Domino's Pizza Launches Social Media Campaign

Domino's is launching a social media campaign that involves an advertising widget which can be placed on your Facebook profile page or blog.

Here's the kicker. It's tied to an affiliate marketing program that pays a whopping 0.5% every time someone clicks on the widget and places an order. That means that on an order of, say, $20, the affiliate makes 10 cents.

Do you realize what kind of massive numbers would be required for any degree of substantial income to be accrued? Let's do the math.

Assuming an average order being $20, you would need:

• 10 orders to earn $1.00
• 100 orders to earn $10.00
• 1000 orders to earn $100.00
• 10,000 orders to earn $1000.00

Assuming a 10 percent conversion rate from total Facebook page or blog traffic to orders placed (and that's being extremely generous; two or three percent is more realistic), you would need:

• 100 visitors to earn $1.00
• 1000 visitors to earn $10.00
• 10,000 visitors to earn $100.00
• 100,000 visitors to earn $1000.00

Who has that much traffic? I don't and I'm betting you don't either. (Well, some of you do.)

In my opinion, as with most affiliate marketing programs, the persons who truly benefit are the advertisers themselves, via the aggregation of income from multiple affiliates.

Even if no one clicks, the advertisers still benefit from a bunch of free ads. The poor Facebooker or blogger (most of whom are way down the long-tail) receives a mere pittance. But, that's the idea. Lots of exposure with little expenditure. (And you can't blame them for trying to keep costs low, right?)

Frankly, I would prefer to be paid in food than be given "table scraps" in terms of the few dollars such a promotion is going to provide. Of course, based on the numbers above, I'd have to have 1000 orders just to receive one free pizza.

The article linked above says: "A number of other companies are looking at this - it is set to be a massively popular marketing technique in future...Brands are all looking to tap into the power of social media."

Maybe so, but to get the interest of those of us in the magic middle and beyond, you're going to have to do a lot better than half a percent. 

See also: Does money belong in social media? by Augie Ray, an analyst with Forrester

Comments

[Ken]

Great point, Paul. I think in many ways a lot of companies get what they want by creating these widgets, knowing how low the conversion rate will be. So, if we use the widget, they are, in effect, getting free advertising, without really giving anything back.

Think about it...would you order a pizza from a widget? Not me. Maybe sometime, but we're not at that point in time in terms of Web 2.0...or 3.0...for that matter.

[Paul Chaney]

The issue for me is not just of income, but of relevance. How weird would it be to see a pizza widget appearing on my blog, or my FB page for that matter. I think that's true for a lot of people. Still, Domino's has massive reach, so I'm sure the program will do well.

[Michaellunsford]

Agreed, no one with any sense would be willing to give away what amounts to ad impressions for almost free. For Domino's to think this "idea" will take off on its own merits is quite funny. They'd be better off creating a video in hopes of it going viral.

[Paul Chaney]

Actually, it probably will take off, but only because Domino's has the advertising muscle to make it happen.

The dirty little secret behind affiliate marketing is that, unless your site is a)either highly-niched, or b)has large amounts of traffic, you're not going to make much money. And for the advertiser, it is a boon. If someone clicks, the payout is small; if no one clicks, they still receive advertising benefit and at no cost.