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hamesy
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Warburton
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 12:28 pm
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How long between first applying to an affiliate program and first making a sale?
Just over three years. 
The first affiliate program which made me any money was about the thirtieth I had applied to and tried deploying on my site. |
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Matthew Seigneur
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 12:59 pm
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I think it all depends on the individual - so there will be varying responses, but for me personally I think it was a few months since I started from scratch when I made my first sale (was in Internet Marketing, and was publishing a newsletter). Everybody is at different stages when they begin on the internet, and bring different skills to the table as it were. Some need to learn more than others, but all still have something to learn to improve their business sales/etc.
Just my thoughts,
Matt
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onlineleben
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 1:07 pm
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For my fist affiliate sale I really had to wait long.
For a costly membership site that I also managed, I got the fist registrations after 3 days. But that was in the times when you had more or less instant indexing by SEs (who remembers infoseek and the old altavista?)
In general:
It depends on topic and commitment. You need a good product to promote, convincing sales copy, traffic ( targeted, paid or free ) and a reliable merchant that really pays.
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Charlie
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 3:14 pm
Post subject: Re: How long before you made your first sale?
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| hamesy wrote: | | When you first started if the affiliate business how long was it before you made your first sale and how did you make it happen? |
It took a few weeks, and was the result of a domain I had set up to redirect direct-typed traffic to an affiliate site.
It was (... please forgive me... ) an "Internet Marketing" product.
Wouldn't recommend this as a get rich (even slowly) strategy, but every bit helps.
All the best,
Charlie.
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StrayPixel
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:33 pm
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Mine was about 2 1/2 weeks after. I posted at some newsgroups and they flooded in for a few days. I made two sales in one day. Both were for the "Golf Card" which is a membership card that gives you discounts at almost every golf course.
Each sale that I get from that brings in $25. It is something that is easy to sell in theory so I'm really trying hard to promote it.
After the inital burst for a few days my traffic slowed down a bit but I still get a decent adsense revenue.
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kidino
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:02 am
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OK ... let me tell you my story. When I did my first ever project, no experience what so ever in affiliate marketing and my first ever website and domain name ...
First sale came in after two months - $13.
I put a 2-page site promoting two different type of computer cases after reading about a guy that made thousands with a 1-page site promoting BT phones in Allan's newsletter (search for it the archive. this was years back).
OK but that guy uses PPC in which I had no budget for. But I read about the great thing SEO can do for you. And I went that way. I suppose my 2-page lousy site was fairly optimized.
I submitted my site to search engines using search engine submission services, SelfPromotions ... in which, if I knew better back then, I would just build incoming links. Maybe that would give me quicker search engine listing.
Actually, after the search engine submission, I just left it there. I almost forgot about having that website. I don't really know why but I suddenly remembered and just had a casual feeling wanting to check my CJ account. Oh yeah ... it was on the forth month that I did that.
To my surprise ... I had $26 in the account. $13 commission in the third month and $13 commission in the forth month. Of course $0 on the first and second month.
That got me excite, overwhelmed, in big joy, amazed ... Am I making money from the internet now? Oh ... by the way, I live in a country where $1 USD is almost four times the value. I can have lunch here with $1. And if you are in the USA, I am maybe 12 hours earlier than you guys.
With that ... I got really serious. No more casual business attitude. Have you guys heard this ...
If you take your business casually, your business will become a casualty.
By the way ... that computer case website is doing about $100 a month steadily from CJ and on a good month ... $500. Of course it has more content now ...
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john2698
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:28 am
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I don't really get many sales, but more than what I did. I had my first sale in about 1 year after starting with affiliate marketing. At the moment I am only mainly trying to get my earnings from referrals/leads. I will focus more on sales in the near future.
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Debbi
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 6:09 am
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These are not very encouraging replies for a newbie affiliate like me...I gotta tell ya' 
It sounds to me like after putting in thousands of hours of your time you're excited and satisfied to get small change in return...
