Affiliate Marketing

Online Marketing Glossary: Keyword Popularity

Posted on Aug 24, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing, Marketing |

Keyword Popularity:

  • A measure of the most frequent words and phrases used in web searches.  Marketers can use KP to determine which keywords bring large numbers of potential customers to a website.  Keywords are stored in the meta tags or text of a web page.

glossary bookThe first step to successful SEO is to identify the KP of your keywords and be sure to include them in the meta tags of your website.  From there you can craft ways of working the most popular keywords into your content.

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Glossary Definition From
ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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Online Marketing Glossary: Earnings Per Hundred Clicks

Posted on Aug 23, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing |

Earnings Per Hundred Clicks (EPC):

  • Earnings or average payout per hundred clicks.

glossary bookMany networks rank their merchants by EPC to give the publishers a sense of how active the merchant is with their affiliates.  While some people give a lot of credence to this metric, others just give it a glance in addition to all the other stats available.

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Glossary Definition From
ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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Online Marketing Glossary: Earnings per Thousand Impressions (EPM)

Posted on Aug 21, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing |

Earnings per Thousand Impressions (EPM):

  • Earnings or average payout per thousand impressions.

glossary bookPretty self explanatory, right?  This is an important metric when buying ad space online, whether it’s affiliate ad space or traditional ad space on a website.  Many web properties will use this metric to set the costs for the advertisers.

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Glossary Definition From
ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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Online Marketing Glossary: Landing Page

Posted on Aug 20, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing |

Landing Page:

  • The specific webpage a visitor reaches after clicking on a search engine listing, pay-per-click ad, or banner ad.

glossary bookMany successful PPC affiliates utilize landing pages to help direct visitors to convert to sales.  With a landing page, the affiliate does not have to rely solely on the merchant’s website to convert but can give the visitors a nudge into the conversion path with added details or stronger calls to action.

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Glossary Definition From
ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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Online Marketing Glossary: Doorway Page

Posted on Aug 19, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing |

Doorway Page (also Gateway Page):

  • A webpage created  expressly in the hopes of ranking well for a term in a search engine’s non-paid listing.  It does not deliver much information but is designed to entice visitors to enter.

glossary bookSome people refer to this practice as a thin affiliate site.  The site is pretty much useless in terms of the content, but it ranks well for consumers who are searching for the products.

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Glossary Definition From
ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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Affsum Session: Performance Marketing Association Q&A

Posted on Aug 18, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking | 2 comments

Well, I think many people attending this session were expecting the topic to be heated, but l’m not sure they were expecting some of the venom that seemed to be in the room.  Speaking for myself, I certainly didn’t.  Originally there was only supposed to be one panelist fielding questions, but since 4 out of 5 working group leaders were in attendance, they were also recruited to speak.  So ultimately the panel consisted of:

Guns were slinging!  Unfortunately there’s not many bullet points to be had, but here you go.

Bullet Point Review!

  • PMA is in germination phase – not a real entity yet.
  • Why start now?
    • Misinformation & lack of representation.
    • Legislation.
    • Lack of transparency.
    • Maturity of industry.
  • Formation process still underway.
    • Interviewed over 60 industry leaders, Formation Advisory Board voted in by 100 peers.
    • Working groups of 45 volunteers.
    • Working groups make recommendations on formation.
    • FAB 11 ratifies formation proposals (click here to see members).
  • The working group committees are Scope/Objectives (headed by Sam Harrelson), Governance (Brook Schaaf), Fundraising (Peter Bordes), Membership (Durk Price), and Operations (Brad Waller).

Points (or other observations in this case) brought up during the Q&A

  • Right off the bat the questions were hostile.  There’s animosity about the PMA using the NY Tax situation as a launching point for formation despite the fact that they can’t do anything to help.
    • Essentially there’s nothing the PMA can do since they’re NOT a fully formed organization, no matter how much they want to help.
  • Rebecca acted as moderator and moved the conversation on after almost 20 minutes of hostile banter.
  • The PMA blog as been quiet because the people in working groups have had their heads down working on things without much to report at this point.
  • The term “Performance” has been used over “affiliate” because it is more inclusive of the larger base of members within the industry.  Inclusive of a lot more relationships than just the affiliate – merchant relation.
  • The PMA has a very similar model as a chamber of commerce but the scope is still being set up.  They are looking at the chamber model in forming things.  Mostly they want to improve visibility & credibility.
  • Rebecca was questioned as to why she didn’t attend the meetings in Albany that the NY affiliates had since she’s actually the only paid member.  It was decided that there was no reason because it would have been redundant and she can’t represent an organization that isn’t formed and doesn’t officially exist.
  • They were asked why they divorced themselves from ABestWeb after the controversy, to which they responded that they didn’t divorce from it BUT once a particular few threads got ugly and became increasingly unprofessional they just stopped participating in those threads.
  • There’s no conspiracy regarding Rebecca’s involvement – Anik Singal of Affiliate Classroom generously donated her salary for a year and she’s just being paid to “corral cats” and help form the organization.  Her comment was that if she weren’t paid for this she’d have bailed long ago based on the assumptions about her involvement and what she’s had to deal with.
  • An affiliate asked how they can be assured that the PMA won’t be overtaken by large company sponsorhips and forget the little affiliate?  The affiliate industry is it’s own little ecosystem and the heart of it is the average affiliate.  They’ve been very hypersensitive to the issue to ensure that affiliates are included.

It seems that there’s lots of confusion about the organization – or lack thereof – and hopefully the Q&A has taken things in the right direction.  Perhaps Q&A wasn’t the right moniker.  Maybe Suggestion Session or Feedback Forum might have worked better.  It was disappointing to see one of the most vocal critics of the PMA – ABestWeb founder Haiko de Poel Jr – leave the session half way through in apparently disgust.  I hope that future discussions going forward will be a bit more productive than the session in Boston.

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