Home > Paid Traffic Sources > eCommerce

Opening Store or Promoting Ecomm through Network? (25)

08-09-2018 03:19 PM #1 silvertongue (Member)
Opening Store or Promoting Ecomm through Network?

Hey guys,

Thinking of diving into e-commerce and it seem like the majority of the talk on STM is about running eComm through a self-owned store (ie Shopify). On the other hand, there are much fewer threads about running ecomm offers from performance networks.

Wondering why that is and if you guys would recommend one approach over the other for a complete noob. What are the pros and cons of each? Am I comparing apples and peaches?

Thanks

08-09-2018 04:28 PM #2 stickupkid (Senior Moderator)

If you are able to build a good webshop and create a sublime brand out of it, you can create way more margin with your own store, in comparison to pushing ecomm offers via a network. Good thing doing ecomm offers via a network probably is they already selected hot selling items. Assuming they don't put effort and time in offers which don't have potential. People underestimate how hard it is to find hot selling items vs. finding the best audience for it.

Also you don't really have to invest time and energy in "after sales" when you just push e-comm affiliate offers. And all other hassle I forget to mention when owning a webshop.

Wondering what drives you to dive into e-comm? Because it's so hot or....?

08-09-2018 05:45 PM #3 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Like stickupkid said, driving traffic to your own pages would be way more lucrative.

But ecom networks can be such a great spy tool! This is what a lot of people don't realize.

Like stickupkid mentioned, the products the aff networks are pushing are HOT products that they've found through knowledge of the market + testing. You KNOW demand is there.

Moreover, most of these are general products that will sell by targeting broad audiences! This means saturation will seep in much slower. And you won't need to test as many demos - just gender and age to find which combinations are profitable for you.

More importantly, you know the margin of these products must be high. How else would they be able to pay us commissions and STILL make enough money for the operation to be worth it for them?

And if you study some of the product pages that the networks created, they can just be ugly and extremely simple sales pages. But they are standalone.

Please do a search for my posts where I summarized a part of the book "Ecom Evolved" - where standalone funnels are mentioned - these convert so much better than product pages in a store.

In fact, you don't even need to have a store front finished. Just build the product funnel using FunnelBuildr and integrate that into Shopify and then drive traffic to that.

The only thing about these products that are available through networks, that you can't replicate right away, would be if they accepted COD payments. For those, you'd need to find a local fulfillment centre and a courier that handles COD. This will take more effort but if you get this set up then you'll have an edge over the 90% other ecom owners that are dropshipping.

And in cases where the network is taking credit cards, then you can just replicate that by dropshipping through aliexpress.

Another potentially very useful hint: Even if a product is COD because it's being offered in a geo with low credit card penetration, you can do a bit of market research (or better, set up a product sales page for dropshipping from aliexpress and run a quick test on FB) to see whether the same product is also selling well in countries where people DO use credit cards (US CA UK AU NZ maybe DE) to gauge profit levels.

I did start to promote ecom offers through a network before. Quickly threw up an ad in FB and just plugged in the link from the network (not an affiliate link - but they had to add my FB pixel to their page of course). Started breaking even without any split testing or narrowing down targeting demo or anything.

A lightbulb went off in my head. I went to aliexpress to look for the exact same product - and found it selling there for less than $2. The aff network was selling them for close to $40! No wonder they could afford to pay me half of that and STILL make money!

So yeah....that's how I would take advantage of these offers available through networks...not run them directly, but use them as spy tools. Of course there would be more work involved, but you can potentially make so much more money as well.



Amy


Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

08-10-2018 07:07 AM #4 silvertongue (Member)

Thanks guys, really interesting insights. I'll have a look at your post @Amy.

@stickupkid yeah, it's hot AND I also personally feel a lot more passionate about playing in a whitehat vertical.

08-10-2018 01:45 PM #5 silvertongue (Member)

What traffic sources would you guys recommending with if I open my own store? Facebook seems to be the market standard, but are there any other less obvious choices other than Facebook and native you'd recommend?

08-10-2018 01:47 PM #6 stickupkid (Senior Moderator)

Google Adwords, if your niche/products show potentially enough search volume. Some decent investigation on this could give you also an idea of hot selling products.

08-10-2018 06:42 PM #7 pekadis (Moderator)

I recommend organic ;-)

Takes some time, but worth developing as it will definitely yield returns.

Other than that, try selling through other channels as well, such as Amazon and other marketplaces.

Use the volume to lower buying prices, ship more cost effectively etc.

08-10-2018 06:59 PM #8 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Google shopping, pinterest, instagram, amazon advertising.

Also: "Dark social" as explained here:

https://www.smartinsights.com/ecomme...affic-sources/

Apparently word-of-mouth can be a huge source of traffic. This is why if you're still dropshipping and churning and burning customers with lengthy delivery times and subpar quality products, you're leaving a lot of money on the table.

