12 Types of Affiliates

1. Coupon

Coupon codes are one of the most popular methods of affiliate promotion (whether it’s the most profitable is another question). Affiliates share coupon codes with their site visitors, through social networks, in email campaigns and post them to sites like RetailMeNot and CouponCabin.

2. Loyalty / Cashback

Websites and apps that offer members cash back, donations to good causes or other rewards in exchange for shopping with partner merchants make money on the spread between affiliate commissions and incentives offered to customers. The former Bing Cashback program and Upromise.com are examples. (Hint: they loyalty is with the affiliate, not the merchant).

3. Content

Any topically focused site that monetizes its content with affiliate banner ads (as opposed to regular display ads), contextual links, widgets and image links can be considered “content affiliates.” Content can also be user generated, like discussion forums.

4. PPC

PPC marketers who run campaigns that direct traffic to merchants or intermediary pages pay for clicks in hopes to reap conversions on the other side. They typically bid on merchant-specific keywords (branded) in major search engines, within the rules of an affiliate program and paid search network. Merchants pay out only when the visitor converts.

5. Mobile

App developers like Shazaam can monetize their creations with affiliate links. Shazaam’s free app links to tagged songs in iTunes.

6. Datafeed

An example of datafeed affiliates is shopping engines, like Shopzilla or PriceGrabber. Customers browse the affiliate’s catalog and are redirected to the merchant’s website when they indicate intent to purchase (buy, subscribe, contact, etc).

7. Email

Email is a natural channel for promotion. Content sites and shopping engines may run campaigns similar to an ecommerce site. Some affiliates are topical thought leaders, and market to their list through newsletters, subscription content and “story selling” autoresponder series.

8. Social Media

Affiliates may certainly use Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the like to share codes, offers and links, but some social networks themselves are affiliates. Pinterest is a perfect example, it is an affiliate to a number of major brands. Pinterest also uses Facebook’s Open Graph to extend its reach, one of the first apps to launch with the new platform.

9. Bloggers

Any blogger can work affiliate links into posts. Some monetize their blog heavily this way, for example, software, electronics and beauty reviews.

10. Pay Per Call

Rather than directing visitors to websites, trackable phone numbers can be baked into content pages that can trace leads and conversions back to the referring affiliate.

11. Offline (TV, Radio, Print)

Affiliate URLs can be published in print, or announced by radio hosts, for example “Go to www.website.com forward slash ‘Ramona.’”

12. Other (not yet defined)

Quite a variety. Now the question is…

How do you attract affiliates?

1. Organic Rankings

Use Google to find ‘em. For example, search for “sunglasses reviews” to find potential affiliates.

2. Twitter

Try a search for an affiliate network + your keyword in Twitter’s own search box. Example: ‘shareasale.com sunglasses.’

3. Facebook

Search for affiliate groups and pages in Facebook search, you can start with “People You May Know.”

4. Competitor Backlinks

Use the linkdomain command (link:www.competitor.com in Google) or the various backlink check tools available on the Web.

5. Affiliate Links in Your Footer

Don’t forget your Affiliates link in your footer (I would also add to treat this as a landing page complete with SEO treatment and A/B testing).

6. Affiliate Directories

A simple search for “affiliate program directory” should do the trick.

7. Tool announcements

GoldenCAN and PopShops send announcements to affiliates when new merchants join their programs.

8. Forum announcements / sub-forum

Hot affiliate forums like 5StarAffiliate, ABestWeb and Affiliate Summit have opportunities to advertise.

9. Events, tradeshows and conferences

Affiliate Summit, PubCon, AMDays, etc. etc.

10. PPC campaigns

Run a PPC campaign for your affilate program.

11. Facebook ads

Target social ads towards affiliates.

12. Retargeting ads

Use site or search retargeting campaigns.

13. Network advertising

Within your affiliate network (e.g. CommissionJunction, ShareASale).

14. Affiliate recruitment tools

Like AffiliateRecruitment.com or LinkCapture.

Like link building, affiliate recruitment is an ongoing activity that takes hard work and some creativity. Do you have any methods to add to this list?

