In case you haven't heard, there's a new digital marketing conference on the horizon — one devoted specifically to the management of affiliate programs. I have christened it Affiliate Management Days, and the first of our conferences is set to take place on March 8-9, 2012 in San Francisco, CA.

AM Days is going to be the world's first conference of its kind. We have 28 speakers lined up to cover a wide array of topics: from affiliate recruitment and fraud detection to emerging trends and conversion page optimization. And, speaking of the latter, I've decided to sit down with one of our keynote speakers, Tim Ash (aka @Tim_Ash) — CEO of SiteTuners and bestselling author of Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing & Tuning for Conversions — and ask him a few questions about affiliate program management, himself, his expectations of 2012, and more. Here is the interview:

Geno: Tim, we're excited to have you keynote the inaugural Affiliate Management Days conference. I know that you yourself used to be an affiliate. What were some things that annoyed you most as an affiliate?

Tim: We would always send quality traffic, but had no control over the quality of the landing pages to which we directed it. Yet the merchants always insisted that our traffic was bad, and their landing pages were perfect. In reality, merchants and affiliate networks spend very little time designing good landing pages, but we were at their mercy.

Geno: So, what one thing would you recommend for online merchants to focus on in order to maximize the ROI of their "affiliate marketing channel"?

Tim: Make sure that your landing pages are designed from the perspective of your visitors and audience.

It must benefit them in some way — to accomplish a goal or meet an existing need. Unfortunately most of the time we are looking at the page from the perspective of our business and what our bottom-of-the-funnel goals are.

We want to cherry pick the ready buyers instead of being useful to everyone regardless of their place in the funnel.

Geno: To switch the subject, I've heard that you hold a PhD degree, and you've specialized on something connected with artificial intelligence. What was the focus of your doctorate disseration, and how do your findings apply in digital marketing?

Tim: Well, to be accurate I finished my Master's degree and advanced to candidacy (got my C.Phil degree) but I never finished the PhD. My undergraduate majors were in Computer Engineering (software) and Cognitive Science (wet-ware). Looking back at the larger pattern of my career, I have used both of those.

Internet marketing is very quantifiable and accountable. But the subject matter of what persuades people and moves them to act is rooted in our deep and irrational emotional and instinctual natures.

Geno: Interesting. But let's shift gears once more… What, in your opinion, is gonna be "the next big thing" in 2012?

Tim: I do think that 2012 is really "the year of Mobile" (Read: Pierre Far on 8 Steps for Making Your Site Mobile Friendly). I know that has been predicted for a long time, but now we are seeing meaningful traffic and conversions through phones and tablets. The demise of the Web desktop is not near, but you have to start thinking about your mobile conversion strategy as well.

Geno: And in conclusion, could you give us three reasons why e-tailers and affiliate managers should attend your AM Days keynote speech?

Tim: How about seven instead of three? I will show you seven common ways that your landing pages are costing you money, and you will be able to immediately spot and correct them after the conference to make a lot more money.

Geno: Sounds like a plan. I'm looking forward to it.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Interview with Affiliate Management Days Keynote Speaker Tim Ash

Back in October 2011, I was pleasantly surprised to learn I had won a contest for being the person with the largest sales for Blog World Expo over the fifteen day period when the early bird pricing came to a close. So not only did I make the commissions for the ticket sales, but I also won a $500 bonus on top of it all. To celebrate, I thought I would share my tips on becoming the top affiliate for a product.

1. Choose an affiliate product that works with your audience.

This is probably the most important point of them all. You can push products that do not resonate with your audience and maybe get a sale or two off of them, but they won't be the kind of sales that push you to the top affiliate throne. You have to, instead, get to know your audience. What types of products do they buy? What events do they go to? What are their needs?

If you can find a product that your audience is already buying, especially if it is something that they will have to buy again and again such as annual event tickets, then you will likely strike gold. This is why the Blog World program has worked so well for me – because I know a lot of my audience attends Blog World, so I know it is a product they will want to buy.

