Shawn Collins' Blog

Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

Archives for July 2005

Spamhaus: We Know Spammers and Scott Richter is No Spammer

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In days gone by, Scott Richter was known as Spam King, or as he referred to himself on The Daily Show, a “high-volume email deployer.”

But times have changed. According to Steve Linford of Spamhaus, “Many months ago Scott Richter gave Spamhaus his word he was really-really quitting the spam business, to instead build a solid COI business. Against the odds he appears to have pulled it off, we have not seen spam from Richter for so many months that his time is up… Richter is out of ROKSO.”

Richter, who was featured in the book Spam Kings, helped his cause by cleaning house of affiliates that were promoting his offers.

“The strong adherence to our COI practices over the last year, (which included the removal of many hosting clients and affiliates), set us on the Spamhaus removal path – a privilege and honor that we will continue to live up to. This distinction is what sets us apart from other networks and further solidifies our business model and future growth,” stated Missy Ward, Director of Marketing for CPA Empire, a division of Scott Richter’s OptInRealBig.com.

Note: ROKSO is the Registry of Known Spam Operations and COI is a Confirmed Opt-In.

Ask Shawn Collins: E-Book Affiliate Program

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Q: I have written an e-book that I feel will be a sure fire seller on the Internet. Am willing to pay a fair commission for referrals leading to sales, however have no idea how to go about it. Another big factor: I have a zero marketing budget. What to do next?

Shawn CollinsA: I am not sure how much market research you did before writing the e-book, but I would suggest taking a look at which titles are most popular at ClickBank for e-books.

Pay close attention to the category where you would be listed, and what sort of copy and descriptions the top selling e-books are using, so you can get an idea about what is working.

As far as a fair commission, it’s all relative to your competition. Do your homework and figure out what a fair commission is among your competitors, rather than offering what you consider to be fair.

In addition to ClickBank, you should check out PayLoadz as a potential payment processor.

One advantage PayLoadz has over ClickBank is that PayLoadz handles the fulfillment for you.

Both have the technology built into their systems to run an affiliate program, and the cost to get setup is modest with each.

But if you truly have a zero marketing budget, you’re not going to be able to grow an affiliate program. As the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money.

You will need to invest money in the creation of banners, testing the banners, recruiting affiliates, getting an affiliate agreement drafted, etc.

Don’t launch an affiliate program without the proper resources – wait until you have some cash on hand so you can do it properly the first time out.

Ask Shawn Collins: The Perfect Technique for Recruiting Affiliates

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Q: What is your #1 strategy for finding, attracting and enrolling new quality affiliates into your program?

Shawn CollinsA: Over the years, I’ve come to find that there is no single method that is effective across the board for recruiting affiliates.

Each program has certain attributes and value propositions that can be highlighted in the affiliate recruiting process, but the way you go about things will depend on a handful of variables.

You must determine which types of affiliates are the best performers in your affiliate program. Go through your roster of current affiliates and identify them by the way they market you: email, PPC search engines, content sites, data feeds, blogs, etc.

Then, pull together aggregate numbers for the performance by each method. This will help to guide you as to which types of affliates you should target.

When you have done this, test a variety of methods to gain insight as to which efforts yield the best results: phone calls, banner ads, direct mail, etc.

It’s essential to educate yourself on which affiliates perform best for your program and the types of solicitations that are most welcomed by them.

The shotgun approach of mailing large lists of Webmasters is not only illegal (unless you follow all of the CAN-SPAM provisions), but it aggravates lots of affiliates, and generally as a weak return.

Affiliate Marketing is a Beautiful Thing

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The following is what Tracy Allen had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

There isn’t anything wrong with affiliate marketing!

I laughed out loud when you talked about being met with “blank stares”!

Most people don’t know what it is and therefore it makes it a little more difficult to learn the best ways to be an affiliate marketer but that’s the beauty in it for me.

I feel as though I’m on the ground floor of a wonderful opportunity.

Today was the first time I made it a point to shop Wal-Mart for the bulk of my groceries. Who knew that someday that would be possible?