Infographic credit: HasOffers

We don’t talk much about affiliate marketing on Get Elastic, because an expert on this topic I am not, but I recommend these blogs if you want to keep up with industry leaders:

AM Navigator

Affiliate Tip

5 Star Affiliate Programs

I asked Geno what he believes are the 5 worst things that can happen to your affiliate program, and of course, how to prevent them from happening. Here’s how he responded:

Coupon Code Box

When I reach a “coupon” or “promo code” box in the checkout process, it is natural for me to go to a search engine and look for a coupon. So it is for nearly every online shopper. As a result, some merchants tend to view coupon affiliates as a “nightmare.” The visitors they refer almost never pay the full price, plus, in addition to the discount, the merchant has to pay a part of the final price back to the affiliate in commissions.

Two solutions work well in this regard:

1. Don’t use discount-off-total-price coupons, rather offer those that will work better for your profit margin. Examples would be “free shipping” type promos, or “buy 2, get 3rd free” offers, or other similar deals.
2. Allow the consumer to search for any available coupons or deals without leaving your shopping cart. For example, in early 2009 Macy’s added a “Find one now” link next to the promo code box.



Some affiliate programs decide to avoid coupon affiliates altogether. This isn’t necessarily the best solution, in my opinion. There are numerous situations when they can add value, and besides, the line between a pure “couponer” and an affiliate that employs other marketing tactics, but also uses a coupon to enhance conversion, isn’t always that clear.

Cutting Ties with Affiliates

“Hasty” has never been synonymous with “wise”, and this is especially true when talking about affiliate manager decisions to terminate affiliates. If while reviewing your affiliates’ performance statistics, you notice that a particular affiliate is sending you many clicks, but few, if any, sales, this sometimes leads managers to suspect such an affiliate of fraudulent behavior. Assumptions, however, are only assumptions unless proven to be fact. So while you are looking into the clicks history, talk to the affiliate network/platform on which your program is run, and/or contact the affiliate prior to making any decisions.

Same applies to terminating affiliates due to inactivity. In fact, this is probably one of the largest mistakes that affiliate managers routinely commit. I’ve seen this happen with numerous Internet Retailer Top 500 merchants in nearly every major affiliate network [good example here]. An inactive affiliate doesn’t hurt your program! And the fact that they’re inactive may very well be your fault. Have you motivated them persuasively enough (through bonuses, cookie life increases, tiered commissions, other opportunities) to get active with your program? Some say “focus on the top producers, and terminate the rest.” I say “don’t rely on existing super affiliates only, but grow your own super affiliates.” I’ve seen this happen before. It does work.

Trademark Violators

Needless to emphasize that trademarks are among the most important assets of any business. It is for this reason (unless generic words are involved) I’m generally for protecting trademarks while running an affiliate program. The two main areas where you want to protect them are paid search campaigns and domain names. The former (when an affiliate is targeting trade names specifically) nearly always provides high CTR results, while the latter ensures quick organic SERP rankings. Both provide high conversion rates as the referred traffic ends up being highly targeted and already well-familiar with the merchant’s product/service.

Now before you call an affiliate a “violator,” you want to clearly specify what is prohibited. That is done in your affiliate program agreement which each affiliate is required to concur with while applying into your affiliate program. If you haven’t taken the time to prohibit trademark PPC bidding or registering domain names with your trademarks, then how would they know that it’s not permitted?

Also, if / when you decide prohibit trademark use (either in PPC ads or in domain names), you’ll want to police and enforce your rules. For paid search monitoring, I personally use Brandverity’s PoachMark, while for domains name policing CitizenHawk is a good one to use.

Loyalty Affiliates

As I was managing a program for a major ecommerce brand, we had an affiliate apply in our program. They ran a popular game app on Facebook, and we decided to give this relationship a try. The click numbers were great, and so was their conversion rate. However, as we analyzed the sales they drove in, we uncovered a troubling pattern: over 85% of the orders they referred got cancelled within the “free trial” period. Thankfully, our “locking periods” were set long beyond the free trial period, and we were able to reverse the unnecessary commissions. But we learned an important lesson there: not every type of affiliate is right for every affiliate program.

Every time a sale occurred the above-quoted affiliate was rewarding its members with “virtual currency.” Other types of loyalty affiliates may have cashback patterns in place, or remunerate their users by other mechanisms. All of that is fine as long as it is compatible with your business model. If you’re online retailer, and your affiliates reward their users with points, cashback, or even charity contributions, that often works well for both parties. If, however, you run a pay-per-lead affiliate program or a sell a service with a long free trial period, such type of affiliate may not work for you. At the end of the day, you want the end user’s actions to be motivated by an interest in your product/service, and not a virtual currency credit, or any other remuneration.

