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A recent article on ClickZ.com cites that businesses in the Entertainment and Health industries paid more for lead gen services delivering “premium” details “during the second half of 2009.” Another clear sign that lead generation or lead gen is big business for companies, especially those in affiliate marketing. Thousands of companies in the affiliate marketing industry specialize in lead generation to acquire new customers. There is a strong preference for the ease with which an affiliate can get paid commissions simply for referring customers through a lead form rather than an action that requires a credit card. As such, affiliates get a bit overzealous about generating revenue and forget that merchants have specific needs for their products and services, too. That said, an affiliate should be aware of what exactly the merchant needs from them, in order for both sides of the business to benefit from lead gen campaigns.

Evaluating Traffic Placements
Affiliates often are driven to sign up to an affiliate program when the payout and the offer looks like an attractive fit. However, these days, traffic placements are more comprehensive now that social media has entered the mix. A paid search affiliate should ask more questions about whether or not a merchant will permit things like brand name bidding and direct link. Even more important, some merchants may not be too keen on lead gen affiliates using social media to generate leads. For instance, Planning Family is a great offer that has gained popularity with Share Results affiliates, but this merchant does not allow affiliates to generate leads via channels like Facebook or Twitter. To be certain about what methods of promotion are accepted when generating leads, go directly to the affiliate manager of the program.

Evaluating the Potential Customer
Affiliates should evaluate whether or not they have the right prospective customer base for the product or service. A database of 100k US-based female users may seem like the perfect fit for an offer like Free Stuff For Your Baby, but what percentage of them are expectant or new moms? What is their average age of their children? Do they have any other children? What is their average income and do they respond to products for babies? This is just something to think about before launching a campaign for a merchant that is targeting a niche market.

Quality not Quantity
Lead gen affiliates often make the mistake of thinking that when generating leads for a merchant that it’s all about volume. This isn’t always the case. A merchant like eLearners may be interested in a high volume of education leads, especially during peak school months like January and September. However, unless they see those prospective students actually enrolling in the months ahead (especially during a downturn economy), it’s not very profitable for them to payout a lucrative amount for each lead. So, evaluate the quality, by asking the affiliate manager of the program for merchant feedback. Also, Share Results Traffic and Transaction Reports are available to use in order to determine just how many web visitors are clicking through specific tools and are successfully filling out and completing a lead form.

Negotiating Commission
Some affiliates have come to us requesting higher commission on an offer before they’ve even signed up to an affiliate program. While $1.20 CPL may not seem like a lucrative payout for a lead, there’s more to consider than just the commission. Remember that merchants have to look at how much they can offer based on their budget. They may only have a small margin to work with and need to be reassured that those leads will actually convert. If a commission is not that lucrative, but the offer is an excellent match for the customer base, one approach to getting a higher commission can be to launch a test campaign over a period of one to three months (or whatever can be afforded) and then ask for feedback from the merchant about how those leads referred actually converted. If the conversion rate is high enough, it’s a good time to inquire about getting a commission increase. Communicate with the affiliate manager for the program and make a case. This obviously doesn’t happen overnight, but stay the course and keep being open to negotiations, just don’t do it before signing up.

Thanks to affiliate programs like eLearners.com (and now CuteKid.com’s CPL campaign) affiliates are getting their feet wet in the lead gen business. Remember that success in lead gen doesn’t happen overnight. It can be a long process of establishing what the merchants need in a customer and the need for affiliates to refine their strategy used to target that audience.
What are your thoughts on lead gen? Feel free to contact us via affiliates [at] shareresults [dot] com with your feedback and questions?

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What Lead-Based Merchants need from Affiliates

Do you ever feel like you want to get out of this town? If you live anywhere in a snowy part of Canada or the United States and hate winter, then you will probably agree. Some companies within the hotel and travel industry are seeing some positive signs that customers are indeed interested in flying again. According to the Associated Press, Delta and American airlines are among the businesses not only seeing an increase in leisure travel, but they are also seeing an increase at the business and premium levels as well. Overall, more travelers are flying international, which bodes well not only for airlines and hotels, but for affiliates promoting travel merchants to internet users.

