I launched my affiliate site October 1st, 2001 as a directory type site with some banner ads and merchants segregated by category pages. I made $18 my first month with an average 40 unique visitors (UVs) a day. That slowly increased until January 2002, when I made $120 on an average 160 UVs a day.
February 1st, 2002, I relaunched the site using datafeeds (Just Overstock's at first because it was free). That month I tripled my conversion rate and made $387. Over the next few months I added more feeds and now combine inventories from 6 merchants into one browsable and searchable site.
1 October 2002 I launched a micro site for just bedding, using the same DB that feeds my main site. Built and launched it in 3 days. It now gets average 180 UVs a day. My main site gets average 520 a day. In December 2002 I made $227 from the microsite and a total $1233 total from both sites.
I'm 15 months into my 36 month plan to be working for myself. I honestly expect (barring a reorganization of the way Affiliate programs work or Google banning all affiliate sites) that I should be able to clear $10K a month as I continue to hone my existing sites and build new ones.
My top performers in order are LS, CJ, BF, then Performics.
CJ charges $200 to set up your datafeeds, but they will let you pay out of your earnings so you don't have to send them money.
BF did mine for free
LS charges $250, but they want a check up front. Also, you HAVE to have a static IP to access the LS feed becasue they filter access to their FTP server by IP.
Performics charges $2500!!!! Needless to say, I'm not signed up with them!
There are many merchants that offer free inhouse feeds: Overstock, Rockler (tools), Art.com, Mondera (jewelry) just to name few. Full list here:
http://abw.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&...1&m=7346028083
Datafeeds are definitely the way to go. Get a book on ASP (the easiest to learn in my opinion). Start with a free feed to learn. You can get Access for about $80 or you might even already have it if you have MS Office. Build a good site using proven SEO techniques (no cheating!), submit to Google and other search engines (only submit once!), and the money will start to come in.
Bear in mind that you have to do something other than just regurgitate the feed. For example, if I take the Overstock feed and build a site that mimics Overstock, I'm not offering any incentive for users to come back; they'll just go to Overstock. So try to offer either:
A service: "Simplfy your shopping! At my site you can shop 6 stores and compare prices, all from one place!"
Content tie in: "Learn all about Radio Controlled Cars, read reviews of RC cars, and oh, by the way, here are some for sale at ..."
If you offer a service, keep your inventory fresh. I built automated jobs that download and update my batabase automatically. Although I spent a lot of up front effort (20+ hours a week learning and building in addition to my full time job), my average time spent working on my sites now is about 1-2 hours a week.
If you go with content, you need to CONSTANTLY add new content. Review a new RC car every week, or RC engine, or remote control, etc. People won't come back if you don't have anything new to read.
As an added benny, when I applied for a web and database developer position (I was a webmaster at the time working ony in HTML), I showed them my site, told them how I had built it and some of the things I was doing behind the scenes, and it got me a job making 19K more than the webmaster job. :)
It CAN be done. Read the boards, look at other affiliate sites, and, most important HAVE A PLAN.
Has anyone tried "Link Share Network"
