Starting in April, I noticed a significant dip in commissions, initially from EPN. Reviewing posts at the EPN forum, I started to see others with similiar observations and complaints. Coincidentally there was a reporting error (for a small range, commissions were double posted). Currently the sites and network that I have created has been incredibly steady. Earlier in the month I did not see a decrease in traffic or clicks, just a decrease in commissions.

As the month progressed, I started to see a dip in other areas. Google Adsense was showing a drop in clicks as well but earnings are still holding up? My Commission Junction stats were also showing similar results. Immediately I thought it could have been due to Google slap, but checking Google, all of my sites are still indexed, and I’m still receiving organic traffic. Like wise, my paid YSM clicks were down as well. What does this mean?

During April of 2008, I experienced the worst month of my affliate career. I initially blamed it to the transition from CJ to EPN, but it’s odd that I’m seeing similar results 12 months later. It’s definitely not as bad as 2008, but it’s a very significant drop compared to March/2009.

Here are my theories, and I would love to hear yours if you have any.. or if you’re experiencing similar results.

– United States economy is finally hitting the affiliate marketting sector. Currently, all of my sites have been primarily targetting US traffic. People are making less money and are possibly losing their jobs. Internet spending is down. This could be the reason why my paid YSM clicks are mirroring my earnings dip. Oddly, my Google Adsense clicks are down, but the earnings are still in the averages. I’m thinking that people are compensating the lower click throughs by raising their cost per click… and because of that I’m making more or the same but with less clicks? I’m still digging into this one.

– The other theory, which I’m not leaning towards is the tax month. April 15th is the tax deadline, and often if you’re paying, you’ll wait to make that payment at the end. I’m not liking this theory too much since the clicks/traffic seems to be similar across so many of my niches.

I’ve identified a problem and a threat to my earnings. It’s time to react and compensate this issue. Possible solutions…

– Create more sites now, and take advantage of this knee jerk reaction to produce more sites. Find new productive niches?

– Find the highest performing sites and attempt to improve them. This is a bit sketchy, since I don’t want to negatively impact the performing sites. I don’t want to focus on the low performing sites, since I want my efforts to be financially productive during this weird phase. I would work on the low performers as a experiment when I have free time. I need to turn the ship around now.

– Adjust my PPC campaigns. I could be targetting the wrong customer base or I’m being buried by other PPC marketers. So I might need to gamble a bit more and pay for higher priced keywords to gain those sales and commissions.

The bottom line, it’s not a time to whine and complain. It’s time to see what the problem is and see if you can fix it.

Are you guys seeing similar issues with April (and now May)? Love to hear your thoughts, so please comment!

Thanks!
hanji