Aftermath of an online 'opportunity ' experiment (Affiliate Junktion, one month later).

I recently found myself interested in an online affiliate marketing opportunity called Affiliate Junktion.

<<<<< EDIT: my latest blog on Affiliate Junktion is here - You can find more up to date inforamtion on Affiliate Junktion here.>>>>>>

Deciding I should at least once in my life take the chance to see if they work, (and after confirming to the best of my ability that it was no scam) I decided to give it a go.

What convinced me were two factors:
1) An immediate $75 signing bonus
2) A guarantee (something like, if your not earning $150 a day, in three weeks, they would pay the $150 per day until you were)

So finally I gave in and decided to give it a whirl (feel free to read my previous blog entries on this topic after finishing this one)

The first thing worth noting at this stage is that all Affiliate Junktion payouts are in New Zealand Dollars (where Affiliate Junktion operates). So while you pay US$90+ to get you web hosting, Affiliate Junktion will theoretically refund you only US$57.95 (todays rate). After over a month, my NZ$75 signing refund is still showing in my Affiliate Junktion control panel as "pending".

The second thing is the NZ$150 per day guarantee. Over one month later, where is that? I new at sign up that Affiliate Junction's terms and conditions have provision to deny anyone this guarantee and make it impossible for people to take legal action against Affiliate Junktion regarding this, so I'm not that surprised. Maybe they bank on people apathy.

After signing up I followed their instructions and advertised the site they had given me. What I learnt over this time was:
1) Costs of getting traffic to Affiliate Junktion are far higher than Affiliate Junktion states. This is mainly because people followed the links to my site and never clicked through to Affiliate Junktion. Probably combine with increased competition for clicks which affiliat programs like theirs help fuel.
2) Conversion rate (when customers take action and become buyers) is not as high as Affiliat Junktion promised.
3) The commission is also in New Zealand dollars.

But I, persevered, Affiliate Junktion emailed me and did help with setting up my google adwords campaign, helping me to lower the click cost and get more traffic. I also realised I could send customers directly to Affiliate Junktion through adwords using my affiliate ID. This is a common practice, it solved the problem of people only clicking on my advertising and not getting through to Affiliate Junktion, so I immediately started to see clicks registering in the Affiliate Junkion control panel. The trouble was customers had not been warmed up (a process copywriters use, using persuasive, emotive language to improve the chances of making a sale) and so conversion rates weren't good.

So what was the end result? I spent €35 (NZ$66.65) to get NZ$16.00 in commission. It was a no brainer, I pulled the plug. ((EDIT, luckily I tried three time and on the last try nailed it. I now make €100 per day with Affiliate Junktion, the most important lesson learned is "if at first you don't succeed...")

I'm sure some people who find thier way to this page still want to believe, as I do, that is is possible, that I could have done something to improve things. Actually I'm sure I could have done better, but how long would it have taken? How much better could I have done? To make a profit I would have needed a conversion more than twenty time higher than I got.

Worth noting, Affiliate Junktion made 8 new sign ups from me. If they only duplicate my experience, then that will become 64 and so on... So its clear then even if their affiliates aren't successfully, than Affiliate Junktion (and google advertising) will be.

I hope this helps people make an informed decision regarding Affiliate Junktion. Maybe some day I workout how to promote the program cheap enough, at the moment, it's beyond me.