Good Affiliate Program Conversion Rates
Once you start promoting affiliate programs, one question will come up over and over. What are good affiliate program conversion rates?
Killer Conversions?
It is like an addiction. You start sending traffic to an affiliate program and generating revenues. You then spend far too much time each day trying to come up with different conversion rate figures. After a while, you start wondering about the conversion rates you are getting and whether they are good or not.
Any discussion of conversion rates has to start off with a preliminary subject. What is a conversion rate? Well, there are many ways to calculate the rate including transactions per thousands, per hits and per unique visitors. Generally, the best approach in our opinion is the number of transactions per unique visitor and a majority of affiliate programs use this calculation.
So, what is a good affiliate program conversion rate? Well, 1 transaction per unique visitor is the obvious answer. Unfortunately, it is also a fantasy on the web. In our experience, the best conversion rate we have seen is 1 in 25 for web cams psychic programs, but that was years ago. The best rates now range from 1 in 50 [very rare] to 1 in 200. These rates can be cut in half during the Christmas holiday period if you are promoting something that can be given as a gift.
It is important to pay attention to conversion rates, but not overemphasize them. There is another factor to take into consideration and that is the revenue per transaction. If you convert at 1 in 50, but only make $3 per transaction, it isn’t a good program. If you convert at 1 in 500, but make $300 per transaction, you are going to be pretty happy.
The other issue to look at with these programs is the payout frequency. On membership sites, most programs offer an option of getting paid once up front or a lower amount for as long as the person remains a member of the site. When online poker was still legal, poker players were known to stay with a program for years. Thus, many affiliates made hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars taking reoccurring commissions as the number of members they referred to the various programs grew. It was probably the most successful affiliate program ever, but was outlawed in 2006.