This past September, we launched the Barcelo Hotels & Resorts affiliate program, which is a well-known international hotel chain based in Spain. They have hotels located all over the world including Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Turkey and Morroco. This winter, they’re offering awesome deals to some of their sunnier travel destinations. Considering this is the season when many newlyweds and older couples, snowbirds, and any enthusiastic travelers are looking at the last minute for winter getaways, Barcelo is sure to help affiliates earn revenue this holiday season and beyond.

The beauty of promoting within the travel sector in the affiliate marketing space is the fact that there are higher commissions to be earned. The Barcelo brand in particular sees average bookings of around $700-$800, and with their wide array of banners and text links in both English and Spanish, it helps to have special promotions and tools to increase conversions of clicks to sales.

The majority of Barcelo customers lean more toward the ages of 35 and up, and are college educated. Because of these qualities, they have a little more income to afford travel (we’re talking an average salary of $40k or higher). People are definitely looking for the best deals online, so Barcelo has great promotions available for affiliates to promote to potential travelers. Among the recent travel promotions that are available include a 20% discount on bookings to Mexico, which entail all-inclusive packages to the sunny hot spot down south. Affiliates will be thrilled to know that this is a long-term offer valid up to April 30, 2010. This means there’s no need for affiliates to switch their banners for at least four months if campaigns are launched this month.

Also beneficial to affiliates are the specially branded banner creative some of which feature a 30% discount on bookings to the Canary Islands. This offer is more short-term, but high converting because of its appeal to travelers who are looking for discount winter warmers.

If you’re interested in becoming an affiliate, it’s fairly simple to join. You simply have to have quality travel content on your site and can target traffic from virtually any country. You can register with your site in Share Results, just click here to sign up to Barcelo’s travel affiliate program. If you are an existing affiliate of Share Results, you can also log in to your affiliate account and search for Barcelo under the Merchants menu.

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Tis the Season for Travel Affiliate Programs

Zoobooks has become quite the popular kids education affiliate program in Share Results. This is not only because of their coupon offers, and dual CPA and rev share commission models. But they are also right up there with The CuteKid.com and Sittercity, as programs that are perfect for affiliates that specialize in online retail offers for families. That being said, there’s more to a merchant like Zoobooks than first glance. Their audience is a little more comprehensive than most affiliates think. For instance, ever take into consideration the language of those customers, the education, the number of children they have, and what age their kids are? This family audience is not a one-size-fits-all type of demographic. Let’s break down the family audience a little more for a merchant like Zoobooks.

Firstly, families interested in Zoobooks are interested in promoting reading in their homes. With this in mind, it may be a good idea to look at offering their educational products to a more multilingual audience. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to promote to families that don’t speak English as their first language and may want to help their kids further their knowledge of the English language.

In addition to language enhancement, more than 50% of customers for this product have homes run by college-educated parents. Most of those purchasing products are female and to be more specific, they range between 35 and 50 years of age. It also shouldn’t be surprising that grandmothers make for great potential customers of Zoobooks products. They’re as much invested in the education of their grandchildren as the parents are.

The range of products available from this online retailer include animal-themed magazine subscriptions, as well as DVD sets. The reason for this (besides branding) is the fact that families will have an average of 1.5 children with most averaging around 7 years old. The Zootles group (parents with kids two to 6 years) is also a popular audience.

Also, the average Zoobooks customer not only has college education, but they also have a higher income bracket. Besides 95% of Zoobooks customers owning their own home, they also earn on average $65,000 or more annually. This is a great shopping opportunity for affiliates that cater to this audience of online users.

Furthermore, paid search (with restrictions) is a highly popular method of promotion in this program as is email marketing. Evaluate how to carefully tailor your campaigns, especially when it comes to keywords for PPC. Bidding on keywords like “zoo animals” will be costly, so try using more distinct words or variations, such as “zoo” in tandem with other terms. Some examples are “zoo magazine”, “zoölogy”, “zoo hippos”, “zoo animal education”, “animal education for kids”, and “zoo monkeys”.

