How to monetize products w/o affiliate programs?

M

MSTeacher

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Jun 19, 2010
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I have a few review sites but I've always built these sites in niches wherein affiliate commissions are a forgone conclusion. I'm about to develop a review site for a niche that has about a dozen products in it. Half of the companies have affiliate programs, either in-house or networked, and the other half do not. I'd like some ideas on how to monetize the ones that don't.

A few ideas I've had:

1. Track traffic from my site to theirs, spy on their ad spends, and offer them traffic at a lower price than they're currently paying. (Best tracking for this?)

2a. Show them the traffic they're getting from my site and tell them I'll keep their product review on the site and/or favorable for a price. (A bit blackmailish perhaps?)

2b. Don't include them at all and give them a price for inclusion once the site is ranked for keywords they're interested in/paying for. (Least appealing option because I want the inital content, seo traffic, site is more useful for user, etc.)

3. Request that they create an affiliate program. (Probably wouldn't work unless I take over enough traffic in the niche for them to take notice)

I've never read an in-depth strategy on approaching this issue and there doesn't seem to be a 'standard operating procedure' so I'm asking for your thoughts.

Thanks!
 


Refrozen said:
Direct traffic towards the ones with affiliate programs.
Click to expand...

That's my plan for now. Only thing I don't like about that is there are a few products without affiliate programs with more traffic/outsell/are better than ones with programs. Guess that's the way it goes.
 
Well Depending on what it is... You could once you have decent traffic coming in... sell your own version of the product and keep all the profits for yourself.... But that isn't always feasible.
 
doug102938 said:
Well Depending on what it is... You could once you have decent traffic coming in... sell your own version of the product and keep all the profits for yourself.... But that isn't always feasible.
Click to expand...

This.


If the money is worth it, and you have time to kill you can always setup a simple aff tracking script and contact them directly to do deals.

But be prepared to get fucked. Companies that don't have a referral program setup in some fashion usually don't for a good reason. You can expect that they WILL get greedy and tell you things like "The credit card was fake" or "They charged back" or some other stuff.

It's best to just figure out how to send that other traffic to something similar that is already used to dealing with the affiliate setup.
 
The best option will be to use a product that already has a reliable affiliate program rather than ask what you like to create an affiliate program just for you
 
I would go with the affiliate marketing option. Its preferable to concentrate on what you do best (generating traffic) and not on working out the logistics of setting up an alternate program to monetize your traffic.
 
doug102938 said:
Well Depending on what it is... You could once you have decent traffic coming in... sell your own version of the product and keep all the profits for yourself.... But that isn't always feasible.
Click to expand...

I've had that thought myself. Problem with this niche is the products are highly technical and I'm not invested enough in the niche to develop my own product.

The other logical conclusion to that train of thought is to buy the products wholesale and sell them myself. That's not going to happen.

Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.
 
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