5 Star Affiliate Blogs

This is a guest post from Share Results

You’ve just started learning about PPC and have found the best spring and/or summer offers to promote to your audience. Now you want to launch a pay per click campaign to generate sales. In order to become a master of marketing via PPC campaigns, it is essential to efficiently allocate both your time and financial resources. With that in mind, here are a few insightful PPC techniques that you should apply to your affiliate marketing campaigns before you go over budget.

Don’t Sabotage Your Own SEO Campaign
Generally it is good practice to ensure that your SEO and PPC campaigns are congruent. However, if you have a small budget, you might want to hold back on adding more money to a PPC campaign that already sees you getting top visibility via organic search. If you’re already ranking high on search engines for specific keywords and phrases due to your SEO efforts, there’s no need to run a PPC ad campaign for the same terms. This is self-sabotage; therefore, your SEO campaign will be more successful if it is left in tact.

Be Specific in Your Headline
When preparing content for PPC ads, use keywords, terms, and phrases that tell search engine users exactly what you are trying to sell. A great method for this is including a price point so that the potential customer will know how much the product or service will cost them. Some beginner affiliates make a big mistake by using the name of the offer they are promoting in their headline. There’s a better way. For example, say that you are promoting rain boots. Instead of using the headline “Rainboots from [insert favorite brand name]”, get more creative. Try changing that headline to read “Red Spring Rainboots Starting at $50”, or something similar.

Make Your PPC Landing Pages Pop
Landing pages in general should be customized specifically for the offer you are promoting. This is even more crucial for landing pages in a PPC campaign. PPC landing pages should feature the exact same offer you featured in the creative used to generate clicks. The keywords used in your PPC ad should match those in your SEO campaigns. From a design perspective, it helps to graphics and large font so your visitor does not have to struggle to see what you’re offering. Also, your page should have the least navigation possible to reduce the amount of clicks needed to make a purchase. Essentially, your landing page should cancel any confusion about what you’re offering and easily convert your visitor into a buying customer without any hesitation whatsoever.

In addition to the three tips above, we encourage beginner PPC affiliates to test as much as possible. Split testing different landing pages, headlines, and keywords is really the only way to determine where you’re getting the most ROI for your efforts. Once you find out what works, duplicate your successful strategies and stop the campaigns that don’t work.

Have any thoughts on these or other PPC tips? Leave a comment below.

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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.

Google just announced a long overdue slick little widget, so Blogger users can easily monetize their blogs via the Google affiliate network.

I helped launch the Google Affiliate Network back in 2008 and did their promotion for over 2 years. Here is one of the 1st promotions I did for the new network. And I still try to follow their progress as they grow. This step sounds like a no-brainer and I’m a little surprised they didn’t do it sooner.

Introducing Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger
We’re excited to announce that starting today, a new gadget called Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger will be available to select U.S. Blogger users. This gadget makes it easy for Blogger users to insert an affiliate ad into a blog post and earn a commission when someone clicks the link and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site.

Learn more and get started at the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger website.

Hap tip to Geno because I saw his post about it 1st.

If you are worried about all the affiliate nexus laws and/or are an affiliate marketer who is considering moving to a new city for any reason, the following article may be helpful. It was written by Rick Gardiner over at Marketing Land and it’s well worth a read, so I wanted to share.

Best States To Live As An Affiliate Marketer

Whether affiliate marketing is your “day job” or just a supplemental income; there are several factors that should be considered when deciding the best place to establish and run your performance marketing business.

In recent years, ‘Affiliate Nexus Tax’ laws have become the main driver behind which state affiliates should reside in. Newly proposed federal sales tax reform, if passed, will enable affiliates to approach this topic more strategically as a business owner.

This is a guest post from Share Results

According to the site Visua.ly, 48% of small business owners increased their sales. How did they do it? Well, it was through the use of social media. If you are running your affiliate marketing business solo, your aim is to expand and make your business profitable. Profits are stimulated by many factors and awareness about your affiliate site is one of them. The more internet users know about your affiliate site, the better. Awareness is by far the most important reason you should invest in social media. So many experts talk about the virtues of social media; however, for some affiliates, it’s hard to justify spending more valuable hours of your week on Twitter and Facebook. With this in mind, there are a few ways to better handle your social media investment for improved ROI. Here are some ideas on how to do that.

