Affiliate Program Advice
 

Hello all,

I've been running MallofErotica.com for just about two years now. It's a site where content providers can set up shops, upload their content and set their prices (and I take a cut of the sales). I have no marketing or sales experience (I'm a programmer), and with little to no advertising behind it, very little traffic, and even fewer sales I've still managed to attract several content providers and currently have over 430 products for sale.

So the site works, it's nice and clean, and the content providers love the easy-to-use interface...but I'm lacking in traffic. I've been researching ways to increase traffic and I'm thinking that creating an affiliate program might be worthwhile and more economical than buying traffic.

I've done a bit of research into how affiliate programs work and based on how Mall of Erotica is set up, I was thinking of an affiliate program where webmasters sign up and then create one or more affiliate "links" that are either banners of various sizes or customizable product display grids to place on their site. Then they would get a percentage of any sale from a customer that comes from their site including subsequent sales from those same customers.

So here is what I need your advice with:

• Given that items for sale can be any price (most are around $4-$5), and I offer the shopkeepers 68%+ of sales, the cost sharing for affiliates would have to be low, say 5-8%. Is that too little to entice anyone to be an affiliate? I've seen sites that offer 50% profit sharing, but I'm not the content provider in this case so I can't share profits that way.
• What sort of pay-per-click rate (if any) would you guys expect as affiliates?
• Do affiliates expect to be paid per impression as well? I know Google Ads charges a CPI rate. What PPI rate is generally acceptable?
• What payout methods are you guys used to as affiliates? I offer money order, snail mail, and PayPal, but I'm not sure what other more "industry standard" methods there are out there. I'm Canadian and have had a really tough time finding payment handlers that will work with me.
• Given the structure of Mall of Erotica is it even the right type of site to have an affiliate program for? (i.e. am I wasting my time?)

Thanks in advance for your invaluable advice!

NiCheng