Doesn't anyone have more encouraging results? Please tell me you do, or I may just have to re-evaluate how rational this pursuit is! 
Anyone getting a good ROI for all the HARD work and LONG hours it takes to do this?
I'm a patient and hard-working lady. I don't mind investing money and time for MONTHS (actually almost a year now if you count getting over the learning curve and getting my Internet Marketing education done...), before seeing monetary rewards.
But I would NEVER have invested all the time and money I have if I had not believed I would be able to earn a full-time income from it. And I'm sure there are alot of other newbie affiliate marketers who feel the same way. So if anyone can post some more encouraging replies to this post, I'm sure it would improve our outlook on things!
I'll keep my fingers crossed...
Debbi 
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Jewel
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 6:48 am
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Hi, Debbi,
Don't worry, you can and you will make full-time income from it! You might need 2 or more sites to reach the income level you're aiming for, but if you make each site as content-stuffed as you can and do all the linking and promoting you can, your traffic will definitely get up to a high level that will start making the money roll in.
Each site takes a few months to really pick up a head of steam and start bringing in enough of a traffic volume that you get regular commissions. My site went live at the end of October, and although I made an affiliate sale here and there, nothing happened regularly till this week when my traffic really climbed. And while you wait for that, you can watch your AdSense income grow along with your traffic.
This Monday I published the first issue of my newsletter, and my traffic and earnings jumped through the roof and have gotten bigger each day! I have 262 subscribers, dating back to just before Christmas when I put my subscription form on my site, and I did my best to give them a great and informative newsletter with lots of links to brand-new things on my site as well as cool links to other sites. I also started a blog for my site last week, and it's my most popular page according to my SBI stats.
A couple of weeks ago I put about three whole days into link exchanging, and I also submitted an article to several article databases, and now I'm seeing a big jump in traffic resulting from those activities too.
So if you take an occasional break from adding content and work on getting your newsletter going, plus exchanging links or articles with related sites, and giving your visitors a reason to keep coming back soon (like a having a Fantasy Ireland blog with interesting tidbits), your traffic will increase faster - and so will your income! This week my income is very exciting, and I would have put out my newsletter a lot earlier had I known! 
I love your Fantasy Ireland site. It has such an appealing, professional look, and you've done such a good job of putting it all together. Why not see if any other sites related to your area might want a short article or two by you that they can add to their site's content (with a link to your site, of course). I know there are tons of Celtic sites out there, and how about some travel sites, castle sites, celtic wedding sites, riverdance sites, bed and breakfast sites, etc.? They might also be willing to provide you with an article in return that will help build your interesting content.
So don't worry, Debbi, your commissions and other income will grow along with your site's traffic! And with a quality site like yours, I can't imagine that you'll have any trouble attracting a lot of targeted repeat visitors.
Good luck! Keep us posted! 
Edited to add:
Do you post messages on Celtic or Irish forums, with your website in your sig? Here are a couple that might need posts from you, and members would probably click on your signature and spend awhile on your site:
http://celtic-colours.com/forum/
http://pub69.ezboard.com/bcelticireland
http://celtic-lyrics.com/
http://www.wicca.com/celtic/forums/
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Last edited by Jewel on Fri Mar 05, 2004 7:02 am; edited 1 time in total |
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kidino
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 6:59 am
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| Debbi wrote: | | But I would NEVER have invested all the time and money I have if I had not believed I would be able to earn a full-time income from it. And I'm sure there are alot of other newbie affiliate marketers who feel the same way. So if anyone can post some more encouraging replies to this post, I'm sure it would improve our outlook on things! |
Debbi ... I think your website is doing well right now. Correct me if I am wrong but I think you should start to see Adsense earning a bit. I think getting your first check is a great feeling ... however small or late it is.
I started not long ago ... and I still haven't earn my fulltime income yet. But I believe I will get there. I have a goal to do that by year end. You are welcome to watch. Maybe I will report this again at year end.