• Learn from the best: Ruud Hein interviews Rae Hoffman

2. Get your own discount code.

This one is a bit tricky as not a lot of product creators will give affiliates their own discount. But if you see other affiliates have their own discount, be sure to ask for your own. It makes asking for people to use your affiliate link much simpler because you are not just asking them to buy from you so you can make a sale. You are giving them valuable savings for which, in return, they will be happy to give you the sale.

When you do have your discount code for your affiliate product, use it everywhere you reference your affiliate link. This will make people more likely to use it because they will want that deal!

• The other opinion: Discount Codes Are The Devil in Disguise for eCommerce Sites

3. Know key dates for your affiliate products.

When it comes to events, the key dates are simple.

• When registration first becomes available.
• When early bird deadlines are going to end.
• When tickets are about to sell out.

When it comes to products, there are also some key dates you can use to your advantage including the following.

• When the product first becomes available for purchase.
• When the product's introductory prices are going to end.
• When the product has a relaunch after closing its doors.
• When the product has a special sale such as Black Friday / Cyber Monday.

How do you find out about these dates? This is when subscribing to the affiliate newsletters (and actually reading them) comes into play. Product creators (or the affiliate program managers) want to do everything to help you make sales. Therefore most will give you the heads up on when you should be campaigning about their products.

If the product owner doesn't have a newsletter, then your next bet is to monitor them on Twitter (or the social network they use the most) and their blog. They will probably be working on pre-launch hype buildup for their upcoming product, or announcing upcoming specials or discounts. Two key dates to keep in mind for any affiliate product that are coming up are Black Friday and Cyber Monday – these are affiliate gold mine days if you are affiliate marketing products that will run a special sale.

So what do you do on these key dates? Try both of the following steps.

• See also Using An Editorial Calendar

4. Write a review.

Reviews are powerful. Your audience doesn't want to just see banner ads for something – they want to know why you are recommending it. With Blog World, I did a post prior to the early bird deadline talking about why I'm excited about going to the conference. Then after, I did a post on how to prep for the conference. Most of my affiliate sales for Blog World have come from links within those posts.

• Learn How to Use Product Reviews to Drive SEO

5. Promote, promote, promote.

If you're gearing up to make one product your top product, you will want to promote that affiliate product everywhere including the following locations.

• Your Sidebar – This is prime banner real estate because, no matter where a person lands on your site, they should be able to see it. For Blog World, mine is loud and proud right at the top.
• Your Post Footer – I like my blog to show content first, so while the post header is probably a more profitable region, the post footer banner still gets the job done (assuming you write posts that people will read until the end).
• Your Newsletters – Of course, you will want to email your list about the key dates I mentioned above. But even for regular newsletters, you can keep a small banner in the newsletter sidebar or within the newsletter content.
• Your Email Signature – Think about the number of people you email every day that are not on your list. Simply adding a line with your affiliate link such as "Are you heading to Blog World next week? Get your tickets now using this link and discount code…" might give you some good sales results.

• Use these 17 Ways to Accelerate Links to Your Link Bait (and Other Highly Linkable Content)

If you can follow these five steps with an audience who sees you as an industry authority, becoming a top affiliate for the right product can be a reality. What other steps would you add to this list? Please share in the comments below! Also, don't miss my post on organizing affiliate information to find out which products already work the best for you and how to make affiliate marketing easier.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

5 Steps to Becoming the Top Affiliate for a Product

There are tons of types of Affiliates out there. You have value adding, parasitic  ones who poach off of your own customers and marketing efforts, ones who help to close sales with reviews and Affiliates who can increase your PPC budget and exposure.

The one thing that many new Affiliate Managers don't know about is how to evaluate an Affiliate's application, especially when you are trying to only let in value adding Affiliates.

Here are 5 of the things that I look for when approving or rejecting an Affiliate.

1. Do they own their own site?

You'll get multiple applications with Affiliates who don't actually own the site they claim to own. What I do to see if they actually own the site is look at the site for their Affiliate ID. If the ID matches the one they apply with then they can legitimately post to it.

You can also do a whois lookup and write to see if they have an email address at the domain they apply with.

2. Do they have a legit email address in the network?

It is important to have a direct line of communication with your Affiliates.

