Looking for some great examples for affiliate program banners? You should check out the animated gif and Flash banner designs from Experience Advertising. Having great affiliate banners is a must for ecommerce companies looking achieve a high click-thru rate for their affiliates. These are some really great designs, so check them out!
Linkshare UK looks like they are doing some really informative stuff to try to help Advertisers get more savvy about facilitating and motivating their affiliates. They are running some live webinars and have some recorded webinars you can check out. They have been good in the past so there is no reason the next one focusing on “How to Run A Publisher-Friendly Program” shoudn’t be quite good. Should be interesting at the very least! I find the Brits to be very advanced with affiliate marketing techniques and management, probably due to the small, focused region everyone operates in. While here in the U.S. everyone is all spread out and most of the networking is done via email, chat and phone. In a smaller region you can really meet up in person and get more accomplished.
Since the credit crunch first reared its ugly head, tongues have been wagging around the affiliate world, with one main concern spilling out of people’s minds; was the looming cloud of a recession gilded by the sweetest of silver linings?
With every penny ever more precious, with every cent being counted, would the greater focus by merchants on return from marketing spend see an industry seeing significant year on year growth make the shift to a dominant mainstream channel? Or would overall reduced marketing spend mean affiliates would suffer along with press, radio and TV?
For a while it seemed that affiliates were at least safe, and were at best coasting to a better, and richer, future. As one might expect, merchants were increasingly enticed by the idea of a channel that only pays out on a tangible return. However, overall reduced marketing spend has seen a more significant shift as merchants have shifted focus on other media to CPA and ROI targeted campaigns. Aggregators, PPC and traditional display-based advertising are delivering on CPA and ROI based models that have begun to return lower CPAs than affiliates and higher ROI.
There’s a simple lesson to be learnt from this; it is no longer enough to simply drive sales. Whilst this represents a sea change in thinking for many, for affiliates to capitalise on the current economic condition it is imperative that two things are addressed, and soon:
Quality of traffic
Costing Models
Without a significant increase in the quality of traffic, or the way that traffic is handled, the opportunity that is available to affiliates, that sweet silver lining, is likely to evaporate. By changing the overall perspective of a volume driving channel to one that is linked to profitability, ultimately doors will be opened rather than shut.
This is not to say that fundamental upheaval is necessary. However, publishers need to accept that positioning and potential will need to be increasingly tied to the needs of the merchant rather than CPAs and EPCs as merchants become more educated.
A simple example of this would be loyalty sites, a group that have seen huge successes in recent times, but who have also left a bad taste in merchants’ mouths that have been burnt one too many times. Simply by developing offerings that tie into the LTV of a custome, for example an insurance bounty that only pays out on renewal of a policy they can create a harmonious model that would make significant steps toward realising the huge potential growth for affiliates that is currently available.
The affiliate channel currently sees itself at a fork in the road; partially through its own impressive and intrinsic growth, but also through unforeseen global economic changes. By acting quickly and sagely, it can make the move from being a specialist part of the marketing mix to something that consistently sits at the heart of all merchant’s overall media strategies.
Guest Post by: James Atherton of Vizeum.
There is a big unanswered question in affiliate marketing today – how can we give credit for an online sale in such a way as to reward all of the sites that played a part in it? Surely that would be fair but as yet there is no workable answer.
Imagine I’m buying a Pay As You Go mobile phone. First of all I’ll probably read reviews of two or three new handsets I’ve heard about (for simplicity let’s say I’ve visited one review site, although in reality it may be several), clicking through to retailers and back in the process. Having decided I want the new Nokia I’ll then go to my chosen comparison site to find the best deal on it, before clicking through to the merchant. Wait a minute though, here’s a box in the checkout for a voucher code… I’ll just pop back to Google to find a current code for that merchant, which will involve clicking on the site and hence dropping a voucher code cookie, which will win the commission for the whole sale. Wouldn’t it be great if the merchant could store the three cookies (this is possible) and then automatically split the commission three ways on completion? I guess it would be more popular with the review sites but then they probably work a lot harder to put their content together than the voucher sites anyway.
I’ve deliberately omitted another stage of the buying process here, the cashback or reward site. The problem is they need to know what the CPA is in advance in order to offer it to their members, so it would seem they would need a different set of rules altogether – and they may be the sites who prevent this idea from ever getting off the ground. The other problem with this method if it became the norm is that it’s open to abuse. What’s to stop unscrupulous affiliates linking to merchants using a link that momentarily visits another of their own sites, because if the commission is going to be split they might as well bag another share to make sure?
I don’t know the answer to this big question, but I look forward to the debate.
Guest Blog by: Richard Buckton of Digital TV Advice
Commission Junction has a new page on their site to keep affiliates and merchants updated on the Internet tax laws many states are attepting to get passed. Everyone in the affiliate community needs to get involved in combating these new laws which threaten the affiliate marketing industry. Now is the time for people that are respected and looked up to in the industry to get really vocal and organize against this proposed legislation. It’s good to see companies like Commission Junction and Linkshare trying to fight against this.
