Zazzle Sales, Zazzle Affiliate Referrals and How This May Be Affected by The Choice Paradox

[CreativeLeahG]

In my observations regarding linkovers and Zazzle's affiliate referral sales, it appears that an astonishing 2000 linkovers are needed to secure just one referral. This stands in stark contrast to the conversion rates I see with other companies.

This stark difference prompts me to delve deeper into the root causes behind the scarcity of sales, despite a substantial influx of traffic. Is it due to pricing, shipping, or perhaps the overwhelming array of choices available to customers?

This is a question I'd like us to explore, so we can work to find solutions to increase sales and referrals ...win-win for Zazzle and us!

Note: That my referrals are both promoter 2 program 35% and the 15% codes. So it can't just be my products aren't selling in preference of others. I do very few 15% referrals despite the many thousand links for other seller products as well as my own.

My Current Zazzle Linkovers 11,874 over 4 days-  4 referrals = coversion rate  0.0337%

(obviously we don't know if these sales were directly related to these linkovers given the cookie has a lifetime of a few weeks - but the 2000 to 1 sale is an average I have observed - if your averages differ please share them)

Clicks over last 4 days re other company: Conversion rate 9+%

(note far less clicks for this other company as I only started referring for them this week when I saw my Zazzle referrals dropping off and I am not referring my own products - obviously, I'd prefer to refer Zazzle! It is reassuring to note though that there is nothing wrong with my referral methods)

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There is a well-documented phenomenon known as "choice overload" or the "paradox of choice," which suggests that having too many options can lead to a decrease in sales or decision-making paralysis.

Here are a few sources that discuss this concept:

The Paradox of Choice:

Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz This book explores the idea that an abundance of choices can lead to anxiety, dissatisfaction, and, in some cases, no choice being made. Barry Schwartz, a psychologist, delves into the psychological effects of too much choice.

"When Choice is Demotivating:

Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?" by Sheena S. Iyengar and Mark R. Lepper (Columbia Business School) This widely cited research paper discusses several experiments that demonstrate how an excessive number of choices can lead to decision paralysis and decreased satisfaction.

"Choice Overload and the Influence of Variety-Seeking Tendency: What's the Effect of Too Much Choice?"

by Liangyan Wang and Xuejing Ling (International Journal of Research in Marketing) This study investigates the impact of choice overload on consumer decision-making and how individual preferences for variety-seeking influence the process.

"The More the Merrier? The Effect of Assortment Size on Online Hotel Booking"

by Martin Spann, Robert Zeithammer, and Gerard J. Tellis (Journal of Marketing Research) This research focuses on the online hotel booking industry and how the size of the assortment (number of choices) can affect customer decisions and the likelihood of making a purchase.

These sources provide valuable insights into the negative impact of too many choices on consumer behavior and the potential decrease in sales that can result from overwhelming product options. 

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It's worth noting that the websites where I've observed higher conversion rates do not feature the extensive product choices on their product pages that Zazzle offers. Instead, these websites exclusively present the essential product information related to the item that has been referred.

There are no landing pages inundated with 65 other options, and no carousels showcasing "other choices."

It is important to note that when a customer sees a product via a site like Pinterest they have already been 'overwhelmed by choice' and they have 'chosen to view that product'. Presenting them with the same amount of choice 'again' results in double overwhelm!

Given these observations, I'd like to propose that Zazzle consider conducting a BETA test where the prominence of these abundant product choices is reduced. The aim of this experiment would be to determine whether this adjustment leads to a noticeable increase in sales.

To gain a more comprehensive understanding, I would recommend conducting this test with sellers who, like myself, generate substantial linkovers as this would likely generate a faster 'result'. I apologize if this may seem self-interest-driven, but I genuinely believe that this approach could offer valuable insights and opportunities for improvement.

As always, my ideas are put forward with the best interests of Zazzle and the community in mind.

[Laura]

I believe choice overload was the reason given when Zazzle limited the number of t-shirt options a few years ago.

[CreativeLeahG]

Ah, so they are aware of the problem, which of course makes sense as they have a very skilled team.

It may be the case they already did beta testing on this, and there is some other phenomenon at play regarding lack of sales and conversions.

I hope we are able to determine what the issue is, as driving so many customers to Zazzle for such minor results, means a reassement of my efforts is required. I have a lot of resources invested in promoting Zazzle but if it continues as it is, I may have no choice but to reassess who I send those thousands of customers to. Ideally I want to see results for my Zazzle efforts. That's the end goal.

[WHS_Designs]

@CreativeLeahG 

Definitely, I believe the choice overload theory has validity.

