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AMWSO is very proud to have been short listed in the category for Innovation in Affiliate Marketing in the E-consultancy’s Innovation Awards 2008. The other firms short listed certainly make it a short list worth being on withthe full short list being :

• TradeDoubler
• sunshine.co.uk
• AMWSO Co Ltd
• Essence Media
• Digital Window

The winners of the award will be announced on December 2nd, by a panel of judges that come from a top tier selection of firms that include the BBC, Apple, Orange, Target Marketing, Whatif!, Internet Retailing, Dyson and Google.

Congratulations to all the firms shortlisted.

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Innovation in Affiliate Marketing

A new tool is on the horizon for the Syntryx Solution Suite. While it’s always been easy to track down competitor publishers within the suite, review their data and the potential power that can be generated from working with any given partner, it has, till I saw this new tool, been quite a task to get a full picture of the overlapping nature of different relationships between merchants and their publishing partners.

With the amount of data such a report can generate, Syntryx opted for a visual representation, which will look like this :

Each color representing a keyword and each white dot a site, so what you’re looking for is where the most colors come together.

How does this work in practical terms? Well pretty much as follows…

With this tool I could for example compare 3 (or more) different merchants and then visually be able to see

* The overlap in publishing partners of all three merchants
* The overlap between pairs merchants
* Areas where there are no overlaps

I’m then able to drill down and see the data for any publisher working with any of the three merchants.

So if I was a new merchant (a competitor to all three for example) I could use this to data to perform a form of triangulation to discover what may be the “best publishers” or “most used publishers” by other firms. Or looking at it from another angle, I could see which publishers are heavily used (perhaps overused even) and find those little gems that only one merchant is partnered with and are completely under utililized used. Naturally finding out whether a publisher is over or under used requires that little extra digging and Syntryx has never lacked for digging tools or data to find!

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New publisher mining tool from Syntryx

It was a rumour and now it’s fact. And rather than repeat what’s already posted in the ShareaSale forum, click here and read about the great new tool that allows affiliates to create and generate their own video creatives, and link them to multiple merchants throughout the video through the use of cue points. Meaning an affiliate can create a niche focused video covering five related products and promote five different merchants all in one video, darned cool!

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Shareasale launches “Affiliate Create a video”

RSS for marketers Guru, Rok Hrastnik… please pick up a blue courtesy phone (or better yet, fair reader, check out Rok’s ‘Unleash the Power of RSS’ book and encourage him to finish up his new book). RSS is frighteningly open-ended and innovation intense. The challenge is how to make it rapidly used by consumers! Then again, my mom, dad and I’ll bet your grandparents are using RSS today without knowing it. We all are!

Revtrax, formerly Oncard Marketing, is all about taking affiliate marketing to stores. That’s right, dirt world stores. They’re literally providing a means for advertisers to partner up with affiliates who have distribution outside of the Web – like stores or direct mail (think ad-stuffers that ride along with utility, credit card and other bills). Might you be able to tap into such distribution based on people you know at the local Rotary Club or business card exchange? I’ll bet you might! Talk about the Holy Grail of advertiser value!

Think also about successful CPA affiliate sites like Buzzilions.com – one of the first in our business to convince advertisers that wrapping customer-generated content (product reviews) around their products (distributed to them via affiliate networks and direct merchant relationships) was valuable. Was it new distribution for advertisers? You betcha it was.

Flexible, Performance-based Cost Models

Revtrax and other successful affiliate businesses – including those that remain family-run/owned like FatWallet.com or SheFinds.com – have one thing in common. That is, they’re diversifying themselves and, in fact, transforming from affiliate to publisher and finally to media company. This involves offering advertisers more than just commission-based placements. Look also to small business successes like Jellyfish.com who blend various performance payment models and customer-facing value. Don’t forget, the major comparison shopping engines all started as CPA only and migrated to CPC with some blending CPA+CPC today. Use your historical data with advertisers to your advantage. Negotiate other types of pricing based on effective CPA.

Of course, earning those CPM/fixed fee placement and/or cost-per-click (CPC) dollars isn’t easy. Doing so requires a high degree of professionalism and unique insight as to the demographic composition of your site visitors. It also requires a sales staff that can speak the language of other departments within marketers’ office… or interact with their external advertising agency. It often requires thinking and acting outside your comfort zone. Doing so is difficult but once you’ve overcome the fear, packaged yourself up and closed a few deals the fear goes away.