There are so many possible ways of driving traffic to your website, it’s hard to know where to focus first. This article will attempt to explain some of the best ways to drive traffic to your company’s website, including: organic search (SEO), pay-per-click search advertising, affiliate marketing, and database re-marketing. All of these methods are effective and must be done properly and with gusto. These concepts are in no particular order, but equally important to your overall Internet marketing mix.
Organic traffic or SEO is as old as the the Internet itself. I remember formatting the meta-tags on my web pages 10 years ago! Guess what…good, complete meta-tags still matter to your organic rankings, so make sure they are completely filled out on EVERY page of your site. There are basically 2 main aspects of organic optimization you need to focus on initially: meta-tags and on-page content. Like I said, every page of your site should have complete, unique meta-titles, meta-descriptions, and meta-keywords filled in. On-page content also has a huge amount of importance for gaining search rankings. I have sites that ranking organically just off the content on each page alone. If you are able to expand you content on certain pages like your category pages and product descriptions, you can potentially gain more search traffic off those pages, maximizing what you are currently doing with your site.
Pay-per-click search marketing is probably one of the most necessary, yet misunderstood types of campaigns you can run. All companies, in my opinion, should be running a good amount of PPC search in order to drive targetted traffic to their sites. Whether you handle this internally or outsource it, you should keep a very close eye on the performance and management of your PPC accounts with Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Your PPC accounts should be ever growing, as you test different groups of keywords to see what converts and what doesn’t. What converts you run with and what doesn’t you eliminate. The goal should be to attain the best ROI possible. Of course, your landng page should be as good as it can be to best convert the traffic into sales or leads.
Affiliate marketing is my favorite topic and where you should be focusing a great amount of resources and money. A well-managed affiliate program should always be growing in the number of participants and active producers. Many companies launch affiliate programs and just expect them to grow on their own. This will occur to a certain degree, but plataeu quickly without good affiliate management and a good affiliate growth strategy. Companies should be trying their best to make it as lucrative as possible for affiliates in order to get the most production possible. Again, having a good converting website is key to ensuring your affiliate traffic will convert and produce commissions for your affiliates. Affiliates should be treated with the utmost respect and given as many tools to become success as possible. At all times, affiliates should be worked with and motivated to produce more revenue, as well as new affiliates should be recruited into the program to grow the number of participants. If either of these 2 things aren’t going on, you are not maximizing the growth of your affiliate channel.
Re-marketing to your database is one of the most powerful ways to generate revenue for your company. You can send promotions, deals, and coupons to motivate your database to purchase for the first time or re-purchase more products. Re-marketing to your database at the right interval and with the right message is essential to getting a good response. Subject line is everything! Getting people to open your email promotions is key to getting them to act, so make sure to make your subject lines compelling. Email content is also improtant to getting your database members to move into action.
Once you have a good strategy in place for all of these traffic driving methods you are ready to make it happen! Make sure to have the right people or companies handling these tasks for you, as they are extremely important. Don’t assign a new employee to manage your PPC or affiliates, you will suffer the consequences or just not grow like you should. I hope this mini-article was an enjoyable read. I couldn’t mention everything, but you get the jist. If you would like to have a conversation about these concepts make sure to email us or leave your comment below! Now get out there and drive some traffic! 
I just got done with the Commission Junction Coupon Code webinar and I thought it was really good. Very well prepared and full of information and good ideas. Here are some of the highlights from the couopn code webinar:
- Coupon codes are gaining popularity based on the bad economy, here are the latest percentages of where web visitors are going on the Internet: Search 37%, Coupons 25%, Comparison sites 17%, Auctions 17%
- Coupons are the fastest growing category on websites, boasting
#1 in the top 10 website categories
- October 2008 to November 2008 up +32%
- Unique visitors to coupon sites are up almost 50% over a year ago
- Coupon Sites in general are up 34% year or year growth
- 62% of US shoppers are using coupon when shopping online.
- Searches for “coupon” doubled to 19.9 million, while “discount” rose 26% to 6.3 million searches.
Strategies for merchants using coupons effectively with affiliates:
- Plan for Success
- Add negative match to search policy
- limit redemptions
- Purchase threshold
- Beware coupon stacking
Coupon Code’s viral nature: Coupons can be great because they get spread around to firends and family.
How to maximize coupons so they don’t hurt your margins:
- Coupons aren’t all or nothing
- Choose higher margin products
- Coupons can be product specific
- Use coupons to clear out inventory
- Use custom codes and links
- Create exclusive coupons
- Use vanity coupon codes
- Recent studies are showing that online shoppers are shopping specifically because of special offers and coupons.
- Coupon codes create urgency
Regarding whether coupon codes create long-term customers or not:
- Coupons create customer engagement
- Customers love the “treasure hunt”
- Loyalty is built-up over time
Disspelling the myth that coupons destroy the brand:
- Holiday Season 08 - coupons really went mainstream
- Even high-end stores are in the game
- Have a good strategy when rolling out coupons
Advice for affiliates on how to use coupon sites and make their site more valuable. Goal should be to have a site visitors bookmark and share with their friends. Check and see how well the coupon is performing on your site. Put your coupon codes into your newsletters. Develop long-term advertiser relationships.
