5 Star Affiliate Blogs

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are rapidly approaching. By now both affiliates and retail merchants should already have their plans laid out and ready to execute to generate revenue from one of the most popular shopping weekends of the holiday season. Share Results’ Kristina Andersen looks at what to consider when launching campaigns to get ahead of the competition for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping.

Get Ahead of the Competition for Black Friday

It’s that time of year again when retailers can make 40-60% of their annual revenue through holiday shoppers and bargain hunters, all thanks to Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions. If you are a merchant and are planning to showcase your top products on one of the most popular weekends of the year, then stay ahead of your competitors. Most retailers have already started their promotional activities to garner consumer interest for their product offerings, and for those who haven’t, well you still have time.

Halloween has just passed and it is a sign that tells affiliate marketers to be prepared for the holiday rush this season. Over on the Share Results blog, Janice Scrim advises on what key things affiliates (and merchants) need to be aware of in order to reach peak performance during the Q4 season.

Reach Your Peak During the Holiday Season

There is absolutely nothing worse that I can think of than not be prepared to answer an increase in demand for your product—especially when it’s during a peak period, like Halloween, Black Friday or Christmas when you should be expecting one.

Last night, between door bell rings, I glanced across the street at my neighbour who was ever so gently reaching into her bowl of pre-packaged Halloween bags and gingerly serving the kids. She was speedy, personable and each kid got the same amount of loot. I was digging, searching, and hoping for the best.

With the upcoming holidays around the corner, and stats predicting a 15% increase in online sales, be prepared. No sense having an onslaught of traffic with the potential to dramatically increase your bottom line, with you digging, searching and hoping for the best.

You can read more here.

Panda got ya down? Hitting other roadblocks in your affiliate business?

I just read a post that had several inspiring insights, so wanted to share. Nichola Stott just returned from A4U London and has some really good take-aways from that event. This post is written with SEOs in mind but I think message for affiliates carries even more merit.

What SEOs Can Learn from Savvy Affiliates

Given that over the past two or three years most of the significant Google algorithm updates have negatively impacted many affiliate-model sites, I was expecting to hear some pessimism and foreboding last week at A4U London. In fact, it was quite the opposite at the annual conference for the affiliate industry that brings together online marketing professionals from across the board including merchants, affiliates, affiliate networks, SEOs, publishers, tool-providers and more.

I want to share some of the success-tactics and behaviors of the affiliates with innovative strategies and offerings; but first let’s recap some of the more tangible Google updates of recent times and how some sites were affected.

This is a guest post from Share Results

Many affiliates get their start in affiliate marketing by working part-time in combination with a full-time career. Somewhere in your 24-hour day and seven-day week, you want to make time for getting your affiliate marketing business off the ground, even if it is for only 10 to 15 hours a week. This is not an easy task and requires that new affiliates learn how to work smarter, not harder, in order to eventually make a profit and a full time career out of affiliate marketing. Here are a few suggestions for how you can better organize your time, narrow down your focus on the best campaigns for you, and hopefully earn more profit within your limited time.

Week 1: Review Data and Create a Strategy
It’s a new month and this is the optimal time to check your statistics from the previous month (and even from the past six months). Examine which campaigns did well, and which underperformed. This is where data comes in. Reports from your merchant’s program and/or affiliate network tracking software, and sources like Google Analytics can give you this information. Data is the key to your affiliate marketing success. Without it, it’s difficult to grasp what methods of promotion are giving you the most return on the investment of your time.

What exactly do you need to look at? Well, that depends on what methods of promotion you’re applying to your affiliate business. Rather than just the usual clicks and impressions, you should be evaluating more in-depth information. For example, what percentage of your traffic was direct versus referred visitors? What keywords were used to find your website? Have you evaluated which specific cities or states where products you promoted actually converted?

Once you can identify these trends, then you can use this information to recognize what changes need implementing. Obviously, if something isn’t working, then change it.