Mandatory Disclosures

On December 1, 2009, new Federal Trade Commission’s endorsements/testimonials rules came into force. In essence, these FTC’s rules say that when there is a sponsor-endorser relationship between an advertiser and a marketer who publishes a testimonial about the advertiser’s product/service, such a relationship must be clearly disclosed on the marketer’s website. This includes affiliate marketing (i.e. merchant-affiliate) relationships as well. Every merchant with an affiliate program is expected to educate and equip their affiliates to comply with these rules, as well as for police and enforcing such compliance. The sad reality is that many merchants are still not compliant with these rules (which already results in high amount fines paid to the FTC). To avoid trouble you want to include the necessary language in your affiliate program description and program agreement, as well as equip affiliates with sample disclosures, regularly reminding them of the importance of these, as well as policing affiliate compliance with the FTC’s requirements.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let me say that no problem is unresolvable. However, every merchant getting into affiliate marketing must understand one thing from the very outset: your affiliate program is a marketing campaign which requires management. It’s not an auto-pilot way for you to get hundreds of salespeople to work for you on performance basis. It’s a campaign that must be managed. Only then you will avoid the pitfalls/nightmares, and succeed with it as a marketing option.

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/5-worst-affiliate-management-nightmares-and-how-to-avoid-them/feed/ 2 http://www.getelastic.com/ecommerce-coupons/ http://www.getelastic.com/ecommerce-coupons/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:03:23 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=10921 One of the perks of being an ecommerce blogger is I’m privvy to review copies of some excellent books. For the ones that are on-point ecommercely (hey, I take some creative license with the English language) they get a mention on the blog as I believe we’re all on the hunt for great e-biz content and I’m often asked what are good ecommerce books to read.

Instead of the typical 8th grade book review format, I like to post an excerpt of the actual book, one I think will give you immediate takeaways for your business, or at least, food for thought.

Today’s featured book is Geno Prussakov’s Affiliate Program Management: An Hour A Day. If you’re familiar with the Hour A Day series, you’ll recall that these books are very action-oriented, with bite-sized daily readings that can guide you from start to finish in tackling the tasks on your own. But I find these books are also great if you’re overseeing or outsourcing these activities, but you want to know more about the topic to make you a more well-rounded online marketing ninja, and also to know how to judge whether your team or consultant is doing their job!

I chose a section of Week 2: Data Feeds, Coupons, and Plug-Ins. This is Thursday’s entry, Develop Your Coupon Strategy.

What Coupons Should Merchants Offer?

Just as it is with banners, you will explore new options for coupons as you go, but I recommend at least six coupon types for merchants to use in their coupon strategy:

One or Two Coupons That Are Good from the First Through the Last of the Year

It should aim at getting the customer to spend more money than an average customer would. examples of such coupons may include “Free shipping on $99+ orders” or “$15 off each $120+ order.” If you do not limit the use of these coupons to an either/or setup, more than likely they will be published side-by-side at coupon and noncoupon websites alike.

Two or Three New Coupons for Each Month

They should preferably target price points different from the ones quoted earlier. For example, you may run such coupons as “$5 off $45 order” and “$17 off $100 order” during the first month of the year, “$7 off $60 order” and “$20 off $120 order” during the second month, and so on. If possible, create and support dynamic links (texts or banners) that always show the current monthly coupons. this will show your affiliate that you care about their time and are willing to provide them with such support.

Short-Term Coupons

They may be valid for a time as short as a weekend and as long as a week. to get your affiliates interested in these, you want to make them look more attractive than your regular yearly or monthly coupons. For example, you may offer a 25 percent discount on all orders received during a particular weekend (post-Christ- mas time is a good time to run something like this). alternatively, you may choose a particular product on which your markup is high enough to offer something as attractive as several coupons I ran for Russian legacy. two of them read like this: “$200.00 off a Black Women’s Mink Hat with ear-Flaps” and “$300.00 off a large authentic soviet Banner/Flag.” Coupon sites are always on the lookout for such coupons.

Holiday-Specific Coupons

These may reward “early bird” purchases or offer more attractive deals than those of your competitors. A good example of the latter is something a gourmet food client of ours offered—free shipping with an option to choose the exact delivery date at the same time as the order placement.

