[METHOD] Stumbleupon and Amazon - Dynamic Duo for Residual Income

[dawala]

For anyone who is skeptical as to whether this actually works. Here are some stats from a new smaller, very niche-focused website I created using this tactic. Your traffic can be exponential depending on how many products your site has. This particular site has only about 10 products submitted to StumbleUpon

Hi Azguru, any recommendation on how to market on stumbleupon? Is followers important? How do you increase them?

 

[dawala]

Haven't started the Stumbleupon yet... will be starting that in a day or so. I want to have a good base of products before I start the marketing aspect... so in a couple more days I'll be there and then start pushing with FB and Stumbleupon.

Do let me know how it goes for you.

 

[KingMonkey]

That thisiswhyimbroke site is very clever. I like!

 

[azguru]

Hi Azguru, any recommendation on how to market on stumbleupon? Is followers important? How do you increase them?

Followers can be important if you have a lot of them. Personally, I don't waste time with that because you can drive heavy traffic without them.
The most important thing is creating content that users want to see. If you do so, users will like your page and StumbleUpon will continue showing it. Also, all their followers will see that they liked it.

Your goal here is to create a positive user experience, and if you successfully do so, everyone wins.

 

[KingMonkey]

I was just looking more at the thisiswhyimbroke website and it seems many of their links to where you can buy the products are not even affiliate links. Like the jetpack one takes you to the manufacturers website but you don't actually seem to be able to buy the product there. I could be wrong or missing something?

 

[OldSalt]

I was just looking more at the thisiswhyimbroke website and it seems many of their links to where you can buy the products are not even affiliate links. Like the jetpack one takes you to the manufacturers website but you don't actually seem to be able to buy the product there. I could be wrong or missing something?

What you're missing is that they are not trying to make money on every post - some of them are simply to give the viewer more of a "that's a cool site" feeling when they visit. Obviously all of the Amazon links are affiliate and when I looked, I thought there was at least one other affiliate network... but I think that many of the others are simply for the 'wow' and 'cool' factor. Let's face it, how many people are gonig to buy a $39,000 bowling ball billiards game or a $55,000 Tron Bike? True, if someone did and you could get 5% commission, that would be great... but I don't think they have affiliate links on those.

 

[captchadreams]

hey man.. thanks a lot for this post.

I have an amazon affiliate site on my to-do list.. but I was definitely going the boring route.. you just gave me a great idea and an extra form of traffic that I wasn't considering before.

+rep

 

[KingMonkey]

What you're missing is that they are not trying to make money on every post - some of them are simply to give the viewer more of a "that's a cool site" feeling when they visit. Obviously all of the Amazon links are affiliate and when I looked, I thought there was at least one other affiliate network... but I think that many of the others are simply for the 'wow' and 'cool' factor. Let's face it, how many people are gonig to buy a $39,000 bowling ball billiards game or a $55,000 Tron Bike? True, if someone did and you could get 5% commission, that would be great... but I don't think they have affiliate links on those.

So why not just make every link an affiliate link on the off chance someone does want to buy it? I don't imagine most of the general public would know any better and why risk loosing out on a cut of a $50,000 product that someone does end up buying?

I'm no expert on internet / affiliate marketing, in fact a complete newbie, so I can't claim to know what is best practice. Is this method proven to be more successful than having every product available via affiliate link?

 

[azguru]

So why not just make every link an affiliate link on the off chance someone does want to buy it? I don't imagine most of the general public would know any better and why risk loosing out on a cut of a $50,000 product that someone does end up buying?

I'm no expert on internet / affiliate marketing, in fact a complete newbie, so I can't claim to know what is best practice. Is this method proven to be more successful than having every product available via affiliate link?

Not every product on that site has an available affiliate program. So, the webmaster can either completely avoid posting them, which would take away from the utility of the site, or he can post them which adds to the utility of the site. He is creating a plan that is far more sustainable then just making a quick sale.

Let's be realistic. No one impulsively buys the $130,000 water jet pack - the site owner isn't missing out on sales.

 

[jennym]

Oldsalt, did you finish your 3 sites and how are your results so far? I just found this post and am looking a themes atm.

 

[OldSalt]

I just finished the first site... I'm going to take the next week or more to load the first one with products and then will start on the 2nd one. No sense in building 3 low quality sites... would rather build 3 quality ones more slowly. I'm going to be working on getting traffic to the first one starting at the end of the weekend. Got a couple of fb accounts with 4500+ friends each - and will also be using SU and probably Pinterest as well.

*Edit* I'll be able to build #2 and 3 faster cause I've already hacked the theme the way I like it. It will take me a little time to make the graphics just the way I like it though...

 

[yeaokwali]

This is definitely interesting.

 

[dawala]

What I noticed is that most use just 3 affiliate networks: cj, shareasale, amazon.

The theme is the most tricky part, what you'd be looking for are themes that can make users stay longer, so you'll need:
- grids, photo or portfolio themes work well
- infinite scroll (increase user browsing your website)
- share on social media

There's no one theme for this, you'll need to tweak it to your liking.

 

[dawala]

I just finished the first site... I'm going to take the next week or more to load the first one with products and then will start on the 2nd one. No sense in building 3 low quality sites... would rather build 3 quality ones more slowly. I'm going to be working on getting traffic to the first one starting at the end of the weekend. Got a couple of fb accounts with 4500+ friends each - and will also be using SU and probably Pinterest as well.

*Edit* I'll be able to build #2 and 3 faster cause I've already hacked the theme the way I like it. It will take me a little time to make the graphics just the way I like it though...

Are you using bots to promote? Or are you outsourcing it?

 

[audioguy]

For those who think this is easy, think again.

The concept is simple, but it takes work. A lot of it.

Do you think the example site could get to 100K FB fans just like that? It takes talent to choose good, fun and entertaining products. It takes skills to write great copy. That's why people stick around, share and like those pages.

But with determination, there is NO reason this couldn't work.

Just put time on the theme. Use SU carefully. Avoid stumbling just your stuff.

Buy SU gigs may work, but building real network is going to serve you better, I guess.

 

[jennym]

I like on his site how you can sort the excerpts on the first page by price and newest and popular. Anyone know how to do this with wp? (especially the price)

 

[OldSalt]

I like on his site how you can sort the excerpts on the first page by price and newest and popular. Anyone know how to do this with wp? (especially the price)

That's about the only thing I wasn't able to modify the writer theme to do. Other than that, I got it working almost exactly the same - even put a flash featured products on the top and the facebook fanpage likes.

 

[dawala]

That's about the only thing I wasn't able to modify the writer theme to do. Other than that, I got it working almost exactly the same - even put a flash featured products on the top and the facebook fanpage likes.

Lol, we're in the same boat. Sorting it is where I am also, We'll have to learn how to sort custom fields. It would be a nice feature to have to really encourage sales.

I've also seen around 4 websites, doing the exact same thing.

 

[joegodfrey86]

This is a great idea i will definately be implementing this into a few ideas i have!

 

[sandyfeet]

Anyone "successful" with this method yet? I'm in the process of creating one of these sites. Got a bit more tweaking to do, but I'm about ready to make it live.