Because Zoobooks has a wide variety of products and subscriptions, it presents a unique opportunity for affiliates to cater to a niche market looking for unique educational products for their kids age two to 12. If you would like to learn more about Zoobooks or their affiliate program, feel free to view more details via their merchant co-branded page.

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A Closer look at Tailoring Campaigns for Zoobooks

Knowing how well your marketing campaigns are doing is vital to the survival of an affiliate marketer. Without the proper information on where campaigns are succeeding or failing, it will be impossible to know where adjustments need to be made. This is true all year round, but is especially poignant during the holiday season, as the smallest error can be extremely costly.

According to Steven Leung,

“Estimating unique visitors is today’s most popular measurement of a site’s popularity and success. And marketers can easily use this metric to measure the popularity of their campaigns.”

With this in mind, it is important for affiliates to establish metrics for campaigns that can give them important data on success and failures. This will lead to common goals for all campaigns, which is the Conversion Ratio. Goals for Conversion Ratios will be different for everyone, depending on the product being marketed, but knowing what percentage of your visitors are actually converting into sales will show affiliates where to adjust their campaigns to help them reach their goals.

Share Results’ software is equipped with reports that can track impressions, clicks, and conversion rates to measure every aspect of a campaign. Affiliates can also take advantage of Share Results tools such as the ACID feature which the affiliate can use to track the performance of any keyword for their campaign.
If a site isn’t getting many page views, then affiliates will want to explore ways of generating traffic. Similarly, if a site is getting a lot of visitors, but few clicks, then looking into a change in creatives would be worthwhile.

Email affiliates have to measure how often their emails are being viewed, how often their links are being clicked and then how many people actually purchased based on those emails. Measuring Deliverability, Open Rate, and Click Through rates will help to measure if you are reaching your target audience and where to make changes, if necessary.

Being armed with the right statistics is the key to successful campaigns. Lord Kelvin said that,

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”

Knowing where campaigns need work, will help affiliate marketers to adjust their campaigns to become more successful in the future.

Continued here:
Tracking Your Affiliate Campaign Success

A recent Web Marketing Group article reveals very promising Internet usage statistics:

• Around seven new people use the internet every second
• For the millions of Internet users, every 4th person is using it to purchase something.
• An average of US $1 billion in Internet transactions are conducted every month.
• In a year, this figure rises to roughly US $1 trillion.
• In a year, there are 88 million new users. And this figure is constantly rising.

Suffice it to say, there’s a huge online market out there, ready and willing to buy. But with different backgrounds, tastes and interests, it’s not just about advertising everything, to everyone. Research shows that knowing who your audience is, what their needs are, and how they behave are key factors to making a successful sale.

This is crucial information to keep in mind during the holidays, when affiliates may want to look at trends for seasonal products and services, which they may not otherwise promote. Having this information will help you to invest your time and energy in markets that are more likely to provide an excellent return on your investment.

Affiliates will also do well during Q4 by looking at their own interests and expertise. If you are passionate about something, ideally something that is also part of a seasonal trend, it will be much easier to promote and sell.

If you’re a PPC affiliate or a blog affiliate, knowing your target audience is even more important. Without this information, these kinds of affiliates may be using irrelevant keywords, and providing content that is uninteresting and indeed unconvincing when it comes time to make the sale.

With trends suggesting that consumers will be spending less this holiday season, it’s more important than ever to make sure your Q4 marketing campaigns are on target.

“Consumers are more aware of their spending than ever and are very active in trying to find the best deals. Coupon websites are still growing rapidly in popularity, with nearly two-thirds of consumers checking for coupons when they shop online,”

said Guy King, co-founder of RetailMeNot.com.

For more techniques, tools, tips and great resources to make sure you’re getting every last drop out of your affiliate marketing campaigns, be sure to come back to the Share Results blog . Until November 27, Share Results is throwing a big Holiday Blogging Event, packed with all kinds of seasonal information regarding trends for Q4, tips to get the best deals, consumer trends and how best optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.