Deal of the Day Promos

These may be limited to a week, or, if your technical and time resources allow, you can run them for as long as a month or even longer. Deal of the day promos should really provide incredible bargains and, if possible, be automatically dynamically updated on the affiliate sites. such campaigns may have a tremendous impact on your sales.

Coupons Exclusive to Select Affiliates

Make sure that those affiliates whom you value most are aware of your ability to do this. there will be some affiliates that will not want to put up the coupons that all other affiliates (remember, there is competition here!) are using. exclusive coupons will get such affiliates attracted and motivated to activate their accounts by putting these coupons up at their sites.

Types of Deals That Convert Best

I know that as you’re reading this section of the book, you could really use some experience-based advice on the types of deals to offer through your affiliate marketing program. Whether through the affiliate channel or any other online marketing initiative of yours, you want to offer what really converts best. the more popular and better converting deals are as follows:

• Dollar or percentage off coupons
• Free shipping deals
• Discounts tied either to the number of items purchased (73 percent of customers go for the “Buy 2, get 1 Free” deal offered by an ink merchant whose program we manage) or to the sale amount that qualifies the customer for a deal.

What Makes a “Killer Coupon”?

I’m glad you asked this one! the following are the recommendations that will help you put together coupons that will convert:

• Word it eloquently and attractively.
• Have a short and simple coupon code.
• Make sure the coupon is really offering a deal (and not something available at your website by default such as free shipping on all $70 orders, for example).
• If possible, try to offer a coupon not available through your own website or your own marketing endeavors. Coupons that are truly exclusive to affiliates are always more highly appreciated. It is ok to let your affiliates promote the same coupons you already advance on your website, but let them also have access to a set of coupons not available anywhere else but through your affiliate channel.
• Make a coupon landing page (instead of directing the traffic to your home page).
• If possible, make a precoded affiliate link that would automatically apply the coupon to the shopping cart when clicked.
• Make the coupon banner available in all sizes, displaying the coupon code on each banner.
• let your affiliates choose between a set of banners and/or a coupon code.
• treat every holiday as a reason for a good coupon.

With time, you will be getting suggestions on coupons from your affiliates. Listen to them, and make use of the most valuable ideas to make your coupons more effective. unless there are really strong reasons against it, marketing through coupon websites should be part of your affiliate strategy, occupying not less than 10 percent of your time.

Landing Pages for Coupons

As mentioned, it’s preferable that each coupon has its own landing page. However, this point is being all too frequently ignored by merchants. Your coupon-specific landing page should do the following:

• Reinforce the details of the promo/campaign
• Provide instructions on how to redeem the coupon
• Spell out any restrictions the customer should be aware of
• Contain a clear call to action

More than 95 percent of the merchants whose coupon landing pages I have reviewed—and my sample contained more than 100 coupon campaigns of different mer- chants—either have only one or none of the previously mentioned points covered. Very few merchants do it the right way, but those that do register higher conversion rates. this makes both the merchant and the affiliate happy and builds up an affiliate program.

Figures 8.8 and 8.9 contain exemplary landing pages—created by merchants specifically for their affiliate coupon campaigns—which either cover all of the previously mentioned points or apply the coupon/discount automatically. Remember to have accompanying landing pages for each affiliate coupon you offer.



Buy.com supplies a detailed landing page for each coupon. Upon clicking the Redeem Now button, the coupon automatically applies to shopping cart.



Sierra Trading Post effectively reinforces the deals providing full disclosure of restrictions to be aware of.

Geno Prussakov is a Cambridge grad and the author of A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing, Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes and his own blog AM Navigator. An internationally known speaker and online marketing consultant, Geno is the founder of Affilinomics and was voted the “Best OPM of the Year” for 3 years in a row (2006-08) by ABestWeb.com.

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/ecommerce-coupons/feed/ 3 http://www.getelastic.com/affiliate-consultants/ http://www.getelastic.com/affiliate-consultants/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:46:43 +0000 Linda Bustos http://getelastic.domain7.com/?p=7527 I recently caught the replay of a web clinic presented by Marketing Experiments titled Affiliate Marketing: Tests and tactics that increased clicks and leads by 165%. The presentation is full of great tips for both retailers and affiliates and I encourage you to watch the whole thing, but there was one point that stood out as a really novel idea:

“Solicit advice from your affiliates, many are seasoned online marketers who can offer you valuable insight on what does and does not work.”

