The Power Of The Cookie Drop

by David Pitlyuk in Business, Blogging, and Web Sites, My Business | 9 Comments

Last month I launched my first true affiliate marketing project, Carbon Fiber Gear. Over that past month I’ve generated 26 sales from eBay and 1 sale from Amazon, which has made me about $50.

In the back of my head I was pretty sure that the majority of sales were going to be for carbon fiber wallets (which I have been promoting pretty pro actively) or something else carbon fiber…but I was very wrong. Of the 26 eBay sales, here’s what was purchased:

As you can see here the majority of my commissions have actually come from stuff that has nothing to do with carbon fiber…I’m just the gateway for the user to get to eBay. On top of that, it’s interesting to look at the breakdown of the amount of time it took for the user to buy something from the day they clicked the affiliate link:

  • 17/26 (65%) purchased the same day
  • 2/26 (7%) purchased after 1 day
  • 3/26 (11%) purchased after 2 days
  • 1/26 (4%) purchased after 4 days
  • 1/26 (4%) purchased after 5 days
  • 2/26 (7%) purchased after 7 days

This is where we can really see the power of the cookie drop. 35% of the purchases weren’t made on the same day, but because a cookie was dropped I still generated revenue from that user. I’ll definitely be watching similar stats to this over time (hopefully with a lot more data to work with), so we’ll see if the numbers stay about the same.

January 3rd, 2008|9 Comments| Share/Bookmark This Post
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  1. Christoph

    01/04/2008 12:57 am

    Interesting results. I would have not expected that the ebay tracking cookie gets you the additional items. By the way – the Adsense ads on the blog are kind of funny. A “Spyware” cookie cleaner and an ad for “Edmunds.com” and a BMW M3.

  2. David Pitlyuk

    01/04/2008 1:00 am

    Haha yeah Google really likes to pick them good ;) No wonder I don’t get many clicks.

    eBay will drop a cookie that I believe lasts 30 days, so if the person that clicked the ad still has the cookie within 30 days and gets something from eBay, you will get paid for it.

  3. Tony Sticks

    01/07/2008 6:19 am

    Hi David,

    I have couple questions I hope you answer regarding your Carbon Fiber Blog (CFB):

    1. Are you using Google adwords to bring traffic to that blog (traditional affiliate marketing) or you rely on organic traffic?

    2. If you’re using Adwords, how much profit did you make? i.e, What is the cost of the adwords.

    3. If you’re relying on organic traffic, are you intending to keep blogging about this niche? or you will leave the blog as it is?

    4. How did you test the carbon fiber offer to make sure it will convert?

    I’m asking these questions because I’ve tried your method before using Google Adwords and it simply didn’t make me any profit. The cost was almost the same as the sales.

  4. David Pitlyuk

    01/10/2008 3:51 am

    You mean a couple of a couple questions :)

    1) Just a tiny bit of traffic is from AdWords, and only targeted directly towards post that have affiliate stuff in them. Majority of traffic is through organic and referral so far.

    2) AdWords has been cheap so far, I’ve spent around $10, with about 60 clicks. I have to setup some sort of better tracking to see if any of those are converting though as I’m unsure.

    3) I will keep blogging about the niche.

    4) There is no carbon fiber offer that I’m using. I’m finding and writing the content, and for what I can using affiliate links to sell those products.

  5. Tony Sticks

    01/10/2008 4:28 am

    Thank you David for the reply. I think if you kept blogging about this niche, it’s going to convert really well for 2 reasons:

    1. The products presented on ebay have a wide price range(to suite everyone), which means that ppl will buy them easily.
    2. You have almost free traffic, so there’s no cost for you.

    When I created my BMW E36 Blog, I had no idea about affiliate marketing (like I do now), so I’ve been creating many posts without using any affiliate links. What a shame!.

    Now, I’m trying to put as many links as I can hoping that it will give me a better income.

  6. David Pitlyuk

    01/10/2008 2:37 pm

    Just make sure your affiliate links are appropriate….nobody wants a spammed up site. Many of the posts on CFG have no affiliate links, and the ones that do are pretty natural about it.

  7. Tony Sticks

    01/10/2008 3:14 pm

    Yes, I think you’re right David. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

  8. Brandon Hopkins

    01/10/2008 4:03 pm

    Hey Dave, how has the affiliate income been over the last few days? Still on the upswing?

  9. David Pitlyuk

    01/10/2008 7:38 pm

    I haven’t had too many sales over the last few days, but I also haven’t been posting as much content (been on vacation) lately. As I mentioned before, right now is about building that traffic there in the first place, the sales will come. Luckily one of the 4 sales this month has been for a $3,000 watch so that was an easy $40 or so.

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