I don't know what gave me the believe. Maybe a huge part of it is when I start to interact with people in forums like this one. I see people talk about their campaign, their website and some ... their earning.
I heard of many ways of people earn fulltime income with affiliate programs and some requires not one but multiple websites. What you can do, is maybe start building other content sites ... and then build another ... and then another ...
If you earn even $100 from each website, you only need 10 websites to earn $1000.
Of course there are other methods where you build a mailing list and build relationship. And the other method which is not picking up, PPC.
Whatever way that you go with, I believe that there's a learning curve to go through. I once read Cashflow Quadrant and Robert explains by taking the example of a bird learning to fly ... The bird will drop a few meters before he really took off.
Give yourself a chance. I believe in this ... even I don't earn that much yet. If you don't have that believe, you can borrow mine. Where I am coming from, not many do what we all do. The check takes weeks to arrive and more weeks to clear. But I believe that I will succeed in this. And so can you.
You see, it's like climbing a mountain. All that you can see is just the rock wall in front of you. And the people up front is seeing a 360 degree view of the horizon. You don't see that ... but you hear them calling "Come on Debbi, it's beautiful up hear ..." and you are still struggling to find a place to put your foot.
But when you reach there, you'll know the feeling and at the same time, you see people down there trying to do what you did. And you will see that many quit half way. You pity them ... and you are glad that you didn't. But would all the time and the effort be worth it then.
And maybe at another time ... when you are all happy living your comfortable life ... you get a phone call from a long, long friend who once laughed you out about your venture into affiliate marketing. But he said through the phone, "I wish I had done it together with you back then ... " At that time ... your answer would be "I am glad I did ..."
Keep doing it Debbi ...
Have a goal ...
Have a plan ...
Work the plan ...
And don't quit on this ...
I once read from Vic Conant's Motivational Quotes but I for who's - Failure is just instalments for success ...
To me .. this is the easiest thing I have ever done ... I will keep doing at this.
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Iszuddin Ismail aka Kidino
Simple IPN: Free Paypal IPN PHP Script for Digital Download Products |
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tctan
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 7:11 am
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I still remeber i receive my 1st check with amount of $75 was 3 year back with my first site which is on free hosting. I generate the sales after my site is up for more than 6 month which it is listed in SE.
If you want to see the result faster, you may try PPc like Adwords and Overture. You can start to see your promoting campaign result within single days or even in hours. You may build a mini site and use PPC to drive traffic to your site or just direct the PPC tarffic to the merchant site. It is upto you.
ToonChooi
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hamesy
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Birmingham, England
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AllanGardyne
Site Admin
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:45 am
Post subject: Re: How long before you made your first sale?
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| hamesy wrote: | | When you first started if the affiliate business how long was it before you made your first sale... |
Several months. My excuse is that all the wonderful Internet marketing manuals people read today didn't exist then.
| Quote: | | For instance, did you focus your efforts on search engine results or link exchanges? |
Search engines. In those days - last century - you could achieve high rankings in search engines merely by concentrating on placing keywords on web pages and in titles of web pages.
These days, if you want high rankings it's absolutely essential that you get many links to your site from relevant sites which themselves have many links to them.
So when you consider a niche and consider web site content, ask yourself: "Am I going to be able to persuade other links to link to the site I'm planning?"
If the answer is no, ask yourself: "Am I so good at copywriting that I'll be able to rely solely on advertising to get visitors?"
If the answer to that question is also no, go back and find another niche idea.
Hope that helps.
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Allan Gardyne
AssociatePrograms.com - You're here. Explore it! |
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onlineleben
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Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:59 am
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| Debbi wrote: | | These are not very encouraging replies for a newbie affiliate like me...I gotta tell ya' |
Just keep in mind that most of us didn't have these friendly forums as a resource to pull information from and share knowledge with.
Having all this information at hand when starting out on doing some Intenrnet Business is the best that can happen to you.
And btw, what is a newbie? Even old hands continue learning every day.
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