Spam vs Quality Affiliates

July 2nd, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

I had a chat with a ‘black hat’ SEO affiliate today, about the techniques he uses to make ‘quick bucks’ on the network, whilst there’s no doubt these techiques are quick winners, they don’t exactly drive the kind of quality or offer the consumer the kind of value-added that would make such strategies viable in the long term. More importantly I’m of the mindset these techniques ‘game the system’ and will eventually be found out.

As far as the industry goes, given that affiliate marketing is still viewed as a dirty word to marketing managers, often (miss) associating Affiliate marketing with Spam emails and viagra, these techniques can only serve to alienate already skeptical merchants to the detriment of the entire industry.

I thought some of the techniques could be altered to be a bit more legit and actually fit in with ‘white hat’ affiliate marketing, however i think it’s important that merchants and affiliate managers can spot the difference, after all they are responsible for approving and affiliates application to a campaign, and often flase assumptions are made about the legitimacy of the site.

So here’s a few handy tips that will help both sides make the right decisions when it comes to approving affiliates -

Affiliates -

• make sure your sites are good quality and well finished with readable content and working navigation
• if you have more than one site, use the description field in the network to give more information and use a holding site that gives information on your sites as your listed site in the network
• some networks require you to validate your site, much as its a pain, you’re gonna have to do this, hence why I avoid using Trade doubler if possible, I understand the need, but with 80+ sites, i don’t have the time to flaff about with that, especially when they still may not approve my application, grr!
• find the affiliate managers at the networks and merchants and explain to them how you intend to market their campaigns.
• (obvious) adhere to the merchants terms and conditions

Merchants -

• Learn to tell what a quality affiliate site is
• if there are other affiliate programs on the site, there’s a good chance the site is legitimate
• make sure you read the description in the networks if these are actually informative and reveal informationa bout how the affiliate is marketing then there’s a good chance its a legitimate affiliate, if the description isn’t then you may have a dodgy affiliate
• check the affiliate sites and navigate the site checking links work
• do a whois search and check that the registrant name is that same as that in the affiliates network profile
• check email addresses, if the affiliate’s email address is a free email address make sure you look more closely at the account, this doesn’t mean the affiliate is dodgy, but that you should be more wary.
• contact the affiliate, make sure you get a response, this also gives you a chance to find out more about their strategy and build relationships with affiliates.

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PPC tips

July 2nd, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

I’m definately no expert in PPC, my expereinces in this area are limited to say the least, primarily to keey my account with CJ open, but PPC is a real art that just needs to be mastered and there are some great experts in PPC out there, Kristy is one such affiliate, she’s now full time and targeting the UK market from the sunny beaches of australia, shes made it to that much saught after full time affiliate status where her affiliate income covers her own wages. here, she goes into some detail about PPC as an affiliate and offers some good insight into how to manage a PPC campaign as an affiliate.

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Smingles SEO tips

July 2nd, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

Smingle is one of the best Niche SEO affiliate marketers out there, not least because of his generious giving of useful and legitimate advice. You can see some of his tips here .

Smingle has also written a great basic guide to SEO here, which covers the onpage SEO basics for any site, and forms an important part of how to get a site ranking highly in google.

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Part time affiliate day Job survey

July 2nd, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

I’d recently asked affiliates particularly those who do affiliate marketing part time, what their day job was.  More out of curiosity than anything else.

As it turns out – the results were quite revealing and indicate that affiliate marketing still isn’t something that really the general public are aware of. At the time of writing  here are the results:

Full time affiliate		18	38.30%
IT professional		9	19.15%
Retail (store clerk etc.)		2	4.26%
Professional – Doctor, lawyer etc.		4	8.51%
Student		1	2.13%
marketing/advertising (use this if you’re network staff)		11	23.40%
civil service		0	0%
part time work		0	0%
banking		0	0%
unemployed		2	4.26%

indicating part time affiliate are either mostly working in IT or working in the industry in a non-affiliate capacity, i was surprised that only 1 affiliate was a student, as I would have thought affiliate marketing would be an ideal part-time job, i know I would have done it had I realised at the time! I was surprised that there were part time affiliates who elected Professional as their day job, i would have thought these individuals would be raking it in with stable well paid jobs. It’s reassuring to see there are a few unemployed users who are taking up affiliate marketing, it make sense after all its got low overheads, its not that difficult and actually is more time intensive than anything else, perhaps affiliate marketing is the solution to unemployment?

I’m wondering what this data could be used for, could this mean networks could offer incentives to support affiliates with different day jobs? Could affiliates form a loose commune where skills are shared? what do you think?

