There are many ways that you can make money from your blog or website. You might already be running some ad banners on your site on either a CPC or CPM basis. You might be using your blog to promote digital products that you are selling through Clickbank. The possibilities are endless.
What if you could provided some added value to your readers while earning a good income at the same time? That is fundamentally the idea behind Cemmerce, a platform “where content meets commerce.” Let’s get started with the review, seeing how Cemmerce works and how it can be best implemented on your website or blog.
The people at Cemmerce are quick to point out that they are “not an advertising solution.” Instead, they choose to describe what they offer as a “commerce enablement platform.”
With Cemmerce, relevant advertising is automatically embedded within the content of your website, converting your natural product references into live commerce links. The Cemmerce engine will scan and analyze your content to look for sellable products.
For example, you might have a blog that writes about home improvement. When you mention a particular power tool, that text can get underlined automatically. If a reader hovers his or her mouse pointer over that text, the “Cemmerce Bubble” appears, providing access to “precise and real time price comparison information.”
In general, these are affiliate links that pay out when the visitor clicks through and completes the purchase. There may be some vendors that sell on a per-click basis and then you would get paid your share of that generated revenue.
There are three main tools offered by Cemmerce at this time. They all bring up the aforementioned Cemmerce Bubble when a visitor hovers over them. You can use these tools separately or together and they should not interfere with your existing advertising. Since the links are nofollow, they shouldn’t have an impact on your SEO either.
The main tool is the live Cemmerce underline link. In this example, you can see that the words “Nikon D7000? are highlighted in the text. When you hover over or click on this text, the Cemmerce Bubble pops up with the “best offers” to buy this particular camera from Amazon, J&R, Newegg, or Buy.com. This should add value to interested readers who might want to buy this DSLR. When the visitor moves the mouse pointer away, the Bubble disappears.
Fundamentally the same thing happens with the two other Cemmerce tools. You can add a “buy now” button that gets embedded at the end of your content. If you wrote a review of a new Samsung HDTV, the buy now button would show relevant places to buy that television, as well as the current pricing. Finally, there is the more traditional banner ad that dynamically changes according to your content.
The easiest way to get started with Cemmerce is if your site is powered by WordPress. If that’s the case, all you have to do is provide Cemmerce with your domain and install the WordPress plug-in.
There is a WordPress installation guide in case you need more help. There are also simple installation guides for Tumblr, TypePad and Blogger. If you are not using any of these platforms, you can still use Cemmerce by entering a few lines of HTML code into the appropriate sections of your site template.
Naturally, the amount of money that you earn with Cemmerce will vary considerably based on your site’s traffic, the retailer and the product being sold. Some niches just pay better than others, especially when you sell high ticket items like DSLRS and HDTVs. In general, retailers offer a commission of about 4%, which is in line with the base level of Amazon Associates. Cemmerce says that some may pay as much as 20%. From the commissions, Cemmerce takes a 25% cut, leaving you with 75% of the earnings.
As far as payout, all payments are handled via PayPal with a minimum monthly threshold of $35. You only get the earned commission after the retailer has fully completed the sale and pays the commission to Cemmerce. That lower threshold should appeal to smaller publishers and the fully automated nature of Cemmerce makes the process much easier too.
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