Interested in how I made $5041.55 in affiliate commissions in less than 7 days but how it should have been more?
Good, but first let me tell you a little story…
Last year long time NicheHacks tribe member, and niche marketing expert, Dom Wells approached me to do a joint promo.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Dom creates done for your niche affiliate sites to sell.
Probably the best done for your affiliate sites on the internet, as far as I’ve seen.
And up until last year, he’d only ever sold them to his own audience.
But he wanted to expand to getting affiliates, like me, promoting them too.
So we ran a joint promotion expecting high sales.
Because ‘done for you’ affiliate sites seem like something the NicheHacks audience would snap up.
But the promotion flopped!
Here’s the scary thing:
We barely made $1,000 each, which is nothing to complain about, but it’s much less than we’d both expected.
And as Dom’s sites are selling for $400-$799 each and he was paying 50% commissions, we really expected much more from that promo.
I knew that this offer was definitely something the NicheHacks tribe wanted and if the promotion was set up correctly we could all benefit from it.
So when he approached me again recently asking to do another promo we knew we needed a different approach.
And whilst we didn’t get the setup perfect this time either we had a significantly better promo.
So here’s the deal:
I’m going to share how I made $5041.55 in commissions this time round but was still slightly disappointed with the results.
Not because it’s a low amount of money, it’s most definitely NOT, and I appreciate each and everyone who invested through my link.
But it could have been more.
Plus there’s
lessons and takeaways for you as an affiliate on what worked and what didn’t.
As this wasn’t a perfect promo and there were a few mistakes I made that cost me commissions.
By reading this you can replicate the successes for yourself and avoid the mistakes I made on your own affiliate promos.
If that sounds good then read on…
What You’ll Learn:
- Why not every affiliate promotion can be approached with the same strategy.
- How to maximize your affiliate sales by thinking things through more clearly in advance.
- How even experienced affiliates can make commission costing mistakes.
- Why $5,041.55 in commission in 7 days is good but still on the disappointing side.
To discover 200+ profitable niche markets click the image below now…
Results: How I Made $5041.45 In Affiliate Commissions
Here’s a quick overview of the promo and results:
- 72hour Flash Sale
- 50% commission per sale
- Two different sites on sale, basic ($499) and premium ($799)
- 27 sales made
- Total commissions $5041.45
- 30 day cookie
Side Note:
If you were one of the people who bought a site through my link then congratulations and thank you.
You made a wise move and have skipped out the boring niche research, content creation, and product selection stages and straight to the bit where you’re ready to make money.
I also really appreciate your support and trusting me enough to invest in something I recommended.
Thanks for making NicheHacks possible.
The promo was set originally to be a 72hr flash sale.
And it was exclusive to NicheHacks tribe subscribers.
Dom didn’t offer this to even his own audience or open it to other affiliates.
As mentioned Dom sells done-for-you affiliate sites with all the
keyword research, on page SEO, content and monetization done.
So you can purchase one and it’s ready to make money.
Dom and his team created 25 brand new niche sites exclusively for the NicheHacks tribe.
Each site is unique and only sold to 1 person.
He sells 2 site types a basic site at $499 and a premium site at $799.
As well as additional extras like keyword research, extra content and links packages if you want them.
He was paying me 50% commission on each sale I could make.
In total I sold 27 items:
- 7 Premium Sites.
- 3 Custom Sites.
- 13 Basic sites.
- 4 Extra Items (keyword research, extra content etc)
Which paid me a total of $5041.45 in affiliate commissions (a sample of which you can see in the screenshot below)
And it’s entirely possible more sales will come in as the affiliate cookie is set for 30 days.
Meaning people who discovered Dom and his site for the first time will start exploring his content and once warmed up purchase later.
A sample of the commissions earned[/caption]
An Overview Of The Promo
I mentioned earlier we planned for a 72hr promo.
After the promo was over we realized that there was a lot of questions we didn’t answer clearly.
Dom had emails from people asking things like “where does the stock come from on these websites”.
They thought they were eCommerce sites instead of affiliate sites.
So we decided that Dom would make a short training video fully explaining the offer and answering all the questions he’d been asked.
And we extended the offer for another 48hrs to allow anyone who was on the fence but needed answers to watch it and make a decision.
This brought in the final 5 or 6 sales of the promo.
