How to Make Money With Shopping Networks

What is a Shopping Partner Program?
Shopping.com and Shopzilla.com have set up programs allowing the publisher to post products via Product (Data) Feed…and earn a commission based on a Pay-Per-Click model and total revenue collected by the shopping network on redirects sent over. Let’s take a look at this:
From a publisher perspective, this is how I would go about it:
* Pick an Original Domain Name: I recommend selection a niche market, such as “baby strollers” and picking a name connected to these items. Creating too general of a site will cause you to be un-focused in advertising. Even something personal like: MyBabyStrollers.com will work.
* Build an Original Design: Neither of these programs except “reflect” sites…so to raise your changes of being established, create an original site. Here are few examples: www.SmartBuy.com, www.Speakers-Subwoofers.com. I’ve seen some good and bad designs using these programs…so, be sure to keep in mind all landing page optimization techniques we’ve talked about.
* Find a QUALITY Traffic Source: I wouldn’t advise you to start the site off as a “shopping” related website. My choice would be to blog about the product you want to offer. Both programs require an existing traffic base before acceptance into the program. Don’t solely rely on organic traffic because both networks require a fair amount of users based in the country you signed up under. For instance, USA publishers need to make sure their traffic is…from the United States. Keep in mind, having TRAFFIC is not the only key. Make sure you target a demographic who buy products online and are willing to click around on your site. Creating a review site giving customers to leave comments about products is a great way to develop user generated content…if you’re using Word Press on your site (which I would reccomend) – a great plugin allowing product reviews….WpReviewSite.com
* Pick which program fits you: There may be other programs out there, but right now were looking at Shopping.com and Shopzilla.com. Shopping.com has a higher Alexa rank than Shopzilla.com, so you may want to consider that when choosing. However, the traffic you receive will depend more on the marketing done to your site. But, the more successful the individual engine is…the larger selection base of products. Look out how each program pay’s their publishers. For instance, Shopping.com pay’s the affiliate about 80% of what they charge their advertisers…view the screen shot for a sample model. Keep in mind, you’re not guaranteed to be accepted into the program.
* Utlizing Product Feeds: There are several ways to go about this: Each merchant who signs up with a shopping network to advertise their products must upload a .csv or .txt “feed” with all of their listings in a desired format (there are FTP option) Once accepted into the partner program, the publisher than has the option of selecting products and downloading them to be placed on their original site. If you’re not an “accomplished” programmer…both of these programs have partnered with: DataFeedScripts.net. Data Feed Scripts works with both of these programs while just requiring a few changes to your site code. According to their site, it’s easy to install, fully customizable..and search engine friendly.
* Carefully Pick Your Products: Even though you’ve decided on a niche…there are multiple product lines within each category. Some may choose to run Gerber strollers over McLaren. Shopping.com gives several ideas in picking your products: Find product reviews, read product reviews and compare prices of selected products. Since the networks are paying the publisher a percentage of what the merchant pays…it’s smart to pick items requiring a high CPC. Refer back to the previous screen shot for an example of this.