So why not be able to go to any website, see a link that reminds you that you want/need something in particular, have people purchase from your link, and you get compensated for it?

It’s a beautiful thing!

Google AdWords Copy Test: BetterPPC Rocks

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Last week, I mentioned that I was going to test out the free of BetterPPC.

launch

They created a patent pending test process to simplify the testing and refining of your PPC campaigns.

Anyhow, I tried it out to compare the results I was seeing in a campaign I’ve been running for quite some time.

I’d tweaked it here and there on my own, and never see a big spike or dip.

With BetterPPC, I am nearing the end of my free trial, and it’s looking like approximately 3x increase in performance.

That’s huge to me, as I’m finding so much more volume in a niche that I haven’t been able to grow in for some time. Are you affiliates listening?

Plus, with Google’s recent announcement that it’s requiring lower-performing ads to pay higher CPCs to remain active, I think BetterPPC is something you definitely ought to check out.

If you’d like to get a complimentary test of BetterPPC, visit them at betterppc.com and use coupon code: AFFTIP

Ask Shawn Collins: Key to Activating Affiliates

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How do you get your affiliates to become more active?

In order to get your affiliates to be more active, there are some basics you have to cover first.

Your affiliates want to be viewed as an important partner for your company and should be treated as such. So if an affiliate has a problem or question, don’t blow it off for days – tackle when it comes in.

I call this one touch affiliate management. Don’t open, read, and then put affiliate queries on that back burner. And, by all means, don’t disregard these contacts.

So, you’re taking care of your affiliates and treating them like partners. What next? Well, determine why they should promote you instead of your competition.

Do you have a bigger product selection, more frequent commission payment schedule, an XML data feed, highest commission in your category, better EPC than your competitors?

Make it a practice to frequently engage in comeptitive research, so you can frequently optimize your program, and tell your affiliates why you stand out.

When you have everything in place, target your affiliates by email, phone AND direct mail to sell them on the value propositions of your affiliate program.

Don’t be shy about sending them a little gift or increasing their commission rate. Do things that stand out in their minds and make them feel appreciated – happy affiliates are productive affiliates.

As far as the terminally inactive affiliates, try setting up a communication plan for them, where you provide tips, resources, login information, links with their affiliate id, etc. on a regular basis.

For those affiliates that never become active after an extended period of time, consider dropping them from your program. You’ll hear the argument that some affiliate somewhere joined two years ago and become super active last week for so and so program.

As far as I can tell, those stories are myths (I’m still looking for the case study that proves me wrong). Focus your efforts and energies on building relationships, but you’ve got to set some limits to determine when an affiliate is simply not going to be active.

Affiliates Want Landing Pages That Don’t Suck

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The following is what Charlotte Kornev had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

One of the biggest problems with affiliate marketing is the web sites we refer to.

We do our jobs getting the click throughs, but one of my highest CTRs has a web page that doesn’t do its job of selling.

I think it would help us all out a lot if more merchants made deep links available so that really well targeted advertising could show the customer what they are after, instead of a home page that may not sell them enough to browse around and find what they are really looking for.

Affiliate marketing is a really tough thing to do, and its hard to find the keywords, copy and so forth, especially in a really competitive market.

I think it wastes a lot of effort on the affiliate’s part to find an excellent product, promote it, and have such a lousy landing page on the merchant’s part that the customer just isn’t interested.

Referrals are what we do, not selling. Merchants could perhaps learn something about designing good pages from looking at successful competitors.

Do the RESEARCH, so we can all do business together.

The Customer is Sometimes Always Right in Affiliate Marketing

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There are three certainties of life: death, taxes, and affiliate forums hating parasites.

But what is a parasite? It depends on whom you ask. According to DOXdesk, they coined the term “as a catch-all term to cover the range of unwelcome software” or “unsolicited commercial software.”

Generally, affiliates consider an attribute of a parasite to be an application that redirects affiliate links and/or overwrites affiliate cookies.