If the Affiliate has expired coupons, misrepresents your products, does a review without having a disclosure, you need to be able to reach them to not only fix a negative customer experience, but also to be able to show you have been proactive about following the FTC advertising guidelines and any regulations from the government if you are in a niche that has restrictions like nutraceuticals.

3. What's on their site?

I always click through at least 5 to 10 pages of the Affiliate's site to make sure that everything within the site is positive and blends in nicely with my Client's brand.

Things like gambling, porn, writing that could be considered hate or dangerous to a specific group of people, etc… could create a negative association with your brand. If for some reason that site would rank for your company's or client's brands, that negative association could hurt your business.

You may also want to use the search box on blogs to check for certain keywords to make sure that they don't have anything you would want your brand associated with.

4. What is the most relevant page for you to be on?

You can help to get the relationship off to a better start by making a couple of suggestions of places where your company or your client's company would be a good fit.

The Affiliate probably already has a plan, but it never hurts to make a couple of recommendations or to give them a few extra ideas. This helps to show the Affiliate that you are there to help them and that you are serious about working with them.

5. How do they plan on promoting you?

I write to every Affiliate that applies to the programs I manage. One of the things I find out ahead of time is if they have read the terms and conditions and how they plan on promoting my Clients.

It's important to know that they will be adding value and not just going after my clients' customers. You should check to make sure they aren't using adware, PPV, trademark bidding, etc… if that is against your terms and conditions. It's also good to know who uses what types of marketing in case you ever need an extra boost in sales. If you know who has a newsletter, an email list, etc… you can negotiate with them to give you an extra push and drive extra sales when you need them to.

Having a value adding Affiliate program is one of the most cost effective and dependable channels of revenue your company can have. One of the most important things to know is how they are driving their traffic to you. By knowing what to look for when they apply to your program, how they want to promote you, having a direct line of communication and knowing if they have a way to drive extra sales with an extra push, you can not only help to increase your own revenue during a sale or slow period, but you can begin to have an extremely cost effective channel for sales.

Related:

• When To Launch An Affiliate Program
• Build a Competitive Affiliate Program
• Ruud Questions: Rae Hoffman aka Sugarrae

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

5 Things To Look For When Approving Affiliates

There are basic things to consider before building an affiliate website. Once you understand the basic concepts of good preparation, these methods can be repeated time and time again when you create a new website or blog.

So why do we need to follow these guidelines? To rank well in the search engines, there are some easy, but specific things to apply first. The following will help you to not only achieve higher organic rankings for your keywords, but also encourage a more highly targeted audience. Google loves high quality, on topic content! After all, this is what they want – to provide their users with a great  experience when browsing. They want people to be able to find what they are searching for quickly and easily.

The first step is to find a profitable market. You need to bring together a few things in order to determine whether or not you have a niche topic worthy of creating a website around it. Dig more deeply into information about what people want, and if you can find an appropriate affiliate product or service to match. Remember, your key objective is to find what people want  – and give it to them via your website!

6 Steps To Follow Before Creating a Website

1. Will people be interested in what you have to offer? A keyword tool will help you determine if there are enough people searching for the product or service you are thinking about selling. The free Google keyword tool is a great place to start your search. You can look at search results returning a high level of broad matches, or a lower amount of exact matches only if it specifically targets your target keyword phrase used in your site's title and or description.
2. Google Insights is helpful for a general forecast of your keyword's future popularity. The benefit of using Google Insights is also to check which countries are searching for your keywords. Add a few possible keywords into the box to make a comparison of which ones are attract a higher search volume.
3. Determine the competition for your keyword phrase in your niche. Are there many AdWords ads on the search results page?  If so, there is probably money to be made in this affiliate niche. This gets back to being successful – learn what other successful people do – and model off that!  Some people think it is better to avoid strong competition, but if you are patient and accept it may take a little longer to rank for the more competitive keywords, then this is not a problem. (This can also depend on whether or not you are wanting to build a large or small website). High rankings in the search engines may take time, but you will have a long term asset. Your affiliate website will grow stronger over time as your links spread around the internet as your site ages.
4. Be sure you choose a niche that offers an affiliate program if you don't have your own product or service to sell! This seems basic, but can sometimes be overlooked in the excitement of finding a new hot niche or keyword for a domain name.
5. Choice of domain name is also important when building an affiliate website. Along with an easily memorable name, you will need to decide on a domain name that preferably has the keyword in it. This is especially important for affiliate niche sites. The bottom line is – your Google rankings will be better with your chosen keywords in the title and description.
6. Google and other search engines prefer domain extensions which are .com then either a .org or .net. They will outrank the other extensions most of the time.