Hire an intern or beginner consultant
There are many high school and college students out there who are looking to gain any online marketing experience that they can add to their resumes. Whether it’s an intern looking for affiliate marketing experience, or a social media consultant that wants to build up their portfolio of clients, find someone who has a genuine interest in social media and hire them. Some may do some pro bono work for you, while others may demand payment. Though people don’t want to pay money for these services, competition is fierce in the world of affiliate marketing and social media. If you’re faced with the latter scenario, at least try offering a monthly honorarium to credit this person for the time and investment they are putting in. The more you invest in that person, the more likely they will invest their time in helping your business.

Organize a calendar
Whether you or someone else is managing your social media campaign, it pays to keep an organized schedule of when you plan to post messages. Say for example that you are looking to promote a full week of shoe offers from your merchants. Twitter and Facebook are awesome channels for targeting consumers. In a social media calendar, you could set up preliminary message posts to create buzz around an offer, and have them published Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 9:30 AM. A Twitter post might read “5 days till you get 30% off our merchant deals.” Or, alternatively on Facebook you could post “Guess which company has free shipping until the end of the month? Click here to find out.” Of course, a perfectly-timed message isn’t going to convert all your sales. Other factors such as landing page and the actual appeal of the deal are important. But, by keeping your followers up to date about your limited-time offers and the like through scheduled times, you take care of building your brand awareness.

Make sure your logo gets noticed
Make sure your brand is saturated across multiple social media channels by using the same logo as your profile photo. As you probably know, Facebook will roll out Timeline pages for brands by March 30. If you have a successful affiliate marketing site and/or offer promotions to your visitors, it may be time to set up a Facebook page if you don’t already have one. Facebook, and Twitter for that matter, are great B2C channels when used properly, especially when it comes to creating awareness about your affiliate site’s brand. To make sure that potential consumers know who you are, your social media coordinator should be plastering your logo any place they can online.

Automate only 50% of the time
To facilitate social media management, advanced affiliates use automation publishing tools. The good news is that many of them are free! When you sign up to sites like Ping.FM and Twitterfeed and set it up so that you can post messages through multiple social media accounts. If you have a blog on WordPress, you can also use plugins to automatically publish your blog your content across social media accounts. Before using any automation tool, keep in mind that you should not automate your content more than 50% of the time. Studies have shown that personalized social media messages get better responses, so remember that while these tools are meant for convenience, they should not completely replace you.

What’s your take on investing in social media management? Tell us your feedback in the comments section below.

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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.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the talk about social media?

It seems like everyday we’re being bombarded with emails and news about seminars, whitepapers and articles offering advice on how to incorporate more social media into our business marketing strategy. There’s been a great deal of attention paid to social networks and the benefit they serve for businesses, especially platforms like Pinterest and Google +. However, affiliate marketers may be feeling confused about whether these tools are really worth the return on all the hours dedicated to these social channels.

Share Results affiliate network has just posted a two-part blog series on the subject of social media, even going so far as to suggest that “if you are strictly focused on B2B and have little time or resources to build your social media profile, it’s time to cancel the accounts that serve you no purpose.”

Google+ Pages
In November, Google+ launched Google+ Pages, a tool for businesses and brands to connect with customers and fans. The Google+ user-base is small compared to 800 million Facebook users and Twitter’s 200+ million users, however, branded pages on Google are growing 4x faster compared to Twitter. Although a smaller user-base means fewer users, this may give you the ability to form more personal relationships with your consumers. What’s more, G+ allows you to tailor certain messages to certain contacts.

To read these two blog posts visit the links below:

Read Part 1 of the social media blog here.
Read Part 2 of the social media blog here.