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Attracting your Affiliate Audience: the Who, the What and the How

It’s week two of our Holiday Blogging Event, and in our last blog of the week, we ask, what one incentive do online consumers want more than anything else?

According to Forrester Research, 75% of customers prefer to shop with an online retailer that offers this incentive, and The Conference Board Survey supports these same findings, reporting that 90% of consumers say this would also entice them to spend even more online.

The incentive here is free shipping. It’s an attractive enticement, and most consumers have come to expect it, especially around the peak holiday season.

Many merchants debate whether offering free shipping or a discounted purchase price will be more attractive to the consumer. David Bell, marketing professor at the Wharton School observes that

For whatever reason, a free shipping offer that saves a customer $6.99 is more appealing to many than a discount that cuts the purchase price by $10.

Bell also concludes that 60% of online retailers cite “free shipping with conditions” as their most successful marketing tool.

So why is a free shipping offer so important to an online retailer?

• 78% of online customers say that exorbitant shipping costs discourage them from online purchases. (Source: E-tailing Group, 2008)
• 75% of people prefer to shop with online retailers that offer free shipping, compared to 61% in 2007. (Source: Forrester Research, 2008)
• 43% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts because of unexpectedly high shipping charges. (Source: Paypal, comScore, 2008)
• 61 of the largest 100 online retailers offered free shipping as of the week of Monday, November 10, 2008. (Source: Internet Retailer)
• 90% of respondents say free shipping offers would entice them to spend more online. (Source: The Conference Board Survey, 2008)
• 72% of consumers say that if an e-commerce site eliminated free shipping, they would use another e-commerce site that did offer free shipping. (Source: comScore Survey, 2008)
• People are searching for ‘free shipping’ earlier in the Christmas shopping season, and for longer. Searches for free shipping began to rise in October of last year, and actually peaked in the first week of January. (source: eConsultancy.com, 2009)

Need more reasons to offer free shipping this holiday season? Check out Free Shipping.org for a list of retailers who are incorporating this incentive into their marketing strategy—and succeeding!

Is your affiliate marketing campaign ready for the holiday season? If not, this is the blogging event to get you ready for the busiest season of the year. Check out last week’s blogs, and make sure to tune in again next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for more tips and techniques to help you end Q4 with your most successful campaign yet!

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Do Free Shipping Offers Attract Customers?

As the cold air begins to flow, merchants are on the lookout for what kind of online shopping trends are on the horizon for this 2009 season. October is half over, and if you haven’t started to prep your Q4 campaigns already, it’s time to get started!

This year, it is estimated that US retail e-commerce sales (excluding travel) will total $132 billion, down 0.4% from 2008. eMarketer forecasts online sales will begin to rebound in 2010 and hit full stride in 2011 if the recession is to end in 2009 as economists have predicted.

Trends suggest consumers will be spending less this holiday season making it more of challenge for retailers to attract ideal customers to both brick and mortar and online stores. That, of course does not mean there will be no shoppers, but it means that consumers will be more selective. That simply means that this season, more than ever, it is important to stand out, and make educated decisions about where advertising money should be spent.

Trends also show a progressive shift in consumer research, and there are more value shoppers who will browse research and compare products on the Internet. Consumers are using social media more to search for deals and coupons via Twitter, Facebook. So, marketers may want to channel more resources into that avenue.

In preparation for the 2009 holiday shopping season, online retailers looking to create the most effective e-commerce site should take the following steps:

1. Optimize website with holiday focused content
2. Improve pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns for holidays
3. Driving more sales through the Comparison Shopping Engines
4. Create more customer loyalty programs
5. Humanizing customer service
6. Increase free shipping offers
7. Offer exclusive holiday coupons
8. Plan long term on how to reach consumer AFTER the holiday season have passed

For more techniques, tools, tips and great resources to make sure you’re getting every last drop out of your affiliate marketing campaigns, be sure to come back to the Share Results blog. Until November 27, Share Results.com is throwing a big Holiday Blogging Event, packed with all kinds of seasonal information regarding trends for Q4, tips to get the best deals, consumer trends and how best optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.