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Cool linkable youtube videos

July 1st, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

Linkedtube is a new tool that allows you to append a clickable link to any site, yes, you can you affiliate links from a youtube video displayed on your site, this kind of technology means that you can now create youtube videos that are clickable as a form of creative for a specific product or service allowing users to cick through, via an affilaite link to a specific page, this gives affiliate more freedom and an extra source of interactive content which both builds their site and helps generate interest. Whilst this seems like a great idea, i think time will tell if it actually becomes a pratical and highly converting form of advertising.

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Conversion rates for merchants

July 1st, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

the Conversion rate on a merchant site is one of the key metrics that govern the overall performance of a merchant site, and thus the performance of the affiliate program, to calculate the conversion rate you essentially divide the number of sales by the number of clicks to the site i.e. vol. sales/total click = conversion rate for a specific period. Affiliates use this to determin the profitability of a campaign to them, however as a merchant it’s important that conversion rates govern the way the sites sales and check out process are optimised. Changes to the sales process on a website ultimately affect the conversion rate and it’s important to ensure the conversion rate is as high as possible, typically this should be around 3-8%.

In a recent econsultancy report, here, we find that shopping cart and check out abandonment has been increasing for a variety of reasons, ultimately what this points to is that by addressing each of the items listed, consumers will be less likely to leave your check out area and more likely to convert into actual sales. So, in the spirt of this article, let’s tackle each challenge (obviously I’m going to address these in an affiliate campaign context which differs slightly from the standard way of tackling these challenges)

Lack of money – I once heard a quote in relation to sales, a report was accusing a retailer of over pricing their products and the retailer responded,  i offered at a price that was good for me and the price was good for the customer and he accepted. It makes sense, customers will only buy products at a price they perceive to be acceptable, and it makes sense that retailers can offer products at a price that fits in with their margins. It makes sense then that merchant should be as competative as possible.

Wanted to look for a coupon - searching online has never been easier and discount codes and incentive sites have meant that the opportunity for saving by shopping online has become a clear advantage. The internet has fast become one of the most significant anti-inflationary tools since online retain took off and it makes logical sense that if consumers are looking for a discount online, and your competitors provide one, as a merchant, to remain compatative you should provide one as well.  Of course this doesn’t take into consideration the brand factor.

Wanted to shop offline – for online only retailers, the only way to takle this is to offer USPs that give consumers a clear advantage for shopping online rather than redirecting to other highstreet stores, for larger multi-channel retailers, it makes sense that some sort of incentive is given in order to increase the ’sticky-ness’ of the customer to the merchant, an example could be to issue a voucher that can be taken to the store offering a discount for example.

Couldn’t find preferred payment option - given the variety of payment options out there, its likely that customers will want to pay using specific payment options, by offering a wider range of the more popular options this can help to encourage users to complete their sale.

Item unavailable at checkout - there’s nothing worse than finding out you’ve wasted time, its the same for customers, if an item is out of stock, then thats should be made clear, during the customer’s browsing on the site, in some cases, removing the item from the listings altogether would also be an advantage, an alternative option is to allow customers to reserve the item and give a discount to the customer, loyalty in exchange for a discount.

Couldn’t find customer support – having contact information for customers is important, however at the same time affiliates want to minimise leakage, in this specific case, the best solution is to provide a freqeuntly asked questions section on the site that addresses any of the more generic queries and in here provide a support email address.

Security concerns - trust is a big issue online, its still a bit of a cowboy country on the internet and in order to allow the customer to trust a merchant site, you need to provide secruity certificates and accreditions as well as business contact details which a customer can use to find your business in case of any concerns.

By appying these changes to a merchant site, it can greatly prevent shopping cart abandonment and ultimately lead to better conversion rates, good for the merchant and good for the affiliate!

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Commission round up June

July 1st, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m by no mean feat a small time, part time affiliate, i only spend around an hour or two a day on my sites including a small retail site for custom lego parts that isn’t associated with affiliate marketing. As far as actually being an affiliate I’m certainly no major player, but to give myself some credibility I am a full time affiliate manager meaning that it’s my job to plan build and ensure the success of affiliate campaigns, i just need to translate that into sales for myself!

So here’s a totally honest round up, no matter how embarrassing, of my affiliate related earnings for June. (I’ll be doing this each month moving forwards to track progression)

Linkshare – £13.36

Skimlinks – £2.07

Amazon – £2.33

Google adsense – £99.49

total – £117.23

Whilst commission for google is consistent and actually exceeded what i was expecting this month, but failed to beat May’s results, its promising news. However, on the other hand affiliate network commissions are still a trickle, and something I was hoping would change, The amazing £115 commission sale i got from one site, failed to repeat itself this month, but fingers crossed a little age on the site and some link building will help with that. I guess my habit of going around in circles when it comes to my own stuff has meant my progression as an affiliate has been slow, i should be in the £x,xxx region by now one would have thought! Nevertheless, persever, after all as an affiliate manager i see the kind of numbers possible in this game.

so, a little more focus, July sees me starting a new job, but affiliate side, we’re going to try and hit £125 commission, and in order to acheive this, i’m going to move my affiliate ‘office’ from the sofa in front of the TV and my lego, to the desk, by the dvd player and all those big books we use to prop doors open with. Lastly i’m actually going to READ more, I haven’t finished a book in months, so its about time i actually do some more research.