This interpretation of a parasite erroneously includes user installed customer retention programs, such as RemindU from Upromise. However, the DOXdesk database of known parasites does not include RemindU and many of the other programs that are often targeted as being parasites by affiliates.

The key to the DOXdesk defintion is that a parasite is unsolicited, where “it is for the most part being installed without the affected users having specifically asked for it.”

Many of the DOXdesk type of affiliates have been identified and purged by the affiliate networks. However, the user installed customer retention applications being distributed by affiliates are largely still in the networks, much to the chagrin of some affiliates.

The reason affiliates don’t like these applications is because they enable the consumer to choose which affiliate will be rewarded a commission, and that means the affiliates with the customer retention applications that provide a value proposition for the consumer will generally win out.

In the case of RemindU, Upromise will “let you know when you’re shopping at a Upromise contributing company and give you a quick way to make sure you get college savings back on your spending.”

Some affiliates see New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as the guy to exterminate parasites once and for all, And he’s on his way, but it looks like the parasites he’ll be tackling are the DOXdesk variety.

I recently chatted with a “super affiliate” who said he was considering the incorporation of a customer retention program to his already successful affiliate sites.

When I asked what he thought about the backlash he’d get from his affiliate peers, he said, “I don’t care what they think. I care what Eliot Spitzer thinks. I will create a clean piece of software that serves the customer and complies with any and all laws.”

As far as the reception such a piece of customer retention software will receive from the affiliate managers, it looks like they are taking an individualized approach to these applications.

According to a recent poll on the AffiliateManager.net forum, 54% of affiliate managers stated that some affiliates using applications are dirty and some are clean.

Unless a law is put on the books to ban consumer choice, it looks like this will be a hot button issue for some time to come.

Microsoft/Claria Deal Dead

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Affiliate marketers and bloggers have been buzzing about rumors that Microsoft was going to acquire Claria.

Looks like all the hand wringing was taken into account by the folks in Redmond, WA.

Microsoft has ended its acquisition talks with behavioral targeting firm Claria, ClickZ News has learned from a source close to the discussions. Another Microsoft source later confirmed that report.

A Microsoft staffer, who asked not to be identified, characterized the end of the talks as driven by concerns about a PR fallout that could follow a Claria purchase. That company has, in the past, been associated with spyware.

Continued at http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3519521

Ask Shawn Collins: Popular Banner Sizes for Affiliate Programs

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I am a merchant and am setting up an affiliate program right now. I have read that 468×60 is the standard banner size, but I was wondering if you can give me some idea of other popular sizes and (better still) their popularity ranking.

Yes, 468×60 is one of sixteen standard banner sizes per the IAB Interactive Marketing Units Standards.

Below are the standard banner sizes:

Rectangles and Pop-Ups
300 x 250 IMU – (Medium Rectangle)
250 x 250 IMU – (Square Pop-Up)
240 x 400 IMU – (Vertical Rectangle)
336 x 280 IMU – (Large Rectangle)
180 x 150 IMU – (Rectangle)

Banners and Buttons
468 x 60 IMU – (Full Banner)
234 x 60 IMU – (Half Banner)
88 x 31 IMU – (Micro Bar)
120 x 90 IMU – (Button 1)
120 x 60 IMU – (Button 2)
120 x 240 IMU – (Vertical Banner)
125 x 125 IMU – (Square Button)
728 x 90 IMU – (Leaderboard)

Skyscrapers
160 x 600 IMU – (Wide Skyscraper)
120 x 600 IMU – (Skyscraper)
300 x 600 IMU – (Half Page Ad)

As far as popularity, that only tells half of the story. The more important measure is the effectiveness.

In my experience, the 468×60 is the most popular banner. However, the most effective size in the affiliate programs I have managed has been the 120×90.

I would suggest testing a variety of the sizes above (ask your affiliates which sizes they want), and narrow down to the handful of sizes that are most effective for your affiliate program.

All that said, don’t focus solely on banners – be sure to also provide plenty of text ads for your affiliates. I’ve found that they outperform all of the banner ads.