How do you generate affiliate sales in a "timely" fashion?

[Ryan]

Here is another question I have for those of you familiar with the affiliate marketing business (where you promote other peoples' stuff on your website or blog). I've been in the affiliate marketing business for a while (I primarily use Linkshare, Commission Junction, Amazon, Ebay, Clickbooth and Clickbank as well as a few tiered affiliate programs, such as Global Domains International). However, I've noticed that some advertisers (especially at Commission Junction) expect you to generate sales for them in a "timely" fashion (say within 6 months or less) and some may terminate you from their program if you do not generate sales for them soon enough. I currently have 2 websites, but they do have a low page rank at the moment (they are relatively new after all) and so I don't get a whole lot of traffic to them. Anyways, is it possible to generate affiliate sales within a short time frame (say 6 months or less)? If so, what is the best approach to accelerating the process?

[Edrienne]

If you want to generate sales within a short period of time then you've gotta drive lots of traffic to your website in a much shorter period of time. Unless you are extremely lucky, you won't really get any sales. There is a study that says that only 2% of people who visit your site are most likely to convert into payers.

So there is really no way of accelerating the process unless you're willing to commit to building traffic to your websites first (which in the end, would really be worth it because it's going to give you more options on how to monetize through your site...).

Check out the Affiliate Marketing and Web Traffic sections from this blog I stumbled upon on twitter. I think the articles are quite digestible enough.

[Pugger!]

depending on what you are selling, you could try signing up for a free account at swom http://swom.rustymoths.com and list some of your things there - you might get some traffic

[Goku]

It's all about traffic. In order to get traffic, you have to get as many back-links as possible. When your website has a lot of back links, Google will give you a better ranking. And a better ranking means more traffic = more sales = no termination