What is a conversion system? A conversion system is a tool that you use to convert traffic into cash.
Table of Contents - Direct Link Promotion - Content-based Ad Traffic - Email-based Traffic - Review Traffic - Video Traffic - Search Platform with Original Content - Niche Product Review Platform
It can take many different forms. It can be a blog. It can be a mailing list. It can be an ad you took out on Google AdWords or YouTube. It can be an article that you paid a blogger to post. It can be a picture with a promo code that you paid an Instagram personality to post.
Whatever form it takes, a conversion system is simply a tool. It’s all about drawing and taking traffic, and converting it into cash.
What follows is a discussion of modern conversion systems. These are the latest and greatest conversion systems. These are the most common. Of course, I’m not going to pretend that this is a comprehensive list. That’s not the case. Not by a long shot. Instead, these are just the conversion systems that you are more likely to run into when you surf the internet.
Direct Link Promotion
With this system, you make money by basically taking the affiliate link the program gives you and buying traffic for that link. You go to Facebook, you select a picture, you set up a budget, and then for the URL section, you put in your link. Pretty straightforward. You’re buying traffic and pumping it directly to your link.
Advantages
The biggest advantage of this conversion system is that you get traffic quickly. You don’t have to scrounge around for traffic.
Disadvantages
You may have to spend a lot of money before you start making money, if at all. There’s a lot of experimentation that has to take place before you can fine tune your targeting parameters for YouTube or Google AdWords.
Content-based Ad Traffic
With this conversion system, you create content. Maybe you are promoting the content on somebody else’s website and paying them money to publish it, or you have a content site like a blog. Whatever the case may be, there’s a link in your content.
If people click on that link, they go to another page on your website that promotes the affiliate offer or they go directly to your affiliate sponsor. These links can take the form of a text link, or they can be linked to an image.
Advantages
The big advantage of content-based ad traffic is that you get to play a major role in shaping the mindset of your traffic. You’re not just putting an ad in front of them on a purely take it or leave it situation.
With content, you get to speak to their needs. You get to draw their attention, also get a chance to awaken a desire in them to want to click through to learn more about your solution to their problem.
Therefore, you also get to brand your customer’s eyeballs. Get to send them all sorts of signals and information so they can somehow, some way, link your brand with a certain set of values that they’re looking for in a product.
Disadvantages
Unless you’re paying for placement of your article or blog post, traffic can be an iffy proposition. If you are already a traffic generation master, then you don’t have to worry about this. However, if you’re like most people and you’re kind of rusty when it comes to driving consistent traffic, using content to promote affiliate programs may not pan out.
Email-Based Traffic
This is my personal favorite. The vast majority of people who go to your blog or who see your content are never going to come back.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if you get them to develop a long term relationship with you so you have a way of getting them to come back to your website, or at least have a way of reaching them to click on an affiliate link? Building an email list enables you to do these.
Promote your mailing list through your content or through paid traffic on AdWords or YouTube. When people enter their email address, you develop a relationship with them.
You can keep sending them updates until a point in time where they click on a link and they buy something, or they may get sick and tired of your emails and they unsubscribe. Regardless, you have many chances of converting them later on.
Take a look at these Email Marketing Platform that will help you grow your business.
Advantages
The big advantage of email marketing is that you get many bites at the apple. You’re not stuck with either converting them right there and then. Instead, you develop a relationship with them. If you send compelling enough content or interesting enough material, they may click on a link and do something that adds money to your bank account.
Another great thing about email list marketing is that you can market to your customers wherever and whenever.
Disadvantages
It takes time to build up a mailing list. Sometimes, list marketing can get very expensive because of list squatters. These are people who join your mailing list, but never unsubscribe despite the fact that they have stopped reading your updates.
You have to actively police these people or they will cost you a pretty penny in mailing service charges. Most email systems charge you based on how big your mailing list is, not based on how many people open your updates. To nuke list squatters, many email systems like AWeber enables you to identify list members who haven’t opened your emails and purge them.
Review Traffic
You can post a review of either the product you’re promoting or another product that’s related to the product you are promoting. This content attracts traffic from the Internet because people are looking for reviews before they buy.
Advantages
The big advantage to review traffic is that it’s direct traffic. It’s very rare that you would get people who are not interested in what you’re reviewing. Why? You’re actually reviewing the stuff that they’re thinking of buying.
Similarly, if you are promoting a product that is related to the product that people want a review for, you also get direct traffic. Why? Well, these people are directly interested in a product that is related closely enough to the actual product that you’re promoting. This is just as good as direct traffic.
The game is to get them to change their minds about the product that they actually want reviewed so they can take a look at the stuff that you are promoting. Pretty clever.
One common example of this “somewhat related” review traffic involves scam or anti-fraud reviews. Basically, you would take the product name, and then put the word “scam” or “fraud” and a question mark at the end.
When people read the review, it turns out that the review is a fairly neutral evaluation of the product they’re interested in, but near the beginning or near the end, you get them excited about a related product that you claim is not a scam. This is a very powerful variation that actually pulls a tremendous amount of traffic from search engines.
Disadvantages
If you target a saturated niche, review traffic is not going to help you. Other marketers have saturated your space. They’re getting the most of the traffic and there’s very little left over for you.
You also have to really know your way around SEO. If you’re not very good with SEO, you may still get traffic, but not enough to make it worth your while.
Video Traffic
YouTube is one of the biggest traffic sources on the internet, and you can bet that it can deliver a tremendous amount of traffic. This is why a lot of people are creating review videos and then posting them on YouTube. They also create “How To” or instructional videos to generate traffic.
When people do a search in your niche and they see your video, they view the video. And then when you refer them to a link in the description, they can click on the link and you get traffic.
Advantages
Video traffic is very powerful because it’s easier to rank on YouTube than Google’s search engine. You stand a high chance of getting more traffic from YouTube than regular Google.
Disadvantages
If your niche is in any way saturated or overpopulated, forget YouTube. Also, you may have to buy views (not recommended) for your video to provide social proof. The more views your videos have the more people would want to click through and view them.
Search Platform with Original Content
This tool involves creating a search engine that enables people to look through content related to those affiliate offers. Great examples of this include airline booking websites as well as hotel booking websites.
Advantages
You bring more value to the table. You’re not just sharing an article with affiliate links. Instead, people can cross reference different products so they can make the right choice or they can find specialized information about a product and then make a choice.
Disadvantages
The big disadvantage with search platforms featuring original content is the cost. Either you know how to program specialized search engines and do it yourself, or you’re going to have to spend quite a bit of money getting this done for you.
Niche Product Review Platform
A lot of affiliates are putting up searchable platforms where people can read different reviews of products in a niche. It can then cross reference the different products. This also includes travel destinations or restaurants.
Review platforms are very powerful because people are looking for specific types of information service. A good example of this is TripAdvisor.
Advantages
The big advantage of product review platforms is that you’re adding value to the life of the user. It’s not just getting random information.
They can cross reference this information, they can look at materials posted by other people. Also, this platform tends to create a community around content. When people show up at TripAdvisor, for example, they share their stories.
Disadvantages
These custom-coded platforms can cost a lot of money to produce. You need special coding to pull this off. You also have to have a robust content management system. You can’t just rely on WordPress to carry you through.