Improving your landing page is essential when you have an affiliate program. Not only does it impact your revenue and your affiliate program performance metrics, but it’s crucial to retain high quality affiliates. According to the 2009 MarketingSherpa Ecommerce Benchmark Survey, 74% of respondents cited “finding high quality affiliates” as a significant challenge, and 50% “keeping high quality affiliates.”

High quality affiliates are motivated by the profitability of working with you. Even if you have a higher commission, with a stinking conversion rate the affiliate isn’t making maximal money. They are thinking earnings per visit.

Reaching out to your affiliates to work with them on conversion optimization is not just “a bit of free consulting” for yourself, it lets your affiliates know you are committed to increasing their performance as well as your own. Offer affiliates some flexibility in landing page design, product copy or headlines, soliciting their input and facilitating tests. The higher earnings per visit the affiliate can achieve with your program, the more likely the affiliate will promote your offers above others on their own sites and in their email and online advertising campaigns. And the less likely you’ll be tempted to continually up the ante on commissions to retain top affiliates.

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/affiliate-consultants/feed/ 0 http://www.getelastic.com/coupon-characters/ http://www.getelastic.com/coupon-characters/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:01:14 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=4829 Did you catch the ecommerce tip on the Office last night?

Jim Halpert gave the office staff a quick update on business performance, mentioning that customers were using coupon codes online, but they were still having a problem differentiating between the letter ‘O’ and the number ’0′. (Another tricky one is the number ’1′ and the lower-case letter ‘l’.)

This is a common problem with coupon codes, especially ones that are a long string of random characters:



Customers will have more success with codes that are more intuitive (GAP20 for 20% off at the Gap, for example), but it’s best to just come up with codes that can’t be confused:



Who knew the writers of the Office were so ecommerce savvy?

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/coupon-characters/feed/ 9 http://www.getelastic.com/api-marketing/ http://www.getelastic.com/api-marketing/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:08:31 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=3108 Back in 2007, Facebook opened its API (application programming interface) to allow any developer to build an application that could extend the functionality of Facebook (and maybe make you a bit of money). Facebook understood that it couldn’t possibly create all the cool things possible with the resources it had, and that creative folks would be happy to do the job for free. Today there are over 50,000 Facebook applications. While most applications are at the bottom of the haystack, some have become wildly popular.

Online retailers Amazon, eBay and Best Buy have opened up their own APIs. Like Facebook, they can leverage a force of free developer talent to create innovative, fun and useful applications and bring their product catalogs to more places around the web — not just their own .com sites or shopping engines. This could be the next ecommerce trend. Gartner predicts that by 2012, 25% or more of top retailers will allow software developer partners to access their APIs (application development interfaces) to connect to product catalogs and payment systems for affiliates.

eBay and Amazon have offered their APIs for a while, and I’ve spotted some interesting creations like the eBay Auction Misspeller. The idea is to help bargain hunter find poorly optimized listings (that get little or no bids) and find eBay deals. Others have built their own Amazon Wishlist applications for Facebook by mashing up Amazon and Facebook APIs:



More recently, Best Buy launched its Remix API asking “Can you build a better best buy?” It incentivizes its developer community with contests at RemixChallenge.com with prizes like flat panel TV screens and cash.

The challenges are product and customer experience focused, like the Flat Panel TV Challenge:

Here is your opportunity to help customers find the right TV for them. Create a complete customer solution around large, flat panel television systems. The purchase of a large TV is particularly difficult on-line, Best Buy wants to help their customers navigate all of the different choices they are presented with, in order to make the correct decision for their circumstances.

There are also idea generation contests: “How do we make Best Buy the best ink destination? What would attract more people to our experience? Ease of use? Better assistance tools or applications? You tell us.” Developers can interact with Keith Burtis, the Best Buy Remix community manager through Twitter.

Check out some of the featured creations at the Remix Sample Gallery. One of my favorites is the GPS Discovery Tool, an interactive product finder a bit like what Telus Mobility does with its handsets.



Another developer is using the API to feed Twitter accounts for video game preorders, with a separate account for Wii, XBox, PS3 etc.

Even if developers don’t win Best Buy’s coveted prizes, they can still use the API to enhance their own affiliate sites and make money through referrals. The more Web sites out there displaying Best Buy products, the more sales Best Buy makes. This is a win-win situation.

It will be interesting to see what kind of applications the community comes up with to solve Best Buy’s challenges, and to see which retailers follow suit.