Over the past 8 days (October 13-20), I've generated 6,156 linkovers and gotten a total of 3 self-referrals (interestingly, this is pretty close to your percentage of 2,000 linkovers to get a single referral!!)

Ironically, it is on those days where my daily linkovers are their highest (i.e. where I've hit four-digit linkovers -- the last 3 days have been 2,039 (Oct 20 -- that's a new personal high, BTW), 1,572 (Oct 19), and 1,078 (Oct 18) linkovers respectively) that my referrals have been zero and the sales equally abysmal. And, the number of my $0 self-referrals has also been growing. Those are all trends I've noticed (going back at least for the past 2 months). 

Over the past week, I've not had much opportunity to promote on Pinterest (both my designs and those of other creators), either, and yet the daily linkovers have swelled a lot more than they did in September and the first two weeks of October. So promotion on my behalf by other parties is at play here, too.

[CreativeLeahG]

Great feedback thank you! It is important to know if we are seeing the same trends and results. I haven't been able to check my 0% referrals as yet.

[WHS_Designs]

@CreativeLeahG you're welcome! I should add that like you, I also earn very few 15% referrals from other creators' designs, despite considerable promotion (on Pinterest)! 

[CreativeLeahG]

I found the 15% referrals almost went to 0 when I joined the P2 program.

[WHS_Designs]

@CreativeLeahG 

Those referrals are darned hard to get ... I've only had 66x 15% referrals from 2015-2022.

I have only had 2x 15% referrals since joining the P2 program (but I have had 58x 35% self-referrals since joining the P2 program in mid-April of this year).

[JimCarnicelli]

@CreativeLeahG: Do you have a hypothesis about why they went down after that with a natural explanation? Or do you strongly suspect that Zazzle changes something under the hood that causes this outcome?

[CreativeLeahG]

No idea, with the ascend pepperjam affiliate program around 4,500 links, no referrals. So they just don't seem to convert as well. I have had a few more 15% recently but that's very recent. I need to know what my 0% referrals are for a proper analysis.

I refer popular products and of course the customer has Zazzle's entire marketplace to choose from as well ... could be many factors, price, shipping, people clicking when they have no genuine interest in buying, ads for other companies on Zazzle pages (they stopped this recently I believe).

It's a mystery and only through others sharing their findings and Zazzle giving feedback can we know what is resulting in the low conversion rate so we call all 'do better'.

ie:

• More targetted advertising to ensure we get genuinely interested customers
• More advertising when sales are on
• Encouraging more people to join Zazzle Black so shipping costs isn't an issue.

We need to know ... so we can adapt and bring in more sales for Zazzle and more referrals for ourselves. Zazzle is one of the highest-paying referral programs (the highest I have seen for PODS) with only one other competitor offering 15% referral fees I have noted so far. So it's a good program when it works and it did work very well for me until recently (re self referrals) but I think many are affected similarly. The larger affiliates could assist by weighing in and noting if they've seen changes ...up or down? 

Note: Amazon has an ever increasing range of personalized products which of course is a huge competitor BUT people are still coming to Zazzle as the linkovers demonstrate.

[JimCarnicelli]

Excellent points. And as a programmer by trade I wish I had access to Zazzle's databases. So many useful insights I could squeeze out of their years of data. Thank you for sharing some of yours though!

[JimCarnicelli]

Thank you @CreativeLeahG & @WHS_Designs for sharing concrete numbers related to this. We have been developing our own website oriented toward driving referrals to Zazzle. That's predicated on the dubious assumption that we'll get a decent conversion rate out of it. We've been worried about the reality of that. Your own research gives us more to think about.

Regarding option overload. The Snuggle Hamster team has actually had our own internal debate about whether it's a good idea to shoot wildly with product designs or to keep them narrowly targeted on niche concepts. Let's ignore ensembles like coordinated sets of stationary for a wedding for a moment. Consider my "Women of Sun" collection of 12 paintings of a similar style ( https://www.zazzle.com/collections/women_of_sun-119452951702720312 ). Our basic stats are small enough that it's hard to glean much insight from them. But my sense has been that people who see one product in this collection are not really seeing the others. To us it seems that each view, like, or sale happens in isolation from the others. If that's true then that would suggest that niche is nearly worthless within Zazzle itself. Only useful if you have some outside community or method for getting people to see your products grouped together before they ever get to Zazzle.

If the above hypothesis is correct and people are only seeing singular products "one layer deep" in search or when linking over from an outside site like Pinterest, then there is a connection to the choice overload problem. Clearly Zazzle is showing you quite a few products in the detail page of a single product. The question is how well related they are to one another. And of course whether customers are better off seeing a bunch of related or similar products in one place or being exposed to more random selections. Or to your point whether they should see only those products in isolation without muddying things with other products on a detail page.

