affiliate Marketing Practical: CTR, EPM & EPC

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money (monetize) from your blog or business website's content. This article will discuss techniques, tools, tips and tricks for entrepreneurs, bloggers and content marketers to understand how to drive and convert traffic at the highest rate possible.

Affiliate marketing is a numbers game in which you have to continually strive to keep your impressions high, the CTR (Click Thru Rate) high, and the EPM (Earnings per 1000 impressions) and EPC (Earnings Per 100 Clicks) high.

The higher your can keep these numbers, the more money you will generate from your content.

How to rock affiliate marketing figures and calculations

Most publishers (bloggers, content marketers, etc) tend not to reveal their earnings from affiliate relationships and advertising. I'm going to show (see the attached affiliate marketing earning report)what my blog has done over the last week or so to give you an idea of the numbers I generate.

Remember that every blog is unique and what you earn from your content depends on:

  • Content quality
  • Traffic volumes
  • Level of reader engagement
  • Skill & experience
  • Niche

My figures are as follows:

  • Impressions: 4424
  • CTR: 4.14%
  • EPM: $29.39
  • EPC: $71.04

Interpreting affiliate marketing statistics

What these numbers indicate is that out of every thousand impressions (whenever a reader looks at a page that displays an affiliate ad or link), on average 41 (and a half) people will click on a link.

Those 41 (and a half) people end up generating revenue for me, in the form of affiliate commissions, in the amount of $29.39 (EPM). They do this because a small percentage of them go ahead and purchase something at a commission rate of $71.04 per hundred clicks (EPC).

So, for every hundred clicks I generate, on average, I will be paid $71.04. It takes approximately 2400 impressions to generate these clicks and the resulting revenue.

In other words, I make about 3c per impression (each time someone views a page).

If I want to earn more money I need to increase the number of impressions my content generates. But, there's a catch. I have to do it in such a way as to maintain my other stats, otherwise, all I am doing is increasing my server costs without increasing revenue.

The role of SEO, social and marketing in affiliate publishing

However you monetize your content, it is possible to work out what the EPM is. With this figure in hand, you can work out what type of marketing, advertising, SEO and social campaigns are suitable.

Advertising for affiliate marketers

By way of example, consider StumbleUpon. Advertising on StumbleUpon costs around 5c per page view. Currently, I would lose 2c on average per page view, so this is not a good option.

But, my EPM is for general blog content. I might be confident that I can increase my EPM by creating special pages that would appeal to a targetable niche. If I can increase my earnings to 7c per page view, then StumbleUpon becomes viable.

The same considerations go into all advertising campaigns. Because advertising, unlike other forms of marketing, has no residual benefits (i.e. as soon as you stop paying, traffic ceases), the calculation is simple:

Is my ad spend greater or less than my return?

Factors that can influence the ROI (Return on Investment) for advertising are:

  • Ad focus & traffic quality
  • Page design
  • Content quality
  • Content clarity
  • Trust
  • Authority
  • Skill and creativity
  • Niche

In other words, look at your content and make sure that it both skillfully integrates affiliate links in a way that is targeted, relevant, and engaging for your target audience.

Whether or not your are successful can come down to pushing your EPM up by a few dollars and cents, so lots of skill, thought and creativity needs to go into creating great content.

Social & SEO for affiliate marketers

There are two main differences between SEO & social marketing, and advertising. Namely:

  • Benefits accrue and accumulate with time
  • Cost is measured predominantly in labor and time, instead of cash

Whatever work you put into building up authority and trust within a social niche, continues to increase as you attract more and more followers. A well built social network can maintain a relatively high level of engagement.

The same goes for SEO. Create high quality content on a regular basis. Make it socially integrated, and generate a higher PageRank and back-links. The benefits are compounded and long lasting.

The downside is that both methods can take a lot of time. You have to be prepared to put in the hours for very little return (at least initially). As opposed to advertising, which generates traffic and return instantly.

Great products and services for affiliate marketers

Fortunately, there are plenty of products and services that can help with SEO, social marketing, and Internet marketing in general.

Decide whether or not it is better to invest in your growth early on, or hang on to the cash and go it alone.

My advice is to establish a stream of revenue as early as possible. Even if you are initially losing money, it is important to get money flowing. Without some sort of income stream it is almost impossible to sustain your investment in time and effort.

Here are the best SEO, social and marketing services available today:

  • SEOmoz ' Start Ranking Better!
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  • See What They Say About Your Business In Reviews, Social Media & More. Free!
  • Send 500 FREE email newsletters with your VerticalResponse trial!
  • Let Campaigner help you grow your business and build your relationships with your customers. Start your risk FREE 30 day trial today.
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  • Build your own Social Network!

Recommended marketing blogs

Obviously, you are reading this, so you should be following Siteprebuilder already. Aside from that, I can definitely recommend the following bloggers and marketing types who regularly provide super useful information about how to drive traffic, engage and convert it.

  • Convince and convert
  • Social media examiner
  • Duct tape marketing
  • Social media today
  • Business2community


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