Affiliate partnerships and conversion rates

What is the most important factor when it comes to setting up an affiliate operation? The answer is surprisingly simple and straightforward: passion. You need to have passion for the niche you’re aiming for, otherwise none of the other factors like pay-out margins, gravity and conversion rates really matter. If you get into a vert just because you know it features great conversion rates and payouts, you’re not doing things right. Even if you find the diligence in yourself to research the vert, if you feel no passion for it, you’ll always be looking for opportunities and excuses not to do things you should do and that is definitely not the way to thrust forth an operation. In competitive niches (and most of those that feature great conversion rates and great payouts are extremely competitive indeed), sometimes fully dedicating yourself to the ‘cause’ won’t cut it either. With online marketers resorting to ever more cunning tactics, and with spammers never shy to throw their cheap tactics into the middle to make the search-engine environment even more treacherous for legit operations, you need to bring something special to the table to make it. That special thing can only be your content. In an oversaturated vert, it can be tough to come up with something truly original, but that is exactly what you need to try to accomplish anyway.

Content used to be the king of the internet, and to a certain degree, that saying still holds water. The only thing that needs to be changed is to insert “quality” in front of it. As search engines become ever more intelligent (although they never really seem to get this part right, there are steps made in the right direction, even if they’re sometimes followed by two steps backward, the overall tendency is definitely there), the importance of quality content continues to increase.

Now then, what are the pitfalls of quality content? According to the ideal search engine (which may someday be created by someone, somewhere) the most relevant result for a search is a page which contains information as detailed as possible and as point-specific as possible about a certain query. In order to rank high, you’ll have to match those criteria. There’s a pitfall here though, and it is best illustrated through PPC affiliates who have extremely high quality content on their sites. When the content is “too good” (yes, apparently there is such a thing) an interesting phenomenon takes place: CTR rates drop. People seem to find all the information they’re searching for right there, and that kills their appetite to go exploring by clicking on links on the page. Be careful however, these things do not translate to affiliate sites operating within niches like online poker and sports betting. There, because of the necessity to sign up with a third-party entity, players have no choice but to click through eventually. And the more information they get about an operation, the more likely they are to click through. Therefore, if you’re an online poker/online casino/online sports betting affiliate, DO NOT spare any resources that go into the quality and quantity of your content. There are other affiliate verts though which the PPC model fits marvelously. In such verts (I have a specific one in mind which I do not want to mention in this article) one needs to be careful about the spoiler effect of sharing way too much information.

Message from the author of this article

Every serious online poker player is constantly on the hunt for ever better loyalty deals. Poker rakeback deals are among the best such deals, but sites that hire poker props can top square rakeback deals any day.