These are the very basic building blocks before starting an online business. The Google help page will explain more about what the search engines are looking for when they index your web pages.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

6 Steps To Creating An Affiliate Website

When you talk about conversions and wonder why people don't click through your banners or buy the products you recommend, it may not be the design or the lack of a phone number, etc…  It could simply be the way you speak to your readers and the language on the landing pages or merchant sites. 

Think about the type of site you have, what its goal or purpose is — and if you speak  correctly to sell a product. 

Here are a few key things to think about when trying to increase your conversion rates based on how you talk to your readers.

• Blogging
• Slang
• Pre-selling

Blogging

When you blog, are you speaking from your own voice or the voice of the persona you take on? 

Many of the most successful blogs are successful because the authors write from their own voice or their persona's voice and write like they would talk on the phone to a friend.  By speaking to them in a way that is conversational, engaging and sometimes entertaining, you can try to connect with your readers and build trust and loyalty. 

If reading your blog feels like having a friend they can visit and enjoy speaking with, you build their trust and if you recommend products that you honestly enjoy and believe in, they are more likely to buy from a friend and your conversions can increase. 

If you write your blog cold, lonely and non engaging, you may optimize for SEO, but you conversion rates can suffer because people don't feel like they have connected with a real person.

Slang

Do you know who your audience is, where they are from, their age group and how they speak? 

Regardless of what type of site you have, using slang and different language variations to appeal and brand your site can help to connect with your readers and make them think the products you are promoting are even more for them.  By "speaking their language" whether it's using slang form the 50's for baby boomers or urban hip hop terms for a younger generation, you can relate to your visitors and they can relate to the products. 

Even if it is just sales copy, the slang helps to excite, entertain and create an urge to want the product which may also help to increase your conversion rates.

Pre-selling

Optimizing for a term in the search engines is only a small part of making sales as an Affiliate.  Learning how to pre-sell your Merchants and their products is next. 

Pre-selling is more than listing the colors it comes in and the product specs.  Pre-selling is talking about real life uses, other ways to use the products and complimentary things that go with it.  It is about building trust for the Merchant site and it is about getting the visitor to want to shop.

You basically need to learn how to engage your readers, build their trust and get them excited to increase your conversion rates with language.  There are other language tricks like changing the words on buttons or making things sound like more or less of a process, but think about the on site copy and how you can better connect with your visitors and get them excited to shop.  If you ever run out of ideas, contact the Affiliate Manager for the program or the Affiliate Management Company and have them help you figure out unique ways to sell and promote their clients products.  Keep in mind that if you succeed then they succeed and that is why they will be ready to help.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How do you talk to your readers? An Affiliate Marketing conversion rate tip.

Test & Experiment

First, I believe that any marketer should run multiple websites, even if they are just throwaway pages.

You need some pages where you can test, experiment and try new things all the time. You need to test what works and what doesn’t. There’s a reason why car makers crash perfectly working cars against walls.

If you don’t have any firsthand experience on what’s working and not, how do you know what you can get away with and what the effects are, without making costly mistakes?

Don’t Keep All Your Eggs In One Basket

Besides, having just one site is like putting all your eggs into one basket. This leaves you extremely vulnerable to the ever changing of search engine algorithms. Instead, create small sites with 10-20 pages and bring traffic using different techniques all the time.

However, having too many sites may stop you from successfully managing any of them.

Your visitors will soon realize this and stop coming back for more. Moreover, having too many sites would translate to spending too much on advertising.

The best thing to do is to focus on a few sites, about 2 – 6 will do, which leaves you with more time to work on them, learn about your visitors and promote your business. One more thing, I also think you should run multiple sites and they should all be in different niches.

