 Today's Topic
Looking for an effective way to put your products and services in front of a large audience? Deal Sites may be the answer. What is a deal site? They are web sites that post deals, sales and special offers from companies all over the Internet. They are known for having a loyal audience of tech savvy visitors that return often to find the best deals for their Internet needs. You can post your best offers at these sites for the world to see. While I can't specifically endorse a particular web site, here are some sample sites to check out: techbargains.com, xpbargains.com, shopathome.com, hotdealsclub.com, fatwallet.com and bensbargains.net.
Not sure where to begin? Here’s a great resource for finding new Deal Sites: www.dealsites.net.
Once you’ve decided on a Deal Site to approach, offer that site a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) deal. The big benefit of CPA deals is that you only pay the site when you make a sale. Plus, only pay the CPA on new customers; repeat customers are $0. Tip: Look for a range between $10-20 and keep track of your average order size (typically these customers will buy more than one product in an order) so you can fine-tune what CPA you can pay and still make money.
You’ll also want to post exclusive offers with the highest-performing sites, such as "Exclusive One-Day Sale! $19.95 SSL's on Techbargains.com only!" Deal Sites love it when they are the only ones getting a specific deal on a given day (even if you offer the same deal to another site at the end of the week). Test out your top selling products first: domains, hosting and secure certificates.
Some other useful hints:
* Be sure to use a Marketing Source Code with each campaign so you can track sales. Create these in the Reseller Control Center under ‘Marketing Tools.’ Source code reporting can be found under ‘My Reports.’
* Be sure to use an Insertion Order or other contract that spells out the terms and conditions of the offer. Most Deal Sites will require this in order to post your ad. Things to specify in the insertion order or contract:
o The exact placement of your ad on the web site
o How long the ad will run; start/end dates and times
o Guaranteed number of acquisitions, clicks or impressions – there may be no guarantee, but you need to be clear on this upfront
o The price of the ad – one-time fee, cost per acquisition, cost per click, or cost per impression.
o The payment terms: Who will track sales, clicks or impressions? When and how does the Deal Site expect payment
* Switch up your offers every week, and only offer sales for a few days a time.
* Expiration dates make customers act. Weekend sales work well, too. Start Friday, end Sunday.
* During weekly specials, communicate with the Deal Site the day before, asking them to post the sale at midnight. Send a reminder if it isn’t posted the next day.
* Create a custom page for each offer, when possible, so when the offer is clicked, the shopper is taken to a page on your site that has special offer information at the top. Then direct them to purchase from the template product page. If you are using the marketing source code feature in the Reseller Control Center you’ll need to add special code to your custom pages to pass that source code from the deal site, through your custom page and onto your template page.
Add this code to the very first line of your custom page, before the <html> tag:
<% Session("isc") = Request.QueryString("isc") %>
Add this code at the end of each link on that page that goes to your template page:
&isc=<%Session("isc")%>
Example link from my home page:
<A href="https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/ssl/ssl.asp?prog_id=domainhorse&ci=1789&se=%2B&isc=<%Session(" isc?)%>">Click here to learn more!</A>
(Note: This is for asp pages. Similar logic will apply for php pages.)
* Promote offers with text links – banners don't seem to perform as well.
* Once you establish a relationship, approach them to ask what types of offers they would like to see.
Deal Sites are a great way to jumpstart your sales – take advantage of all they have to offer today. Good luck!
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