Archives for September 2005

Though its not as big a part of their overall sales and marketing program as paid search or e-mail, affiliate marketing is an effective strategy to build broader brand awareness and drive motivated buyers to business-to-consumer e-commerce sites, say web retailers participating in the latest Internet Retailer survey.

Most web retailers have already made a multi-year investment in affiliate marketing and count on a network of several thousand affiliates to drive visitor traffic, according to the latest Internet Retailer survey. For instance, 43.2% of web merchants taking part in the survey indicate that their affiliate marketing program is at least 4 years old, compared with 23.2% who say theyve had a program in place for 2-3 years, 10.5% with programs only about a year old and 23.2% with programs in operation less than a year.

Complete article at http://internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=16248

The following is what Cheryl Smith of Money Mechanic had to say in response the the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved?

Communication is Vital in Affiliate Marketing. If affilaites feel the merchants are not delivering, then work with the merchant to better conversions.

Affiliates know their market the best and if they feel the home page is not good enough, ask for a landing page that will give the affiliate’s target market the correct information.

It is often too easy to sit back and say they never converted, but if you don’t work together to better it, no one will make money.

How would you answer the question, What is wrong with affiliate marketing and how can it be improved? There are no right or wrong answers – just opinions that can help improve the industry.

The author of any response that is published at affiliatetip.com or affiliatesummit.com will receive a limited edition “It’s an affiliate thing, you wouldn’t understand.” t-shirt.

Share your thoughts now at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=56601070891

The folks behind Cydoor Desktop Media have launched a new CPA network, Oridian. I would expect that industry watchdogs have their eyes on this move.

According to SpywareGuide, Cydoor is classified as a minimal threat, but “Removal is hard.”

And Broadband Reports published a note from Cydoor asking the site to stop referring to Cydoor as spyware. Cydoor requested that they be referred to as “a mild adware.”

According to the Oridian site, “Spun out from Cydoor Desktop Media in September 2005, Oridian is a completely separate entity. Offering prime online media solutions, Oridian is firmly based on the professional foundation established by Cydoor.”

There was an interesting session at CJU this past Monday. The session, ‘Online Persuasion: Increasing the Size of the Deal’ featured panelists Roshan Mendis (Travelocity), Dan Murray (Ravenwood Marketing), Jeremy Palmer (Quit Your Day Job), and Terrence Thomas (Citigroup).

It was a compelling panel that covered the perspectives of both affiliates and merchants, and what each one can do to establish a more profitable and beneficial relationship.

As the session moved to Q&A, Paul Schroader, President of PS Web Solutions brought up a long simmering complaint among CJ merchants. The issue at hand was the ability, or lack thereof, for a merchant to communicate with their base of affiliates.

Paul put forth a timely example where he wanted to be able to communicate a mission critical message to his affiliates recently, and was not able to get through to a great number of them, since he didn’t have access to their phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

His client, the Oreck Corporation, had their corporate offices based in New Orleans and their manufacturing plant in Gulfport, MS. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it became impossible for Oreck to keep Oreck.com running for a period of time, as there was no way to fulfill orders.

This put the affiliate program in a position where they wanted to ask affiliates to pause any promotions that were costing them money (PPC campaigns, e-mails, and pretty much any other method being used to promote the company).

Unfortunately, they could not do so in cases where affiliates did not check their internal e-mail accounts on CJ or opt-in to Oreck mailings in their CJ accounts.

Hopefully, this example will be the impetus needed for CJ to provide more affiliate contact information to the merchants. When the lines of communications are wide open, more affiliates and merchants can increase the size of the deal, and everybody wins.

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

All affiliate programs should provide EPC data, instead of wasting our time promoting products that they have not optimized to sell themselves.

So they use affiliates to get a few sales.

CJ EPC data is nice, but not accurate. There is something wrong in the system. I can see it in my own EPC numbers – they are way higher then what I actually make.

I have been asking for these numbers since the 2000 Miami Affililate Force conference.

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

I am an affiliate newbie and the only thing I can see wrong with affiliate marketing is that it has a big barrier to entry, not because you need alot of capital to get started, but because you need to expertly wear many hats just to get started.

It also doesn’t help that the ones who know the topics well are busy making money and not that available to help you out.

Affiliate marketing is a business that a great amount of potential with many companies doing things their own way.

To improve things I would like to see a centralized entity come up with things like data-feed standards, curriculum to tech us newbies, and reasonably priced access to folks that can help us when we need it.

You are right it must be an affiliate thing…