Back in the “Wild West” days of the internet (circa 2008) ad networks were flush with affiliate advertisers buying massive amounts of traffic. A lot of affiliates made a lot of money. Many didn’t even have a landing page or website. They just directly linked for their banner to their affiliate link.
Those days are long gone. Networks with high-quality traffic (like the Google Display Network) have become very volatile for affiliates. Things like direct linking, low-quality squeeze pages and other tricks that worked very well in 2008 are now prohibited and have made things a lot tougher for affiliate marketers.
However, there is still one affiliate business model that is still allowed and works very well on networks like Google. You’ve probably seen a bunch of these “Top 10″ review sites floating around for various products.
Software, skin creams, dating sites, etc.
Most internet marketers know these Top 0 review sites are just lists of affiliate offers disguised as a real website. However, what you might not know is that a few of these businesses buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of display traffic every year and see a lot of success.
This post will explain how these sites work, which niches work best and and two difference case studies of breakdown two businesses that are doing very well.
Why Affiliate Review Sites?
According to a 2013 study done by Dimensional Research…
“…an overwhelming 90 percent of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions, while 86 percent said buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews.”
90% of people’s purchasing decisions were influenced by online reviews.
This statistic alone reveals a unique advantage that these affiliate review sites have. Since they don’t appear salesy and most people are looking for reviews before buying, most people are going to trust these sites and take their word because they won’t want to do the research themselves.
For example, if you know you need a new anti-virus software, do you really want to do the research and try to tell the difference between each of them? I don’t want to and the average consumer is going to want to less. This means people just want to know what’s the best and are more likely to buy directly from that link on the site, especially if the product is fairly low priced and they’ve convinced themselves that they need it.
Given the amount that these companies spend on display… their strategy is working.
Not to mentioned that these sites are fairly easy to set-up compared to other business models. You can create a very basic test site with a WordPress template, someone to write content and a few pictures/comparison charts of competing products. There’s not much to it.
Why Do Affiliate Review Sites Work on Display?
The key to this business model is that the information you’re giving someone is just that: information.
It’s not a blatant sales pitch. You’re not showing them a sales page, a VSL or even asking them for money on your site. You’re just giving “unbiased” reviews of 5-10 different products that you think they might be interested in.
When all you’re giving is information, people are going to be much more likely to trust your site. And when you get your targeting right on the display network, it becomes easy to show your ads alongside content that the user has already demonstrated an interest in.
For example, if my website shows the top 10 pieces of accounting software and I take an ad out on the “Business and Accounting” section of Answers.com… that’s pretty targeted. If I have a good landing page and I’ve tested a couple of different things, I’m going to be doing pretty well just from targeting on these generic business sections of sites like Answers.com, About.com, CNET.com, etc.
Which Niches Work Well?
Pretty much any market where there’s a bunch of different products but very hard to differentiate between them could potentially be a niche for a Top 10 review site. Picking the right niche is very important.
You’ll see in one of the case studies a few things to keep in mind when you’re picking a niche for your own site.
Here are a few examples of businesses that are doing very well with affiliate review sites on display advertising:
Software reviews
PC Anti-Virus Reviews
Compare Accounting (accounting software)
Top 10 Best Website Builders
Web Hosting/Cloud Storage
Top 10 Online Backup
Web Hosting Free Reviews
Top 10 Best Cheap Hosting
Debt Consolidation
Debt Consolidation Reviews
Best Debt Companys
Debt Relief Companies
Health/Fitness Products
Diet Pill Universe
Prostate Pill Report
Diet Shake Reviews
Online Dating/Pick Up/Attract Women
Dating Advice (online dating site reviews)
Pheromones Guru
Top 10 Best Dating Sites
Review Conglomerate Sites
These sites contain a whole bunch of different categories of products. Credit cards, online dating, computers, eCommerce products, etc.
These are the hardest to get started with because you need a lot of content and it’s going to take some technical know how to set-up.
However, these advertisers are buying a lot of traffic on display and are definitely worth mentioning.
NextAdvisor
ConsumerRankings
Comparaboo
Case Study: Anti-Virus Software
Most everyone could benefit by having some sort of anti-virus software on their computer.
However, how do you know which ones best?
Unless you’re seriously into debating the minutia details of different software, you’re not going to really care what the differences are. You just want the one that protects you the best and where you don’t have to do much to set it up or maintain it.