RevenueAds was started in 2005 and has been steadily growing every year. We try to take a personal approach to each of our affiliates in order to make their campaigns successful. Because of the quality our affiliates provide, we have several exclusive and direct offers. We invite you to compare your current epc’s with our network.

Take the time to sign up with us and check out our large list of direct campaigns, highest payouts, and weekly payment options. Our affiliate managers are seasoned in this industry and are here to help you grow your numbers month after month.

The Top 3 Reasons YOU should be a RevenueAds Affiliate:

1. Weekly payments offered

2. Best DIRECT offers and less brokered junk which leads to higher epc’s

3. We take the time to talk with all of our affiliates in order to run successful campaigns

More Info – Join Here!

You will quickly see what sets RevenueAds apart from the rest of the industry.
Go ahead and make the move. Sign up today!

Guest Post by Oliver Roup, CEO of VigLink

Website publishers feel like they face a difficult trade-off: cater to their readers or cater to their revenue.  But, as any publisher or affiliate marketer knows, it’s a false trade-off.  The two are intimately related. Without strong readership and traffic, monetization is an impossibility. Without monetization, a site is tough to sustain.

So, how can you earn revenue without scaring off your readers? Or, better yet, how can you earn revenue while actually enhancing your readers’ experience on your site?

Publishers that don’t think through these questions may find themselves adopting a rather crude monetization strategy, plastering banners on every spare inch of their pages, or implementing the dreaded paywall. And while there is certainly a time and a place for both banner ads and paywalls, both overlook what should be a critical component of a site’s monetization strategy: the content.

Content is where your readers dedicate the majority of their time and attention on your site.  Why not leverage it?  By doing so, you’ll secure an important additional revenue stream for your site that is both unobtrusive and user-friendly.  Here are a few of the best ways to get started monetizing your site’s content.

Monetize Links
Most reading this are already leveraging affiliate marketing in some capacity to earn revenue. However, it’s important to be strategic when affiliating links.  To do so, closely monitor where your outbound traffic goes (using a tool like Google Analytics), in order to replicate successes.  And if you aren’t already, consider leveraging a tool like VigLink (disclosure: I am the CEO) to augment what you are doing by hand and monetize links you may have missed.

Add Additional Monetizable Links
Done right, weaving additional–sensible–links into your content can enhance both a reader’s experience on your site AND your revenue.

When readers want to learn more about a product, brand, or merchant your content references, it’s tedious to start a search elsewhere. Similarly, it’s tedious for you to comb through content searching for each and every product reference and inserting an appropriate monetizable link (particularly if you are combing through comments or other user-generated content). So, bring in help to do the heavy lifting. Vibrant Media, Konetera, VigLink, and Infolinks all offer link insertion solutions with varying degrees of intrusiveness.

Sponsored Posts
Sponsored posts, done right, unite an advertiser’s interest in spreading their message with a reader’s interest in great content. But readers won’t read through or act-on content that is a pure product pitch. A few angles that will avoid this:

• Sponsored product reviews (that you write): Allowing      relevant advertisers to commission a product review on your site–that you write–helps them get their message out while also buffering content from overt bias.
• Sponsored series (3-4 articles on a single theme or topic): A single sponsored post provides little benefit to an advertiser, and isn’t always in the best interest of readers either.  Advertisers will often feel compelled to package their entire marketing message in a single post and the quality of the content will suffer. However, allowing an advertiser to author a series of blog posts around a specific topic will lessen the pressure around communicating their value proposition in a single article, while also increasing the overall volume of impressions they see on your site.

Monetize Images
In all likelihood, every page of content on your site includes one or more images. But few online publishers are earning revenue from the images they include within their content. Often, they even cost the publisher money if purchased via sites like iStockphoto.

Companies like Luminate, Stipple, and GumGum have built image monetization solutions that address that problem and help publishers earn revenue from the images on their site.

A Better Experience for ReadersReaders understand the need for revenue. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be vocal when they see something they don’t like.  Monetizing content can serve as a way to alleviate the downward pressure on banner advertising and other obtrusive monetization methods while still increasing your overall revenue stream.