We will know in the future if we run a promo again that we need to warm them up BEFORE we reveal the sites for sale.
So that people can get to know Dom, his site, and his offer fully before committing.
Comparison To Last Year’s Promo
I mentioned earlier that myself and Dom ran a promo last year and it made us around $1,000 each.
Which was much less than we expected due to the offer being very relevant to the NicheHacks tribe.
This time I made over $5K alone in commissions for myself so there’s a big difference.
Here’s why:
Last time Dom’s offer was untested by affiliates.
He’d only offered it to his own warmed up audience who knew him and what he was offering.
So for me to send my traffic to his offer, without them being warmed up, was obviously going to lead to lower sales.
On top of that:
As Dom is offering a range of different unique packages, there’s no set sales page for the offer like you’d see for an info-product for example.
He just lists the sites he has ready to sell.
Usually, as an affiliate, you’d send your traffic to a sales page.
And then the sales page does the selling for you by explaining the offer and benefits.
But with no sales page, there’s nothing there to persuade them to buy.
Plus…
Last time round we focused on selling CUSTOM sites where the customer would pick the niche they wanted and not pre-made sites.
That means the traffic was sent to an order form and had to make a decision themselves on the niche they might want.
Dom’s custom site order form
And when you think about WHY someone might purchase a done for you niche site…
…one of the main reasons is because they don’t know what niche to pick.
So asking them to come to a decision by themselves on the niche doesn’t make sense.
This time we sent them to a page with 25 done for you niche sites to choose from and they simply had to pick one.
This worked much better.
However it still wasn’t as good as it could have been as you’ll find out in a moment…
How I Could Have Made More Than $5,041.45 In Affiliate Commissions
We fully expected ALL 25 sites to sell out within the 72hr promo period, if not quicker.
They are unique sites, there was high demand, scarcity was involved, and there was an exclusive bonus offer.
Yet we got off to a slower start than expected.
And even after extending the promo for 48hrs we didn’t sell all of the sites.
Even now only 75% of the pre-made sites have sold.
A sample of the sold sites
Though a few people did make custom site orders or order extra items.
After careful analysis here’s why I think that is…
My usual email promo style is to use curiosity, mystery, and intrigue to get people clicking my affiliate links.
My ‘LIVE’ promo email
You’ll see that in the screenshot above I don’t mention what you’re about to find on the other side of the link.
You’ve no idea I’m promoting a done for you niche site service.
You’ll see from the screenshot below, which was my second email of the promo that while I acknowledge that you probably know what I’m talking about now…
…I still don’t mention exactly what’s on offer on the other side of the link, just in case you haven’t read the first email I sent.
My second email of the promo
Usually, this results in a curiosity frenzy and has people desperate to click the link and land on the sales page.
Then the sales page does the selling and explains the offer.
And it works REALLY well…
…usually!
But with this promo it didn’t work as well as usual.
Here’s why:
Mainly because, as I mentioned earlier, Dom’s offer has no sales page like an offer usually would.
So the sales page that usually warms them up and sells them on the offer wasn’t present.
Meaning my promotion style of using curiosity and intrigue is less efficient.
It would have been better to have explained the offer in my emails first.
So that when they land on Dom’s page where the sites are listed they’d know EXACTLY what to do next.
And could just choose one and purchase it if interested.
In this promo they clicked my affiliate link and just landed on a page with a list of sites and a little explanation of what was on offer.
A list of sites available not no sales page
Also, on top of that:
With no sales page to explain the offer or its benefits.
And no training video or webinar to answer peoples questions.
There would have been a lot of people who were confused or unsure…
…and confusion will always lower sales.
Here’s how to avoid that:
Next time I would warm my subscribers up first by introducing them to Dom and his site.
And by showing his training and FAQ videos so that the offer is crystal clear upfront.
Dom’s training video
And by avoiding the curiosity angle in my emails and being more straight to the point, so they don’t need to see a sales page to understand what’s on offer.
Comparison To My Previous Launches
Here you’ll learn why I was a bit disappointed with the promo here.
You’ll see the promos I did this year and how much I made…
Commission Black Ops
You’ll probably remember the big launch I did for Commission Black Ops (Micheal Cheney).
It was huge and you can see by the commission below that I made quite more than I did in comparison to the affiliate launch I did for Dom.