I'd love your own observations and opinions on this too. Thank you again for sharing.

[CreativeLeahG]

Hi Jim,

I advocate the introduction of 'new niches to Zazzle' as the best (fastest) way to make money on Zazzle.

Regarding the landing page issue,  I am hence forth only going to be referring Zazzle items via collections re the promoter2 program and everything else will be via the 15% program. I create 'idea pins' for Pinterest as these 'appear' to gain the most views compared to other style pins although this is not always the case. 

For basic pins shares, it appears to be the case they gain more views when shared from a website or blog than via Zazzle itself. These are my findings and others may have a different experience.

Having invested a lot of time and money myself in websites for referring Zazzle products, I would advise spending some time learning about how to gain traffic to your site 'outside of hosting Zazzle products' as the site will be 'invisible' without content people are looking for. And having unique content that is not hosted on large brand sites that dominate the 'searches' and have 'paid ads' is no easy feat. You need a very unique selling point.

It's a lot of time and a lot of work.

edit: I've had a look at your site and it is impressive. Luring customers to your site is going to be the main issue, which you may have sussed as you clearly know what you're doing in the realm of website creation. I wish you great success!

[JimCarnicelli]

I see you describe a "Ninja Niche" technique related to this. I'm intrigued.

https://community.zazzle.com/t5/external-tools-materials/how-i-made-over-320000-on-zazzle-new-niches...

I like your hypothesis about pinning collections instead of individual products. It is a way to take advantage of Zazzle's custom grouping to expose your outside customers to a little carefully collected variety of your own designs and their applications.

"Having invested a lot of time and money myself in websites for referring Zazzle products, I would advise spending some time learning about how to gain traffic to your site 'outside of hosting Zazzle products' as the site will be 'invisible' without content people are looking for. And having unique content that is not hosted on large brand sites that dominate the 'searches' and have 'paid ads' is no easy feat. You need a very unique selling point."

That's a good statement of the very problem we face right now. I've spent the past few months getting the basics of our new site set up. We might as well start by showcasing our thousands of products in our own way. Hopefully with a more comfortable browsing experience than Zazzle's. And with greater ease for us in managing our content. I've actually spent a lot of time optimizing the site around Google's incredibly finicky search engine requirements. This is no small task! I don't think it makes sense to do much more until Google has fully ingested all our content and we start getting baseline data from organic searches. Beyond that we have bigger plans. But we need to get the basics right first.

Whatever Zazzle's frustrating limitations for customers and creators, it's hard to argue with the heavy advertising they do to bring people to Zazzle to see our content. I think that's likely a key to Zazzle's growing success in this heavily contested space.

"edit: I've had a look at your site and it is impressive. Luring customers to your site is going to be the main issue, which you may have sussed as you clearly know what you're doing in the realm of website creation. I wish you great success!"

Oh. Thank you very much! And you are exactly right. Truth is I don't have a clear plan for how to get people to our site. I know from decades of experience that it's not worth trying to fool Google. You have to actually have compelling content. So the heart of our strategy for now is good SEO. I think we can outdo Zazzle's own SEO. Even if we can't outspend them in advertising. Our phase 2 and 3 goals should up the ante though. Hopefully.

Thank you kindly for your encouragement and insights! I'm continuing to learn from you and take inspiration from your own success.

[WHS_Designs]

@JimCarnicelli 

With a name like Snuggle Hamster team, you know I can't take you too seriously. 😉

I think a website/blog/social media platform is indispensable for getting eyeballs for your store; you can't rely on Zazzle (not exclusively, anyway) to promote on your behalf.

Regarding your Women of Sun collection, I think you can use it as a tag in your product designs ("women of sun"); I'd also include the artistic style as another tag. Also, maybe you could mention the link to that collection in the body of your product descriptions (yes, I know that they won't be clickable, because links are automatically disabled, but mentioning them might get an interested party to copy and paste that link into another browser window) -- that is, if they care to read to the bottom of the page.

If an individual who is interested in your design clicks on the link (from the Zazzle marketplace) and that design is part of a collection, it will appear in second section that follows the information that's above the fold ("Other products from this collection"). What I'd like to see is the section "Other products from this collection" IMMEDIATELY below the product information. Currently, the "Other designs you might like" is occupying that [secondary] position.

The "other designs you might like" section may be pulling up other creators' designs because they could share the same tag(s) as yours (a good reason to make your tags distinctive and as unique as possible).