What content monetization tools did I leave out? Share your favorites in the comments section.

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About Oliver Roup

Oliver is the Founder and CEO of VigLink, a content monetization company. He has over 15 years of software experience and has previously served as a Director at Microsoft in charge of product for various media properties including XBOX Live Video Marketplace, Zune Marketplace and MSN Entertainment. Oliver was also an early employee at Internet Radio pioneer Echo Networks and has worked for Paul Allen at Vulcan, for iPlayer at the BBC and for the Founders Fund.  He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from MIT and his MBA from the Harvard Business School.

This is a guest post from Share Results

Every affiliate is different when it comes to the criteria they use to assess what type of offer they will promote. In addition to the preferred promotional method, there are certain aspects about an affiliate program that should be questioned. One creative approach to learning more about an affiliate program is to think like an affiliate network. A keen interest of affiliate networks in deciding whether a product or service is the right strategic fit for affiliates depends on several factors. Here’s the inside scoop on what we look for when it comes to deciding whether or not to launch an affiliate program. Use these questions to evaluate which offer you want to promote.

Who is the affiliate manager?
Some merchants believe that they can set up an affiliate program and just have any old person on their end to manage the account. Sometimes the assumption is that a network will appoint an affiliate manager, or that all affiliates will just actively pick up and promote an offer without having any contact from an affiliate manager. If you are an affiliate looking to join an affiliate program, think like an affiliate network and foresee just how productive the program will be in the long run based on who is running it. If you don’t have enough information about who exactly the affiliate manager is, then try to develop a relationship with the one person who can speak to you about the affiliate program, whoever that may be. It’s always good to know the person in charge of the program to let them know who you are, to determine how you can work together, and evaluate what the expectations are for working together.

Exactly how many affiliate programs are there?
One thing some affiliates might not be paying attention to is the possibility that an affiliate program may be run in multiple networks. We advise merchants on a regular basis to not spread their business too thinly by running four or more affiliate programs at a time. Some programs are divided in order to strategically generate traffic for different offers (i.e. a US-focused affiliate program vs. a Canada-focused affiliate program). But, if there are no distinct differences between the programs, this can lead to closing an affiliate program down the road. Affiliates will need to decide if the offer is the right fit for them, based on where those programs are hosted and how many there are of them.

Find out what others are saying?
Research on a merchant’s offer is a must before a decision can be made about signing on the dotted line and launching an affiliate program. Forums, such as those like 5Star, are great ways to determine what other affiliates are saying about an affiliate program (if one already exists). If the affiliate program has an affiliate manager, try calling up or emailing that affiliate manager directly to learn more about the affiliate program and dig deeper to know what they know about the offer.

These are a few suggestions, but it pays to do a bit of digging to find out more about an affiliate program. Generally, what affiliates see on a program description page is a mere snapshot of what the program offers. So, if it’s not obvious, try asking your contact for the program some questions, such as:

If you have suggestions on how to evaluate an affiliate program before joining, leave us your feedback in the comment box below.

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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.

With the New Year ringing in, Share Results has rolled out an insightful series entitled “Turning Over a New Leaf-6 Changes Affiliates Can Apply in 2012.” This three-part blog series focuses on six resolutions targeted towards affiliate marketers in hoping to improve their affiliate business in 2012. These helpful tips are especially beneficial to affiliates looking for a little push in the right direction. Check out two tips below and read the rest on the Share Results site:

Attend or Start a Meetup

Affiliate Summit Meetups have gained popularity across a number of different cities in North America. This is a great time to attend these and/or other digital marketing events locally. Meetup.com is a great source for meeting other local affiliates, but so are Facebook and LinkedIn. Begin first by signing up to these sites, and find a digital marketing group you enjoy and is accessible by car or public transportation in your city. This year try to introduce your business to an offline community

Drilling Down Search By Local Results

Pew Internet reports that about 36% of adults rely on search engines for information about local businesses other than restaurants and bars. This means your affiliate site as a local business is very relevant and should be ranking for keywords related to your campaign, and local search. Moreover, your visitors are very likely to be looking for you on their mobile phones just as much as they are looking for you via their desktops. Social Local Mobile or SoLoMo is a major marketing trend that many professionals are already paying attention to and will continue to do so in 2012. For the sake of your affiliate business, we recommend that you do the same to help profit in the new year.

