Using Affiliate Programs to Test Your Advertising Strategy
by Thom Schlip of PlugInGo.com
Advertising is an investment in your company. Why
do companies advertise? To improve their image, to
increase their customer base and to make sales.
Why do most companies "really" advertise? To
increase sales!
Think of how much money your company spends on
advertising in a year. A three-month contract in
the local newspaper can cost about $2000 for an
1/8-page ad. A campaign on your favorite radio
station can run up to $3000, an ad in your state
magazine can run up to $7200 and cable TV
advertising can cost even more.
Let's take a look at the world of online
advertising. If you are advertising on a major
portal, the minimum amount you would invest is
about $2000. Advertising on smaller targeted
oriented sites can still cost you anywhere from
$60-$500 per month, depending on the site's
traffic.
Whether online or off, unless you have an
effective ad campaign in place, your advertising
dollars are going to waste. Your ads have to be in
the right place, at the right time, with the right
sales message.
The Internet provides you with so many effective
measuring tools that can't be found in the offline
advertising world. You can actually tell how many
people have viewed your ad, clicked on it and if
they purchased something from you, and you can
track it all in real time! You can test! And you
don't need an ad agency or a web "techie" to do
it!
Another way to advertise online is through
Performance Based Marketing, also known as an
affiliate program. Performance based marketing is
taking the industry by storm!. You can actually
advertise your products and services across
thousands of web sites while only paying for
results! You can test which ads increase traffic,
which ads sell and which ads are a total flop!
Investing in an affiliate program can drive
traffic to your site, increase your audience reach
and increase your online revenue, but probably the
most overlooked factor of an affiliate program is
that it allows you to test your ad campaigns
effectively, saving you time and money.
Affiliate programs provide you with the vehicle
and a captive audience to do just that. Investing
in an affiliate program, even if you don't make
one sale can be the most important investment your
company will make in its online advertising
strategy!
Why? Because affiliate programs allow you to test
what works and what doesn't!
The key to any online advertising strategy is to
"fail quickly", so you can then test what really
works. Affiliate programs provide you with the
vehicle and a captive audience to do just that,
and the crime of it all is you can do it without
paying any up front advertising fees. You only
pay for ads that perform well enough to give you
a qualified lead or generate a sale.
If you could do this in the offline world, I know
a lot of newspapers and magazines that would be
out of business right now! Chances are very good
that while you are doing all that testing, you are
going to make some sales as well!