Week 1-2: Implement Your Strategy
Now is the time to implement any new changes to your campaign.
If you own a website, you’ll discover that most of the traffic and clicks usually takes place above the fold of your website and decreases as you scroll down. This is where it pays to put your best ads and content. Say for instance that you’re testing out a new merchant’s banners, it doesn’t hurt to rotate your banners to see which one generates the most clicks. If your data showed that you received the most traffic on specific weekdays or on the weekend, then try implementing changes one or two days in advance, so you can take advantage of the traffic that comes your way. Take the list of keywords that generated the most interest and create a top 10 list of those and perhaps other keywords you want to rank high for, and add them into your blog posts or other website content, articles, PPC campaigns…

Week 2-4: Monitor and Optimize
In any affiliate marketing campaign, real-time data is your key to seeing just how much you’re earning. If you have noticed that after just one day of changes that your PPC ads are garnering more impressions but fewer clicks, then it’s time to act quick. When it comes to PPC, you’ve got to monitor the performance of your ads daily and make a quick decision about what keywords or phrases you should swap. Normally, methods of promotion like search engine optimization call for a longer period of time before making changes, but when it comes to PPC, time is money.

For things like SEO and display ads, consider giving campaigns more time before tweaking keywords, banner ad placement, text links and the like. For example, SEO can take a while before you see any results, so it’s normal that you may not see any conversions right away. Oh, and that rotating banner suggestion mentioned above? This is the perfect time to review which ad is seeing the highest conversions. If you notice that one has exceeded the performance of another, the choice is clear: apply what works and discard what doesn’t.

After about four weeks of working on your affiliate business, you will have seen enough and done enough to help grow your business. While the above suggestions for how to better optimize your time may work for some, ultimately you need to find out what strategy works best for you. However, one thing is clear: you have to invest the time and effort just like you would any other business in order to see results. If 10-15 hours is what you’re working with, optimize your time, and you will optimize your affiliate business.

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About Share Results

Share Results has a network of over 12,000 affiliates that promote a variety of products and services from select merchants. Some of the more popular categories of product and service offers range from women’s apparel, family and education lead generation, as well as health and wellness.

Skimlinks just launched SkimWords 2.0, a totally automated and very cool way to monetize websites and blogs. If you’re an affiliate or publisher you’ll want to check this out. Here’s a video and press release that expalins how it works.

Press Release

SKIMLINKS LAUNCHES SKIMWORDS 2.0, AN ADVANCED IN-TEXT MONETIZATION SOLUTION DRIVING E-COMMERCE

SkimWords 2.0 Increases Publishers’ Revenue, Improves Users’ Online Shopping Experience

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Oct. 26, 2011 – Today Skimlinks launched SkimWords 2.0, the newest innovation in its highly advanced in-text monetization solution for Web publishers. SkimWords 2.0 is the first real-time, fully automated content monetization solution to feature in-text product and price comparison across multiple verticals – including consumer electronics, fashion, beauty, mothering, automotive, and lifestyle categories. With SkimWords 2.0, publishers earn incremental revenues, consumers are directed to the optimal retail site to make their purchases, and advertisers receive highly qualified traffic.

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This is a guest post from Share Results

Yet another piece of legislation is going to affect the way affiliate marketers do business in North America. This time, the law will affect those that are based in Canada. The Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL), formerly called the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam bill (FISA) or Bill C-28, aims to protect email recipients in Canada from spam. As a result, businesses everywhere are applying protective measures for the arrival of this new law (which could go into effect as early as this fall season). Anyone convicted of violating this new law will be subject to heavy duty fines: up to $1million for individuals and $10 million for companies.

This means that affiliates who use email as a means of doing business will need to take strategic measures to make sure they do not become classified as a spammer under this new law. Here are three simple, strategic ways to help you get started with protecting your affiliate business in light of the CASL.