In total, I made over $7,000 in commissions, not to mention the extra $2,000 cash I won for placing 3rd in the competition.
Niche Reaper
Now this contest was for the Niche Reaper, as you may remember.
I made over $6,000 in just 5 days from this affiliate promo.
Inbox Blueprint
Now this one was the latest affiliate promo and it was for the Inbox Blueprint, which should be pretty fresh in your memory as it was recent.
This promo has to be one of my proudest as I made over $13,000.
So by looking at these stats from my previous promos, you can see why I was a bit disappointed with the promotion I did for Dom here.
It’s NOT that the promo went badly.
Definitely not, over $5K is nothing to be sniffed at.
But due to the price point ($499+) and 50% commission plus this being an offer the tribe are definitely interested in…
…I felt like it could have been more.
But never mind it was still a good promo and here are my biggest takeaways that I think you can learn from this…
Your Takeaways From This Promo
Here are my biggest takeaways from this promo that I believe you as an affiliate can learn from…
Mystery & Curiosity Don’t ALWAYS Work
Mystery and curiosity emails only work when you’re sending your subscribers to a complete sales page that can sell them on the offer.
If there’s no clear sales page, like with Dom’s offer, your emails have to do more of the selling.
And you need to warm your subscribers up to the offer so they know what they are getting from day 1.
Done For You Packages Require Different Tactics
In offers for services, done for you packages, or similar you need to warm up your subscribers first via content or training videos.
So don’t send them direct, without any pre-selling of the offer, to the buy page.
Don’t Make Your Audience Make A Decision
If people have to make all the decisions by themselves most will not purchase as people don’t know what they want so give them options to choose from.
We saw that with the first promo we did last year. We just sent people to a custom order form and pretty much no one ordered.
The reason for many people buying a niche site is they don’t know which niche to pick so asking them to pick a niche for the site to be built around is counter productive.
Try & Try Again If It Doesn’t Go To Plan
If a promo doesn’t work as well as you thought, but you were sure it was something that should have been a good fit for your audience, analyze WHY it didn’t go well.
And see if something can be changed to make it work next time.
I knew that Dom’s sites were a good fit for my audience, it was just a getting the promotion and angle right.
We didn’t 100% nail that yet but we improved on the previous promo and will improve again in the future.
WHY Do They Want To Buy?
Think about WHY someone might want to buy the offer you are promoting.
Here it was because they can’t find a niche so it was crucial for us to give them choices of niche sites and not ask them to choose themselves.
We should have thought that through more carefully before the original promo and I’m glad we didn’t make the same mistake next time.
Be Brave. Be The First
Don’t be scared to be the first affiliate to test an offer.
Whilst it might not always go well by being the first you can potentially make big commissions by being first off the bat.
I’m glad to have run this offer with Dom as it’s a win win for customer, affiliate and vendor here.
Don’t Be Scared To Ask
If you see an offer that isn’t currently open to affiliates but you think might be a good fit for your audience then contact the vendor to propose a deal, it’s a win-win for both of you.
To discover 200+ profitable niche markets click the image below now…
Wrapping Things Up
So this was how I made $5041.45 in affiliate commissions in 7 days and how it could have been more.
Thank you again if you were one of the people who invested through my link.
You get a head start with a done for you site and I get a generous commission, plus your in safe hands with Dom.
And I also think you can learn a lot about how to approach an affiliate promotion like this that involves a done for you service or package.
One where there’s no sales page as you’d usually expect.
You need to approach things differently.
Usually, your job as an affiliate is simply to get the click of your affiliate link and let the sales page do its magic.
But here you need to do more explaining of what the offer is and the benefits to it.
Making sure to answer any common questions before hand.
And do more of the selling yourself so that when they land on the offer page they are ready to buy.
I expect if myself and Dom run this offer again in the future we will make much more money as we know exactly how we need to approach it.
I’d ask Dom to create some content and videos that introduce him, give away a free report and answer all questions that there may be.
And that’s BEFORE we open the service for sale.
So hopefully learning from my mistakes here has given you some key takeaways for yourself.
No two affiliate promotions are the same, and you have to clearly consider the offer and the way it’s presented before you write your emails.
As you’ve seen even experienced affiliates like myself can have promotions that don’t go to plan if it wasn’t clearly thought out in advance.
Let me know what your biggest takeaways from this were below…
