This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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I received this email from Harry Joiner today:
"I love this blog. I just bought the podcast starter kit from Musician’s
Friend, and ended up buying a ton of drum parts too. Total was in the
several hundred dollar range. I hope you have an affiliate deal with them —
because I have been wanting to get into podcasting, but didn’t know what all
I needed until I saw your link."Mike, your blog rocks. Keep it up!"
It seems that Harry clicked on one of the Chitika ads I have running on my all my sites. I’m guessing it was the one to the right.
First of all, I’m happy to hear the ads I’ve chosen were useful to Harry. Secondly, it goes to show the power of relevance
in advertising. When I set up the Chitika ads, I set it so the ads
would be for products that I would appreciate – stuff to do with
gadgets, podcasting, mp3 players, etc. My thought was that people who
read my blog probably like the same types of stuff I like.
As it turns out, I don’t have an affiliate arrangement with
Musician’s Friend. If I did, I would have received a 6% commission on
everything Harry bought from them. Instead, I’ll earn a percentage of
whatever Musician’s Friend paid for the click-through, which is
probably substantially less (maybe $0.50) than if I had been an
affiliate. Makes me think I should become an affiliate for them while
continuing to run the pay-per-click ads as well.
I think for me, more so than the money, what really feels good is
that Harry found something he was looking for (and then some, it
sounds), AND because he found it on my blog, my brand equity has
increased in his mind (hey, he thinks my blog rocks!). The money is
nice too. It’s a win-win-win for all involved – Harry, me and the
advertiser. What could be better than that?
Pretty cool that he would write to tell me that too. Thanks again, Harry.