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/api-marketing/feed/ 2 http://www.getelastic.com/renaissance-for-retail-affiliate-marketing-part-2-of-2/ http://www.getelastic.com/renaissance-for-retail-affiliate-marketing-part-2-of-2/#comments Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:02:22 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=2424 This is part 2 of an interview conducted by Jeff Molander of Molander & Associates Inc., with affiliate marketing veteran, David Delisle (pictured left). Of course if you missed part 1, you can read it first here.

As we learned last week, veteran affiliate manager and The Partner Maker LLC founder David Delisle recently suggested, “We’ll see affiliate marketing move back to where it began with thousands of small mom-and-pop Web sites each driving a little bit of traffic to marketers.”

We will?! This runs contrary to how most practice the art of online affiliate marketing – especially in the retail segment. Here’s the conclusion of my conversation with David…

Molander: Marketers have been continually told to focus on their top affiliates. Is this not sound advice?

Delisle: Yes and no. Consider the results of this approach on a case by case basis. If you want to grow revenues or leads you need a larger base of distribution partners. Period. The answer, thus far, has been to grab the low hanging fruit – the obvious affiliate partners – and completely ignore all other affiliates. The problem with this is that, at some point, a marketer needs to say to itself, “if all this involves is a dozen or two performance partners what do I need an affiliate network for?” In fact, many marketers are asking such questions… but it’s a dangerous mindset in my opinion.

Focusing on top producing affiliates is great advice. The problem is that it shouldn’t be the only focus… yet we are seeing very top heavy programs with a small group of affiliates representing the huge majority of traffic. Because these top affiliates fall into the three concentrated categories stated above, this puts a huge investment into a relatively small number of ponds – search, coupon/deal sites and incentive shopping. Sure there are a lot of fish swimming in those but that pond is continuing to shrink and has a very limited growth strategy. And, what about the rest of the Web? How does this include emerging social-oriented affiliates? It doesn’t.

Today, virtually everyone using the Web has a means to become an affiliate. These are the small ’mom and pops’ AND up-and-coming businesses that are largely ignored for larger more established affiliates. It’s become a ‘best practice’ to ignore a lot of these newer affiliate start-ups. Yet it is this ‘long tail’ where the true potential continues to remain largely untapped.

Molander: Ok… I get it but let’s face it. Marketers like the ‘network effect’ where they plug in and walk away. Sure this has been part of the problem for affiliate marketing – in that marketers often lose control – but what you’re talking about sounds pretty labor-intensive.

Delisle: It’s important to note that there’s no silver bullet here. This involves work – contacting potential affiliate partners using email, instant messaging, Facebook, telephone, etc. Marketers must start focusing on a larger group of smaller affiliates if they want their programs to continue to grow and take advantage of emerging social networks. They must and many are. These are the ones to watch but they’re keeping quiet these days.

Molander: So now we’re getting into the ‘tools’ issue and that’s something I’ve harped on for years now. Affiliate marketing doesn’t ‘scale’ very well. Affiliate managers have very little time to do what needs to be done day-to-day. How will this change, David, because without changing that aspect affiliate programs cannot grow. Something needs to give.

Delisle: Agreed… this is the biggest challenge and solving this problem can open the floodgates. Yet even with limited tools some marketers are staffing up around affiliate marketing – heavily. Companies like TicketsNow, Insurance.com, Buy.com. These companies are staffing up, not trimming back.

As for new tools that allow scale occasionally we see traditional, established affiliate networks providing new tools that truly empower marketers and affiliates but, I agree, overall it’s not an innovation-driven environment. But, that can change. Look at Zanox in Europe. Now that’s a network interested in fostering innovation. They’re even running ‘innovation camps.’ At The Partner Maker we’re enabling marketers to find the most appropriate affiliates faster and grow revenues and leads. We’ve chosen to help affiliate managers make better use of their time when managing – as you might expect – more affiliates.

Marketers should look to up-and-coming affiliate technology and network providers – companies like Burstabit, AdValiant, Avantlink, etc. These guys are cookin’ up some interesting tools. They’re the ones to watch.

Molander: So what’s on the horizon for affiliate marketing in your view?

