TopSEOs.com, a leading 3rd party digital agency review company, has released their best Affiliate Marketing Companies rankings for December 2010. Experience Advertising, Inc., a leading outsourced affiliate management agency has maintained their #1 ranking for the entire year of 2010. Here is the list of the top 10 Affiliate Marketing Companies for December 2010:

1. Experience Advertising
2. NetExponent
3. Commission Junction
4. Affiliate Announcement
5. Paulson Management Group
6. AffiliateCrew
7. IMARKETING LTD
8. Media Trust
9. Vast Planet
10. JGSullivan Interactive

If you are looking to get into the Affiliate Marketing arena, you should definitely check out these companies. Affiliate Marketing is a growing industry and a must for all online Advertisers and Retailers. Make sure to vet any company or agency you decide to business with by checking out their clients, their case studies, and speak to them on the phone about their affiliate marketing strategies and techniques.

Performance marketing or performance-based marketing is the model by which affiliates, partners, or publishers are paid commissions on desired actions. There are several different models on which you can work as an Advertiser or Affiliate. The main model is called the CPA Model or the Cost Per Acquisition or better known as Cost Per Sale. 90% of all affiliate marketing or performance marketing is conducted on a CPA model, that’s why you may hear the term CPA being thrown around a lot out there.

The second most popular model is probably the Cost Per Lead or CPL model, where information is being processed into a form on a website or a landing page and then that action is then paid out to whomever referred the business. Cost Per Click or CPC is another technically “performance based” model where you’re compensating someone on those clicks that they’re driving, but technically it isn’t really performance based in that it’s not commission-oriented. Then there is the Pay-Per-Call model. Ring Revenue is probably leading the forefronts on compensating affiliates and partners when the generate calls to your call center or sales center.

CPA and CPL are the primary performance marketing structures. When you hear about affiliate marketing or performance-based marketing you’ll hear these two models being talked about the most. Electronic tracking is absolutely necessary in order to facilitate all performance-based marketing. You have to be able to track the click-throughs and the sales that result and cookie the browser for a certain period of time, so people are accurately compensated for the traffic they’re referring and the sales that result or leads.

Performance based marketing is ideal for Advertisers because it only compensates when desired “actions” are made by site visitors. Affiliate marketers like the performance based model because the more they produce the higher the commissions per action can go.

That the ’last click wins’ model that affiliate marketing is premised on continues to prevail underlines the inherent problems the industry faces in finding a credible alternative.
 
As affiliate marketing becomes more complex so industry players have been debating whether a multi-attribution model, that is apportioning parts of one overall commission amount to the affiliates involved in that sale, would better reward all touchpoints.
 
In theory this makes this sense. Understand the consumer’s path that leads them to the ‘buy now’ button and reward retrospectively for the multiple marketing efforts that influenced and guided their buying decision.

But delve a little deeper and a multi attribution model throws up more questions and subjective dilemmas than there are answers to.

An advertiser may find that two or three affiliates may be involved in a typical sale. Do you apportion the commission accordingly (by halving or dividing by three in this case) or do you weight it subject to a possibly arbitrary scoring system that attributes a ‘value’ to individual affiliates? What would then be the basis for this system; individual affiliate performance such as new customer acquisition numbers, average basket amounts, frequency of purchase?

From an affiliate’s perspective there are obvious concerns. If you run a cashback, loyalty or reward site and need to publish a commission rate what do you advertise when you don’t potentially know what you’re getting? What about affiliates working in the paid search space who need a guaranteed rate of return so they can account for their click costs and work their campaigns profitably?

By all means try to understand what value your individual affiliates contribute at various stages to your sales but rather than talk about dividing a commission according to an arbitrary click measurement why not just try to appreciate the value of each of your affiliates; both the volume drivers and by affiliate categorisation?