[JimCarnicelli]

Hamster snuggling is very serious business, I'll have you know!

I think you're right about the limits of relying on Zazzle to help your customers find your stuff. Zazzle is great in many ways. But its search engine seems fairly poor in this regard. And even its efforts in highlighting products seems to have little impact on sales. We've already had a few of our items showcased very prominently by Zazzle and yet get zero sales.

I'm intrigued by the idea of using a collection name as a tag in individual products. I need to think more about that. One thing I have not yet figured out is whether longer and more oddly specific tags might degrade tag-based matching. Or whether it's a great free-for-all way to add lots of content to tags. I don't think the latter is so. But I'm not sure yet.

Linking to the collection? Also intriguing. I'm also contemplating linking out to our own site where we can better organize our own products. But you know what? I'm not so sure people read product descriptions. Zazzle makes them practically invisible. And doesn't even make them searchable. The only think they make more invisible on a product detail page is who created the design.

I am grateful that they do show the "other products from this collection" section on the product detail page. Depending on how they got there. And yeah. I wish it wasn't drowned out by the blizzard of other content stuffed into the page.

Thank you so much for your excellent thoughts and feedback! Cheers.

[WHS_Designs]

@JimCarnicelli

I've never snuggled hamsters, but I did have a guinea pig in my youth that was somewhat amenable to miniscule amounts of stroking on her back. 🙂 🙂 🙂

I agree with you. I haven't had plenty of Editor's Picks (probably less than 10 since 2015, which is when I joined), and I don't think any of them have resulted in a single sale. It's a nice feather in the cap, but I prefer functionality over cosmetics any day.

I started off using mostly single word tags before discovering that long(er)-tailed tags have more of an impact. If your "Women of the Sun" is a unique tag, it will get more attention (unfortunately, as I search the Zazzle marketplace with that tag, 41,709 results pull up. Not unique enough). 😞

Maybe the shop name as a product tag? For example, "I'm Every Woman" only pulls up 862 results on the Z market place. Or how about the creator's name as a product tag. Right now, there are no results pulling up for "Jim Carnicelli" on the Z marketplace! 🙂

Linking to your site is a big yes. I find that people as a rule don't read product descriptions because of where that information gets relegated on the page; people expect to have all the information they need at the top of the fold. I understand this -- who wants to scroll to the bottom of the page to find everything they want to know?

Now I just discovered something interesting today (you may have already figured this out). When I create a Pinterest pin and (typically) use the left-mouse button to click (or use the Control button in conjunction with the left-mouse button to click) on the title of the product, I get redirected to the dreaded landing page (that shows me an abbreviated version of my product, and 65 other designs you might like).

If, however, I use my right-click mouse button and select any of the three "Open Link choices" (specifically, the Open Link in new tab, the Open Link in new window, or the Open Link in split screen window" choices from the drop-down box) -- doing it any of those three ways skips the landing page and heads straight to my product page. Don't select "Open Link in inPrivate window", because that will take you to the dreaded landing page.

Of course, there is about ZERO chance that most customers browsing Pinterest pins will open the product page this way.

[JimCarnicelli]

Lots of good food for thought. And a very interesting discovery regarding bypassing the landing pages. I'm really bothered by those, BTW. I suspect most Zazzlers are too. I notice I don't see those when someone comes from my own site. Here's an example. Click the "Shop at Zazzle" button:

https://snugglehamster.com/product/cute-watercolor-illustration-capricorn-zodiac-name-coffee-mug-58

I suspect Zazzle introduced those irritants in an attempt to create different landing pages for different social media sites that would somehow cater to what users of those sites expect. I can't figure out any other useful reasons for them. You?

[WHS_Designs]

@JimCarnicelli 

That is a super adorable Capricorn mug!! 

Your guess is as good as mine (or maybe even better). Having those landing pages certainly hasn't been helping with my self referrals, though!

[CreativeLeahG]

Yes I can confirm I also don't get the 'landing page of 65 other seller items' when sharing from my own websites, it does appear to be restricted to social media. 

Only Zazzle can tell us why they've created the landing page, which is problematic for many reasons:

• Extra clicks for customer to reach the product,
• Choice overload for the customer
• Additional choices offered appear in the main to be Editors picks, so an abundance of additional exposure for those sellers which is of course a plus for those creators.
• Affiliate-driven referrals are not going to the page intended or shared by the affiliate. That said the 15% affiliate code shouldn't be affected by this? 
• The likelihood we lose a royalty fee as the customer makes another choice is of course heightened.
• Affiliate conversion rates are much lower than advertised now ... and much lower than the competition, this isn't a good long-term strategy for Zazzle if they want to encourage affiliates.

etc.