Delisle: Well, as I’ve said before, and continue to believe, I think we are moving towards a Renaissance. A movement back to the early days of affiliate marketing where the small business owners and individuals are the heroes… and we didn’t focus on the top 20%. With the surge of social marketing and the buzz around this, more people than ever are now publishing their opinions online. As this trend continues, we won’t see a few affiliates rise to the top but rather, a large base of new affiliates to continually emerge. This is the reality and ignoring the ‘long tail’ will become a thing of the past.

Jeff Molander is a leading Web marketing expert, author and speaker. He is CEO of Molander & Associates Inc., and can be reached at jeff_at_jeffmolander.com.

Disclosure: Jeff Molander is an investor in The Partner Maker LLC

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/renaissance-for-retail-affiliate-marketing-part-2-of-2/feed/ 3 http://www.getelastic.com/retail-affiliate-marketing-interview/ http://www.getelastic.com/retail-affiliate-marketing-interview/#comments Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:00:53 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=2422 How can marketers work to grow their affiliate programs today in a world that’s already decided “fewer affiliates are better?”

The following is a transcript of an interview conducted by Jeff Molander of Molander & Associates Inc., with affiliate marketing veteran, David Delisle (pictured left) which set out to answer this question. (Also a Get Elastic exclusive):

Advertisers seem increasingly weary of affiliates of all sizes, shapes and colors. Yet the black eye affiliate marketing has earned itself isn’t holding some advertisers back. There are a select few who are bucking the trend – aggressively investing in and expanding their affiliate marketing channel.

There’s a lot of hype-and-spin surrounding the risks involved with and the future of cost-per-action (CPA) affiliate marketing. Where it’s going next is unclear. In particular within the scope of so-called “social media” it remains highly unclear yet everyone seems hopeful. I’ve gotten on board with the likes of Jay Weintraub who suggests a recommendation-based model that looks a lot like MLM (multi-level-marketing) may take form citing Fanista and RadicalBuy as early signs. Yet what about today… how can marketers work to grow their affiliate programs today in a world that’s already decided “fewer affiliates are better?”

Recently, veteran affiliate manager and The Partner Maker LLC founder David Delisle suggested something rather radical. “We’ll see affiliate marketing move back to where it began with thousands of small mom-and-pop Web sites each driving a little bit of traffic to marketers,” Delisle said.

It was enough to intrigue Revenue Magazine to chat up David again earlier this year. “… he believes the ‘focus on the top affiliates’ approach has done more harm than good for affiliate marketing. That’s because top producers are continuing to break away from being compensated as cost-per-action affiliates (on pure revenue share). Such publishers are compensated for access to their audience, which consists mostly of repeat customers.

The result is that traditional, powerhouse affiliates like eBates, Upromise and MyPoints look and act more like media companies than affiliates, Delisle explains. If merchants are interested in new-customer acquisition, they should be weary of focusing only on these types of affiliates.”

I (arguably one of affiliate marketing’s biggest skeptic) began to look around and notice companies like Art.com, Allposters.com and Insurance.com. Each of these companies took a remarkably different approach to affiliates versus traditional retailers and were seeing remarkably different results – and remaining quite tight-lipped about their successes. It’s rare to find public displays of ROI like when affiliate marketing management company, AMWSO, used video to drive sales for conscious goods marketer Gaiam. In fact, AMWSO won an award for its use of Webvideozone and Linkshare’s combined technologies to drive affiliate sales with video. Outsourced affiliate program management companies have been mostly told to keep traps shut about such successes.

So I sat down with David to get the full story on what this “affiliate marketing renaissance” business is all about. The following is what transpired…

Molander: Marketers and their CPA affiliates have yet to tap into what’s being called ‘social media’ in a big way. It seems like a tremendous opportunity. Are there any signs of early success and in particular how do CPA affiliates fit in?

Delisle: Marketers and CPA affiliates are just now getting around to being provided with the right tools to leverage social oriented Web media – video, images, blogs and various, easy-to-use publishing platforms. Look around – tools like PopShops offer opportunity on the affiliate publisher and advertiser side. Affiliate networks are beginning to do more with RSS technologies to empower advertisers… things are moving forward. Innovators like social shopping site ThisNext and StyleHive are also examples of companies chasing the “affiliate / social media” opportunity. Buzzillions, Jellyfish.com… the list is growing. But, it’s surprising how many marketers still hold back on providing affiliates with the simplest of tools; like the ability to deep link to different pages on their site.

