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Hopefully someone will have the knowledge and insight I lack to answer this. I'm also frustrated that there's no clear way to ask Google this question.
I've recently started to create hubpages to hopefully bring in some more revenue streams on the side - I'm not deluded into thinking I'll make a million bucks mind you, but the articles are high quality and informative, so I feel I'm providing a valuable service.
But the visitor metric tracking disparities between Hubpages, Google analytics, and google adsense are terrible!
On one particular hub, I see from the past seven days:
Hubpage visitor count: 82 page views
Google analytics: 50 visitors/65 page views
Google Adsense: 25 pageviews. (wtf!?!?)
Tracking codes and everything seem to be installed right (Hubpages does not make this hard). It would seem like Google's trying to game me. What's with the disparity? Is this because of ad-blockers?
Note: I've also seen this disparity in Google's own tracking with my own self-hosted sites in the past. So does anyone have any insight in to what's going on?
I'm sure many of you are aware of digital distribution services like ejunkie, clickbank, etc... I'm looking to launch a new product soon, but I'm wondering which service is the best (or maybe there is software out there to do this for yourself)?
Ideally, best would include low cost, unobtrusive, and actionable.
So HN, what are your experiences with selling digital downloads?
EDIT: I have experience with WP-Ecommerce... But why shouldn't I be using this solution?
Thanks much!
Address is http://miraclefruitstand.net/
Let me make this clear: I'll be grateful if you just throw some advice my way on how to take this to the next level. Don't feel obliged to purchase anything; my desire is not to spam (but I will say I enjoy the products myself).
For the curious lurker, here's what I did:
>Contacted the warehouse rep.
>Arranged to be a distributor for the product (which isn't hard - basically just reviewing their policies and getting familiar with how they operate).
>Found out their dropshipping rates; calculated the margins for myself.
>Registered the domain with NearlyFreeSpeech.net - saved a bunch - 11 or 12 bucks.
>Built the site with wordpress and customized it in a day. Theme, plugins, etc...
>Plugged it in to paypal.
>Tested out the payment system.
>Set up an Adwords campaign which began this morning, using a 100 dollar promo coupon from Google + 10 dollar activation fee. Spending 3.33 a day on advertising, testing the system out using google's cash instead of my own. From that I garnered 3 clicks, 1985 impressions, for a %.15 Click through rate. (Here's a question: is that good or bad? The campaign literally started at midnight.)
Basically if the site fails, I'll have lost around 20 bucks. I also have the option of repping wholesale to retailers in the area, so I'm not entirely dependent on the site, thought I would like for it to be an automated source of income.
Haven't had any "real" sales yet. Processed two orders, one from family, one from a friend, and the company later informed me they'd just send it to my family for free - essentially I've earned back my 20-something dollar investment back already.
So - What do you think HN? How can I make this better and improve sales quickly? Anything I should be aware of from your own muse-creation experiences?
Thanks much!
I'm gearing up to launch a new screenwriting-related website soon. I'll be publishing many articles, but I will also be setting up a script review service, where I ask readers to upload their own scripts, attach their e-mail and pay with paypal. I'll then read and review their scripts, e-mailing their review back to them upon completion.
So my question to you is this: What's the best way to accomplish this? (This being: fill out a user form, upload a file, send all the information to my e-mail, and have them pay). Are there any services out there that could handle the backend?
I'm brand new to this kind of commerce stuff, so I'd be very grateful for any advice you could give. Thanks much.