Online Marketing Glossary: Cost per Lead
Cost per Lead (CPL):
- The cost an advertiser pays per qualified leads.
The CPL model is beneficial for merchants with robust inside and outside sales teams that can follow up on the leads collected by their affiliates. The affiliate is only delivering basic information from interested consumers, making it easier for the sales team to close the deal.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Cost per Click
Cost per Click (CPC):
- The cost metric for each click to an advertising link.
I remember this type of advertising was all the rage in the early part of this decade, but has since fallen out of favor since the qualified leads are not as reliable or bountiful.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Cost per Action
Cost per Action (CPA):
- The cost metric for each time a commissionable action takes place.
CPA is a blanket term that describes most of the affiliate structure. There are more specific models with their own descriptions that fall under this term.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Cost per Aquisition
To begin, isn’t it sad that I’ve just NOW got around to reading Issue 22 of Revenue Magazine?! I think our subscription might have run out since I got this copy from the stack that editor Lisa Picarille brought to last week’s BAAMC meeting.
Regardless, I’ve let my glossary series’ go once the link series was done. I just haven’t found another good list of definitions to share with you. But here’s a beauty, all online marketing related terms. So this starts the series, first the term and definition, then how this affects me so far and my take. Let the fun begin!
Cost per Acquisition:
- The cost metric for each time a qualifying action, such as sales and registrations, takes place.
Most affiliate programs use this model. Many retail merchants prefer to pay for performance to guarantee that they’re making money while paying commissions. The frequently used abbreviation CPA, however, doesn’t mean cost per acquisition, so watch out.
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Glossary Definition From ABCs of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
June BAAMC Meeting
After running to the bank to take out money for bridge toll, heading west towards the big scary city, and rifling through my car & wallet for change for the meter while praying that the meter maids were taking a day off, I finally made it into the June Bay Area Affiliate Managers Coalition meeting, this time hosted graciously by Real Networks. As an aside, I like their building… older, brick, kinda funky and unique but still professional.
Last time I did a video because it was my first venture over there and I had a lot to say. I was happy to receive some kudos on it from BAAMC organizer Michael Brucker. We had some special guests at this meeting… Lisa Picarille from Revenue Magazine came over and Brook Schaaf from Schaaf Consulting flew up from LA just for this. Aren’t we special? 🙂
I was going to write a good long post about it, but it seems Lisa in her diligence as a journalist has beat me to it! So here’s her take at RevenueToday.com. She mentions a few other special guests that attended the meeting, but I didn’t see them (and yes… I’d recognize them!) so maybe they were on the phone listening in… I did arrive a touch late.
So, some notes not mentioned from my take. It was nice to finally meet Lisa in person, especially after subbing for her that once on Affiliate Thing. Very gracious…although I have to tell you, it’s totally surreal sitting in a room looking at a person speak that you listen to every week without an image in your head. Strange lol. She was surprised that I’d had time to come to the meeting given how busy I usually am, which prompted me to mentally review how busy I must sound on Twitter and this here blog without actually intending it!
Also said hi to Karen Garcia of GTO Management who came to the meeting directly from SFO – what a trooper! And had a nice conversation with a fellow affiliate manager who’s used PsPrint a lot in his former life of being an event promoter and loves us! Always great to hear!
Brook talked about the up-and-coming Performance Marketing Association (PMA), which got a lot of people in the room revved up. We also talked at length about the NY affiliate tax and how we wish the networks would get more involved. What’s definitely clear is that there’s a lot of confusion on how we’re effected as managers and the programs we represent. A vague law will only vaguely be enforced, NY!
Incidentally as a side note, the PMA launched their blog this week and today Rebecca Madigan posted their plan of attack.
We also talked a bit about some miscellaneous things like video widgets and the like. Since most of us in the room have our programs through Commission Junction, we collectively wish they’d buck up on offering some more interesting and innovative creative options, like widgets. One opinion was that video is pretty good for buzz, but general consumers never think to click on the video so it doesn’t convert as a sales tool. I think the jury is still out on video as a traceable seller like a banner ad.
That’s the meat & potatoes of it, really. Our next meeting should be sometime in August. And I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that I managed to escape parking-ticket free!
Read MorePHP Affiliate Link Masking
If you’re like me and have jumped into affiliate marketing head on, you may not know some of the nuances of using affiliate links. Recently, James Seligman of JMCA Media schooled me on how to really easily set up PHP redirects for your affiliate links to make them a bit more user friendly. Let me share this knowledge with you!
- Open up Notepad or a similar text editing program.
- Add the following code:
<?
header(“location:affiliate-link-goes-here“);
?> - Replace the portion in italics above with the tracked link from the program of your choice.
- Save the file as a .php file with whatever name is easiest for you.
- Upload it to a designated diretory or folder on your website. Some possible names for the folder are recommends, deals, however you can call it whatever is easiest for you.
- When you want to add an affiliate link, just add the code <a href=”/recommends/affiliate.php”>Affiliate </a>
It’s that simple! I had head of PHP redirects before but, not knowing PHP very well myself, I never looked into how to do it. Luckily James was there to show me just how easy it is! And now you have a weekend project to go mask all your affiliate links!
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