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This is a guest post by Mark John Hiemstra from Beezid

It’s official. Penny auction sites are one of the hottest up-and-coming affiliate promotions. You may have seen the commercials on TV, heard them on the radio, or even read about this new craze in your local newspaper. Despite a few rotten apples that have given the industry a bad name, the barrel is far from spoiled – and there is plenty of fruit ripe for the picking.

As with any type of business, before promoting a penny auction site, it is imperative that you ensure the site you are promoting is on the level, and, just as importantly, that you are using ethical, and effective marketing practices to promote that site.

To help you on your way to penny auction affiliate marketing success, here are eight helpful “ates” to use as a guideline.

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Great news for California affiliates! The California Governor just signed AB155 which gives California affiliate marketers a one year reprieve.

The PMA did amazing work to help force this much needed change. You can read the full story at their blog.

California Repeals the Affiliate Nexus Tax Law
Governor Signs Legislation That Will Help 25,000 California Companies Get Back In Business

CAMARILLO, CA — The Performance Marketing Association (PMA) representing 25,000 web-based Affiliate Marketing businesses in California, is very pleased Governor Brown signed AB 155 (Calderon) into law earlier today.

PMA executive director, Rebecca Madigan stated, “The signing of this legislation means these 25,000 web-based entrepreneurs will be able to get back in business. For the PMA, this issue has always been about keeping the vibrant Affiliate Marketing sector of the economy strong and growing.”

Thank you Governor Brown. Great job PMA. Thanks for all you do to help the industry!

I’m just madly playing catch-up from being gone on an unplugged vacation, being quoted in the NYTimes (and the other media interviews that followed as a result) and being part of the big SoCal power outage. So excuse me if I’m a little behind the times on this story. It’s important news, so wanted to be sure to share. According to the PMA it’s not GREAT news but at least it’s a temporary reprieve.

California Legislature Passes Legislation: 1 Year Reprieve of Affiliate Nexus Tax

The California legislature has passed legislation that temporarily repeals the affiliate nexus tax. The affiliate nexus tax will go back into effect September 15, 2012 if a federal sales tax solution is not implemented by July 2012. This is a deal brokered by California retailers and Amazon, who has agreed to lobby for a federal solution, or collect sales tax if it isn’t implemented by the deadline. The law will go into immediate effect upon the signature of Governor Brown. The PMA has come out in opposition of this proposal.

Affiliate Managers are there to help YOU the affiliate be more successful. Are you using your AM to your full advantage? If not, then this article from one of our favorite affiliate networks, ShareResults, may help!

3 Signs it’s Time to Demand More from your Affiliate Manager

Almost every affiliate dreams of the opportunity when they can quit their day job, grow their affiliate marketing business, and eventually run it full-time. And there are those who actually do it. You may not be a beginner affiliate or a super affiliate, you might very well be somewhere in between. And though you may not always realize it, you do have more clout than you realize to negotiate more for your business. If you’re an affiliate that fits into this category, it may be time to start demanding more from your affiliate manager. Here are three signs that you are advancing to the upper echelons of affiliate superstardom and what to do about it.

If your affiliate program is anemic, stagnant or stuck OR if you are considering launching a new affiliate program, read this sage advice from super affiliate Rae Hoffman AKA SugarRae.

Also be sure to read the comments filled with more great advice from other pros.

13 Ways to Make Your Affiliate Program Suck

Now, I know I’m going to hear from a lot of affiliate program managers that there are plenty of things affiliates do to annoy them as well, but I’m an affiliate, not an affiliate program manager so I can only speak about the view from my side of the fence.

I’d also like to acknowledge that there are a lot of great affiliate program managers out there, so this isn’t a bash against managers as a whole, but a bash against certain aspects of some programs.

Wanted to share a story from WebProNews that testifies to the devastating effect the California Amazon Tax Law is having on affiliates.