My advice is to stay away from creating average sites hoping to make $10 a day. The internet is stuffed with such sites, so you’ll hardly get noticed. Also, you will soon lose focus. Plus, it’s easier to make $100 a day from couple of sites, than from as a few dozen, because the time needed for a website to establish itself and get ranked by the search engine is the longest. So, it will take longer for you to earn your first $5 per day from a website, than it would for your next $5.

When Should You Start A New Site?

When you decide to build a website, you should strive to make it the best one in its niche. Never start a site unless you are absolutely sure on the niche you want to cover and never stop until you have built it.

You should stop working on your first website and move on to the next only when your earnings have plateaued or if you don’t have anything new to add without repeating yourself. Make sure you’ve covered everything in your niche, because search engines love huge, extremely detailed websites, just as much as organic visitors do.

Test and experiment as much as you can, push the limits, do something crazy stupid, I can guarantee you’ll learn something.

What's your decision process for starting another site (or not)? Leave a comment by clicking here.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How Many Web Sites Should You Have

Sometimes I feel like Wile E. Coyote, "Super Genius," as I repeatedly try in vain to capture the Road Runner.

I come up with a brilliant plan and invest days or weeks diligently working to put it all together.

But once I spring into action, my superbly executed strategy falls to pieces and I land at the bottom of a cartoon canyon with an Acme anvil on my head.

As I hear my competitors rushing past me, glibly crying out, "Beep, Beep," it's tempting to do the smart thing and simply give up.

But if there is one thing Mr. Coyote is very good at, it's keeping alive the Hope that Success lies just around the next corner. No situation is truly hopeless as long as you can come up with a new plan.

Genius is really nothing more than a combination of Perseverance and Reexamination.

But that doesn't mean you must buy your tools from Acme

No Instruction Book

Success comes from copying the basic road map established by others who blazed the trail before you. Modeling Success is a fantastic method for achieving your goals, but there often comes a place where the road ahead remains uncharted, and modeling the past is no guarantee for the future.

We often see the expression of Genius as the ability to recombine elements from the past into new configurations.

But after you have done as much as you can according to conventional wisdom, sometimes the only course of action that will get the job done is to step out in faith and try something new.

My Plan was Working Until It Wasn't

I built a few Amazon Affiliate sites that sold over $4,500 in merchandise within the first 6 weeks. That's not a lot, really, but I had never done this before so I was pleased enough to believe I could build the business up to a nice monthly profit.

But for some reason known only to them, Amazon closed my account and gave me no recourse whatsoever. Not only was my ability to profit taken away from me with no explanation, but all my Earnings were taken from me as well.

If you are interested in my sad tale of woe and frustration, see my article, What You Must Know as an Amazon Affiliate.

This is a prime example of a successful plan being derailed by Outside Forces, in this case a Supplier with deplorable Customer Service.

Most of my Plan worked very well, which shows that much of what I did to build the business remains valid.

But now I need to come up with something new. It may be something old, but implemented in a new way. Or I may decide on a brand new Idea altogether.

Do I:

• Keep my sites and populate with products from one or more Affiliate suppliers?
• Keep my sites and add full eCommerce capabilities for selling and shipping items myself?
• Keep my sites and add full eCommerce capabilities for selling Drop-Ship products?

Each of these solutions allows me to build on the goodwill and audience I have already invested a lot of time with.

My other alternative is to start one or more new sites with a totally new "Theme," and begin from scratch in building an audience.

Something Old, Something You

Stepping into the unknown isn't nearly as scary if you are simply taking a logical next step from where you already have a measure of success. Careful baby steps eventually lead to the big Achievement.

• Plan your Actions on a Flow Chart and decide what must happen at each stage for Success to be Verified
• Decide where Conventional Thinking will easily achieve your goals or solve your problem
• Determine at which steps Trouble is likely and "outside the box" methods may be necessary
• Confirm each individual step's Success before building on that foundation to implement the next step
• If Conventional Thinking cannot—or will not—achieve the defined Result, plan several alternatives and explore the feasibility of each one, based on Investment, Time, and Effort

The Best is Already Inside You

Creating something original can only come from within yourself. But original you must be if you are to attract attention.

