Me, Director of Affiliate Marketing?
Yep, that’s right. As of last week I’ve resigned from PsPrint and I’m now the Director of Affiliate Marketing with New Edge Media, an awesome media agency out of Dallas, TX. I was recently in Dallas right after attending CJU and Blog World Expo to meet some coworkers, get set up, and get the ball rolling on our projects.
I’d point you to the website for my excellent new employer, however they’re so busy working their tails off for clients that the site isn’t ready yet! So for now you’ll just have to take my word that we rock :).
Dallas was a great new experience, as I’d only ever touched down in Texas on layovers on my way to the East coast. I’m so glad that I rented a car and opted for the Garmin navigational device – it was very cool to drive around the city after work was over just exploring and seeing what there was to see. I did have my very awesome boss Brandy drive me through the infamous Grassy Knoll where JFK was assassinated…it’s fairly unimpressive for such a significant place. There is a modest plaque on the ground inset into the grass, but she had to shut up my rambles before I missed that we were driving through.
So I tell you this, dear reader, so you’ll perhaps forgive me for slacking on my reports from CJU and Blog World Expo. I’ll get on that right away, if you’ll have me 🙂
Read MoreOnline Marketing Glossary: Feeds
Feeds:
- A Web document that is a shortened or updated version of a webpage created for syndication. Usually served at user request, through subscription; also includes ad feeds to shopping engines and paid-inclusion ad models. Ad feeds are usually in eXtensible markup language (XML) or rich site summary format.
There are great tools out there for affiliates to utilize data feeds put out by merchants to create their own customized online shops. Pop Shops and GoldenCAn are the two big ones.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Commission
Commission (also Referral Fee, Finder’s Fee, Bounty):
- The income an affiliate receives for generating a sale, lead or click through to a merchant’s website.
AKA, the reason there are affiliates at all. You have to give a person something to motivate them to promote your brand as a merchant. In performance marketing, that “something” is the commission. Without the commission you’d be asking these online advertisers to promote your service just because they like you, and you wouldn’t get a whole lot of response 🙂
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Targeted Marketing
Targeted Marketing:
- The act of making the right offers available to the right customer at the right time.
So, I added “available” to the definition, although I think that might just have been a typo from the original article online. Like visitor segmentation, targeted marketing will boost conversion rates by giving the visitors what they want.
I’ll take a minute to talk about the ills of NOT using targeted marketing. If you have a website about memorials for lost loved ones, don’t serve ads for dating services. If your website is about international delicacies, don’t serve ads for pet adoption – it sends the wrong message.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
CJU Course: 7 Keys to a Stellar Landing Page
I was excited for this panel, which promised some great information on how to perk up your landing pages. The speaker was:
- Olivier Chaine, CEO & Founder, magnify360.
Bullet Point Review!
- Software-as-a-service delivers different landing pages to different visitors.
- Personal based development is growing.
- One experience, “the best” experience doesn’t work for everyone.
- Why do people abandon?
- Intent mismatch: their intent when finding your site doesn’t match what your site delivers (i.e. their intent is research and you have buy links but no reviews, or their intent is to buy and you have reviews but no purchase links).
- Personality mismatch: they just don’t jive with your site.
- Visual design/ease of use: pretty isn’t always the best, you want it to be functional and branded first and foremost.
- Product/Pricing perception: you must understand shopper personality types to sell to the different types of consumers.
- Reinforce Banner/Ad Message.
- Support ad copy; must have direct correlation.
- Image copy can match too.
- Have a strong call-to-action.
- Optimize header & call to action copy.
- Don’t forget the button copy.
- Variation in page flow.
- Form/copy split up.
- Can generate 30-50% lift by splitting form questions into multiple pages.
- Mobile.
- People on their phones have a different intent; may not be ready to buy over the mobile net.
- If they do want to make the purchase they are fast and very transaction oriented.
- Target Behaviorally.
- Look at the profile performance.
- Check weekend performance vs. weekday performance.
- Check branded landing pages vs. non-branded pages.
- Target multiple personalities.
- Look at buying process, purchase attitudes, industry knowledge, learning style, purchase criteria, buyer readiness.
- Design for the customer.
- Why are they here TODAY?
- How do they THINK?
- How do they BUY/STICK?
- What kind of DIALOG is best to have with them?
- TEST, TEST, TEST!
- Use manual testing & improvement.
- AB & Multivariate testing.
- Behavioral targeting & optimization.
Points brought up during the Q&A
- Start page variation by removing elements or large ad copy chunks & seeing what happens.
- Try completely different designs entirely.
- Making changes to landing pages allows you to buy more traffic & still be profitable.
- 25% conversion rate increase can mean a 75% volume increase, which means more buying power.
- Start small with behavioral targeting.
- Test often, measure always.
- Work with your sales and customer service departments to optimize.
- Find the right technology partners.
- Have fun & remember that this is about engaging with people.
- What to ask an agency before hiring them?
- Do they optimize manually or automatically?
- Do they focus on small elements or full pages?
- Do they do behavioral targeting?
- What kind of reports & analytics do they have?
- Are they a full service agency?
- Do they have any performance guarantees?
I really learned a lot from this session since I’m not entirely familar with landing pages. This really got me jazzed to apply what I’ve learned the next time I need to assist on a landing page design or even if I have to make one myself! I might even try to do a landing page for something to excercise this new knowledge.
Read MoreOnline Marketing Glossary: Gateway Page
Gateway Page (also Doorway Page):
- A webpage created in hopes of ranking well for a term in a search engine’s nonpaid listings.
These gateway pages uses organic search and SEO to their advantage, trying to make the most money as possible off affiliate links on the page without paying for traffic. Often these pages are created without a full website behind them, garnering the term “thin affiliate” sites.
Lately what I’ve been seeing is a lot of affiliates using Blogger to set up these pages. Instead of setting up a traditional blog in the true sense of the term, these affiliates create one long, keyword laden post and then put affiliate links in the sidebar. It doesn’t require any money to set up – no coding knowledge necessary, no domain name purchased, and no PPC campaigns to drive traffic. These affiliates are relying purely on the organic search results to drive traffic and are hoping to drive sales.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