If you can figure out how to get most of your customers to advertise for you for free, your business will grow at an exponential rate. Example of a company that has done this with huge success:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/th...-of-pinduoduo/



Amy

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

08-11-2018 08:07 AM #9 pekadis (Moderator)

+1 for amy's suggestion of word-of-mouth

It's hard to track, but we get some of our best leads from people who have been referred by colleagues, family and neighbours.

We're only a click away from the competition, as most of the products we sell are branded products (not our own). So having someone enquiry that's not even looking at the competition means it's almost certain we'll close the deal.

The best way to set yourself up for referrals, is to do your job well. Have competitive prices, ship within expected time, answer questions.

You can incentivize the process, but without delivering on the basic of your job (process order, ship, answer questions), there's no point.

08-11-2018 07:18 PM #10 luckyluciano (Member)

I love the idea of using e-comm networks as a spy tool. What are some of the most popular e-comm networks?

08-11-2018 07:47 PM #11 manu_adefy (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by luckyluciano View Post
I love the idea of using e-comm networks as a spy tool. What are some of the most popular e-comm networks?
GiddyUp, A4D, ShareASale are 3 very popular ones.

08-12-2018 06:02 PM #12 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by luckyluciano View Post
I love the idea of using e-comm networks as a spy tool. What are some of the most popular e-comm networks?
I can't openly list networks - I'm sure they won't appreciate being used as spy tools.

You can do some searches here on the forum and browse some affiliate networks' intro threads. I'm sure you can find some.



Amy

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

08-12-2018 06:55 PM #13 manu_adefy (Veteran Member)

Haha, I am pretty sure at least GiddyUp will be confident in beating rip-offs

09-05-2018 09:42 AM #14 udroppy (Member)

Really agree with @vortex!

Use affiliate ecom offers to understand what they are running, study who is running that converting campaigns and how. SimilarWeb PRO is great for that. Take in mind that what affiliate networks sell for $59 in order to pay a $30/40 payout you can probably sell for $39/49 in order to keep the same margin.

If you attack the same audience with cheaper pricing you most probably get the majority of conversions! Moreover, with your own store/funnel you can monetize customers even with up/down/cross-sells, increasing the CLTV.

And don't forget that with your store/funnel you can also develop really interesting marketing strategies to re-target users that you won't be able to do as an affiliate

09-16-2018 09:48 PM #15 mrrocky314 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by vortex View Post
Like stickupkid said, driving traffic to your own pages would be way more lucrative.

But ecom networks can be such a great spy tool! This is what a lot of people don't realize.

Like stickupkid mentioned, the products the aff networks are pushing are HOT products that they've found through knowledge of the market + testing. You KNOW demand is there.

Moreover, most of these are general products that will sell by targeting broad audiences! This means saturation will seep in much slower. And you won't need to test as many demos - just gender and age to find which combinations are profitable for you.

More importantly, you know the margin of these products must be high. How else would they be able to pay us commissions and STILL make enough money for the operation to be worth it for them?

And if you study some of the product pages that the networks created, they can just be ugly and extremely simple sales pages. But they are standalone.

Please do a search for my posts where I summarized a part of the book "Ecom Evolved" - where standalone funnels are mentioned - these convert so much better than product pages in a store.

In fact, you don't even need to have a store front finished. Just build the product funnel using FunnelBuildr and integrate that into Shopify and then drive traffic to that.

The only thing about these products that are available through networks, that you can't replicate right away, would be if they accepted COD payments. For those, you'd need to find a local fulfillment centre and a courier that handles COD. This will take more effort but if you get this set up then you'll have an edge over the 90% other ecom owners that are dropshipping.

And in cases where the network is taking credit cards, then you can just replicate that by dropshipping through aliexpress.

Another potentially very useful hint: Even if a product is COD because it's being offered in a geo with low credit card penetration, you can do a bit of market research (or better, set up a product sales page for dropshipping from aliexpress and run a quick test on FB) to see whether the same product is also selling well in countries where people DO use credit cards (US CA UK AU NZ maybe DE) to gauge profit levels.

I did start to promote ecom offers through a network before. Quickly threw up an ad in FB and just plugged in the link from the network (not an affiliate link - but they had to add my FB pixel to their page of course). Started breaking even without any split testing or narrowing down targeting demo or anything.

A lightbulb went off in my head. I went to aliexpress to look for the exact same product - and found it selling there for less than $2. The aff network was selling them for close to $40! No wonder they could afford to pay me half of that and STILL make money!

So yeah....that's how I would take advantage of these offers available through networks...not run them directly, but use them as spy tools. Of course there would be more work involved, but you can potentially make so much more money as well.



Amy


Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app
Vortex can you recommend some good network with ecommerce offers ?