We've had no response so I am now resigned to this being the new normal and am trying to adapt. 

[ColsCreations]

Yes I can confirm I also don't get the 'landing page of 65 other seller items' when sharing from my own websites, it does appear to be restricted to social media.

On this page the notebook is an image link to the product page on Zazzle, the URL of the link is shown on the bottom left of the screenshot.

 Clicking the link in a virgin browser (i.e. - one with no Zazzle cookies set) does give me the "landing page".

It's the same coming in on links from my website or MelroseOriginal's. I can't explain why you are not getting the landing page from your site, but I do when testing from a clean browser so this behavior is not restricted to just links out from social media sites. But your comment led me back to @JimCarnicelli  's which I had missed.

 I notice I don't see those when someone comes from my own site. Here's an example. Click the "Shop at Zazzle" button:

And sure enough, I do not get the landing page clicking from his site. But then I noticed his links are unusual, they're not the full product title and type etc..., they're just numbers. I thought maybe he was using a link shortener or masking them somehow or something but then I realized it's even easier than that - the URLS are just

zazzle.com/PID?rf=

So I tried that format with some of my products, some from your page, and some random ones from the MP, some with an rf and some without, and without fail, NO landing page. Once I click the link, I can see the very brief "blink" in my address bar where the short URL changes to the longer full one and the regular product page loads. We already know that the landing page only comes up if a product page is your first stop on your first visit to Zazzle in a clean browser. If you look at another Z page first your don't get it. So my guess is that the PID url format is actually some type of redirect (maybe taking a split second to invisibly run the PID thru search to find the product?) therefore the product page is not seen as your FIRST stop on the Z domain. I really have no idea what is actually happening technically behind-the-scenes but testing in two browsers (Opera and Edge), regular full product page URLS always produced the landing page but the PID format URL (with or without a RF ID appended) never did.
So super interesting and thank you Jim, I had no idea we could use the PID for a short simplified URL.

[Fiorenzo]

Warning: Unless this has changed in the meantime, linking to just the Product ID (without the whole product title) is NOT considered a clean link for self-promoters. I emailed this question (among others) at Zazzle when the promo 2 program was introduced and the response was negative.

[JimCarnicelli]

Can you elaborate on what you mean that Zazzle doesn't consider it a "clean link"? I see two interpretations. 1.) Zazzle won't give credit for a referral made this way. 2.) Zazzle considers this to not be a best practice, presumably because the URL doesn't contain an SEO-friendly URL with descriptive words in it.

[Fiorenzo]

It's number 1. You won't get credit. Always link to the regular product page URL you see on your address bar, which contains the descriptive title URL and the ID attached at the end.

[JimCarnicelli]

@Fiorenzo , @ColsCreations , or anyone else. Can you tell me which cookie(s) or local storage keys are carrying this 2-week referral information? I haven't found it in my initial tests yet. Maybe you can help me shorten my search time. I'd like to see more of the tech behavior in action here. And maybe track changes over time. Thank you.

[Fiorenzo]

I must pass. Didn't investigate that deeply.

[ColsCreations]

Above you said it won't be considered a clean link for the 35% Promoter Program. Are you saying it will also strip the referral from regular 15% links with a refID?

[Fiorenzo]

No. You can add your regular referral ID pretty everywhere on Zazzle's site and it should stick. It only affects the "clean" promoter program links.

When Zazzle presented the promo2 program (wasn't interested in the first attempt), I wrote an email asking for some clarification in special cases where queries are submitted, e.g. FB links with their string attached, API links, links to categories and collections. I was told that these would all work. I also asked if the short form with only the product ID would work and the response was negative.

The promo program is risky because of how the links are handled. It would have been better if you had gotten a specific promoter ID to attach to each link as you do with regular referrals. Due to the lack of a personal ID, you cannot even direct your customers to a Zazzle FAQ or privacy page without risking losing your referral. So you always have to take care that they hit your store (or product, category, collection) first before you can redirect to other pages.

[JimCarnicelli]

You did a good job picking that up about SnuggleHamster.com. I am storing the Zazzle product ID with our database records. So when I construct the link to Zazzle I construct it as you describe, rather than the way Zazzle normally does. And I think you are correct that this formulation is responsible somehow for bypassing the landing pages. I also hope they don't "correct" this. But they probably will.

For those wondering, here is an example of my link:

https://www.zazzle.com/256357406729794397?rf=238601472117306350

And here's what Zazzle rewrites it to once you arrive:

https://www.zazzle.com/spirals_in_ink_and_watercolor_painting_clock-256357406729794397?rf=2386014721...