Denial is Not Just a River in Africa

Ever notice how things can smell like a skunk in affiliate marketing… but many pretend that everything is fine and rosy? Next think ya know, whammo. Affiliates get dished a raw deal… but ultimately they’re forced to swallow a bitter pill. Maybe an affiliate network stabs an affiliate in the back. Or maybe an affiliate turns around and bites the hand that’s fed it since childbirth. Other times affiliates themselves win the battle…but make no mistake, there IS a battle being waged. Let’s quit denying it and address the real issues. I’m not confident that affiliate networks are able to or actively addressing it on your behalf. Aaah, for the glory days of Commission Junction when it catered to affiliates first, advertisers second!

It’s sad but true: there are people who prefer to avoid talking about the fact that advertisers are asking for more. Are you one of them? I recommend getting off that train and now!

Although these battles create difficulty for affiliates they serve a purpose – to force change and create new opportunities. Will you be there “left holding an empty bag” or will you keep an “ear to the track” and listen to that train coming down the track before it pulls into the station? The choice is yours and in the end you need to take action that creates true value for your visitors first, advertisers second and, as a result, your business.

Jeff Molander is CEO of performance marketing consulting company, Molander & Associates Inc. where he provides executive-level guidance on digital marketing and media to multi-channel retailers, entrepreneurs and investment firms. He’s also a principal with The Partner Maker LLC, a new affiliate management system designed to drive increased revenue between affiliates and marketers. His background includes helping found digital marketing services company, Performics Inc.; today a division of Google. He can be reached at jeff*at*jeffmolander.com

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Affiliate Call to Arms: Add Value Now or Die!

This feels like it is the smallest eComXpo event I have attended so far , both in that there appear to be less exhibitors (thought I count about 120) and it is running for fewer days. That said the first day has been very good and I’ve picked up better contacts in the first day this year than I did in total at the past shows.

The event this year is kind of split into two sections eComXpo and eTailXpo though the two ’shows’ could easily have been combined into one, and were as far as the main navigation was concerned, making it easy to visit exhibitors from both sides of the show.

I’ve not been to any of the presentations yet, I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Excerpted from:
eComXpo : Smaller but better.

Twitter… I have to say, that I’m still in “what’s the fuss”, and “who cares if I woke up at 9:15 this morning and had 3 rashers of bacon, beans and two eggs (sunny side up) for breakfast”, then at 9:27 AM “had a shower a cup of coffee and cleaned my teeth”, though maybe I should break that down into multiple twitts, twerps, posts or what ever they are called to ensure no one thinks I did all three at the same time, maybe I did, I can’t remember, perhaps I need Twitter to help me remember what I did each day!

However it seems the rest of the world can’t get enough, and yes I admit, I do have an account, which gets update once every month when Google Chat says “Hey you haven’t posted on Twitter for ages bud!”, though it’s not nudged me for some time (perhaps it gave up on me) , worse I do have people who are fans, followers, tweetie birds, etc and follow my every move, I bet most of them believe I’m in traction!

I know Dave here at AMWSO (big Twitter Fan) did post some time back about the joys of communicating with affiliates via Twitter and the like, and I’m not one to bash any method of getting a message out, but heck, is anyone really sitting, watching and waiting for the next tweet message. Do they want business messages mixed in with “Woke up and have a headache after last nights pubcon!” Me no, I’m not a believer. Though perhaps if I was following the development of say, a piece of software, it would be useful to get updates via twitter. Or better yet if I can’t get to the football match, then someone can sms to their tweet account all the action for me to follow at home. Could always check the developer blog / web site, or watch the football on TV though, for far better results.

Anyway what brought me around to chatting about Twitter is some new tools around that make it easier to manage and track both your own and other people’s messages. As I’m a novice user and totally clueless as to which are any good I’ll not blather on any further, but suggest popping over to Sukosak’s blog and see what he has to say and recommend for those of you who are keen Twitter Users.

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Maybe I’m the odd one out?

Maybe I’m just slow to catch on to this, (Apparently this process has been legal since 2004) but I came across a rather interesting, time saving system today that allows you to deposit checks over the Internet. So if you’re one of those lucky affiliates that gets lots of checks from lots of different networks and inhouse programs then this could be a nice time (and paper saver) from having to fill out multiple deposit slips and spending time standing in bank queues. The software is designer to handle 50 checks a day on “online mode” and can handle more in an offline system which uses a batch process to scan and send the checks.

And if you’re really wracking up the checks, Then the Panini MyVisionX is available in models
that scan 30, 60 or 90 checks per minute!!

The DepositNow system works with any U.S. bank account, (sadly no International support, else I’d be totally raving about it) so no need to set up new accounts. The scanners (you need a special scanner for electronic deposits) also doubles as a normal scanner for docs and photos so it’ doesn’t need to just sit on the shelf doing nothing between checks. The scanners run for around $225+ each. There’s a guide to scanners you can use.