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2009 Online Holiday Shopping Trends

Last week we posted the first of a two-part interview with online education merchant eLearners. In addition to getting some great insight from them about the online education industry, we learned what popular degrees that students have been gravitating to and how eLearners has dealt with the ever increasing interest in the online edu affiliate marketing sector.

This week, we continue that conversation and find out what type of edu affiliates are preferred for their program and more…

Q: Tell us about the diverse education offers available to affiliates who join eLearners. What would you say is your most successful campaign to date?

A: OnlineStudentFinancialAid.com has had a long history of success and continues to be a dominant force, and Project Working Mom has been an instant hit, generating national press coverage, but we prefer not to dwell on past successes. We continue to work on innovative new campaigns to reach new demographics; The Career Stimulus Package just launched this summer, and the response has been overwhelming.

• Did you know that OnlineStudentFinancialAid.com can be promoted in Spanish to online users?

Q: What are some of the biggest misconceptions affiliates have about the eLearners affiliate program?

A: One of the biggest misconceptions is that we are just looking for a high quantity of leads. Our main focus is actually making sure our leads are of high quality and continue to enroll.

Q: With all the different type of affiliates who partner with eLearners, what promotional methods would you say do best in the program?

A: All promotional methods, whether SEO, display, PPC, etc., have their own strengths and weaknesses, but all serve a purpose within our program and add a specific value.

Q: What are the key elements do you look for when affiliates apply to your affiliate program?

A: When looking at sites to partner with, we look for (in no particular order) unique content, a good layout, a high page rank, good traffic, high ranking on key search terms, etc. In general, we are looking for something that doesn’t necessarily look like it is set up for just lead generation, but has a larger purpose.

Q: What would you say are the top 3 common inquiries from prospective students that affiliates should know when promoting to their audience?

A: Some common inquiries from prospective students include tuition prices, financial aid/scholarship options, school accreditation and even the location of the school offices so that students may be able to take care of things in person if needed.

Q: Based on your experience in the industry, what would you say are some of the forthcoming trends affiliates should expect to see in the overall online edu market?

A: Social media seems to be something that people are starting to make a big push for.

Q: What kind of exciting campaigns can affiliates expect to see from eLearners’ affiliate program in the forthcoming months?

A: I can’t reveal all our secrets just yet, but we definitely have some exciting things coming in the next few months…

Update: The Career Stimulus Package campaign has indeed been a big hit with online users; however, this offer is only available to be promoted until October 31, 2009.

If you have any questions about Career Stimulus Package or any other eLearners opportunity, please don’t hesitate to reach us via eLearners(at)shareresults(dot)com.

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An Interview with Education Merchant eLearners pt. 2

Affiliates! Merchants! Are you ready for Q4, aka the busiest season of the year for affiliate marketing?!

October is half over, and if you haven’t started to prep your campaigns already, it’s time to get started!

And do we have the event to get you in the holiday spirit. From October 14 to November 27, Share Results is throwing a big Holiday Blogging Event, packed with all kinds of seasonal information regarding trends for Q4, tips to get the best deals, consumer trends and how best optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Affiliates, here’s what you can look forward to during our Holiday Blogging Event:

• Affiliate marketing strategies
• Tips on how to best communicate with merchants—and how to secure the best deals!
• Tips on what shoppers will be looking for most this holiday season
• Tips on achieving higher conversion rates
• Tips on earning more revenue

Merchants, we have customized tips that will help you end 2009 with a bang. Here’s what to expect:

• Time and affiliate program management tips
• Trends that apply to your program
• How to be best prepared to accommodate affiliates during Q4
• What tools to have in place to ensure your success
• How to communicate effectively with affiliates
• How to develop a detailed promotional strategy to maximize revenue-earning potential

If you haven’t visited our Share Results blog before, now is a great opportunity to get started. The blog is designed to give you techniques, tools, tips, industry news—and so much more. And it’s a great resource to make sure you’re getting every last drop out of your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Join us starting this Friday, to launch our Holiday Blogging Event. Our first blog will look at online shopping trends for 2009, how consumers are looking for holiday deals and what online retailers can do to create the most effective e-commerce site in preparation for the holiday shopping 2009 season.

