Yoga equipment affiliate schemes - are they really worth it ?

We were probably the first to run a Yoga equipment affiliate scheme - certainly in europe - and possibly anywhere on the internet way back in 2002.

We took a look at how it worked up to about 2004 and (based on web metrics) we enjoyed moderate success with it.

However, as a way of generating revenue for our affiliate partners, we found that Yoga websites, (which generally, have a much lower marketing profile than mainstream health, exercise and fitness type web sites) struggled to generate enough Click Through traffic for it to be worthwile solely on a commission basis. We couldn't face exploiting peoples ignorance of the unfair deal - so we just quit, even though it worked for us, (the scheme owner).

Relatively low value, niche products like Yoga props were starting to be promoted by so many more commercial outlets, both in the high street and on the internet, and smaller websites were starting to be put under increasing financial pressure by various, multinational sports and fitness and wellness / lifestyle companies.

So, in about 2004 - we switched to paying for referrals only, (pay per click). This meant that we paid Yoga websites just for Click Throughs to our website (another first in this market) and, (again) for most sites the rewards were not especially impressive.

We still have real reservations about the benefit for the Yoga websites that host the affilliate links as they are normally weighed more in favour of the advertiser / merchant / store owner, often gaining valuable market advantage, (not only from the extra online promotion) - but through an almost implied endorsement) by the affliliate / website owner - who all too often gets little or no reward !

In 2006, we worked out that a direct link to an e-commerce website is worth anywhere between about 5 to 50GBP every month - so - if your not regularly earning that from your Yoga equipment affiliate link it might be time to take another look at how to go about monetising your website from Yoga products ?

If you are running a website with affiliate links for Yoga equipment and it is working for you, then please let us know - and we will remove this article from the internet as we do not want to inhibit people from signing up - but otherwise the existence of this article proves our point as it has been online for years - and nobody has challenged what we say yet!

Because, (thankfully) all the best Yoga websites are so different we have responded to the growth in the popularity of Yoga on the Internet by establishing the European Yoga Network^™ - the worlds first, and only 100% solar powered Yoga Network - run by the worlds first, and only Yoga Community Interest Company !

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