Slicker's Monetization Case Study

Slicker

Slicker

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Nov 30, 2009
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So I had played with this idea before but I have now decided to go through it and do a case study thread so that anyone that wants to can follow along with me.

I will be taking one of my sites, and totally changing the way that I am monetizing it, in the hope that I will be able to increase my monthly earnings on it 10x-20x.

The site, until about 1 week and a half ago was ranked #1 for my main keyword, and on the first or second page for most of the others. I stupidly thought of this site as bringing in "passive income," and learned recently that it wasn't fully passive. I lost my number one ranking and dropped to #4. I have been scrambling ever since to get back up there, and assume that I will sooner than later. I have been building links and adding content.

Currently the only way that the site is monetized is with adsense. When at #1 it averages about 10k+ uniques a month to the main page. And does about $300 in revenue. Since Oct. has been a bad month, and there are a couple weeks left, I will show stats from Sept. as a reference. Even Sept. was bad as in the begining of the month I didnt pay my hosting bill (its on a shared hostgator plan, and is the only site I still have on it. I know I know, I need to get it on the plan the rest of my sites are on) And at the end of Sept. I did the stupidest thing of all...I let it expire...luckily I noticed it the day after and grabbed it back. (the hostgator and the name.com emails go to an email account I never check). I have gotten much more aggressive with my offsite SEO, since this happened and my main keyword has some decent comp (around 1.5 million) and some of the other 1st page sites are big authority sites in the niche.

Here is the analytics data from September:

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And here are the stats from Adsense for September:





I have decided to get an ebook made for my site and to sell it through clickbank. For now I wont list it on the marketplace, until I have everything hammered out myself. I am well versed in the CPA realm, but have never sold digital goods or sold my own product.

I have paid for a professional sales copy, and ebook to be made on the subject. Once that is done I will get the sales page done, and the ebook cover created. From there I will have the salespage/copy converted to WP and will start testing diff price points, as well as slight changes in the copy. My hope is to convert at 1%+ and I have been told that that shouldn't be a problem. We will see. My starting price point will be $27, so if I can convert 1% at $27 with 10k uniques a month to my sales page, that would be 100 sales or $2700, which is much better than the $300 a month it currently gets.
 


Slicker said:
My starting price point will be $27
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Don't do $27! Please do yourself a favor and price it at $29.99. At the very least you'll make $2.99 more/sale. But you'll probably convert higher on that price point. I have thoroughly tested this. That's not to say that you'll get the same results but I'm quite confident you will.
 
Looks interesting, I'm currently building a few SEO sites and planning on slinging some CPA offers.

Ima follow this and see where it goes. Shouldnt take long to see any results really.
 
Jesus christ. On one of my bullshit leave-alone sites I have about the same number of impressions per month but a significantly lower CTR. I need to go do some testing.
 
affiliatearmy said:
good luck on closing 1%
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what do you think is realistic? My sales copy writer thinks that 3% is more likely, in fact our written agreement says I get a refund if it doesnt convert at atleast 1% with a $27 price point.

Sonny Forelli said:
mind giving us a ballpark price to have the ebook done?
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its the mid-low $xxx range

megatabbers said:
Don't do $27! Please do yourself a favor and price it at $29.99. At the very least you'll make $2.99 more/sale. But you'll probably convert higher on that price point. I have thoroughly tested this. That's not to say that you'll get the same results but I'm quite confident you will.
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sounds good, I will def give that a try as well as test several other price points. lll share the results with everyone as well
 
mid-low $xxx and your copywriter thoughts about 3% is way too "realistic" lol
some of top and close to top CB products converts at that, but anything possible
 
Slicker said:
what do you think is realistic?
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1% is more than realistic provided people want what you're selling and you're sending targeted traffic. Are there other products like yours on the market? If so, that's a good sign.

Slicker said:
My sales copy writer thinks that 3% is more likely, in fact our written agreement says I get a refund if it doesnt convert at atleast 1% with a $27 price point.
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Most copywriters are full of shit. This sounds like one of them. How in the world could he/she possibly predict 3%?!!! This is dependent on way too many variables (market response, traffic source, etc). Plus, no copywriter worth his salt would ever make that kind of guarantee.
 
how'd you find somebody to write the ebook? do they know what they're talking about? would be curious how much will be returned if it's so cheap to write. good luck dude! doesn't seem too tough as long as you keep the traffic coming.

i'd also be interested in hearing how you got to #1 for your keyword to begin with. it sounds like you've had it for awhile. is it something you did in an effort to make money to begin with and then you just left it alone?
 
frankly, with that much traffic, I would setup a newsletter signup and build a list, offering a 14 course or weekly tips or something, and passively push your own and other products via the list. Might as well hook people in where you can reach out to them on command and push multiple offers instead of going for a blind no-repeat sale.
 
davidle said:
how'd you find somebody to write the ebook? do they know what they're talking about? would be curious how much will be returned if it's so cheap to write. good luck dude! doesn't seem too tough as long as you keep the traffic coming.

i'd also be interested in hearing how you got to #1 for your keyword to begin with. it sounds like you've had it for awhile. is it something you did in an effort to make money to begin with and then you just left it alone?
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I got it to #1 through good old SEO, ha, I mean idk what to say really. Links, tiered links, and content, fresh content often.

dchuk said:
frankly, with that much traffic, I would setup a newsletter signup and build a list, offering a 14 course or weekly tips or something, and passively push your own and other products via the list. Might as well hook people in where you can reach out to them on command and push multiple offers instead of going for a blind no-repeat sale.
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not a bad idea, and something to test in the future for sure. This may sound incredibly stupid but clickbank doesnt allow some sort of coreg do they?
 
Slicker said:
not a bad idea, and something to test in the future for sure. This may sound incredibly stupid but clickbank doesnt allow some sort of coreg do they?
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don't coreg, just go for the list signup. You can probably hit 30-40% signup with a popover and a box on the page. Once they signup, send out 3-4 harmless informational messages to make them happy, then start trickling in clickbank offers.
 
I agree on setting up a list - at least while you're getting the product together. That way, you build/presell your list for launch or just sell other shit to them.

I'm also interested in seeing how your bounce rate will change once you get adsense off of the site.
 
dchuk said:
don't coreg, just go for the list signup. You can probably hit 30-40% signup with a popover and a box on the page. Once they signup, send out 3-4 harmless informational messages to make them happy, then start trickling in clickbank offers.
Click to expand...

great Idea, will def look into getting that done.

seolinker said:
mid-low $xxx and your copywriter thoughts about 3% is way too "realistic" lol
some of top and close to top CB products converts at that, but anything possible
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that was what I said the ebook cost me, not the cost of the sales page/letter. The sales page/latter cost a bit more, but not much. Of course the conversion rate really depends on the quality of the traffic and how targeted it is. All my traffic is SEO (although I will be testing some PPC with it as well) and my keywords are very targeted.
 
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