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Affiliates, Merchants, Join us for our Holiday Blogging Event to Get Ready for the Holiday Season!

The popularity of online education affiliate programs has grown exponentially over the last few years with a few online edu lead aggregators playing a leading role in offering a wide variety of academic opportunities that benefit both affiliates and prospective students alike. eLearners, Share Results’ highly popular online education advertiser, has seen major growth within the online edu industry, and, naturally, increased interest from affiliates looking to promote online degrees from land-based colleges in the United States.

We took some time to chat with eLearners about their widely-recognized affiliate program in Share Results. In the first part of this merchant interview blog series, eLearners gives new affiliates the inside scoop on the online education industry, the most sought after degrees by students, and how they’ve adapted to the growth in online degree opportunities.

Q: For novice affiliates out there who are just entering the online edu space in affiliate marketing, can you explain exactly what eLearners is?

A: eLearners.com is the premier destination for anyone in school or considering furthering their education. We service all phases of the life cycle of a student —  from prospecting for students by connecting them with colleges, to introducing them to resources such as financial aid and scholarships, to ensuring enrollment and retention, to providing a safety net for current students who need support, to helping them move on to their next degree.

Q: What distinguishes eLearners from other online edu aggregators out there?

A: What makes eLearners unique is that we are more than just an aggregator, since our focus is applied more towards the entire life cycle of a student, but in addition to this, we work with over 200 fully accredited schools (more than anyone in the industry) while simultaneously carrying a strong reputation for quality and a reach that is unmatched.

Q: Studies show that land-based operators are seeing a drop in the number of student applications, but also another challenge is the availability of financial aid. How has eLearners been affected by this trend?

A: We actually work with a number of schools that provide financial aid options, and these schools have seen a great response from prospective students. What we have done on our own, though, to meet this trend head-on, is develop a series of scholarship programs to reach a multitude of demographics. Two of our scholarship programs, Project Working Mom and the Career Stimulus Package, respectively, have already given away a combined $6+ million in scholarships in 2009.

Q: How does the number of school applicants compare to two years ago? What valuable feedback from schools can you pass on to affiliates who partner with you about the wealth of online edu applicants?

A: The number of prospective students continues to grow year by year. Online degrees have become increasingly popular, and traditional schools have recognized this trend. Traditional campus schools understand that a virtual campus is now a necessity in order to maintain a competitive edge.

Q: Based on trends you are seeing, what would you say are the most popular degrees and subjects of study in the online edu space?

A: The online education space is ever-changing, but three areas in which I have seen pretty consistent interest are healthcare, business and criminal justice.

Q: What would you say distinguishes eLearners’ affiliate program from other online education affiliate programs out there?

A: We pride ourselves on the happiness of our partners and being available for them, so a high level of customer service is always our priority.  Our industry reputation, competitive payouts, unmatched selection of schools/programs and high conversion rates are what tend to attract people to our program.

Q: Some affiliates think that the education sector in affiliate marketing is too saturated. What do you think of this perspective and how has eLearners coped with the ever-growing online edu sector of affiliate marketing?

A: Especially with the recession, this arena has seen quite a bit of growth over the past year. We see it as a plus because this just means we have more potential partners to work with.

Next week in the second part of our blog series, eLearners will dish on the biggest misconceptions about their program, the three things student look for from online education, and what it takes to become an affiliate of their program…

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the eLearners offers that are available, please feel free to reach us via eLearners(at)shareresults(dot)com. If you have inquiries about any of our other education affiliate programs in Share Results, please email us: affiliates(at)shareresults(dot)com.