As multi-attribution continues to pose more questions than it answers many advertisers are getting on with the business of running their campaigns. The savvier are taking a step back, understanding the wider picture and apportioning commission rates that reflect the perceived or actual ‘value’ of their different affiliate types.

And ultimately that’s what performance based marketing is all about.

Guest Post by: Kevin Edwards of Affiliate Window.

Most of you have undoubtedly played the field, some have found the perfect match, some have chewed their arm off. Finding the perfect match in life is hard because you don’t know if your choice is going to continue to be the beauty queen that everyone hypes her to be or she’s going to be the one that leaves creepy messages for you saying Call me, Call me. Affiliate Marketing is like that, sometimes it’s exciting, other times it’s Mrs. Chucky time.

In the Day to day world of an Affiliate publisher it’s very similar to being at closing time on a Saturday night – who should I commit all of my charm and resources to? Sometimes that choice becomes more difficult because your friends are giving you the nudge, nudge and hyping the beauty across the room. Trust me on this one, look past that one a little further before making your decision. Be a playa’, enjoy life a bit more.

If you’re going to date the Cleansing twins – Acai and Colonia – you have to at least once in your life – find out what else is available and then date them all. A little speed dating action if you will. Shortly you will see which one is your Mrs. Chucky and which one will make you brag to your friends. Just the other day I saw a clear example where a publisher followed the hype, jumped in with both feet with an offer – while throwing little at a comparable offer – and made (chewing their arm off) LESS by running the hyped offer. A LOT LESS. Don’t let this happen to you. Ask for the full roster in each offer category and then do a little speed dating. The one that performs the best in a head to head competition is the one that you should marry your traffic to.

Don’t be blinded by the highest payout, play the field, try different channels, check your head to head EPC’s and laugh all the way to the alter – and bank.

Guest post by: Mike Carney of MediaTrust.

Guest Blog by: Jeff Flowers

Advertising is everywhere.

The average American is exposed to more than 3,000 ad messages each day. In fact, we see more ads in one year than a person living 50 years ago would see in an entire lifetime. Everyone is vying for our attention these days. Have you seen the ads in the bottom of golf holes? TV ads at the gas pump? Ads in bathroom stalls?

How can a consumer expect to sift through this clutter to determine what products and services he should buy? Who can he trust to give him unbiased input?

Today’s consumers are relying on advice from trusted sources for recommendations and referrals. This is the power of affinity marketing.

How do you know that the offer for cell phone service that is being extended to you by your employer is the best deal out there? If you are like most consumers, you think “it must be a good, legitimate deal or my company would not be offering it to me as a benefit”.

The same influence can be found within trade associations, professional groups, unions and other organizations. As a marketer, the challenge is to “influence the influencer.”

Almost every consumer belongs to at least one affinity group. Whether it is the company he works for, his church, his bowling team or his professional association, he belongs to some kind of organization. And that organization has some level of influence over his purchases.

The key to affinity group marketing is to position your offering as a group benefit.

Benefits can be as simple as offering a member discount. Everyone likes to save money and everyone understands discounts.

Another type of offer is a “value-added” benefit. This type of offer is limited only by the marketer’s creativity. Value-added offers include “gift with purchase”, “exclusive sales”, upgrades and other perks. Consumers like to feel special and any offer that gets them past “the velvet rope” will be received well.

The important thing to remember is that you must offer legitimate value that the member can understand and appreciate.

Find out what groups your customers and prospects belong to and integrate your products and services into their member benefit programs. And then, take care of the members…and they will take care of you.

For more information visit The Perks Company.

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!

Attention all marketing professionals in South Florda! March 11th, 2009 there will be a meeting of the American Marketing Association featuring a presentation and panel called: “Innovative & Creative Marketing Practices That Breed Success.” We hope you can come to the event so you can learn and interact with the tremendous panelists that will be in attendence. Here is the break-down on the event courtesy AMASouthFlorida.org website:

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Dania Beach

Our March General Membership Meeting will bring together representatives from International leader MTV/VH1 LA, Crispin, Porter & Bogusky, the top innovative advertising agency in the country featuring Burger King and Office Depot to speak on innovative marketing strategies that breed success in a good and down economy. The event will be held on March 11, 2009 from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at the Sheraton – Fort Lauderdale Airport Hotel where these experts will share their insights on innovative marketing ideas and answer questions from attendees.

