The purpose of this, and the other case studies that will ultimately be featured here, is to show people the differences small changes can have on your conversion rate and performance in the market in general, like social mention.  I do this in hopes that advertisers and affiliate program managers understand how their choices to the program affect the outcome for all parties involved.

I will be as transparent as possible on this case study, I will post analytical information specific to this site so I can more clearly define the importance of certain key areas that affect performance of an affiliate program.   It should be a pretty good interesting study…

What is WirelessCouponCode.Com?

WirelessCouponCode.Com is one of The Affiliate Authority’s brands.  It is a 3rd generation site for this niche, for us, meaning we had two sites prior to this site which were for the same niche.  You may be wondering what happened to site 1 and 2?  The short answer is they were penalized, each for different reasons, I will be writing the results of those experiments within the next few months so keep an eye out…

This site was developed with, you guessed it, the wireless market in mind.  However, if you take a look at it now, it now includes a blog with device reviews and our deal alerts.  I have to take time to mention my creation, SCOT-bot, who created the website too.

We recently, on 25SEP2011, redesigned WirelessCouponCode.Com.  SCOT-bot was my solution to the obstacle of branding the site after the fact.  The reason this happened was because I started building WirelessCouponCode.Com before I started transitioning to a brand driven strategy, SCOT-bot was my solution.  It is important that a site be branded, for several reasons, but mostly because Google wants brands in their search results.  Google is ushering in a paradigm shift to help drive more trust and improve their search results… we don’t fight Google’s wave, we ride it.

The Current State of WirelessCouponCode.Com

The site is:

• Currently ranking 1 in Google for 50+ terms and growing.
• Averaging about 2k+ unique visitors a day and growing.
• Averaging roughly 12% site wide, high/low = 18.84%/3.45% [and growing, of course]

WirelessCouponCode.Com Analytics Overview – 27SEP2011

Based on the analytics in the above report, I will be doing the following:

• Ensuring WirelessCouponCode.Com is mobile ready for users

Assessing Keyword Traffic Potential

There are a number of ways to do this find what way works best for you.  [You don't think I would give away all my tactics did you?]  I will however offer up something to think about when analyzing this data, no data is perfect, consider the source, and cross check if you are unsure.  If you do everything perfectly and target the wrong phases it won’t matter if they rank, they won’t convert.  Also, you’ll want to do the keyword research for the overall niche you target as well as any brands within that niche that will be on your site, this ensures you have a full frame to reference when making your decisions later on.

Determining Potential Average Conversion for an Affiliate

The idea here is to figure out what to expect from a given program before you put all the work into marketing it, this is only for estimate purposes, only once you get into the program and start making consistent conversions will you have the data to know what can be expected at true full potential.  This is how I do it:

• First off, I disregard the 3 Month and 7 Day EPC.  I am not worried about what other people marketing the product have done, I’m not going to bring their poor performance data into my calculations.
• Using the Commission Junction interface as an example, I click on the advertiser information link in the “get links” area in cj.  This brings up the given advertisers program details, I go straight to the payout data.  In the payout area you look for all the ways you can get paid by that advertiser, ensure you take into account any performance incentive(s).

 You can see in the above screenshot the different ways you can get paid on the Verizon Broadband affiliate program.  All you have to do is average the payout amount, so here I can expect an average conversion of $40, basically.  However, it gets slightly more complicated if you have an established site and more data at your disposal.  An example of this would be, if I know, from my keyword research earlier, more users are searching “Consumer FiOS Data” than “Business FiOS Data”, then based on that knowledge I can safely assume that the average dollar amount per conversion will go up.

Affiliate Link/Offer Evaluation

Affiliate Profit Potential Calculation

Percentage of Traffic by Rank in Google

Of course getting your site to rank 1 in Google is the trick, isn’t it.

But there is a way to mitigate the pain of expansion though, templates/guides.  Creating templates/guides and standard protocols for every procedure within your organization certainly seems like a daunting task, however, the return on investment of resources to execute this, far out weighs the initial work to build them.

How can creating Templates positively impact my bottom line?