Advice for merchants:
- Not just a discount strategy
- Great for new customer acquisition
- Coupon code traffic sticks
Questions and Answers:
- Can coupons be offered without codes? Yes they can. Doesn’t have to be a code, could be free shipping, or new product launches, and gift cards.
- What are the best perfoming offers for coupons? Percent or dollar off. Answer: some sites see dollar off and some see % off converting better. Recommendation to advertiser is to test different strategies and maybe a combination. Research shows that dollars off the sale are more effective, but it depends on the nature of the business/offer.
- What is the negtive match aspect about? Answer: advertisers should make clear in their SEM policies whether they want the affiliates to show up in search for your trademarks with the word coupon.
- Will the affiliate receive the commission if the link isn’t click by the buyer. Answer: is to embed to coupon code within the text link or banner ad.
- Vanity codes are higher converting and affiliates like them too!
All and all, I think it was a good webinar. They covered most of the hot topics and there was a good amount of statistics to back it up. I personally think all affiliate merchants should be using coupon codes to their benefit. I’d love to know your opinion on coupon codes best practices for affiliates and merchants. Thanks!
There is some talk about California adopting a similar law to the NY state affiliate tax law. Linkshare has just put up a page to address the questions about this issue. Here is the link: http://www.linkshare.com/advertisers/ca_state_tax/
I really hope states think about the affiliates best interests when looking at these issues. Let me know what you think!
Commission Junction will be holding a webinar for merchants about coupon codes and coupon strategies in general. As we know, coupon codes have become one of the most popular forms of online marketing for affiliates. Merchants not offering coupon codes are likely not tapping into as many good affiliates as they could be. With the economy in it’s current crisis, couponing by consumers will likely increase. So, all merchants leveraging the affiliate marketing channel should be using coupon codes with their affiliates to increase traffic and sales. Here is the information from the Commission Junction webinar sign-up:
The current economy and the sophistication of online shoppers have created the “perfect storm” for online coupons. But can coupons be an effective and profitable long term business strategy? We’ve all heard the common concerns about margins and lack of control. The truth is, when used effectively, coupons can generate incredible revenue for both advertisers and publishers alike. It’s the “used effectively” part that can be tricky!
Join us for this Webinar and you’ll learn how:
• Both advertisers and publishers can use coupons in a way that benefits both groups
• To set up link activated coupon codes
• To create a Web site that makes user come back time and again
you should register and check out this CJ webinar. You will likely learn a few things about coupon codes and coupon code affiliates. I look forward to it myself and your feedback on this site. Thanks!
I noticed from one of brianlittleton’s tweets that ShareASale is putting together an “open source” PPC policy creation template…
Open Source the PPC Policy Creation - ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum: “One of the things that we will be doing is providing a list of things that a Merchant should and must consider when generating a ‘good’ PPC policy. For example, some Merchants consider things like their ‘domain name’, or ‘TM’, but don’t consider that same word in conjunction with another term such as ’special’ or ‘vs. a competitor’ …
So - I am here offering and asking for a collaborative effort to generate a template/wishlist/helpsheet for Merchants who want to generate a policy.”
Lots of great stuff going on in that thread at ABW and it’s awesome to see a network reaching out to both affiliates and merchants in such a manner. Go over and participate if you have thoughts on the issue (and who doesn’t?!).
As always, nice work, Brian.
Interesting possibility for the thread that Rebecca just posted on the Performance Marketing Alliance’s blog regarding Haiko’s datafeed standard from 2005:
Data Feed standard update at Performance Marketing Alliance: “Haiko de Poel just emailed me with a link to a data feed standard he developed in 2005 and posted on A Best Web. It is really concise and certainly looks like it covers details important to affiliates.”
This is the sort of involvement that a lot of people from ABW in particular have been asking for in terms of what sorts of issues the PMA might address within the realm of affiliate marketing. Hopefully, issues like ethics, merchant communications, etc will also be addressed there in the coming days and weeks as the PMA moves into its formation stages.
If you haven’t read the Industry Association Meeting thread on ABW definitely head over there for the conversation.
Linda Buquet also has a neat idea on Twitter today:
@billykay An aff group w/in PMA would have so much more clout, could decide on issues that the larger group needs to tackle etc.
It seems to me like the PMA conversations across the wide spectrum of affiliate forums like ABW, blogs like ReveNews, etc have moved to the next level. That is a good sign for the possibility of the alliance both having a life and being beneficial to all ranges of affiliates.
Shawn Collins, Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille and I recorded GeekCast 21 on Tuesday. If you’re interested in how to recruit affiliates in this changing landscape, give it a listen…
GeekCast 21: The Art of the CPA Pitch : GeekCast.fm: “The first few minutes of the show describes innovative ways to recruit affiliates outside of the traditional emails and cold calls (which are becoming increasingly ineffective). The conversation steers into the direction of why companies like Apple and Microsoft fight over the ‘cool’ factor in their marketing campaigns.”
The show runs about 80 mins and is filled with all sorts of geeky goodness (Twitter, video, stats, etc).