See the original post here:
An Interview with Education Merchant eLearners

If you are an affiliate looking to promote products associated with a charitable cause this fall, you may want to consider partnering with T-Shirtmonster.ca. This October, the online t-shirt retailer is working in affiliation with the Breast Cancer Society of Canada to offer fully customizable t-shirts in honour of Breast Cancer Awareness month. ”The Breast Cancer Society of Canada is a registered, national not-for-profit,  charitable organization dedicated to funding Canadian breast cancer research into the detection, prevention,  treatment and to ultimately find a cure for the disease that women fear most.” If you have Canadian traffic, T-Shirtmonster.ca is a great way to promote to your potential customers north of the border who are in favour of this type of non-profit initiative.

As you may already know, T-Shirtmonster.ca offers free design tools/technology, and a wide variety of pre-designed apparel for t-shirt lovers. This month, “25% of every purchase is donated to help raise funds for much-needed breast cancer research in Canada.” In addition to custom t-shirt designs that come in 150 styles and colours, T-Shirtmonster.ca also offers organic t-shirts, onesies for babies, items from the popular brand American Apparel, as well as sweatshirts.

The T-Shirtmonster.ca affiliate program not only offers a 15% commission on all orders generated by affiliates, but they are also interested in partnering with affiliates that use paid search/PPC, coupons and incentivized methods to promote.

Additionally, our colleague Julia announced in a previous blog post that Share Results will be doing its part to help this cause.  Find out how our network is participating in the fight to cure breast cancer by clicking here.

If you would like to learn more about T-shirtmonster.ca and the various benefits of being an affiliate in their program, click here for additional information.

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Affiliate Marketing with a Cause

Explain to us, what exactly is Nero and when did they first launch their company?

Nero began as Ahead Software in 1995 and launched Nero Burning ROM shortly after. Since then our goal has evolved and Nero has become the premium creator of liquid media technology. Our core mission is to provide consumers with the freedom to simply enjoy their music, photos, and videos, regardless of hardware or file format, by taking a unique platform neutral, standards-based approach to solution development. In essence, allowing users to create and distribute their content anytime, anywhere and on any device.

When did Nero decide to branch into the affiliate marketing space?

We’ve been actively working with our affiliates since 2006.

What trends have you seen since entering the performance marketing space?

What we’ve seen is a move away from companies just signing up with affiliates without much thought. Lately, affiliates and merchants have been actively seeking true partners to complement each other and a move away from strictly content affiliates toward value added partners such as coupon, and search affiliates.

Who would you say is Nero’s average customer? What do customers look for the most in Nero products?

Nero’s average customer is a PC user who seeks reliable and friendly software for burning media, allowing storage, portability and sharing of their photos, videos, and music.

Nero already has a foothold in the American market, but recently the company decided to branch into the Canadian market as well. When did Nero expand north of the border and based on your observations, how have affiliates been benefiting from this?

Nero has always had an unofficial presence in the Canadian market and officially launched a French site in January of 2008. This has allowed us to connect directly to Canadian consumers quickly and easily by leveraging Canadian traffic of top Canadian affiliates.

What percentage of your sales would you say comes from the Canadian market?

We can’t disclose the exact percentage, but it is a healthy part of our overall sales.

What interesting trends have you noticed from Canadian shoppers that affiliates might find useful to know?

Most of our Canadian consumers appreciate the ability to purchase their items in their currency. Often, we’ve noticed that merchants who leave the math to the consumers when they post their prices in non-Canadian currency experience a higher drop-off rate than merchants who list prices in Canadian dollars.

What sort of trends does Nero foresee for the fall and winter seasons and what should affiliates, especially those targeting Canada, do?

With the focus on thrift this past year we’ve noticed a big move toward users looking for value and lately these have been coupon-oriented sites or affiliates that actively interact with their audiences. These sites have successfully engaged their clients with dedicated blogs, emails or specialized landing pages. We’ve worked with partners in designing specialized landing pages and coupon codes that make visitor’s experience special and focused.

Are you a Canadian affiliate or a publisher with Canadian traffic? Want to be a member of the Nero program or the Share Results network? Click here to register today!

