Affiliate Programs May Be Future of Parked Domain Names
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
Cost per action and cost per sale is a good alternative to pay-per-click.
With all of this talk about dying pay-per-click revenue and the potential for Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) to stop supporting the domain channel, domain owners are looking for alternatives. One alternative is cost-per-action (CPA) programs.
With CPA, you direct visitors to other web sites, but instead of getting paid for the click you get paid if someone performs an action at the target web site. This action can be as simple as providing an e-mail address (earns you about $1-$2) or completing a lead form (earns you $5-$35). You get fewer actions than clicks, but the dollars can add up quickly.
I’ve started forwarding some of my domains that perform poorly with PPC directly to affiliate pages that pay me on cost-per-action. If you’ve flirted with affiliate programs before, including Google affiliate arbitrage, you’ve probably signed up for Commission Junction or Linkshare. This is a fool’s game. Payouts on these “big” networks are low and you are competing against hundreds of other people promoting the same program.
So here are my suggestions for affiliate programs networks offering CPA that have high payouts and reliably send me a check each month. My suggestion is to sign up for all of them, compare their offers, and test until you find winners.
HydraNetwork - this is a biggie and has fresh offers to promote every day. Last year I did about $40k with them. They are particular about who they allow on their network. You can expect them to call you after you apply to verify your credentials. It helps if you have previous affiliate experience. I seriously considered not including this one so I wouldn’t create competition, but I figure there’s plenty to go around.
Market Leverage - I just started using Market Leverage after meeting them at TRAFFIC a couple weeks ago. They had one of those “money booths” where you stand in it and fans blow money all around as you try to grab it. (Thanks for the $43 by the way!) My early test results are positive as they have good offers and high payouts. The cool thing is they FedEx your check each month, regardless of how little (or big) it is.
OfferFusion - I do about $1k-$2k a month with OfferFusion promoting just one offer. I’ve received reliable payments from them for a couple years and highly recommend them.
Hopefully these programs will work for you, too. If the program calls you to make sure you’re a fit for their program, be sure to mention you’re a domainer and read about them on Domain Name Wire.
Tags: affiliate programs
Being a true affiliate myself, the links to these programs are affiliate links (as labeled “aff” when you hover). You are welcome to sign up for the programs without using my links, but of course it is appreciated.
Good article, thanks.
Andrew -
Any experience or opinions about PepperJam Networks?
@ Chris - not familiar with them, sorry.
Will check out Hydra for some of our parked names.
Here’s a little do it yourself tip.
Register as an ebay affiliate at http://EbayPartnerNetwork.com (ebay’s site, not mine) then go to Tools/Link Generator/Custom URL.
This is their old flexible linking tool.
Now go to ebay and search for keywords of your domain. View by photo gallery or customize the search results to your liking.
Grab that URL. Paste it into the Link Generator tool, submit then grab the very long URL and paste it into your forwarding URL box of your domain at your registrar.
Now, when people type in your domain, they will go through your affiliate link right to the ebay page you chose.
You get paid $25 if someone registers at ebay and a commission on every purchase they make for 30 days.
How’s that for a CPA?
If you don’t mind some self promotion, I did this with my http://VintageSpaceToys.com
Good luck.
@ Rob - great tip. This is especially helpful if you have a niche term and can’t find any affiliate programs for it.
Andrew,
Thanks for mentioning MarketLeverage in your recommended CPA networks. We too are excited about the opportunities that parked domain names represent, and are glad to have you onboard as a publisher.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions!
Regards,
Steve
Andrew,
It was great meeting you at TRAFFIC a few weeks ago. Thanks for sharing these affiliate tips. I will certainly try them with some of my parked pages.
Regards,
Lance
[...] Affiliate Programs May Be Future of Parked Domain Names With all of this talk about dying pay-per-click revenue and the potential for Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) to stop supporting the domain channel, domain owners are looking for alternatives. One alternative is cost-per-action (CPA) programs. With CPA, you direct visitors to other web sites, but instead of getting paid for the click you get paid if someone performs an action at the target web site. This action can be as simple as providing an e-mail address (earns you about $1-$2) or completing a lead form (earns you $5-$35). You get fewer actions than clicks, but the dollars can add up quickly. I’ve started forwarding some of my domains that perform poorly with PPC directly to affiliate pages that pay me on cost-per-action. If you’ve flirted with affiliate programs before, including Google affiliate arbitrage, you’ve probably signed up for Commission Junction or Linkshare. This is a fool’s game. Payouts on these “big” networks are low and you are competing against hundreds of other people promoting the same program. More [...]
As a former manager of 3 major affiliate networks that are now out of biz, many times once you get paid a few times from the network and start generating decent income, they cancel your accounts with no warning and do not payout. This happened many times over at my ex-employer and as an affiliate webmaster myself. I got out of affiliate marketing every since running the backend to a major program that was out of NJ.
@ Steve - that’s definitely a problem. That’s why I like to go with larger — but not CJ-like — networks. Hydra is one of those.