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How One MoreNiche Affiliate Increased Their Earnings from $100 to $20,000 in Just Ten Months

So your affiliate website is live and kicking, you’ve reviewed high-converting MoreNiche offers,  and you’re getting traffic. But are you feeling disappointed that you’re not making the money you expect? Read this affiliate success story and find out how one MoreNiche affiliate managed to multiply his earnings by more than 200 by making just a few simple changes.

As an affiliate manager, I see daily how affiliate sites are performing and the effect even small changes have in their conversions. This particular case caught my attention because of the massive increase in sales due to relatively simple to make changes.

This case is based on a real affiliate site but to protect the affiliate’s privacy I’m changing the content and other data. It’s also important to take into consideration that there are other multiple factors that could have also affected the website’s performance. But for this article, I’m focusing only on those changes that I could observe.

The increase in sales happened over an 8-month period after the affiliate joined the MoreNiche network. It’s worth noting that the website ranked well for weight loss generic keywords. However, it had a big bounce rate of 90%. Even though the site was making some sales, the conversions didn’t reflect the amount of traffic it was generating.

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Month 1

At close to 3,500 words, the website homepage was very long. The copy was relatively easy to read due to its conversational style, but because it talked about so many different topics ranging from weight loss products, prescription drug information and the disadvantages of taking pills, to statistics, techniques to get in shape, tips and more, the focus was very quickly  lost.

The homepage was oversaturated with copy that wasn’t directly related to the other sections of the page. And because the introductory section waited too long before giving any recommendations for the best weight loss product it was very likely the visitor would lose interest before getting to the information they were looking for.

When it finally came to recommending a product, although there were some CTA text links, these were located within the copy which made them difficult to find for someone just quickly browsing the page.

Recommendations and Changes

Recommend more than one product to your visitors:

The affiliate website originally featured only one product recommendation. But recommending just one product can affect your visitor’s trust in your website. Considering this website is an authority on the subject, a visitor would expect more product reviews. Therefore, I suggested the affiliate add other alternative products and ranking them.

I also suggested these recommendations be moved to the area above the fold. Since the website is about the best weight loss products, a visitor would expect to find some answers from the very beginning. This will also help visitors stay on the site (reducing the high bounce rate) which ultimately means a bigger chance of closing a sale.

Results

Unique clicks: increased by 2000

Sales: grew by 1250%

Conversion rate: still low at 1/75

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Month 2

The homepage introduction text was a lot shorter and the top five pills recommendations were listed at the area above the fold. These recommendations were listed without any specific information or details about the products’ features, but had a text link sending visitors directly to the merchant site.  

The rest of the home page continued to be filled with long text including many tips and general information on how to lose weight.  There were also many links within the copy directing visitors to both internal and external pages about different topics.

The top product recommendations weren’t mentioned again nor could you find any product images or CTAs for those particular brands.

Recommendations and Changes

Improve the pre-sale:

It’s important to remember that consumers are not always on the last stage of the purchasing process. Therefore, creating content for each stage of the buying process and guiding the consumer towards the final stage will increase your chances of closing a sale.

One of the most effective ways to improve your conversions is by having product reviews. Actually – great reviews. A great product  review is a detailed guide of the product with everything the customer needs to know before buying. A great review also tells the customer where and how to buy that product for the lowest price.

The affiliate added review pages for each of the products in the list of recommendations. These reviews contained answers to frequently asked questions about the product, images, testimonials, the best deals and finally, effective image and text call-to-actions. After adding these pages, the affiliate changed their links on the home page top recommendations. Instead of sending visitors to the merchant site, traffic was now sent to the product review pages to improve the pre-sell.

Results

Unique Clicks: increased by 300

Sales: grew by 260%

Conversion rate: improved from 1/75 to 1/25  

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Month 3

The website had a very similar content structure. However, the affiliate improved the overall design of the site by changing the theme for one that had more structured sections which made it easier to read. Improvements were made in the text formatting such as using a bigger size font, highlighting copy and using bullet point lists and text blocks for important information.

The affiliate also added a couple of images with testimonials and more CTAs in key areas, including the end of the home page.

Even though the website continued to recommend five different diet pill brands, it gave more exposure to the top two recommended brands by adding longer product reviews and links to these product reviews at the top menu and sidebar.

Recommendations and Changes

Choose the right products:

It’s important to promote products that match the focus of your affiliate website. You might have website focused on weight loss, but there are many different categories that fall under this topic. Giving your customer too much choice can confuse them.

In this case, the affiliate was focusing mainly on one type of weight loss category (a prescription drug). The website gave suggestions for five different pills. However, some of these recommended pills were very different from the prescription drug focus the affiliate had. It wasn’t a surprise that sales for the brands without a pharmaceutical approach, for example, a fruit-based weight loss product, were very low.