The creative spark of Genius comes easy for some, but for most of us it takes a lot of hard work to get that spark to generate enough heat to be worthwhile. It's a lot easier to reshape what we know, rather than create something entirely new out of thin air.

When you need a new Idea, zero in on some old ones:

• Examine all the Successes in your project that lead up to the point where things are no longer working
• Was Success truly Success at each step, or did you misinterpret your Results?
• Do you need to merely alter your last activity/step, alter one specific stage within the process—or should you start all over from the beginning?
• Was there an Outside Force that changed the basic premise your Plan was build upon in the first place?
• Did one event invalidate the entire premise of your project, or only one element of your project?

Knowing what/where exactly to work on, what to keep, and where in the process to start over is key to saving time and focusing your creativity only on those areas that need it.

The Best Ideas are from Left Field

Something I like to do, especially with the help of another person, is to begin writing ideas. Any ideas. No idea is too wild, too crazy, or too extremely ridiculous.

Indeed, on many occasions the most ridiculous ideas will lead to, or ignite, a spark of creativity that is almost "other-worldly." By free associating silly ideas, the mind will often begin combining elements into "unlikely" configurations. As these configurations begin mutating, you soon come to realize you are formulating an idea that can actually work—and work well.

And even better yet, an idea that no one else has thought of before.

The key to the Big Idea is working your way through a series of small ideas until Lightning strikes.

Not Smart Enough to Quit

"Nearly every man who develops an idea
works at it up to the point where it looks impossible,
and then gets discouraged.
That's not the place to become discouraged."
— Thomas A. Edison

Thomas Edison lived back in the days when self-sufficiency and the spirit of entrepreneurship ran strong in America.

Edison wasn't the brightest bulb in the socket, but he was industrious and persistent. Although clever and creative, Edison's true genius was his ability to realize that when something had never been done before, the only way to get it right was by Trial & Error.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

One could make the case that Einstein was right. Maybe doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is truly insane.

But Edison made subtle changes with each new attempt until that light above his head went on. Literally. By removing all the air from his invention, the environment housing his filament became a vacuum. The filament burned for weeks instead of seconds, and the Electric Light changed humanity forever.

That must have been experiment #10,001

Recharging the Batteries

There is a difference between Quitting and Resting.

There was I time when I did quit. I was working on a huge and complex project that was way over my head. I finally walked away in frustration and failure.

But once I was all rested I gave it another go, and ended up with Success

As it turned out, giving up wasn't the solution at all. Although I didn't plan on taking a rest before beginning anew, getting away from it all and renewing my zest for life was vital to the eventual Success of my project. A refreshed outlook brought sparks of creativity and new solutions to problems that a few weeks earlier seemed like a massive cement wall.

Beep, Beep

One could make the case that Wile E. Coyote is a total failure. But he never gives up. He never becomes discouraged. Many would argue that our beloved Super Genius fits Einstein's definition of Insanity perfectly. He refuses to quit in the face of relentless defeat.

Over the last 62 years only 48 cartoons have been made. Yet the Roadrunner series are among the best known and most endearing cartoons you will find in Pop Culture.

If that's Insanity, I want some

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Wile E. Coyote and the Secrets of Genius

There are thousands of Affiliate Programs out there to choose from and dozens of Affiliate Management Companies for you to work with.  So how do you know which one is the best one for you and your needs?  Should you go with the Merchants that have the highest payouts?  The ones who have the longest cookie lives?  The ones with the better Managers?  It can be tricky which is why I wanted to share 5 of the top things that I look for when evaluating a Merchant to promote on Affiliate sites.

1.  Leaks.  Leaks are things that distract the website visitor you send to a Merchant's site and provide them with a way to leave for another site.  They include Adwords, Ads, Links to other sites, etc…  Think about it, why would you want to send your traffic to a Merchant who sends your traffic elsewhere when you only get paid if a sale is made.   Because the Merchant is showing ads to make money off of clicks, etc… you could be losing money since your traffic is now leaving for other sites which you will not get commissioned on.

