Affiliate Domain Development

I’m still pretty enthused about affiliate marketing after spending some time at Affiliate Summit in New York a couple of weeks ago. On Saturday, I mentioned that I would like to do some sort of affiliate website for my next project, and I am looking to find a name in a category of interest. I had a couple of questions emailed to me about the project I am considering, and I wanted to explain it better.

To illustrate the idea, I am thinking about something along the lines of owning a name like DomainParking.com (just an example). In addition to explaining how PPC works, discussing parking provider relationships with search engines, and other information, I would have a page dedicated to each domain parking company. The page will give information about the parking company with a sign-up button that has my affiliate link. It’s simple, but because of that, I will need a great domain name that will help me get good search rankings, so when someone searches Google for parking companies, the domain ranks well.

I am not actually looking to build a site in this vertical but wanted to illustrate my plan. It’s also not a unique business model, but I haven’t done a site like this yet, and I want to test out how it would perform on a targeted domain name. The goal will be to create a site that requires very minimal upkeep, and because of the targeted domain name, it will rank well in search engines. Not only do I want it to be in a vertical I am familiar with, but the affiliate payments should be high enough to offset development costs and the domain acquisition costs.

Like CabCompanies.com (which wasn’t expensive and has decent paying clicks), I want to be able to have an ROI of under 3 years. I don’t know if it will work out in the case of CabCompanies.com, but that’s the goal.

In any case, Rick Latona Auctions is now holding a CPA, Lead Generation, and Affiliate Marketing domain auction, and there are a couple of domain names I am considering. The auction wraps up on August 28th. Please note, I do not have any names in this auction, and since I may be bidding, I don’t want to create competition for myself so I am not going to list the name(s) I like. I am also looking at other venues as well.

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Written by Elliot Silver on August 24, 2009
Posted in: Quality Domain Names, Rick Latona, Web Development
Tags: affiliate marketing, cpa

Comments (15)

Mike

August 24th, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Good luck, hope you find the name(s) you are looking for! I too have been looking for good vertical to target with a affiliate program that performs.

Are you planning on any other methods to drive traffic to your affiliate site besides buying a highly targeted domain?

Mike

August 24th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

Did you pick up any tidbits at the summit in regards to a list of good affiliate networks like Clickbank or CJ, and also what programs are hot right now (forex, acai, etc)? Looking forward to seeing where you run with this.

Elliot

August 24th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

@ Mike #2

Nothing specific really… just jazzed about the concept.

Jay

August 24th, 2009 at 3:38 pm

If you are gonna do the site on domain parking I got 4 two word .com domains and 4 three word .com domains that would work, all eight of them are 3+ years old, hit me at the email address I submitted this comment from if interested in the list.

Gordon

August 24th, 2009 at 4:07 pm

STOP IT. STOP IT NOW ELLIOT.

Stop with these other ideas and turn your big websites into real media players.

Elliot

August 24th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

LOL…

Have a looksee…

http://www.lowell.com
http://www.lowell.com/real-estate
http://www.lowell.com/restaurants
http://www.lowell.com/hotels

I am positioning myself to do that, but I haven’t done what Shaun’s done and gone all in yet. I don’t have the stones to do it… but I am preparing. I have the foundation laid and am slowly growing my advertising base.

ron

August 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

well, I could offer you domainfundamentals.net.

Elliot

August 24th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

Not looking for domain submissions, but thank you.

ppcbz

August 24th, 2009 at 6:41 pm

You aren’t only limited to offers in the CPA space… with great domains you have the potential to setup your own affiliate program or build your own leads. Going direct has its pros and cons, but developing websites around one vertical via affiliate marketing can be tough if there are few offers for it. (what happens when they all die?)

August 24th, 2009 at 11:52 pm

Stick with product related domains as you can always monetize them through many different affiliate programs and earn a percentage of sale. I think this is where domaining is headed as cpc parking revenue declines over time.

roddy

August 25th, 2009 at 12:40 am

The world is changing quickly , always think outside the circle if possible and dream of not is, but what can be

I recently registered

appsaffiliateprogram / com

appsaffiliateprograms/ com

You may not need a fortune for a good affilate domain name , just a vision into what can be ,

good luck with it

Tobias

August 25th, 2009 at 3:21 am

I believe we will see more parked domains use CPA.

For example, we have an internal beta that turns domains given a keyword into CB affiliates. An example is http://www.queensbet.com. This uses CB products that have commissions of $25 – $50, which for this site brings $500 per month (on SedoPro, it made less than $50 per month). Again, the key to this whole thing is to make it scale for hundreds and thousands of domains.

Most domainers have ignored CPA historically because CPC was easy money. This will change. In addition, Google itself is in the game with their own CPA experiments (http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/).

August 25th, 2009 at 5:52 am