Like we said earlier, any market where there are a bunch of different products but where it’s very hard to tell the differences between them is a good fit for one of these review sites.
Let’s take a look at “PC Antivirus Reviews”
one of the biggest spenders on the PC anti-virus affiliate review niche.
Ad Networks
Heavy, heavy reliance on Google.
Publishers
The main publishers are software and geek related sites. No surprise here. The mindset of someone browsing these sites is going to be focused around purchasing or downloading software. Seeing an ad for the top 10 pieces of anti-virus software fits into this mindset.
Ad Creative
They’re relying almost exclusively on text ads. They’re A/B testing a few different text ads that are very similar but with a few key differences. One thing to keep in mind when testing ads is that changing one line, one phrase or just one word can have an enormous impact on CTR and sales.
Most successful ad:
2nd most successful:
3rd most successful:
Landing Pages
Within the past 6 months they’ve been A/B testing two different landing pages. The differences are tiny, but it appears that it’s made a difference.
Page A
Page B
What’s different?
Page A could be considered the winner as that is where they send 95% of their traffic.
The one small difference between A and B is that instead of a badge (which you’ll learn more about below) they have a “survey” that’s meant to help the prospect choose the right anti-virus software for them based on what’s most important.
One of the reasons why this version might not have done well is because all of the options are going to be ideal when choosing a software. It’s almost hard to choose which options is most important because they all are.
Highly emphasizing one product — “VIPRE” anti-virus software is the first thing you see above the fold when you hit the landing page. They likely get the most sales/highest commissions off of this software.
“Pros and Cons” — The pros and cons in the left hand side are quite vague. All the pros say that this software is the best of everything. The cons are not really cons — a “basic user interface” is probably a pro for most people since it makes it sound like it’s easy to use. The only other con is the the more expensive upgrade of the software also contains a firewall, which they’ll try to upsell you on later.
The Badge — Badges are super powerful pieces of authority. Editor’s choice, recommended by, used by the best PC professionals, whatever. However, notice that this badge isn’t from any specific organization that approves anti-virus software. It’s from the website itself. Anything can be the “Editor’s Choice” when you’re the editor of a small website. However, there is no doubt taht button has had a big effect on conversions. People love to see authority and social proof.
Upsells
Once you click through to buy the software, you’re then taken to yet another comparison page where they upsell you the more advanced version of VIPRE for another $10.
The comparison chart combined with the emphasized call-to-action for the more expensive version is pretty compelling. It becomes a “why not, it’s only $10 bucks more” type of decision.
Once you choose the version of the software you want, you’re finally taken to the affiliate link where they automatically tack on some more features: a 3 year subscription and a $10 “backup” CD. All of a sudden this software (which originally cost $39.99) is now worth $79.99.
Sneaky, sneaky.
Case Study #2: Skin Care Reviews
Another very successful affiliate review site is SkinCareResearch.com. They review women’s skin care products, specifically anti-aging and wrinkle creams.
This is one of the bigger niche affiliate review sites we’ve seen and they appear to be spending close to $1M/year on Google Display. Anyone who’s spending that much on traffic is obviously seeing success and is likely doing something that we can all learn from.
Picking the Right Niche
One thing that this site demonstrates is the importance of picking the right niche.
In this case, they’re going to have a large audience of aging women/baby boomers who have the deep desire to retain their youth.
In general, the aging population combined with the natural desire to stay “forever young” has created a massive market for anti-aging products. The people who are more serious will opt for more permanent solutions, like plastic surgery. However, there’s no doubt that the world financial crisis has affected many people’s ability to pay for expensive treatments like facelifts and Botox. This means they must reply on more inexpensive measures like creams and lotions.
In fact, according to a study done by [x]…
“[The] Anti-Aging Market is projected to grow at 7.8% between 2013 and 2019.The anti-aging market is poised for a healthy compounded annual growth rate of 7.8% between 2013 and 2019 and is projected to be worth USD 191.7 billion by 2019.”
Another advantage of selling creams & lotions is that they’re consumables, just like nutraceuticals
The customer will eventually run out and need to buy more. If you can get a monthly commission off of rebills or repeat sales you’re going to make a nice longer-term commission off of one customer.
Not to mention that creams are very expensive. The “LifeCell” cream that you’ll soon learn about costs $189 for a 2.49oz tube, so these affiliates are probably getting a pretty high commission that allows them to spend so much on display.