To read the entire series, visit the following links:

Turning Over a New Leaf-6 Changes Affiliates Can Apply in 2012: Part 1

Turning Over a New Leaf-6 Changes Affiliates Can Apply in 2012: Part 2

Turning Over a New Leaf-6 Changes Affiliates Can Apply in 2012: Part 3

RevenueWire’s affiliate network, AffiliateWire, has truly gone all out for this year’s affiliate contest. They’ve just launched Lethal Velocity, their third annual Live Dangerously Contest. If you’ve never been a part of it before, this year is your chance to jump in on the unforgettable action. Their annual contest is truly an epic adventure-of-a-lifetime event. Past winners have gone on a real live shark dive in the Bahamas and an electrifying flight in a jet fighter –– barrel rolls included! That’s just how this affiliate network rolls…

For 2012′s installment of the Live Dangerously Contest, the grande prize blazes with even more excitement, speed, and raw awesome adventure than you ever thought possible. A winning seat in the Lethal Velocity Contest will pretty much BLOW YOUR MIND.

Winners get to drive a selection of exotic supercars at top speed down an airstrip in the Mojave Desert. Choose from a range of stunning road machines to try and reach the 200MPH mark, including a Ferrari GTB and Italia, Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, Mercedes McLaren SLR and Bentley Continental Supersports. Just imagine yourself at the wheel of one of these world class road machines!

And there’s an added challenge, too. You will be gunning to break the 200MPH barrier. If you succeed, you will be immortalized in the 200MPH Club!

The top new affiliate and the top incremental affiliate each win a seat in this thrilling automotive adventure. There’s also a third seat awarded to the top vote getting industry blogger. You can learn more about the blogger contest here.

There you have it. Three seats. One incredibly awesome experience.

Visit www.live-dangerously.com for all the details.

Now here’s the best part. All sales of every product on the AffiliateWire Network are automatically eligible towards this prize.

NOT A MEMBER? SIGN UP HERE.
THEN ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SELL, SELL, SELL.

That’s your cue. Sign up, open your AffiliateWire account, pick your products and put your campaigns in high gear.

Any questions, feel free to contact affiliates@revenuewire.com.

NDemand Affiliates is a superior affiliate network featuring 800+ campaigns and the best payouts you will find anywhere! From health and beauty to dating, they have all the top performing offers as well as great exclusives you won’t find elsewhere! Offers include a mix of incentive and non-incentive campaigns.

NDemand Affiliates strives to earn your business with our competitive rates, excellent affiliate support, and a vast campaign selection. With years of experience, the dedicated team of representatives will work diligently with you to ensure you earn the best return possible.

NDemand Affiliates – Affiliate Network Benefits

.:. Wide Variety of Offers
.:. Accurate Tracking System
.:. Great Creative Options
.:. Super Affiliate Bonuses
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More Info – Join Here!

Net 30 payments are standard – bi-weekly payouts available after quality level is reached. Ndemand also offers 24/7 support and if you can’t reach an AM you can go right to the CEO!

With NDemand Affiliates you can be assured that we will always pay on time, carry the best quality – high converting campaigns on inventory, and always be there to offer dedicated support whenever you need it. Join NDemand Affiliates today and discover the difference.

Join NDemand Affiliates Today!

I haven’t quoted her for a long time, but one of my favorite authorities in the affiliate marketing space is Rae Hoffman-Dolan. So I was thrilled to discover a new article she penned today that has some very solid advice. Love the way Rae writes and she knows how to drive a point home! Hope you find this helpful.