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

09-18-2018 06:14 AM #16 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Vortex can you recommend some good network with ecommerce offers ?
Manu above has recommended one. You'll find more here:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ce-cpa-network




Amy

11-16-2018 12:50 AM #17 ianternet (Senior Member)

I'm in the same boat, I do not want to deal with the customers anymore being an advertiser for 5 years and a Shopify store last year... I think the customer-centric part of me is non existant - but it def is more money if you have an operations properly setup.

11-16-2018 07:27 AM #18 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by ianternet View Post
I'm in the same boat, I do not want to deal with the customers anymore being an advertiser for 5 years and a Shopify store last year... I think the customer-centric part of me is non existant - but it def is more money if you have an operations properly setup.
That's why I'm still active in the standard affiliate space, I can't stand dealing with direct customers, it's killing me

11-19-2018 02:43 PM #19 AdMaven (Veteran Member)

When you run e-comm campaigns from performance marketing networks def makes the entire process much much easier for you. For instance, buying traffic and using tracking link and working on commission would give you some idea on how this entire thing works.
We tried a certain official affiliate program of a major shopping site and we were able to learn the trends, the number of chargebacks we get. That would be diving on the shallow waters. After some learning period, you can move forward to opening your own shop. But i would start with some training period with a performance network.

03-14-2019 04:15 AM #20 jin_mobisummer (Member)

Hi, You are right about thinking of diving into e-commerce, for the market trend is to focus on more events ads such as buying. I think running e-commerce campaigns from network would be much easier to start with. Just focus on the promotion without any worries on products and delivery and aftersales service. We are network focus on E-com business and We provide professional product services and data optimization with our big data center. Also 24/7 service team to solve problem immediately. Any HQ WWtraffic is welcomed to ping me, let's discuss on making money together Skype:live:tsohoiyenn

03-14-2019 07:25 AM #21 kinged (Member)

You got some really good insights here.

But here are my 2 cents.

I would start with ecom offers from networks and really buckle down and learn how to kill it with those offers.
Once you crack it and understand how to come up with unique angles and find the right audience you can then start looking for a niche/ product that you want to build a brand around.

I'm coming from the other side, I started with Shopify and ecom BEFORE affiliate marketing, and let me tell you this...
The knowledge and SKILL you acquire as an affiliate marketer is priceless, and taking that to the Shopify ecom game sets you apart from most of the bad marketers in the ecom game.

Also there are so many moving parts with starting an own store. Optimiziation on every corner, finding right pricing, dealing with really stupid customers and
dealing with suppliers, waiting for products to be manufactured and shipped for 1-2 months.

But i would go ecom offers first, smash it then build my own brand and sell the business.
Rinse and repeat

03-14-2019 08:20 AM #22 VoluumDSP (Member)

Hey,
e-commerce offers work great with networks like: Outbrain, My6Sense, RevContent, Liveintent, just to name a few. You can get access to native traffic from all of these networks thru our DSP.
Once you register, ask your Account Manager for a WL/BL so that you can save your budget for scaling top-performing networks. With our automation features you'll be able to make micro-bid changes and pause traffic in segments that don't meet your goal by just setting an iCTR,CPV, CPC, CPA goal or an auto-rule (pause creatives/sites/widgets/browsers IF the cost is > x AND the CTR is < Y, just an example).
If you wanna give it a go, just PM me or register your account.
Thanks,
Justyna

03-25-2019 02:30 PM #23 cpxaff (Member)

We would recommend ecomm offers from performance networks.

Also making your own website is one of the best tools, but then you would need to work a lot on the SEO, SEM and social platforms.

04-08-2019 02:40 PM #24 bibanum007 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by udroppy View Post
Really agree with @vortex!

Use affiliate ecom offers to understand what they are running, study who is running that converting campaigns and how. SimilarWeb PRO is great for that. Take in mind that what affiliate networks sell for $59 in order to pay a $30/40 payout you can probably sell for $39/49 in order to keep the same margin.

If you attack the same audience with cheaper pricing you most probably get the majority of conversions! Moreover, with your own store/funnel you can monetize customers even with up/down/cross-sells, increasing the CLTV.

And don't forget that with your store/funnel you can also develop really interesting marketing strategies to re-target users that you won't be able to do as an affiliate

What is: with up/down/cross-sells,? And what is CLTV?

04-08-2019 03:59 PM #25 stickupkid (Senior Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by bibanum007 View Post
What is: with up/down/cross-sells,? And what is CLTV?
customer livetime value - to get most revenue out of one buyer, for example via cross-sell (you bought this awesome fishing rod, but you need some artificial bait too right? these are the ones other buyers bought most bla bla). downsell means you offer other/similar/same/alternative product, but cheaper. so this fishing rod I offered you don't like, here is a cheaper version buddy. Upselling fishing rod's - get one extra rod 50% off - for your girlfriend too so you can discuss your relationship during fishing.

Home > Paid Traffic Sources > eCommerce