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recessions and aspirations

June 30th, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

by its very nature, affiliate marketing is very inward looking, often smaller affiliates work from home, business is informal with out the bells and whistles of the city, and the word still isnt truely out there that the CPA results driven model that forms the foundation. However, in a time of recession with everyone from the bin man to the government and major banks scrutinizing budgets, it’s emerging that affiliate marketing, at least in theory, is a strong, efficent business model. which brings me on to the body of my theory.

currently the recession is being toted as one of the most significant in history, with unemployment up at 2 million, and of these unemployed, a significant proportion, this time round, are skilled and experience staff with the IT skills needed to drive the economy forward. the government has just proposed a £0.50 tax for each phone line in the UK in an effort to build a digital britain and with this reach in broad band penetration, we’re seeing an unprecidented raise in online sales overshadowing the performance on the high street. Netbooks now allow any one to get their own personal internet machine for £200 and the a high proportion of people now use the internet on a regular basis.

surely in the midst of this recession it makes the idea opportunity for the government to begin to invest in internet based business, the relatively low start up costs make it a viable option for anyone whose got £100 saved and some spare time, to at the very least, spend a few hours a day learning and ultimately start their own affiliate site. The government could provide grants and tax breaks to industries that ultimately support their goal of a digital britain, there by supporting the economy, allowing individuals the opportunity to really expand their skill sets to meet the demands of the internet age.

As an individual, the internet provides a great opportunity to setup a small business from home that delivers returns with out a major investment (of time or money), providing a supplimentry income that could form a backup in these troubled times. All it really takes is a little entreprenurship, education and some hard work.

maybe this is a pipe dream but the reality is the internet has become a great opportunity for those who understand how to harness its power and are willing to figure out that basic of marketing theories ‘what do people want’ – affiliate marketing is one way of getting into internet business with out the kind of over heads and resources traditional businesses have, and makes it a great supplimentry income that can with effort and innovation grow rapidly and exponentially. It makes sense then that in this recession, we’ll not only see an increase in the number of affiliates coming to the table, but we’ll also see some great ideas being developed.

And from what I can see, this recession hasn’t massively impacted on affiliate marketing (touch wood) so it looks like there’s plent of room, in the spirit of the free market economics that have allowed the intenet to prosper I for one am looking forwards to the rest of this year.

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The Death of CPM

June 30th, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

I’ve always been results driven, it was actually why i didn’t do very when i was studying for my degree in affiliate marketing, too fluffy and not enough about results, so it was a very natural fit that i ended up in affiliate marketing and part of the reason, i’ve done so well. Its also the reason why I (rightly or wrongly) don’t really think much of CPM advertising or CPA advertising…there’s just too much left to assumption and fluffy theories rather than actual quantifiable results.

CPM is a traditional form of advertising that was taken from magazines and publishers pre-internet, as a means of valuing  advertising space and traffic on a site.

however the big difference between the internet and the news stand is on the internet you can glean far more information and be far more selective, this is reflected by the CPA and event Rev-share advertising models that have developed as a result of the internet, just looking at google analytics an industry standard in website analysis is evidence that when it comes to online advertising, you can be as concise as your website.

CPM has its benefits. Its good for blanket advertising and getting the word out as a means of exposure, but if you’re going to peg this to a KPI, good luck, you’ll be disappointed. And the thing is in the current economic climate where every penny is going to be scrutinized for ROI and actual deliverable results, CPM doesn’t really cut the mustard. Its too fluffy.

Large CPM networks have been struggling for some time to try and gain a foothold but with consistent drops in merchants looking for just brand exposure, its days are numbered and there are already signs that CPM publishers are being pushed into a corner to think up new ways of engaging customers, resulting in such wonderfully fluffy models as CPE  (cost per engagement), a model which i believe fails to acheive anything that CPC or CPA can’t achieve with better results and more value for money, and if you consider what marketing is really about, it boils down to increasing the level of incremental sales, and surely this would be the key metric you as a marketer would be most interested in, CPM and CPE are useless in the digital world unless they can catagorically prove with firm evidence that they are infact driving incremental sales, and this is where CPC and CPA campaigns prosper.