Efficiency – Creating templates for all standard projects/tasks within your organization is one of the best things you can do for your organization, for several reasons:

1. It eliminates some of the required thinking, and thinking takes time.  If the skeleton of a given task is laid out and standing by, when the order is given to execute said task the template can be taken off the “shelf” and the relevant data for the task at hand can be input into the skeleton and you are ready to go, versus taking the time to start from scratch with every task.  Even if an individual has a task committed to memory, the initial work has already been completed for the task, so it jump-starts the work to be done, which reduces the overall time required for completion.
2. They allow for ease of training, of incoming personnel.  If you have detailed guides/templates that cover standard processes end to end, then you will be able to hand incoming personnel a guide rather than spend hours training them one-on-one.  This will allow the employee working with the new hire to still work on their own tasks, while overseeing progress of the task you have the guide/template for that the new hire is working on.

Operational Security - I know many companies in which there are several key individuals that do there job well and, as a result, are vital to the organization’s success.  Having these people make detailed templates outlining the processes they carryout is an absolute must, this will ensure that in the unfortunate event that they were to die, or whatever, your company will know everything that has to be completed to remain in business effectively.  While it would be sad to lose a team member, it would be worse to lose a team member and have people lose their jobs too, because the company went out of business since no body else knows how to do what the deceased was doing.

Morale – This is a key factor in a business’ success, yet is often overlooked.  Unhappy employees will not perform as well as happy ones, low performance = low profits.  People need/crave structure, whether they know it or not.  If you had to go to work everyday not knowing what the next step was, or constantly having to “put out fires” because of poor planning/structure, you most likely would dread going into work, I know I would.  On the other hand, if you went into work knowing that no matter what obstacle presented itself you would have a guide/template to consult as you go through the process, you certainly wouldn’t be as stressed.  There isn’t uncertainty if everything is spelled out step-by-step in front of you in a detailed guide/template.

Project Management – If you really want to take your guides/templates to the next level, you can drill down to the exact times for each of the tasks/steps.  This will allow you to plan for the exact amount of time it will take to execute a given project.  So you can add the times for the various tasks of a project together to develop a timeline of execution, track progress based on that timeline to ensure efficiency, and accurately anticipate costs of a given project.

Tips for making guides/templates:

1. Make them digital.  That way they can be easily shared and/or modified based on the metrics driving your department.  [Don't forget to back them up.]
2. Make them as detailed as possible.  This will help you with many things, among them, you can find out where weak points are in your project flow so you can adjust and optimize, to positively impact the bottom line of the organization.

The Take Away:

Templates/Guides = Increased Efficiency = Increased Productivity =  Increased Profits $$$

The following is a visual representation of what is possible in Google Analytics, you will want to take the time to figure out which metrics will be the best for your specific goal/needs.

Google Analytic Reports – The Boss

The screenshot below is an example of what the boss of an organization may want to see.  You can see it is only what he/she would be interested in, mostly revenue related metrics, that way he/she can find people to either pat on the back, or crack the whip on.

Google Analytic Reports - Acquisition Team

The screenshot below is an example of what the team driving traffic to your company’s site may need.  Notice its only the meat: visits, new visits, bounce rate, avg time on page (Not avg time on site) Nothing useless to the acquisition team is displayed here, like “per visit goal value”, as shown above.  While that particular metric may be interesting to the people on the acquisition team, it is not necessary to improve department performance.

Use Tabs in your Google Analytics Reports!

Google Analytics allows you to create tabs within the report for different departments on the same report, while still being able to segment different data within each tab.  This is useful because you can make highly customized reporting for each department with only the data they must have and nothing else to waste their time looking at.  An added benefit of this tab layout is that people like the boss can look at the custom reports for each other department and inquire further based on the data they see, if need be.

The Take Away:

• Define the ultimate goal of your department.
• Define the three, or less, metrics you can’t live without.  The ones that tell you that you are doing good, or bad.  (Per Department)
• Create custom reports that are end to end, meaning they include a given metric and that given metrics outcome.  Make the report(s)/tabs department specific so each department only receives relevant data to mine insights, take action based on the insights, and monitor the outcomes of those actions.
• Analytics can transform your company into a data driven organization.  Which means more $$$!