Know of Any more Ways to Monetize Bullion Affiliate Site?

[addaminsane]

I've been working on expanding precious metals info affiliate site in WAMP for a while and when trying to look around, noticed that the only affiliate programs that seem to have potential are Apmex and bullion vault.

I assume some members on here have been jumping into that market a bit and am wandering if you know of some other potential affiliate programs to sign up for.... or other ways comprable to the exchange affiliate programs to monetize a precious metals info site.

Wandering, cuz every bullion related site i see seems to be flooded with apmex

[Jeremy]

Wandering, cuz every bullion related site i see seems to be flooded with apmex

Muwahhaaaa, looks like I have done my job for them.

In all seriousness though, there are very few reputable programs out there besides the two you mentioned. I expect to see more emerging in the coming months, but that entire industry is still in it's infancy with respect to "real online marketing". Most of these guys we're running small coin shops prior to 2008.

Some of the keys to converting in this market is to obviously go after terms that provide the most qualified traffic. For example, "how to buy gold online" will yield you far better conversions than just ranking for "online gold".

Another key is to always use pictures of products. Although you may know the simple difference between coins and bullion, many readers do not. That's why it's a great idea to have lots of pictures. Forget about tons of banners, they won't convert nearly as well as pics.

Also regardless of what online dealer you're trying to convert your traffic too, focus on the brands trust. For many online buyers, they are scared that they are going to send away their money and never see their metal. The more you can build that level of trust up for the brand you are promoting, the better chance you'll have to convert that traffic.

Another way you could monetize the site is by instead of affiliate marketing, get with a few ad networks and try rotating some of their offers or text links. Many of the precious metals companies don't have affiliate programs, but almost all the good ones are spending well over six figures in PPC each month.

Also if you're ranking really well for any individual terms, you can always sell ad space. Another strategy is to simply build sites, get them ranking, and flip them. I think that could also be very profitable in the next couple years. Any listing of a good site on Flippa will surely fetch top dollar.

I think this market still has a ton of upside, but again still in it's infancy. Also the common theme is, "What if gold and silver prices go down"? Who cares, more buyers will flood in. Online dealers don't really make money on the daily or monthly ups and downs of the spot price. They make money simply on the spread between their daily buy/sell.

Likewise for every person that only buys on the dips, just as many will buy on the way up. (Bullish vs. Bearish) - There's all kinds of buyers and sellers regardless of the spot price fluctuations.

[addaminsane]

hahaha, sweet thanks. I guess i was just hoping to have an immediate excuse to setup reviews and ranking pages for several sites.

[Spry]

ebay through the ebay partner network is another option to send some traffic to but it's not that great tbh, just another choice instead of adwords more or less.

Apmex has started converting on a precious metals site that I added them to and haven't touched in probably about 9 months so +1 to apmex.

[addaminsane]

i noticed a site using a some sort of plugin / script to display several ebay auctions. I could definitely see this being decent for a small selection of pages dealing with buying online at ebay, which apparently seems to happen.

[jdwanchalk]

Randomly found this thread while looking for something else and wanted to mention that we have an affiliate program for bullion here...

JM Bullion Affiliate Program

We are currently run through ShareaSale.

We have had several sales from many different affiliates, with some earnings hundreds per transaction. We pay 2% on all new customer sales (not just 2% on profit), which is much higher than any other site.

We currently only ship to the US but we will be shipping to non-US countries soon. In addition, we will also be adding gold products in the near future.

A few innovative promotions will be launched soon as well.

Send me a PM if you have any questions. We hope to be up here on PAL soon and plan on building many strong affiliate relationships.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Spry]

Randomly found this thread while looking for something else and wanted to mention that we have an affiliate program for bullion here...

JM Bullion Affiliate Program

We are currently run through ShareaSale.

We have had several sales from many different affiliates, with some earnings hundreds per transaction. We pay 2% on all new customer sales (not just 2% on profit), which is much higher than any other site.

We currently only ship to the US but we will be shipping to non-US countries soon. In addition, we will also be adding gold products in the near future.

A few innovative promotions will be launched soon as well.

Send me a PM if you have any questions. We hope to be up here on PAL soon and plan on building many strong affiliate relationships.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Just wanted to say that 2% of silver sales is pretty awesome. This makes me want to dust off the gold n silver site I have sitting around collecting dust and sending apmex free traffic. Adding this to our project list.

[themike537]

^^Edited both to clarify 2% on new sales, not recurrings for now. Will be adding CPA too.

[Laurence]

Did you guys have your creatives made yet?

[jdwanchalk]

Banners, links, etc. are up on SAS now. Will be adding more once gold is introduced.