From Dusty Blog to Cash Machine – My COD Affiliate Journey

[btaliat]

Hey everyone,


I’ve decided to start documenting my journey here because I feel this could be both a personal accountability tool and a source of value for anyone else sitting on unused online assets.


Here’s the backstory:


I have an old blog that’s been around for years. It’s not flashy, but it still pulls in around 1,000 unique visitors every single day—most of them organic. The kicker? The site is in the local language, which means it has a niche, targeted audience that’s not being fully monetized. For a long time, I just left it alone. At one point, I threw Google AdSense on it, made a little coffee money here and there, but nothing serious.


Then I recently stumbled across COD (Cash on Delivery) offers. The concept instantly clicked with me—since the site’s traffic is local and in their native language, COD could work perfectly. People wouldn’t need a credit card, and the offers would feel much more accessible to my audience.


So, I made a bold move: I removed AdSense entirely.


Here’s what I’ve done so far:

1. Signed up with Adcombo – This seemed like a great starting point for COD offers in my region.
2. Selected my starting offers – I decided to test two niches I felt could resonate strongly with my audience: a weight loss product and an anti-aging skincare product.
3. Created banners – Instead of relying on generic creatives, I made custom skincare banners to blend naturally within my blog’s content.
4. Placement strategy – The banners are embedded directly inside my articles so that they appear while readers are already engaged with relevant topics. They link straight to the offer pages.

The current results:

• Over 50 clicks to the offer page so far.
• No conversions yet—but it’s still early days, and I’m collecting data to see which offer gains traction.

My mindset is that this is all about testing and adapting. Right now, I want to understand which niche and product type perform best for my specific audience before scaling.


What’s next?

• Traffic experiment with Facebook Ads: I plan to run a small, targeted campaign to drive fresh traffic and see how it performs compared to the blog’s organic visitors.
• Quizzes for engagement: I’m planning to add fun, highly shareable quizzes to the site (e.g., “Find Your Perfect Skincare Routine” or “What’s Your Ideal Weight Loss Plan?”). Quizzes can pull in more traffic and pre-qualify leads by warming them up before sending them to the offer page.
• More creative testing: Different ad angles, more localized language, and testing advertorial-style landing pages might be on the horizon if direct linking underperforms.

This is still the testing phase, but I’m excited to see how far I can push this. The main goal here is to turn what used to be an idle blog into a consistent revenue stream through COD offers, all while using the traffic I already have.


I’ll be posting updates regularly—both the wins and the fails—so others can learn from the process.


Let’s see where this journey takes us!