Affiliate PPC

[Antti]

I’ve been bouncing this idea for offering affiliate based PPC marketing for creators of online courses or other digital products and I’d like your opinions if this would be viable.

In a nutshell, I would do Google/FB/etc. ads with email funnel using my own money and we would split the revenue generated from sales. So I’d take all the financial risk and do the work, but if done right there would be no cap on earnings. Also I wouldn’t have to worry about the product, customer service etc. back end stuff. If I’d make one client successful it could be fairly easy to replicate with a similar product on same niche.

How does this sound from the client perspective? Would you do it or is 50% too big cut? Is risk free $50 better than $100 minus variable CAC? Assuming your knowledge of digital marketing and/or budget is limited.

What kind of niche would be best for this? Preferably it should be evergreen, but not seasonal like weight loss. It would also help if the target audience could be profiled easily, such as dog training or parental courses. Any ideas?

What kind of price point should the product have? I’ve been thinking less than $100 for maximum conversions but still high enough for room for decent CPA. What do you think?

What about the strategy of collecting email addresses and converting with funnel? Any better ideas?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[CCarter]

seasonal like weight loss

Weight loss isn’t seasonal, American are getting fatter by the day.

 

[The Engineer]

I would do Google/FB/etc. ads with email funnel using my own money and we would split the revenue generated from sales.

This sounds like a dream come true and I see no reason for anyone to not hop on board. My main concern is you protecting yourself since you're taking on the risk. You need a contract, tracking for clicks and conversions, and access to proof of conversions / shaving. Getting access to the payment processing backend is going to be tricky, as most won't want to allow access even if it's read-only.

Would you do it or is 50% too big cut? Is risk free $50 better than $100 minus variable CAC? Assuming your knowledge of digital marketing and/or budget is limited.

It's a great deal. You get a serious affiliate without having to manage bad affiliates or even set up an affiliate program. The seller gets far more than 50% of each sale out of it. They're getting marketing out of it, reaching new audiences, etc.

What kind of price point should the product have? I’ve been thinking less than $100 for maximum conversions but still high enough for room for decent CPA. What do you think?

My first thought was $2,000+ with big players like gurus in their own verticals. Why carry risk and expenses and data crunching and optimizing for what'll end up netting you $50 a pop when there's much hotter audiences that could net you $1,500 a conversion? The only difference is the scale you could work with, where optimizing is going to be a lot easier with the less expensive products to exponentially larger audiences, but if you're warming them with email sequences, I think you might be able to tip fence-sitters over on expensive products and services. I'd do both probably, I'm sure it'll depend on who accepts your offer.

 

[Antti]

Great insights, thanks @The Engineer !

This sounds like a dream come true and I see no reason for anyone to not hop on board. My main concern is you protecting yourself since you're taking on the risk. You need a contract, tracking for clicks and conversions, and access to proof of conversions / shaving. Getting access to the payment processing backend is going to be tricky, as most won't want to allow access even if it's read-only.

As you say, this is a very good deal for the product owner. I believe I could be able to enforce much tighter conditions than with basic digital marketing management with monthly fee.

I was thinking of requiring a coupon code for 10% discount or so. It's a digital product so it wouldn't matter that much as opposed to already slim margins of physical products. Most of the users would utilize the code and it would allow easy tracking of conversions. I know from experience that attribution tracking based on cookies is a bitch. So this setup would dodge it.

Also all access to back end would be required for verification purposes.

It's a great deal. You get a serious affiliate without having to manage bad affiliates or even set up an affiliate program. The seller gets far more than 50% of each sale out of it. They're getting marketing out of it, reaching new audiences, etc.

Yea, absolutely. However, as I am the one handling the funnel, I was thinking of keeping the email list for myself during our co-operation. That would also allow possible "exit" by selling the optimized ad accounts, email lists & funnels to client so they could keep 100% of profit after that. It would be even more valuable for them after they made new courses and had already warm audience ready.

Does that sound outrageous?

My first thought was $2,000+ with big players like gurus in their own verticals. Why carry risk and expenses and data crunching and optimizing for what'll end up netting you $50 a pop when there's much hotter audiences that could net you $1,500 a conversion? The only difference is the scale you could work with, where optimizing is going to be a lot easier with the less expensive products to exponentially larger audiences, but if you're warming them with email sequences, I think you might be able to tip fence-sitters over on expensive products and services. I'd do both probably, I'm sure it'll depend on who accepts your offer.

Actually that's a great idea. I have to test this with cheaper products because I would need much higher starting budget and higher risk on my behalf with more expensive products. But if the concept is successful, that's definitely way to go.

@CCarter

Yea, maybe gardening would have been better example. Even though weight loss has it's peaks, it still has demand all year around.

Any niche ideas?

 

[CCarter]

gardening

Near the Equator in places like Florida, the Caribbeans, and Central America gardening is all year round too. There are thousands of places on Earth that are just summer all year round. Similar to how there are places at the Poles which are all year round "winter". Gardening can be all year round.

There are also underground gardens like Growing Underground (http://growing-underground.com/) that are bringing gardening to a whole new level (potential topic to talk about).

Even though weight loss has it's peaks

What makes you think weight loss has peaked? If Americans are getting fatter it's clearly going to continue growing in demand. Only until Americans collectively start losing weight will we have seen when it peaked. You never actually see a peak or plateau until once the topic is on the decline. We haven't seen a decline in weight loss demand yet so it hasn't peaked.

In your approach of things you have a lot of "baggage" and "assumptions" that if you took some time to research you would realize are completely wrong. And if you are wrong on those, what other assumptions that you take as fact are you wrong about?

Any niche ideas?

High ticket items with good margins is where the money is made. Something to do with health is also a great mix. Put those together and you get ideas like stair lifts and geri chairs (medical recliners). The best way to get an idea is to talk face to face with people in an industry and ask them what products/services cost and which ones are extremely high, you'll find out a whole world of things you never new existed.

Nurses are great sources.

 

[Antti]

Near the Equator in places like Florida, the Caribbeans, and Central America gardening is all year round too. There are thousands of places on Earth that are just summer all year round. Similar to how there are places at the Poles which are all year round "winter". Gardening can be all year round.

There are also underground gardens like Growing Underground (http://growing-underground.com/) that are bringing gardening to a whole new level (potential topic to talk about).

Maybe I should have clarified I'm going for local clients (=Finnish) as I already have knowledge/experience/connections here. And here gardening is definitely seasonal.

What makes you think weight loss has peaked? If Americans are getting fatter it's clearly going to continue growing in demand. Only until Americans collectively start losing weight will we have seen when it peaked. You never actually see a peak or plateau until once the topic is on the decline. We haven't seen a decline in weight loss demand yet so it hasn't peaked.

In your approach of things you have a lot of "baggage" and "assumptions" that if you took some time to research you would realize are completely wrong. And if you are wrong on those, what other assumptions that you take as fact are you wrong about?

I am not saying weight loss has peaked in total. I'm saying it has seasonal peaks each year in January and August after the holidays.

I want to experiment with a niche that's seasonally steady so I can draw better conclusions on whether this is a good idea or not.

High ticket items with good margins is where the money is made. Something to do with health is also a great mix. Put those together and you get ideas like stair lifts and geri chairs (medical recliners). The best way to get an idea is to talk face to face with people in an industry and ask them what products/services cost and which ones are extremely high, you'll find out a whole world of things you never new existed.

Nurses are great sources.

I did some spreadsheet calculations and it seems it's much better to sell only few high ticket items than it is to sell lots of cheap items.

I'm thinking of stock investing courses. Thoughts?

Also other niche ideas are appreciated!