That being said, let’s take a look at what Skin Care Research is doing on Display:
Ad Networks
SkinCareResearch buys more traffic from different ad networks than the previous advertiser case study, but Google is still a HUGE part of their display strategy.
Publishers
Again, we have another advertiser that heavily uses The Huffington Post. Since beauty products tend to fit into the mass market, sites like The Huffington Post are going to work very well.
However, let’s take a closer look at two of the other publishers where they’re been spending a lot of money with Today.com and WebMD.com
Today.com is another mass market type site that tends to skew towards a female demographic, likely stay at home moms in their 30s and 40s and women over 55.
Why?
Because the Today show starts early in the morning when most professionals are getting ready for and community to work.
And if we combined that with the demographic statistics from Alexa.com
We can see that Today.com heavily skews towards females, making it the perfect place to advertise anti-aging creams.
Another very interesting place they’re advertising is on People.com, specifically on the pages that are celebrity photo galleries.
Here are the placements where their ads receive the most clicks:
Our instinct is that these pages work very well because people generally compare their looks, beauty and even success against celebrities, some of the most beautiful people in the world. It’s a hard model to follow for most people because these are the most beautiful people in the world — the .0001% of the world population in terms of beauty. Nevertheless, many people consistently try to achieve this model. And when you look at pictures of people that are more beautful than you, look younger than you (even if they’re the same age) you’re going to want to achieve this same beauty and are going to be very receptive towards being pitched a cream that does exactly that — make you look younger and more beautiful.
Ad Creative
Landing Pages
The main landing page is very well done and includes many of the same features as you saw for the anti-virus software.
The one key difference is that the beginning of it is formatted as an article, which is actually an advertorial. It’s written as an article meant to educate on what actually happens to your skin as you age and the science behind why wrinkles are formed, with a pitch in the last paragraph for Lifecell.
Then, you’ll find the comparison chart of various skin creams (with Lifecell as #1) and many user reviews at the bottom. This is a very convincing page that is probably doing very well for them.
When you click through to the “Lifecell” page you’re then hit with another advertorial. When you read the copy on this page, it’s similar to the sales pitches for creams and potions you’ll see on TV shopping networks like QVC or The Home Shopping Network. It’s a mixture of an unique selling proposition (“The 17 Second Miracle”) + the science behind why it works + playing to the emotions of demographic that abhors wrinkles, crow’s feet and aging.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Easy to set-up — These are pretty easy to set-up. A simple WordPress template + a domain is all you really need to get a very basic site up. If you look at some of these sites there really is not much to them, examples [TK], [TK] and [TK]
Google compliant — For the moment, most of the larger more successful advertisers are advertising on the Google Display Network. This can be a huge advantage due to the general quality of the traffic you’ll get on Google as opposed to other ad networks.
Easy to get working on display when you hit the right niche — When you get the targeting right in the right niche it’s going to be easy to get your ads in front of the right audience. You could easily start taking out ads on keyword search, but the CPCs are likely to be much higher. For example, the keyword “Anti-virus software” has an estimated CPC of [TK] on Google Search. Anti-aging creams is even higher at [TK]. You’re going to need a very high commission to cover the costs of advertising on search.
Cons
Lots of content needed — You’re going to need someone to write a lot of reviews on these products. It’s not that difficult, but it can be time consuming to write a real review. Most people will just write something fake, but this isn’t the best strategy. Also, if you want to see the best results, you really need to hire a decent copywriter to write an advertorial style review like SkinCareResearch did above. Good copywriters can be quite expensive.
Your traffic sources can go bad– Even though it seems like most high-quality ad networks are allowing these sites at the moment, an ad network can change their policy from one day to the next. One day you’re bringing in lots of high-quality traffic, the next day the network decides they don’t like the user experience that your site provides and ban you from their network, just like other affiliate advertisers in previous years.
You might have to do something not in your customer’s best interest — The way that a lot of these affiliate review sites survive is by either having someone sponsor content on their site (giving them the top spot) or by emphasizing the product that gives them the highest commission. You’re not always going to be incetivized to do what’s right by your customers. You’re going to be more incentivized to do what’s necessary to make money and keep your site alive, which is by making the most you can off of affiliate commissions.
Conclusion
When you pick the right niche and make the right affiliate deals, you can do really well with one of these sites. The main downside is that it’s unclear whether or not the higher quality networks are going to allow traffic to these sites in the future. Only time will tell, but for the time being it’s a great business model to use if you’re interested in making a tidy profit with display advertising.