David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

As far as I'm concerned, price (inc VAT and delivery)is the most important factor in a purchase. Availability sits up there quite high together with the reputation of the seller. This goes for standard web purchases, offline purchases and auction purchases.

When buying something for (say) more than £50, I usually dig around and read some reviews.

My question is this: do reviews work at delivering valid affiliate leads or do they require an element of price comparison too?
 
School A: Review Sites Work On Their Own

Reviews usually highlight the benefits of having something. If it is a review by a website owner / affiliate, the chances are that they will praise the product. Perhaps they've never seen the product. Perhaps they are trying to maximise sales. Regardless of this, the point I'm making here is that the review is a selling tool.

Price need not be an issue, especially if this relates back to the idea of needs and wants. If the item in question is a luxury car, price is probably not the first thing that springs to mind.

Reviews are all about showcasing the product. For a successful review that works well at generating sales, you need a balanced viewpoint, highlighting the best features of the product. Lots of pictures work well too, especially if they are large pictures or close-ups. The internet doesn't allow us to touch and feel the product first, which is why pictures help so well.

School B: Review Sites Don't Work On Their Own

So what if the product is more of a need than a want? What if the item is a want but your audience are price concious. No matter how good your review is, they will still ask one question: "how much is it?".

Some keen money savers will also ask "how much discount can I get?".

In this school of thought, not only do we have a review but we also need a price comparison and a list of applicable voucher codes. Availability might also be an issue so do we now need to filter out unavailable stock?

The problem with review sites is that whilst they can encourage sales, this group of visitors want to know the vitals and they will be very quick to go to a discount voucher site and/or a price comparison site, leaving you with zero commission as other cookies will have been dropped in the process.

Summary

So which is better? In my opinion, it depends upon what it is you are reviewing. For small impulse purchases, a review may be all it takes. But for significant purchases, people will shop around more. The web enables this.

Go to the high street and you'll soon get tired and bored of comparing prices. The web offers quick and easy comparisons making the job easier and making commissions disappear into other people's pockets.

I think sites need to be a bit more ingenuitive in order to maximise sales potential. We are slowly seeing the blurring of cashback sites, discount voucher sites, review sites and price comparison sites. The next step is integrating social networking I reckon.