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Sweaty Betty Sweaty under the collar now

June 30th, 2009 Affiliate Blogger

There’s recently been a lot of noise on the forums about Sweaty Betty (on linkshare) restricting the use of its discount code to one affiliate on their affiliate program, with all other voucher code affiliates being binned from the campaign. You can read more about this here. Now I want to point out that this isn’t aimed at singling out Linkshare as a network, I’ve certainly not had a problem with them, but I wanted to put this up as a word of caution to merchants and affiliate managers about the importance of good communcation and fairness within affiliate marketing.

To give you a little background, essentially, voucher code sites work by listing the discount codes of merchants on their site and the competition is very aggressive. However the number of affiliates with discount code sites ammount to about 20% of the affiliate population and make up some of the most experiences affiliate marketers out there. The value of these discount code sites to consumers is in their extensive and all encapsulating lists of discount codes. naturally there are discount code  sites that are better than other and have more traffic than others but the gist of it is that they all serve the same function.

Sweaty Betty basically decided that all but one discount code affiliate site would be removed from the affiliate program, essentially creating and exculsive partnership with that one discount code site. Speaking as an affiliate manager I’m in the fortunate position to see both sides of the coin – in this case, the strategy taken by Swetty Betty doesn’t actually make good sense, it may make life easier for their affiliate manager and simplify their affiliate management, but it’s at the cost of alienating a whole demograph of affiliates, which ultimately leads to the detriment of the affiliate program for Sweaty Betty as a whole.

Affiliate marketing is all about free market competition and such protectionist favouratism really doesn’t sit well. Whilst I can agree and appreciate that the merchant can dictate how they wish to work with affiliates and which affiliates they wish to work with. The strategy that Sweaty Betty has taken seems totally unfair to the hard work most affiliates put in.

There’s a few issues with the strategy Sweaty Betty have taken, I’ll attempt to give my (humble) take on them here:

1. Timing – Affiliates were given less than 24 hours to make the changes they needed to on their sites, thats not exactly a lot of time for affiliates considering they may have several sites and considering they may miss the email or be absent on that day. (edit) apprently affiliates were given 1 weeks notice by linkshare, now, regardless two thing crop up 1. networks should wait till there is a response, and 2. affiliates should give a response. Regardless particularly for a change in terms and conditions, its obviously crucial that affiliates are given more time, not less, to make any changes or take the necissary action.

2. Blanket decision – based on the chatter on the forums, it appears the decision was a bit of a blanket ban on all discount code affiliates other than 1. Which seems totally unfair, considering its based on the volume of sales affiliates have made, thats not very accomodating of other affiliates efforts, especially considering sweaty Betty benefits from brand exposure on these other sites and it doesn’t cost them anything (affiliate marketing is CPA – cost per aquesition based, remember?), if this was costing them an arm and a leg without any resultant sales I’d understand their decision, but as they pay based on a % of sale, this doesn’t make any sense at all.

3. Flat decision – (ban any affiliate that fails to comply) – there are may actions a mechant can take to managing affiliates, reducing commission, restricting how affiliates can advertise the campaign, etc. the sweaty Betty has in this case effectivly gone from welcoming affiliates to the campaign to booting them off in a very black and white move which i really don’t agree with, there are better ways of acheiving the desired effect, such as speaking with the affiliates and providing an alternative solution.

The knock-on effect of this is:

1. It shows that sweaty betty have pretty poor affiliate management that don’t really understand how affiliates work or what the implications of their actions are

2. It shows that the network (linkshare) haven’t taken  the steps to educate sweaty betty about the implications of this decision or offered any alternative solutions, or (and this i believe is the most important) shown that they are working on behalf of the affiliates (as well as the client) (edit) I’ve just got off MSN with one of the affiliate managers at linkshare, and credit where credit is due, they did, infact discuss things with the merchant in this case, regardless, i think this is a strong case that networks (any of them and all of them) should be more aware about the ever changing landscape of affiliates and their needs and be able to fully represent the needs and fairness that affiliate marketing needs inorder to really benefit a client.

3. this strategy means that a proportion of sales will go missing as a result of the code not being present on a variety of sites, ultimatly leading to a drop in sales.

4. Sweaty Betty have, as a result of this decision already alienated affiliates, many of whom have already decided to remove the campaign entirely from their sites, again compounding the negative results of the campaign.

What this all boils down to is that it shows that Sweaty Betty haven’t enough experience managing their affiliate program to understand the implications of this decision, they’ve taken a very one sided approach to what is essentially a loose business partnership, they are effectivly praticing protectionist measures in what is ultimately a free market tool and the network hasn’t fulfilled its obligations to supporting affiliates and educating its clients.

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