California’s Amazon Tax Law Forces Affiliate Marketer to Move to Nevada

After years of operating a successful comparison shopping site in California, Nick Loper recently had to shut down his business and move to another state to start over. Why? Loper was one of the affiliate marketing victims of the online sales tax law that California passed earlier this summer…

Almost immediately after this law went into effect, online retailers, such as Amazon, cut ties with affiliate marketers in the state…

According to Loper, this action meant that a half dozen of his largest advertisers on ShoesRUs terminated their relationship with him, leaving him shy of 70 percent of his revenue. “It was, essentially, out of business overnight,” he said.

Read the rest at WebProNews

This is a guest post by Richard B. Newman - Affiliate Marketing Lawyer

For some time now, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or the “Commission”) has been keeping an eye on payday lending and other financial services in order to protect financially distressed consumers.   In 2009, the Commission charged Swish Marketing, VirtualWorks LLC, and the principals of the deceptive payday loan and debit card marketing operation with unlawful business practices.  According to the FTC’s complaint, Swish Marketing and three individuals operated websites advertising short-term, or “payday,” loan services that allegedly matched loan applicants with lenders.  Subsequently, in 2010, the FTC filed an amended complaint against the Swish Marketing defendants, including allegations that they sold consumers’ bank account information to VirtualWorks (the seller of the debit card) without consumer consent and that the principals were aware of consumer complaints about the unauthorized debits. 

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has now ordered Swish Marketing, Inc. to pay more than $4.8 million for misleading hundreds of thousands of payday loan applicants into paying for an unrelated debit card.  The websites included an online loan application form that tricked online loan applicants into unknowingly ordering a debit card.  On many sites, clicking the button for submitting loan applications led to four product offers unrelated to the loan, each with very small “Yes” and “No” buttons.  “No” was pre-selected for three of them, while “Yes” was pre-seleted for a debit card, with unclear and inconspicuous disclosures asserting consumers’ consent to have their bank account debited.  Consumers who clicked a prominent “Finish matching me with a payday loan provider!” button were subsequently charged for the debit card.  Other websites claimed that the card was a “bonus” and disclosed the fee only in small fine print below the submit button.  Each consumer was improperly charged up to $54.95.

The three principals, as well as the VirtualWorks defendants, settled the charges against them.  However, Swish Marketing has not only been ordered to pay approximately $4.8 million, it also has been banned from marketing any product with a “negative-option” program, in which a consumer’s silence or failure to reject a product is treated as an agreement to make a purchase.  The order also requires Swish Marketing to obtain consumers’ informed consent before it can use their personal information collected for a particular purpose for any other purpose or by a different entity, and bars the company from:

• misrepresenting material facts about any product or service, such as the cost or the method for charging consumers;
• misrepresenting that a product or service is free or a “bonus”, without disclosing all material terms and conditions;
• charging consumers without first disclosing what billing information will be used, the amount to be paid, how and on whose account the payment will be assessed, and all material terms and conditions; and
• failing to monitor their marketing affiliates to ensure that they are in compliance with the order.

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Richard B. Newman is an Internet Law Attorney and Internet Business Lawyer at Hinch Newman LLP  (New York & California)
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Linda added: Here is a link to the FTC Release for more information:
“FTC Action Leads to $4.8 Million Judgment Against Deceptive Marketer; Company Tricked Payday Loan Applicants into Buying Prepaid Debit Cards“

Introducing Bevo for Networks – The Bevo Media Networks Interface

The amount of money that some networks are willing to spend at the popular trade shows and summits can be outrageous. Networks spend tens of thousands of dollars to recruit affiliates by sponsoring parties and brand themselves, with no guarantee that affiliates will stay or even join. However for affiliate networks, branding and recruitment are essential, and Bevo Media has recently came up with a new and innovative way for networks to get results for a fraction of the price.

The Bevo For Networks platform is not a network tracking platform like Linktrust, Cake, DirectTrack, etc. Rather, it is a complimentary interface easily integrable with all major platforms and custom platforms as well. The purpose of the interface is to accelerate growth and better manage your affiliate network with recruiting publishers, increasing branding efforts, brokering offers across all network platforms (Cake to Linktrust, Hitpath to Hasoffers, etc), managing online reputation, and searching/exposing blacklisted advertisers and affiliates.