One thing that’s not shown is the price of using the DepositNow system, “we cannot tell the price for certain until you begin to input your business data” , the FAQ says. Anyway check out the online demo to see if it’s for you.

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Deposit Checks over the Net

Everything a person looks at, experiences or examines gets filtered through a specific world view. Seth Godin, in his book All Marketers are Liars emphasizes this issue (among other things) as a key point in crafting stories or messages that will appeal to potential customers. One of the key themes in the book, is that merchants should not try and appeal to a multitude of world views, or else they risk their message becoming too diluted, unfocused and generic.

Affiliate marketing can be a valuable tool in expanding a merchants reach to different types of customers with different world views. Just on the surface, consider that couponers know their visitors are hunting for discounts and deals, forums know their customers have in-depth interest in particular niches’, and content/blog sites will of course appeal to various niche interests.  Recruiting different types of quality affiliates to an affiliate program allows a merchant to touch these potential customers, through the affiliate partners that they might not never have been able to reach when focusing on their core customer’s world view.

For example, consider a trendy woman’s fashion merchant. Logic would dictate they this merchant would craft their message to their core customer segment, woman interested in trendy fashions. Now, suppose we have a webmaster who runs a blog with a community of married men who are computer enthusiasts (aka nerds) (note: I would definitely be a member of this community). Right before Christmas time, these men are desperate and searching for advice and tips on gifts to buy their wives/significant others. The blog owner signs up for the woman’s trendy fashion affiliate program, and offers this merchant up to his community. Just like that, the trendy woman’s fashion site gets exposed to a group of men who wouldn’t ordinarily be visiting this site, and who are looking for things to purchase.

Among the advantages of CPA marketing; measurable and clear ROI, it’s important not to neglect the huge advantage of expanding the merchant reach to customers not ordinarily exposed to a merchant. Good affiliate managers will be on the look out for these types of affiliates and will be actively recruiting them into a program.

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Affiliate Marketing and Appealing to Different World Views

Well there was a lot of hubbub that came out of he Affiliate Summit and Jason Calacanis’ keynote talk. He called affiliates to the table, especially those with what he termed “thin landing pages.” The warning that he sounded, is that some bad affiliates are polluting the well for everyone.

Granted, deceptive landing pages, cookie stuffing, deceptive redirection, misleading offers, etc., are polluting the well, however thin landing pages really are just poor business execution. Affiliates aren’t paid on clicks, they are paid only when the sale is made, so if affiliates do not send pre-sold or targeted traffic to a merchant, the affiliate isn’t going to be making any money.  As more people get into the affiliate business, and start building value added sites, these thin landing page sites will get driven off the map. This is a natural progression, the cream will rise to the top.

Now, how do you as an affiliate ensure that you are part of the cream that rises to the top? It’s not a secret sauce, and it’s not rocket science. One need only add some value to the buying cycle.  There are essentially two types of buying traffic, people gathering information and in the early stages of the buying cycle, and those who have pretty much decided and looking to make a purchase. Each visitor has different needs that must be met. You can get an idea on what type of visitor will be arriving at your site, based on where they are coming from and the keywords they are using to reach the web page. Let me provide an example, I run the program for Baghaus handbags. Now if someone arrives at a site using the keywords, “Celebrity Handbag”, I know they are generally early in their buying cycle, and just shopping around for ideas or information. However, if they hit the site using a very specific handbag name, I can deduce that they are looking to purchase that specific handbag.

Visitors in the early part of the buying cycle should be directed to a different type of page that late cycle buyers. How can you add value to the early cycle buyers?  Here are some ideas:

• Show many different products listed and compared.
• Informative content / articles concerning the type of product or niche.
• Comparison chart

The important thing to consider is, “what is going to be valuable to your visitor, and convince them to make or return and make the purchase through your site?” Establish your site as an authority site for information about this product or niche for this visitor.

Let me tell you, slapping up a site with a ton of banners mish-mashed all over the place isn’t going to get that done. Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. If you hit that type of site, how will it help you in making a purchasing decision? What value is it adding for you in the buying cycle?

On your site, add a “About Us” page and also a “Privacy Policy”. Fill these in as well, to give your visitor a sense that your are running a real business, and are committed running a professional operation. I guarantee having these two simple pages will increase your conversions and return visitor numbers.

Next post, we’ll deal with how to build pages for those late cycle buyers who are intending to make a purchase.

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Strategies for Conversions through Effective Affiliate Landing Pages – Part 1