The panelists for this event include:

Sean Saylor, VP of Creative for MTV/VH1 Latin America. In this role, Saylor is responsible for managing the creative vision and creative services for each brand. He leads a team of designers, visual artists, copywriters, producers and audio engineers in Argentina and is responsible for creating MTV and VH1’s advertising, collateral materials, special events and contests.

Mason Reed, VP Account Director Burger King US with C, P & B (Crispin, Porter & Bogusky.) Mason has led a diverse group of clients at CP+B including Virgin Atlantic Airways, Slim Jim, method home cleaning products and Nike. He currently manages the US efforts for Burger King. Prior to his arrival at CP+B, Mason worked at regional shops in Washington, DC and San Francisco.

Lynne Hopkins, Former Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) Director of Marketing Communications, recipient of two Office Depot Innovation Awards, strategic planning & running B2B, B2C and national sales, re-positioned one of the top three market research firms globally (NFO/TNS-subsidiary of Interpublic Group – NYSE: IPG), developed the financial software products brands used by Wall Street and world-wide markets that was sold to Value Line NY. Lynne will discuss innovative marketing practices and dealing with transitions when it affects your own career in a down economy.

Moderated by Margo Berman, award-winning creative director, author of two books, and recognized leading advertising professor and a Kauffman Faculty Scholar at Florida International University.

Her first book, Street-Smart Advertising: “How to Win the Battle of the Buzz,” was picked as the June 2008 book of the month by Delta Sky Magazine and her two, 6 part webinars won a National Clarion Educational Reference Award. Her advertising book, “The Brains Behind Great Ad Campaigns” will be released in summer 2009. She is now working on her third book “The Copywriter’s Arsenal.”
Ms. Berman will lead panelists in discussing their overall marketing strategies for innovation and success on some of their top executed campaigns. Attendees will have time to ask questions and to learn how to develop their own successful marketing strategies that breed success. Attendees will also gain insight on solutions that work in any market and tips for dealing with transitions in the marketplace and with their own careers.

We hope you can attend this great event! Click Here to Register.

I’m sure Michelle is a nice person, but pitches like this (blasted out to a number of people) on social networks don’t work and only result in unfriending and avoidance.  I’m getting more and more of these on Facebook lately and they are much more annoying than “vampire bites” or “Funwall notices”…

“Hi!

We’ve launched a brand new FREE perfume/cologne club today. Please check it out as you can now try before you buy with ScentByMe.

Click here:

http://www.xxx.xxx

Also, forward to your friends who would like to be scent-sational!

Michelle”

Again, I’m not picking on Michelle, but people need to realize that these sorts of failpitches only damage your program.  If you’re going to pitch me like this on Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/etc, at least get to know me (so then I can tell you where to go after you pitch me like that).

Ever get scared that the marketing paradigm we operate within is just feeding a much bigger machine that isn’t a fan of human freedom?

I do.

Looking forward to reading Cory Doctorow’s new book:

Little Brother: “If you love freedom, if you think the human condition is dignified by privacy, by the right to be left alone, by the right to explore your weird ideas provided you don’t hurt others, then you have common cause with the kids whose web-browsers and cell phones are being used to lock them up and follow them around.

This book is meant to be part of the conversation about what an information society means: does it mean total control, or unheard-of liberty? It’s not just a noun, it’s a verb, it’s something you do.”

When I hear online (and offline) marketers talking about social media as a “channel,” my radar goes off. I suspect it will be even worse after I finish the book.

Am I creating a more freedom filled world technology wise for my daughter?

What do you think?