Some Features of the Bevo Media Networks Interface Include:

· Offer Import Tool - Bevo Partnered Networks are able to broker offers between all major network tracking platforms (Cake to Hitpath, Linktrust to DirectTrack etc.) with a simple click of a button. Never has it been this easy to get your offers in to the hands of affiliates and to find offers for publishers.

· Buzz Control - Networks are able to manage their online reputations by receiving emails when they are mentioned on various industry forums and social media outlets. This allows networks to view and respond to posts addressing concerns, answering questions, and possibly resisting flaming.

· Recruit Affiliates in the Bevo Performance Connector - Need an affiliate who emails Bizopp? No problem! Bevo Partnered Networks can browse through the Performance Connector and find specific publishers based on verticals, promotion type and experience level. Bevo offers a way for networks to request specific publishers and also keeps the ‘Performance Connector’ updated with the newest active publishers on Bevo.

· Blacklists - See what other networks have shared about a certain advertiser or publisher and see if it’s worth the risk to do business with them. Bevo Networks will share their stories about advertisers and publishers in a searchable database so networks can easily access information on people they might do business with.  Bevo essentially supplements a network’s risk management efforts.

There are many more features revolving around those core features. The Bevo for Networks Interface is the first of its kind in the internet marketing industry. Never has there been a management platform to help networks efficiently run their businesses.

Become a Partnered Network Throughout The Entire Bevo Media Exchange:

Not only will becoming a Bevo Partnered network give networks full access to the Bevo Networks Interface, but networks will be fully integrated in to the Bevo Media Affiliate Portal. The Bevo Media Affiliate Portal is a state of the art centralized interface used by several thousand active affiliates to track their stats, browse offers and much more. Being integrated with The Bevo Media Affiliate Portal means your affiliates can easily track their stats, optimize their campaigns and have access to several of the Bevo premium campaign research apps.  Also, with Bevo’s large userbase, being a partnered network will give networks great exposure, branding and put them right next to some of the most powerful networks in the industry.

If you are a current network owner or employee, it’s evident that this is going to be something all networks need to be on. It’s clear that the Bevo for Networks Interface is going to change the game. Finally, affiliate networks have a viable option to get the word out about their companies without the hassle of getting extravagant booths and sponsoring huge booths at the summits.

To get more information and to schedule a free demonstration, please visit 
http://networks.bevomedia.com

Join Bevo For Networks today!

Chris Trayhorn over at mThink just posted some good questions and insights into the new California Tax law and it’s impact on affiliate marketing. Wanted to be sure you saw it and am anxious to here your thoughts.

Five Key Points On CA’s New Sales Tax

Armageddon arrived two weeks ago in the fight against online sales taxes. California signed their version of the affiliate sales tax into law and Amazon, along with many other online merchants, responded by terminating their CA affiliate programs. But as the dust begins to settle, who are the winners and losers? And where does the affiliate marketing industry go from here?

This is a guest post by Richard B. Newman - Affiliate Marketing Lawyer

The California bill that potentially requires Internet sites to allow users to opt-out of being tracked online is on hold for the rest of 2011 while the sponsor of the controversial bill attempts to find  compromise between its supporters and opponents.  Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D), the bill’s sponsor, instead plans to resume hearings on it in early 2012.  The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 3-2 vote after its first hearing in May 2011.  It would next be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee in January 2012 and then have to pass the Senate by the end of January 2012 to remain alive for the session and move to the Assembly for consideration. 

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I have not done a niche finding post for awhile, so I think I’m long overdue. Just read a great one over the weekend that offers great advice and refers to some good tools, so thought I’d share.

Niche Hunting

If you’re the type of SEO who builds and markets a variety of sites, there’s something very satisfying about spotting an area that few people occupy, and making it your own!

