However, it is also somewhat rather difficult for an entrepreneur to achieve success while working on a tight budget, have little time or has began working on a new project in which one has little skills or experiences. It would require months, if not years, of meticulous market studies, tests, and experiments for one to gain the expertise needed -- taking into account the interplay of other factors; technological advancements, changes in market preferences etc. Moreover, there are many misleading guides available on the internet that provides no material facts of the best opportunities that an entrepreneur can take advantage of profitably.
Among the opportunities available today, is Cost Per Sale Marketing (CPS), which is also commonly referred to as Pay Per Sale marketing.
Foremost, it is important for you to familiarize yourself with affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing involves the earning of a commission when you promote/ market products or services belonging to another company. There are instances when this can be directly done by engaging with the company offering the products/ services, but in most cases, there is usually an intermediary, an affiliate network, that brings you (the affiliate) and the company selling the product or service together (the merchant).
In CPS marketing, you earn the commission when you market the merchant products or services and the person that you market to makes an actual sale. The commission could be a fixed amount of payment or a pre-determined percentage of the total amount of the sale.
You can successfully be profitable in CPS marketing by adopting various proven marketing strategies. This article explains the tips that can be used to become profitable in cost per sale marketing.
1. Determine the Level of Commissions
In cost per sale marketing, the levels of commissions determine how profitable your marketing campaign is. It is imperative to first analyze the commission that you will receive for each successful sale. As we earlier said, the commission could be a fixed amount of money or a pre-determined percentage of the total sale.However, if you are promoting physical products, your commission will be quite low. Generally, the percentage of the commission received will be between 1-10%. For digital products such as software of eBooks, the commissions might range from 50% to even 80%. This is because digital products, unlike physical products, do not attract many overheads.
Yet, physical products can attract more sale than digital products. For instance, if you are marketing products from Amazon that are hot during a certain season of the year, your sales may be quite attractive hence good commissions even though the commission percentage may be 10% or less.
It is important for you to analyze and the total percentage of the commissions that you will receive. This helps to guide you on the best marketing strategy that will ensure that you make good money at the end of a campaign.
2. Promote Products that Have Average Prices
One of the common mistakes that I've experienced in pay per sale marketing is the greed that affiliates have when they realize that they can make good commissions by selling expensive products. Contrary to their expectations, most expensive products do not easily convert into sales. Buyers are ever worried about purchasing an expensive product online. Moreover, expensive products do not attract impulse buyers.Cheaper products are more likely to be purchased even on impulse. As a rule, even though cheaper products may have low commissions if you are able to get several buyers to purchase several products you can make good money. However, try to avoid products that are very cheap. This is the reason why you need to know the commission that you will earn. Generally, good products to promote should range between $15- $80 and the percentage commission should be at least 5%- 8%.
It is never advisable to waste time promoting either too expensive products that do not easily convert or too cheap products with very little commissions.
3. Analyze the Merchants Site/ Landing Page
The most common downside of CPS marketing is that most merchants usually do not design their websites with affiliate marketing in mind. Most merchants’ websites are usually corporate websites that may seem unattractive especially for impulse buyers.This can make buyers change their minds before completing the purchase order. Therefore, to ensure that you do not have a higher bounce rate, it is critical to analyze the merchant website and determine if it is attractive enough for buyers.
If not, you'd rather choose another product from another merchant to promote. In addition, you could create your own landing page and optimize it for more conversion.
4. Evaluate the Products That You are Promoting
Physical products can at times attract more refunds if they do not satisfy the needs of the buyer. If a product that you promoted is returned and the buyer refunded, then your commissions will also be reversed. This means that you'll lose the commissions. You need to be able to determine the quality and suitability of the products that you are promoting in meeting the expectations of the buyers.You could ask for a sample product from the merchant to test and evaluate if it is a good product. You could also rely on reviews left by previous customers or do a keyword research to find out of other affiliates are promoting the product.
A product that is being promoted by other affiliates and has a good EPC (Earning Per Clicks), means that the product is doing well in the market. Avoid promoting products that are being ignored by other affiliates.
5. Learn to Deep Link your Campaigns
Deep linking is an aspect that many affiliates forget to do at times. Many affiliates usually link to the homepage or the category page of the merchant's website instead of deep linking their campaigns directly to the sales page of the products that they are promoting. Linking to the homepage of the merchant usually leaves buyers undecided and one may change his/her mind if they can't navigate to the exact sales page of the products that they wanted to purchase. This leads to low conversions.Bonus Tips
Learn to Target Keyword as Narrowly As Possible
Effective keyword research is important to ensure that you target the right market. Therefore, you will need to do an effective keyword research and come up with specific keywords that buyers are looking for. This helps to increase the CTR (Click Through Rate) as well as get more targeted traffic to the product that you are promoting.For instance, if you are promoting dog food, don't just promote the product to every person who loves or own a dog. Be specific and narrow down to the specific breed of dog that consumes the dog food that you are promoting.
Test, Try and Rinse
Products that you think are popular and may attract more sales can disappoint you when they fail to convert. On the other hands, some products that you may ignore could be hot and attract more sales. It is important for you to test several products and determine what is working.If you are lucky to find a product that is hot, then you need to tweak it and ensure that you maximize your sales while the product is still hot. This will enable you to get better commissions.
The Bottom Line
As much as you could set up an affiliate program by working directly with the merchant, it is important to consider joining an affiliate network. Affiliate networks offer great assistance in the tracking of your sales activities and can also offer guidance on the hot products that you can promote.
It is also important to ensure that you network with other affiliates so that you can learn the tricks that they are using to get better conversions and more sales.