Creating A Successful SEO Strategy For An Affiliate Website

Nowadays, ranking is much harder, especially for an affiliate-oriented website. I’d imagine that if you could go back in time and explain to a 1998 affiliate marketer what goes into ranking in the 2011 SERPS, it would be the same kind of culture shock as showing Henry Ford a busy metropolitan freeway at rush hour.

Affiliate marketing has evolved. This evolution is not so much technology-based, nor is it really “fundamentals” based. It’s strategy based.

So how do you create an evolved affiliate strategy? The specifics will change from site to site, but some of the standards remain the same regardless of the topic or niche.

2011 zipped by and 2012 is already here. It’s really true that the older you get the faster time flies. So I hope you make every minute count this year and that you reach new levels of success and prosperity in 2012.

On behalf of all the 5 Star Merchants and Affiliate Managers

Happy New Year!

Thanks for your partnership and support over the past year.
We wish you all a profitable and successful 2012.

Well if shopping is a good economic indicator, looks like the economy is doing pretty well. According to research from IBM CoreMetrics Cyber Monday 2011 online sales were up 33.0 percent over 2010 and Cyber Monday sales were up 29.3 percent over Black Friday.

comScore just reported Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending, which is the heaviest online spending day in history and the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold.

Click the image above to read the rest of the report. There are some good mobile sales stats too.

HAPPY CYBER MONDAY 2011

Sing it with me now, then spin around 3 times, pull on your right ear and pray to the Google Gods. I absolutely guarantee that if you do this little ritual, your Monday Holiday sales will increase! (If funky eBooks promise you can make a billion $$ in your underwear, then I can make a crazy claim too!)

Sing to the tune of “Monday Monday” by the Mama’s and Papa’s

Cyber Monday… so good to me,
Cyber Monday it was all I hoped it would be
Cyber Monday morning, Monday morning will guarantee
That Monday evening sales will still be comin’ in for me.

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah…
But when Cyber Monday comes, when Cyber Monday comes
You can find me smilin’ all of the time…

If this song stays in your head all day and drives you nuts – please feel free to yell at me in the comments below!

A few weeks ago, Share Results began posting their three-part blog series called 12 Steps of Christmas. A play on the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, the posts look at how online retailers can distinguish their brand and overall business to maximize profits. While these points are great for advertisers, there are some excellent lessons in here that are equally relevant for affiliate marketers, particularly those that are trying to looking for different strategies to increase sales for the holiday season.

Details, Details, and Details
Research has shown that online shoppers spend 80% of their time looking at the information above the page fold. This means that the information below the page fold will only be looked at 20% of the time. Be sure to catch shoppers’ attention while still keeping it simple. It is also very important to clearly state your contact information, last day of shipping, return policies, inventory changes, and other vital information for holiday shoppers. You do not want to be responsible for ruining someone’s gift!

Segment Your Clients
Differentiate your email approaches. Your emails should differ when communicating with a woman or a man or a regular customer or an inactive one. The more segmented your approach, the more effective and personal is your communication.

To read the entire series, visit the following links:

12 Steps of Christmas: Part 1
12 Steps of Christmas: Part 2
12 Steps of Christmas: Part 3

Empyre Media is showing its appreciation to its affiliates and the affiliate marketing industry by offering a huge End of the Year bonus of 10% on all commissions earned from November 15, 2011 through December 31, 2011. The bonus is offered to both existing Empyre affiliates as well as those that join the network during the promotion period. With traffic accepted from all offers, in all verticals and on all media types, affiliates are sure to dramatically increase their Q4 revenues through this unprecedented bonus. Complete bonus details here.

Empyre Media is a leading CPA Affiliate Network that works to bring its affiliate and advertising partners the highest standard of service while ensuring the best quality traffic and offers. Through a combined 22 years of affiliate management, our Affiliate Managers know what makes affiliates successful and how to assist them every step of the way. Our dedication to delivering the highest quality, targeted traffic to our advertiser partners has resulted in countless sales and satisfied consumers. Whether you are monetizing your blog, your network, your list or your website, Empyre Media provides customized service and revenue potential that is unparalleled by any other affiliate network in the industry.

Join Empyre Media today!

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.