There are various software programs available that help you find niches, often based on finding keyword terms with high traffic and low, or no, PPC bids. These tools can be very useful for keyword list building, however finding great niches requires a little more analysis to establish viability.

Let’s take a look at a few ideas on how to weed out the most lucrative possibilities.

Are you thankful for your affiliate independence? Think about it! We work in the most “free” country in the world. Plus affiliates and outsourced affiliate managers have the freedom to work from home and the independence to largely create their own destiny.

I hope you all take time to celebrate: your freedom and independence, this wonderful country we live in and this amazing opportunity we have called affiliate marketing.

Freedom is a beautiful thing!

Enjoy a day off with your family and Happy 4th of July!

Photo credit: Michelle Jones UK

Danny Sullivan captures the essence of SO many of the frustrating issues surrounding this whole crappy nexus tax fight – especially the way that Amazon handles relationships with affiliates.

One good point he makes that I haven’t thought about yet… All these terminated affiliates have links that just aren’t going to come down. Many affiliates have multiple sites with hundreds or thousands of Amazon links. Most affiliates are too busy to pull links anyway PLUS will be scrambling to deal with the domino effect that is sure to follow from this unjust California tax law. Amazon will just continue to profit UNFAIRLY from Affiliates that don’t have time to track down and remove all the links.

Danny makes so many good points and really summarizes this issue well. Read it, weigh in, reblog/tweet this to show your support for Danny’s open letter.

And for God’s sake – PULL ALL YOUR AMAZON LINKS! They should not profit from your efforts after they royally screw you. SCREW THEM!

An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos On Terminating The Amazon Affiliate Program In California

Thank you for your letter today, informing me that after seven years of being one of your affiliates — and having earned for you about $150,000 in that time — that you “deeply regret” unilaterally terminating my contract with Amazon to be an affiliate. I also especially appreciated the part where you reassured me that this action wouldn’t affect my ability to keep buying from your company. Nice touch.

Now, because of your squabble over the sales tax issue, you’ve decided to just take for free what you’d previously paid for. If I don’t find time to track down and kill those links, you keep grabbing orders that get made through them and keeping the cut I previously received.

I Get To Be Your Pawn With Only 10 Hours Notice? You want to just up and terminate my contract with you with only ten hours notice?

Unfortunately it appears the HUGE state of California could be next in line for anti-affiliate Nexus Tax legislation. It will be a very sad day for thousands of California-based affiliates if these bills pass. And it sounds like these bills are likely to pass and the law go into effect within the next 2 days.

UPDATE: 6/29 10PM Bad news! California passes Affiliate Nexus Tax
via Performance Marketing Association

I wish California would realize they are not HELPING the state economy but HURTING it! Any tax gains they think they will make, will be offset by the economic losses due to small and large affiliate businesses losing income (therefore paying less income taxes), having to layoff staff (putting more strain on state resources) and/or moving out of California so they can continue their businesses in more supportive states.

Yesterday the PMA made this foreboding announcement:

ALERT: CA about to implement nexus tax – effective immediately

Governor Brown of California has announced he has secured enough votes to pass his budget, including the Affiliate Nexus Tax and 2 related nexus bills: AB 153, AB 155 and SB 234. The law will go into effect immediately upon signing, and he must sign before July 1st, 2011.

We are doing everything we can to block this from moving forward but we believe passage is imminent. If you are a California-based publisher, or an out-of-state advertiser, please seek immediate advise from a tax or legal professional.

Andrew Shotland AKA @localseoguide just posted an image of the Amazon California Associate Program termination notice.

TheNextWeb reports:

Amazon is terminating the Associates Program in California due to new tax law

Even though the bill has not yet been passed, Amazon is pulling the program preemptively in California. Apparently it believes that the bill will get passed and the new tax laws will go into effect. Amazon says that the bill is ‘supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors.

Geno has some good advice for merchants as always here: Bad News from California: Affiliate Nexus Tax Law on the Threshold