Molander: Ok, so it’s important to understand that things are just now beginning to heat up. Right? Marketers are not yet connecting in a meaningful way with social-oriented affiliates… and especially in the context of CPA. That stated, when talking about affiliate recruitment in today’s age one should not overlook the growth potential of so-called ‘social media.’ The up-side is tremendous and un-tapped. Agree?

Delisle: Yes. But, it’s not just ‘social media’ that’s being ignored and it would be disingenuous to say that marketers are not connecting in a meaningful way. Backing up for a moment… marketers want to grow affiliate-related revenue, right? Okay… yet they only feel able to manage the ‘top producing affiliates.’ Think of it in terms of Chris Anderson’s ‘long tail’ economics. Marketers have chosen the ‘big hits’ – the fewer affiliates that can deliver large numbers of transactions or leads. That’s their choice but this has created an unbalanced reliance on a very small number of affiliates as the distribution base continues to converge. Marketers are, in effect, throwing in the towel. They don’t feel able to do the ‘heavy lifting’ of growing their affiliate distribution base

Molander: Exactly. Everything is consolidating as companies like Rakuten – Linkshare‘s parent – and ValueClick – CJ‘s parent – are buying them. Rakuten acquired TrafficStrategies, a lead generation focused search affiliate and ValueClick acquired MeziMedia, a coupon, product comparison and incentive shopping affiliate.

Delisle: Right. The result is the very limiting world we live in today. Most marketers have productive affiliates that fit neatly into a small handful of categories like search marketing, coupon/deal sites and incentive-oriented shopping. Affiliates have not been encouraged to grow into more diverse subsets or offer different kinds of value to marketers. It’s a pretty ‘innovation challenged’ situation. There’s money being left on the table and some marketers are swooping in and capitalizing by diversifying their affiliate base in ways that are somewhat mind-blowing. Yes, this gets into social type media but also the bread-and-butter type of search marketers, landing page optimization affiliate partners… the tried and true stuff. The difference is in how much risk these marketers are taking in forming deeper partnerships with affiliates. Higher risk tends to lead to higher payoffs.

Getting back to your comment on recruitment… The sheer size of the Web and what appears to the generalist – marketing VP’s, Directors of eCommerce – as a consolidating base of potential affiliates has led to a situation where networks are relied upon exclusively for affiliate publishers. Quite literally, recruiting affiliates has been reduced to plugging into a network and walking away. The more we move towards this “less is more” mentality, the farther we move away from the original concept of affiliate marketing.

Next, I decided to ask David point blank: Marketers all across the globe have been continually told to focus on their top affiliates and pair back on the others. Is this not sound advice?

His answer may surprise you and he dismantles the belief that successful retail-focused affiliate programs are – and should be – limited to coupon/discount, loyalty/incentive/cash-back shopping and search arbitrage affiliates. Tune in next week to hear the details.

Jeff Molander is a leading Web marketing expert, author and speaker. He is CEO of Molander & Associates Inc., and can be reached at jeff_at_jeffmolander.com.

Disclosure: Jeff Molander is an investor in The Partner Maker LLC

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/retail-affiliate-marketing-interview/feed/ 3 http://www.getelastic.com/free-shipping-leaks/ http://www.getelastic.com/free-shipping-leaks/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:53:07 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=2019 To follow up from yesterday’s post on why you should include “free shipping” in your title tags and meta descriptions (only if you offer it, of course) — today I’m going to demonstrate why you should create a unique page optimized for your “brand name + free shipping.”

We mentioned yesterday that people search for “free shipping.” There’s no doubt.

And people search for products with “free shipping” as a modifier.

Guess what else they search on? Your store name plus free shipping. And who ranks? Often affiliates, deals and coupon sites.

Check out the related searches suggested by Google when you search for “free shipping.”



Let’s click on “free shipping JC Penney”:



Now, JC Penney needs a page optimized for “free shipping” so it would rank #1. Of course, JC Penney doesn’t need to offer free shipping all the time to have its own dedicated page. The page just needs to exist, all the time, as a landing page for “free shipping jc penney” traffic.

These searchers are going to find the coupons one way or the other, so why not have a landing page (perhaps a sub-section of customer service) that shows which products qualify for free shipping at any given moment, and has a link to an RSS feed for future free shipping offers, or an email sign-up link? Then you can even segment these cheapo-s out into their own bucket in your email campaigns (I’m kidding, but I’m not kidding).

And don’t forget keywords in the title tag: “JC Penney Free Shipping Offers.”

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