The affiliate decided to remove these recommendations and keep only the three brands that were making sales, two of which were also direct alternatives to the prescription weight loss product. In order to find the most profitable offers, the affiliate also switched the brand that used to rank number one for a competitor to test whether the conversion rate improved.

Results

Unique clicks: increased by 200

Sales: grew by 41%

Conversion rate: improved from 1/25 to 1/19

The affiliate noticed that one brand converted better than the other, and since it offered a higher commission, this significantly improved his total earnings.

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Month 5

The home page was focusing on the top two product recommendations above the fold. Although there were other recommended pills on a different page, the affiliate focused on comparing these two brands in the most visible sections and areas within the site.

There were no significant changes made to the rest of the website.

Recommendations and Changes

Build an email list:

Even if your website drives a considerable amount of traffic like this one did, you can’t guarantee people will come back and visit your site again.  Building an email list is the most effective way to build an engaged audience, to announce any current promotions etc. and to increase your chances of re-selling in the future.

Results

Unique clicks: no change

Sales: similar to the previous 2 months

Conversion rate: stayed the same (1/19)

Throughout the following few months the affiliate didn’t make any significant changes, but sales continued to grow slightly each month.

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Month 7

The affiliate added more quality content about weight loss which improved the site’s rankings.  The email opt-in form was located at the side bar and he added some pages with the best deals and promotions.

Recommendations and Changes

Optimize email signup form:

An email list is a very powerful tool for an affiliate, so it’s important to make the most of your traffic by getting as many subscribers as possible.  The opt-in form should be obvious and visually attractive. It’s also important to offer an incentive or something your readers will find value in.

The affiliate added a plug-in to make their opt-in form more visually attractive and straightforward. This also included an incentive which added a sense of urgency for readers to join.

Results

Unique clicks: increased by 2600

Sales: grew by 115%

Conversion rate: stayed at 1/19

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Month 10: Final website update

By this point the website’s content hadn’t changed considerably. However, the affiliate had been focusing on adding tools such as live chat to optimise traffic and audience engagement. The affiliate also constantly updated any new available promotions and started running email campaigns.

Overall, the website improved its interaction with its audience massively, which also improved its position in search engines.

Latest Results

Unique clicks: increased by 4000

Sales: grew 300%

Conversion rate: improved from 1/19 to 1/13

 

How One MoreNiche Affiliate Increased Their Earnings from $100 to $20,000 in Just Ten Months

 

Let’s summarize how this affiliate improved their earnings:

 

  • Added relevant content to rank for important weight loss keywords
  • Improved website design, readability and visuals
  • Chose the right products to promote
  • Improved pre-sale by adding great product reviews
  • Tested results and focused on the better converting brands
  • Built an email list
  • Added tools to improve audience engagement
  • Was open to recommendations and change
  • Worked hard to continuously improve their website’s performance!

 

Now it’s your turn!

Now you have an example of a success story in which an affiliate increased their earnings from $100 to $20,000 per month in a just a ten month period. Although there is no magic formula and there are many other factors that can influence a website’s performance, you can still make improvements to your affiliate website until you find the right strategy for you that will increase your earnings.

Most importantly, you must have an open mind and work hard to keep making and finding the changes and updates that will work for you.

Want to increase your affiliate site earnings? Get in touch with any of the affiliate managers at Moreniche for advice on the best affiliate offers and conversion improvements to increase your chances of success. Perhaps we’ll soon be reading your success story here too!

 

5 replies on “How One MoreNiche Affiliate Increased Their Earnings from $100 to $20,000 in Just Ten Months”

I have hit a bump in the road with my earnings. Suffering serious burn out. I am glad that this affiliate has seen an increase. I wish my story was the same..

There´s always ups and downs Jay!
Allworknofun, this affiliate wasn´t new to digital marketing but was relatively new to affiliate marketing.

Great tips! I done very similar things with a previous site I not long sold (sold for $xxx,xxx). It’s all about tweaking and testing until you hit that sweet spot..Here’s something I done that grew sales even more…
Instead of having one email list I had more, one for each product I was promoting as well…
So, one email list was for my site. For this I would capture leads with a free report or some kind of lead magnet..The other list was for each product – I would set up a new landing page on a new domain. With this email list I would offer a coupon or bonus material that would go with the product if it be a report or the best way to use product x…

This way you can capture more leads and set up different autoresponders/sales funnels for each. This worked very well for me and still does with new sites I’m developing. If I hadn’t of added the email marketing element into my biz I doubt I would have scaled the way I did.

Thanks for sharing your insight Warren! Email is definitely a great way to build a long term audience and expand your business, and what better to target it to a specific product audience.

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