1000 clicks and 0% conversion

Sorry i’m a noob when it comes to doing internet marketing. I’ve spent the past 10 years as a developer for internet marketers and I decided to try it for myself. I decided to take an affiliate campaign and drop some money into media buys. I’ve received 1000 clicks and have had 0% conversion. It is a direct link and no landing page other then the landing page for the affiliate offer. I was told not to do that. Is that why I’ve had 0 conversions? What can I do to increase conversions?

Ask yourself this. If you were a random member of the public, would you click through and make a purchase there? If not, why not? Maybe it isn’t obvious how to complete the deal. Maybe the link/text is misleading and people click on something promising only to find that what they’re being offered isn’t something they’re interested in. Maybe the site looks untrustworthy. Maybe there’s actually a technical glitch that is preventing them from going through.

Well it is pretty clear how to make a purchase but no I wouldn’t make a purchase on the site. Could be a trust factor and cost factor. The product is relatively expensive.

[FONT=Verdana]So if you wouldn’t buy the product, why do you think anyone else would?

It’s rarely a good idea to try to sell something that you don’t think is worth buying (putting issues of taste/need to one side).[/FONT]

Ultimately, it’s probably more of a desire factor. People will put up with a lot if they really want something. You either have to make them desire it, or find a product they actually want. Some products are absolutely fantastic, but people don’t buy them because they just don’t want/need them enough. (That’s why it’s really important to try to gauge how much people actually want a product before investing lots in selling it. I know this from painful experience of not doing such testing!)

If you yourself wouldn’t want to buy what you’re trying to promote, how would you expect others to actually make that purchase? It’s cool that you were able to get 1,000 clicks; it’s just that the product is not something that people would want to buy right off the bat. Perhaps you can think of something that would make people buy it. Follow up question: what would make you want to buy that product?

You need a pre-sell page between your ad and the affiliate landing page. The aim of a pre-sell page is to get the user warmed up, excited and in “ready to buy” mode when they hit the landing page.

I agree that is probably down to trust. If people are being taken directly to the page of conversion it probably looks a bit dodgy - if straight away I was asked for my details I’d bounce right off there. As Caimin has brought up, a page between the ad and conversion page might help - an effective landing page that will build up trust and lead visitors down your desired path of conversion.