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Share Results chats with Nero about the Canadian Market

Affiliates in the education sector are constantly looking for a unique offers to promote to their prospective learners and students and with good reason. It’s the back to school season and there are plenty of people looking for ways to improve their way of life. Since this area has been gaining even more interest from affiliates, here are some merchants in this field that are offering niche opportunities.

eLearners is already a very well-known online edu lead aggregator, but they also have some more targeted opportunities for affiliates specializing in this sector. For instance, did you know eLearners has an Entertainment Industry Degrees portal with matching banner creative? The program also offers a variety of financial aid opportunities, including a couple new Spanish-language banner creative for the popular OnlineStudentFinancialAid.com to help affiliates that want to promote to a Spanish-speaking audience.

Affiliates earn $25-$40 per verified US lead when they promote. If you’d like to learn more, visit eLearners’ program description.

Another merchant gaining interest is the newly launched SnagAJob.com, the number source for hourly employment in the US. This is quite the popular job search affiliate program for those focusing on lead generation. A simple registration is all that’s required  and there are English and Spanish landing pages available for affiliates to help promote to a wider audience of job applicants.

Finally, for affiliates that target parents with young kids, Zoobooks is a program that offers both a subscription and purchase of their products. PPC, coupon and email marketers will probably love this merchant this most, as they are high converting and offer a fabulous array of products for kids ages 2 to 12 years. Zoobooks is currently running two coupon codes including a short-term offer that runs up to October 31, and a long-term offer that is available until Valentines Day in 2010.

All of these merchants are big on US traffic, so, if you happen to cater to this market and specialize in education and career content, it’s a good idea to explore partnerships with them all. Have any other questions about these programs, feel free to comment on this blog or send us an email with more questions about promoting these products and services.

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Unique offers for Learned Affiliates

Career and employment are hot sectors in the affiliate marketing industry right now. You may have read my earlier post about online education affiliate programs like eLearners growing quite popular during the back to school season. Well, career and employment programs are a great compliment to that traffic.

SnagAJob.com, a US source for hourly employment, just launched an affiliate program in our retail network earlier in August, and within just a few days affiliates have found promoting to job seekers a perfect addition to their existing campaigns.

SnagAJob.com allows your users to fill out a registration application before embarking on a job search in the US. The site offers both part-time and full-time hourly employment, which is perfect for a few reasons:

1. The registration process is short and sweet.
2. SnagAJob.com appeals to all sorts of online job applicants in the US across all ethnicities, ages and locations. This makes for a broad appeal.
3. This is a highly appealing opportunity to high school, college and university students who need funding to help pay for school.
4. The program’s marketing tools allow your visitors to conveniently begin searching for employment by just typing in their zip code.

There was never a more relevant time to promote job opportunities to men and women in the US. If you would like to know more about the SnagAJob or other career-centric affiliate programs, then feel free to send us an email with your questions for advice.

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Promoting Job Opportunities during Back to School Season

Project Working Mom… And Dads, Too! was given some fantastic TV coverage yesterday on the highly popular Tyra Banks Show. For some time now, the eLearners powered scholarship contest has been buzzing about online. Yesterday, a few select recipients not only received news that they won scholarships, but they also got a chance to meet the supermodel herself! To see video footage of the show, please refer to PWM on Facebook.

If you’re an affiliate that promotes education to your visitors, there is actually still 1 week left to promote this scholarship contest, which offers working mothers and fathers a chance to get an accredited online degree without the debt. This contest will close after April 30, 2009. And, while it may seem like this is a temporary campaign to promote, remember that eLearners is in the business of helping you help prospective students all-year round.

Remember that eLearners also has an ongoing scholarship offer you can promote. Unlike PWM, the Jump Start Scholarships campaign has no deadline at the moment and offers a lucrative payout for US and Canadian traffic. This is a great program to partner with if you cater to an online education-focused audience. With summer school on the way, it may just be the perfect time to reach potential students.

Also, eLearners’ affiliate program continues to provide general and niche creative in the form of banners, search box widgets, text links and more. It’s one of the reasons why affiliates have an easier time converting their traffic. Interested in promoting degrees related to nursing, paralegal, criminal justice, video game design, and even Christian colleges? Contact us at elearners|at|shareresults|dot|com and we’ll be happy to help you get started.

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eLearners meets Tyra Banks