2.  Coupon code boxes.  One thing that I usually do is go through the shopping process.  If I see there is a coupon code box or something similar, I look to see if they partner with coupon sites.  If they do, there is a good chance that when your traffic hits that coupon code box, they may go looking for a coupon.  If they click a link on the Coupon Affiliate's links while on their site, you have now lost the sale to that Coupon Affiliate, even though you introduced a new customer to that Merchant.

3.  Adware Affiliates.  If you don't know much about adware or adware Affiliates, this one will be hard for you to check out.  I highly recommend you learn what parasiteware, adware, reminderware, couponware, loyaltyware, etc… is, because there is a good chance that if your website visitor goes to the merchant site and has a toolbar, etc… on their computer, your commission is as good as gone since the adware can overwrite it or help to create a click which overwrites your cookies.  Adware theft is a huge problem in my opinion and I try to avoid Merchants that work with it.  Unfortunately many of the ones who do work with it don't even know they have it in their programs.

4.  Shopping process.  When I'm going through the shopping process, I look to see if the Merchant is upselling or cross selling products that I would get commissioned on.  If they are, their AOV may be higher for me than their competitors which means I have the potential to earn more.  If the process involves a ton of steps like registering, repetitive fields in checkout, etc… then my conversion rate may go down and I may make less even though I had a higher AOV.  The shopping process should be a huge part of any Affiliate's decision to work with a Merchant because it could help you forecast your earning potential.

5.  The age and standing of the program.  If you have a massive site and your links will be buried deep within your blog or content, you know how much of a pain it is to have to change links when a program closes or goes offline.  Check out how long the program has been around and if they are in good standing.  If they go offline regularly, don't payout or have low account balances, or if they aren't very old and don't respond to questions when you have them, you may want to move on.  One of the worst wastes of time is having to replace links because advertisers go on and offline all the time or have a good chance of closing down.  Either way you'll need to replace their links and that takes a lot of time away from being able to build new pages, sites, guest posts, etc…

There are a ton of things you should evaluate when looking at Affiliate programs to join.  These are 5 of the things that I look for first because it helps me to determine the potential profit I can earn or what I would lose if I choose one Merchant over the other.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

5 Things To Think About When Choosing a Merchant To Promote

Competitive intelligence can be a powerful tool in the hands of a skilled affiliate program manager. However, very few managers are actively using it for their benefit.

Why?

Let's start from the question the answer to which may seem evident for many: Why do we want to engage in competitive intelligence, in the first place? My answer is: to educate ourselves, gaining practical insight into how we can improve our affiliate program further. I like how Seena Sharp put it in her Competitive Intelligence Advantage (p. 100-101) when talking about competitive intelligence advantages. She writes:

Companies often downplay intelligence, believe their competitors to have access to the same data and even the same information. Well, everyone also has access to a wide array of fruits and vegetables, yet many don't eat them or eat very few. Access does not translate into action. Your competitive advantage includes executing good analysis of the right information and then figuring out what all of this means for your company … Those who seize the opportunity and develop an effective plan that can reasonably be accomplished have a significant competitive advantage.

She also emphasizes that "the real purpose of competitive intelligence is to learn and to act" and to not merely gather data or "develop information". All of this is crucial to keep in mind; and while reviewing your discoveries, you want to remember look at them through a through a prism of practical application. You're doing this to pick up data that can be immediately turned into competitive advantages of your own.

How?

How exactly are we going to retrieve the information on competing affiliate programs?

I primarily use the following 5 methods:

1. Join affiliate programs — Sign up for competing (and related) affiliate programs as an affiliate yourself — to receive their newsletters and keep up to date on what they're doing.
2. Friend and follow them — Of course, you don't want to do it from your corporate Twitter and Facebook profiles, but do follow them as an individual — to see what they're doing through social media. If they have blogs (corporate, or affiliate program ones), subscribe to their RSS feeds as well. If they are active on forums, follow them there regularly there too.
3. Become their customer — Join their customer-oriented email list. If it requires buying something from them first, do it.
4. Set up automatic monitoring — In addition to the 10 monitoring tools I mentioned here, consider also employing such tools as Xinu Returns, PostRank, Website Grader, SEMRush, and Trackur.
5. Employ traffic measuring tools — Some examples of such tools are Alexa, Compete.com, HitWise, and Quantcast

Also, don't limit yourself merely to the tools and methods mentioned above. New services come up all the time. Keep your eyes and ears open to learning, and mind open to embracing new opportunities.

