The Inaugural Affiliate Summit Central
[singlepic id=122 w= h= float=left]Another conference down, another Affiliate Summit for the record books. The first ever Affiliate Summit Central has drawn to a close. This time around, I attended as a humble affiliate instead of a vendor. Sessions galore were on my agenda for this show, with my only real goal being to get some tips for my sites and Dominic’s, so mission accomplished! I even got some work done for the good ‘ol day job while I was at it!
The mini conference, just a day and a half long, kicked off Monday night with an official welcome party at Maggie Mae’s. It was a terribly crowded joint with a muggy heat and amped up band, so I didn’t end up staying long. Instead, we wound up in the hotel bar chatting for quite some time and enjoying a glass of one of my favorite wines.
I started out Tuesday morning for a day full of sessions. I hit the second half of a session on optimizing WordPress for speed and sat in on a session for merchants on deals and coupons before a Texas style BBQ brisket lunch. After some grub, I learned more about compliance from Kellie Stevens than I knew existed and got some awesome tips from Jeremy Palmer. The day was rounded out by some great brainstorming with Karen Garcia and others on Pinterest marketing and a surprise balloon artist!
[singlepic id=131 w= h= float=right] The Austin Hilton was a terrific venue for this smaller show. It had the perfect sized conference facilities, while being just a block away from historic 6th St., with many live music venues. If you were so inclined to explore further, the metro station was right outside as well. I stayed after many folks left for ShareASale’s Think Tank at Lake Travis, so I had the pleasure of dining in the Liberty Tavern for lunch and Finn & Porter for dinner. Both great places.
Affiliate Summit would not be complete without an Under the Stars party by ShareASale, of course! Before hand, food was needed! A group of us headed to a nice place called Haddington’s, a gastropub where we were not disappointed with the upscale pub grub. Then we walked over to the party at the Hangar Lounge, a three story venue with a live band on the rooftop area. It was a grat party, complete with a photo booth. Brian Littleton does not disappoint!
All in all, I’d say I got out of Affiliate Summit Central what I wanted. A nice trip to Austin, seeing some good friends, and a lot of great nuggets of information to bring back to my personal affiliate endeavors!
Most are not from the conference itself, but see all of my photos from Austin:
[nggallery id=2]
Read MoreUnlocking Your Future – the Key to Working from Home
Guest Post by James Martell
In my dad’s day, a businessman commuted from the suburbs to the office for hours each week, often traveling on business trips to meet with clients or suppliers, and spent more time away from home than he ever did with his family. Those days are disappearing, and it’s time to embrace a new normal.
Blast from the past
Back in 1998, when I first started understanding how the internet would be the future of business, everyone was a bit leery of it. When I did my first promotion for a company in the United States, everybody thought it was crazy for a Canadian like me to do business with someone from another country, not to mention someone I had never even met. I must admit I had my own doubts about it, but they were all laid to rest when the first check cleared the bank.
Today’s Information Age
Flash forward twelve years and the internet is the way we all do business, so why are so many of us still leaving our homes and families to punch a time clock in an office? Working from home is the key to your freedom and happiness; you just have to follow some simple guidelines and success can be yours.
Create your own space
Start by creating your own work space. Working from home is great, because it allows you the freedom to manage your own time and do with it what matters most, but you can’t treat your work time like home time. Creating a separate space to be your work area is essential, and allows you to mentally focus on your work, as well as keep things organized.
Some people I’ve talked to prefer to create their own office, complete with a nice home office computer desk and filing cabinets. Others prefer to make a section in their garage or a corner of the bedroom their work area. However much space you need, or the tools you require, just make sure it is a space that is all your own, and dedicated solely to your work. No setting up on half the kitchen the table and pretending you can eat dinner around it or the kids won’t scatter it. It just doesn’t work!
Social marketing
Use the internet to work for you. It’s important to realize that there’s a lot of competition out there these days, and you’ll need more going for you than just a well written landing page if you’re going to be a success. You’re going to have to make what you’re offering look appealing to the consumer and convince them that others think it has value too. Whatever you’re selling, whether it’s a product or a service, one of the best ways to sell it is with social marketing.
Just as our parents turned to the yellow pages or watched ads on TV, today everybody goes to search engines like Google when they want or need something. It’s the first place many of us get our information now.
When we want to know if the information we gathered from the web is credible, we rely on people we know for endorsements. The power of word of mouth has grown immeasurably since the advent of Facebook and Twitter. Millions of consumers are turning to these resources before making purchases and more and more of us are doing the actual buying or ordering on the internet as well. I’m sure you’ve found this to be true in your own life just as I have. These are great tools that you can use to your advantage. By getting people to talk about your product or service and consumers will seek you out.
Tools of tomorrow, here today
If all this sounds like a lot of work, just remember, you don’t have to do it all alone. Working from home isn’t for hermits or the antisocial. Thanks to today’s technology, it is as vibrant and active and social as you want to make it.
