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!
Affsum West 09 Keynote Gary Vaynerchuk
This was a great keynote, given by Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV. He killed it in terms of getting the crowd riled up and rearing to go for the rest of the show. He also did something I haven’t seen from other keynote speakers – he actually opened it up for questions. Gary has a very real, conversational style of speaking, which I appreciate. He curses, and beware I have republished some things verbatim so there’s some choice words below.
The show organizers did something else cool and different – they streamed the keynote speech live on Ustream.
Bullet Point Review!
- More emphasis is needed on community.
- Content is king, but marketing is the queen and she runs the house.
- Be authentic – he never does double takes or edits out stray bits for WLTV.
- 45-60 minutes spent on content, the rest is on monetization.
- If you’re not doing vanity searches for your name or your brand, you’re a monumental clown.
- Too many people preach to this crowd.
- We’ve been aiming to hit singles but we all have the talent to hit home runs.
- Sink your teeth into your passion.
- Why can’t we be artists AND entrepreneurs?
- If you want to make money, then you should. Don’t feel bad for it.
- If you have cockroaches in the back of your pizza place, clean that shit up! (i.e. anything you do that’s wrong or shady WILL come out).
- People don’t want to see ROI numbers.
- People are not creating multiple channels and should.
- Create more angles and more opportunity to make money.
- ROI will be much more important with the economic situation we’re in.
- Social Media is bullshit – it’s just the extension of business.
- Watch a 13 year old interact – they’re not going to be reading the newspapers or watching the nightly news.
- Details are what really build business.
- When you build brand equity, you’re always able to make money.
- If you think Twitter is your main play for the rest of your life, you’re an asshole.
- When you care, you win.
- We all now go direct to consumer.
- Twitter is word of mouth on steroids.
- If you leave here with nothing else, ask yourself this: Where the hell am I going? What do I want to do?
Points brought up during the Q&A
How do you build multiple brands? There are no tactics, just be who you are.- How do you cross pollinate across different brands and networks? It’s like fishing in other ponds. Your message carries. When you step outside this space, you sound like fucking yoda! Focus your message across multiple channels.
- How has PleaseDressMe.com not fizzled? They said from the beginning that the goal was affiliate marketing to make money. People took them more seriously. They created the hype to leverage the hype.
All in all, a good way to start the conference! Getting people riled up at 9:45am on a Monday morning isn’t an easy task!
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