What?

Remember Sharp's advice about good competitive advantage? She wrote that it "includes executing good analysis of the right information" and then developing an effective plan to implement the necessary steps on your way to competitive superiority. Naturally, for effective work in this direction we should clearly understand what exactly that "right information" is.

With affiliate program competitive intelligence our focus should be on things directly related to our competitors' affiliate marketing activities or performance. Splitting the objects of our observation into these two groups — activities and performance — we want to monitor, analyze, and draw conclusions from the following:

Affiliate Program & Related Performance

• Best-performing creatives
• Key performance indicators
• Conversion rates of specific types of affiliates
• Wording of text links
• Best-selling products/services

Affiliate Program Activities

• Customer-centric promos and coupons
• Commission structure changes
• Bonuses and tiered commission increases
• Affiliate-oriented promos
• New partnerships
• New tools
• Any program enhancements

Again, do not limit yourself just to the things I've listed above, but constantly widen your investigation scope. Your goal is to be more competitive than they are. This requires aggressive and diligent ongoing competitive intelligence. It isn't hard to do if you know what you're after, why you're doing it, and how to handle it effectively. Now that you do, it's the right time to get going with it. Have fun with it!

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Competitive Intelligence at the Service of Affiliate Program Managers

Years ago Affiliates would try to optimize sites for keywords and funnel their traffic to Merchants.  PPC Affiliates would drive customers, at their own expense, to a merchant's site and the whole focus was to drive sales.  The old belief was that Affiliate's needed the Merchants and that the Merchant's held all of the power.  After the Affiliate industry has begun to mature, Affiliate sites have began to mature as well and the tables turned to where Merchant's are now the ones who need to rely on value adding Affiliates.  The issue with the old Affiliate model is that the model was focused on the Merchant instead of the Affiliate's long term success.  Today's Affiliate models have turned Affiliate sites into destinations on the web, which the Merchant's have to access if they want the value-add.   Affiliate's have built empires on their destination sites and what you should be asking yourself is, "Have I done the same?".   Think about it, what have you done to keep and maintain a fan base?

Newsletters

Does your site have one?  Your newsletter is ike your ATM machine or a large bank account that gets interest. If you don't abuse it, then you'll almost always get opens and sales just like there will be money to withdraw.  That newsletter is something that you can rely on for traffic and sales and loyalty.  It doesn't matter what or who the Merchant is.  If your marketing is done well, your newsletter will make you money and Merchants will give bonuses and higher commissions for this type of exposure.  You can also sell ad space in your newsletters and monetize it multiple ways.

PPC

If you're driving your PPC traffic directly to a Merchant's site, you might get better conversion rates, but you've lost a customer for life.  If you create a landing page or website which compares prices, if it is user friendly, has a newsletter sign up, social media share buttons, etc… you have created something that people will be able to come back to and remember (If your domain name is memorable and brandable).   Ask yourself, why am I paying to send a Merchant traffic directly when I can send it to my own site, build my own brand and my own user base that I can market to again and again?  Doesn't make much sense now, does it?

Domain Names

If you only buy domain names because of keywords, you are missing out.  A domain name that has 5 keywords in a row  — even worse; with dashes – isn't easy to remember.  Instead find a domain name that makes sense for your site's purpose and that is fun to say, easy to type and even easier to remember.  If your url is focused on keyword matches for the search engines, you may stop people from coming back again.  If your url is easy to remember or brandable, you may have to work harder at SEO, but you are building a site with repeat visitors and a better chance for long term and more success.

Years ago Affiliates built sites to drive traffic to Merchants.  Now Affiliates are building sites to create their own online destinations.  By creating a place for people to remember, come back to and recommend, you can build a site that you can rely and depend on for income.  Now ask yourself, are you focused on matching keywords for Google or are you building yourself a brand?  I'd like to dedicate this post to Scott Campbell @Scotch who passed away yesterday.  He was one of the top Affiliates in the USA and one of the smartest and best people in the industry.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Are your Affiliate site goals right for long term success?