- Increase knowledge and education with webinars.
- Bring the boardroom right into your home by holding meetings and networking with them through business video conferencing or Skype.
- Utilize smart phone apps or laptops to access everything you need anywhere you go.
Do all the things you want to do with your life, and still have the access to handle all your business needs and communicate with the people you need to accomplish it all. Social networking is first and foremost about keeping social as much as you can.
Follow these guidelines and you’ll be on the path to success, and free to enjoy it when you achieve it. Your future is just waiting for you.
—
James Martell, author of the Affiliate Marketers Handbook works from his home office computer desk teaching others how to make money with affiliate programs utilizing powerful tools like business video conferencing.
Read MoreCJU Course: Consumer Shopping Trends: What makes them tick? What makes them click?
The Internet has become the main purchase path for many consumers so let’s uncover the latest trends and developments in online shopping and learn about what is making consumers click “Buy Now.” How are innovations in mobile, local, and social changing the shopping experience? What is the real impact of coupon and deal sites? Join us to discuss what is driving changes in shopping behavior, who is buying and why, and most importantly, how affiliates can continue to be at the center of these trends. The speaker was:
- Ronan Vance, Director, Business Development
This was a great last session to end on. It was chock full of information – if you were an attendee of CJU and didn’t get a chance to check out Ronan’s presentation, I highly recommend you access the CJUniverse for his presentation PDF. There’s so much more information in the form of great charts that I can’t really include here. I love it when presentations have lots of interesting stats, and Ronan sure didn’t disappoint!
Bullet Point Review!
- Where to buy? Lots of different ways to buy.
- The times they are a-changin.
- Early 20th century: personal, social, immediate, informative.
- Late 20th century: variety, experiential, social, immediate.
- Early 21st century: variety, convenience, transactional, informative.
- Understanding the online shopper.
- Buying more online, 30mil new shoppers online. 5.8% of total retail sales in 2010 (eMarketer). Forrester says if you take groceries out of the equation it’s more like 12%.
- Top reasons us shoppers will shop online: 24 hr shopping, easier to compare prices, free shipping offers, I don’t want to fight the crowds, more convenient to shop online, easier to find iems online, better variety online, I often don’t have to pay tax.
- Three hot trends that continue in 2011.
- Coupons
- Despite challenging economic conditions, people are still shopping online to get the best deal.
- More people are price comparison shopping and printing coupons online than looking for jobs.
- Couponing has become part of our culture.
- Maximize coupon usage: give choices, diversify placement, remove obstacles, promote sharing, go mobile.
- Adult mobile coupon users. About 19.8 mil today, est 35.6 mil by 2013.
- Daily Deals/Deals of the Day
- Fleeting, play into your emotion because people feel they need to take advantage of the opportunity that they’ll never see again.
- Groupon and LivingSocial have ~40% of the group/ daily deal market.
- Very social aspect. Over 80% of Groupon subscribers will share a deal in some way, shape, or form.
- 77% of deal buyers for Groupon, LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, Travel Zoo are new customers, 36% spent beyond the deal value, 68% returned to the establishment and bought again without a coupon, 20% became return customers, 22% were unredeemed (Source: Rice University Survey)
- Social local mobile (SoLoMo)
- F-Commerce? Commerce on Facebook.
- Discovery + eCommerce + community = future of F-commerce.
- Local apps (Foursquare, Gowalla): check-in, find deals, build loyalty, earn rewards, get instant gratification.
- Mobile: check stock, compare prices, find coupons, learn more, read reviews, shop online, phone in order.
- What’s next?: Informative, Experiential, personalized, social, immediate.
CJU Course: Advertiser Best Practices: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing
Looking to optimize your program but can’t figure out how? Does the affiliate marketing industry often seem like a giant galaxy without direction? Don’t Panic! Chris and Craig presented a guide on how to jumpstart any new or veteran program and drive results – money! They shared travel-tested principles you can use to offer the right marketing mix, invest your time and money effectively, and engage publishers and customers. Pack light for this trip through the keys to growth in the affiliate marketplace. The panel consisted of:
- Chris Schwass, Advertiser Account Manager
- Craig Cacciola, Advertiser Account Director
I’m not a raging Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fan but I have see the movie and understand the references, which made this a really fun presentation. I really enjoyed using the rules of the book/movie as analogies to affiliate marketing. It was fun and informative – my favorite kind of session! You could tell that Chris and Craig were both having a good time putting together their session, something that’s greatly needed the last day of a conference when people are thinking about going home!
Bullet Point Review!
- Bring a towel – Bring something of value to the table.
- Offer the right incentive. Flat rate vs. Performance incentive. Bigger performers don’t need performance incentives, especially loyalty – they want flat rate. Short term vs. Long term. They want long term.
- Vary your promotions. Give your publishers tools so they can be effective in attracting consumers. Some affiliates build momentum so a long offer is good, but some affiliates hit the moment and short term offers could work better, so don’t ignore either demographic.
- Fix your site. Make sure landing pages are right, close leaks with phone numbers. Optimize, optimize, optimize! Consider it from the publishers perspective.
- Use your babelfish – Speak the publishers language.
- Write to one person. Be more conversational, engage them. Write as if you’re writing it to one person.
- Keep it simple. The rule of 3: 3 words in the subject line, 3 paragraphs max, 3 sentences per paragraph.
- Be transparent. Think of them as your sales force. You’ll build loyalty and rapport with your top publishers.
- Listen to your robot – Don’t ignore the data.
- Test everything. Why? What? How? Not everything fits your conventional wisdom. A/B test publisher emails.
- Find the ROI.
- Set a baseline.
- Analyze incremental lift and cost.
- Organize future opportunities.
- Think long term. There might not necessarily be return in year 1. Diversify. The more investments you put in, the greater possibility of seeing payoffs
- DON’T PANIC!
CJU Course: Doing More With The Traffic You Already Have
Many publishers spend the majority of their time and resources trying to increase the volume of traffic they receive. In this session, the focus was on how to get more performance out of the traffic you already have. The ValueClick Brands division shared the tips and tricks developed during its ten year history; highlighting what, why, and how each optimization can have impact. The speaker was:
- Steve Neufer, General Manager, ValueClick Brands
This was pretty informative. I really liked the direct way Steve presented the information, and it made me realize just how important usability testing is to everyone! Steve was an engaging speaker, funny, and used great analogies to make his points.
Bullet Point Review!
Increasing traffic to an under-performing website is like adding more water to a leaky bucket.- What we say is we want more traffic, but what we mean is we want to earn more.
- Traffic is a tool, not a goal.
- Understanding your traffic.
- A little bit of information allows you to create a hypothesis and do more.
- What percentage of your current traffic is “productive”?
- Where is your productive traffic coming from?
- Resources: Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, session level conversion reporting.
- This is easy, doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money or take a lot of expertise.
- Understanding your users
- If you’re not observing actual user behavior you are missing the boat. Usability testing is a must!
- Myths: expensive, complicated, requires expertise.
- Resources: UsabilityTest.com, Family/Friends
- Testing Scenario: go to Google, perform search for “Kohls coupons” and try to find a coupon that you can use the save money on your online order.
- Testing Results: tested 20 users, most visited 8 sites, 2 successfully found a coupon, most common initial response was confusion, most common descriptor used was spam (pretty much means they’re weary).
- Designing for Productive Users
- Them not us: you are not your users, your users are asymmetrically savvy, your users are asymmetrically patient, trust is an issue.
- Sophistication level may be very low but apprehension level is high, so we have to talk to them with sophistication to gain trust.
- Unfamiliar terms: SKU, S&H, merchant, related searches, promo, next, sponsored, post.
- Familiar alternatives: item, shipping, store, popular searches, promotion, next page, advertisement, news.
- Be concise: what is the user supposed to look at here?
- Be safe: why do you need my info before you answer my question? Give first, ask later.
CJU Course: PayPerCall: Dial Up Your Marketing Results
Want to take advantage of a marketing channel that has conversion rates as high as 50%? Want to successfully promote high priced items and services through the affiliate channel? Advertisers and Publishers in this session learned all about PayPerCall and how they can use unique, trackable, phone numbers to attribute calls to various efforts. The solo presenter was:
- Nicole Ron, Manager, PayPerCall
There’s not much to share here since it was largely a demonstration of the platform, but wow. This was what I needed to want to explore it more. Now, unfortunately for my limited forays into being an affiliate there’s not much on the PayPerCall platform that’s in-line with my ideas, but here’s to hoping they grow! A personal note for Nicole if she reads this – I LOVED the Wizard of Oz theme & analogies in the presentation!
Bullet Point Review!
How does it work? Advertisers create a PayPerCall campaign and publishers apply and select unique toll-free numbers. Publishers run promos online or off. When a consumer places the call, CJ tracks it and it connects to the advertisers call center.- PayPerCall is powered by RingRevenue.
- Three ways to get paid: Phone Leads, Phone Sales, and Both!
- Phone Lead: commission granted for qualified calls based on duration or other factors.
- Sales: commission granted for sales that result from referred calls.
- Hybrid: commission granted for quality calls AND from sales from a referred call.
- More high end products and services do well on PayPerCall. There’s more personal contact which means up-sell and a higher AOV.
- Tip for Search Publishers: include the phone number in the ad. Lends credibility. Good for mobile.
- Tip for Display Publishers: advertisers provide the creative and CJ pops in the unique phone numbers you selected.
- Tip for Blogger Publishers: phone numbers fits nicely into a blog in a write up or review.
- The average conversion rate on PayPerCall is 20-30%
Sponsors
