Archives for March 2007

Q: How can I monitor my affiliates who are using e-mail to be sure they are being CAN-SPAM compliant?

A: I’ve got two tools I’d recommend that you check out. First is LashBack.com, where they have a suite of tools to enable advertisers to monitor affiliate CAN-SPAM Act compliance.

Also, there is UnsubCentral.com, which enables you to manage your e-mail suppression list(s). This tool enables you to protect your suppression data via MD5-encoding, as well as controlling which affiliates can even access this information and e-mail creative.

Check out those two products and take them for a test drive.

If you don’t have the budget for LashBack.com and/or UnsubCentral.com, you can monitor your affiliates the old fashioned way – opt-in to their list(s). This is not perfect since their “real” list might not be out there for you to subscribe.

An important thing to note – be selective about which affiliates are able to send out e-mail. Don’t just make the creative and suppression list(s) publicly available, or else you may well get a call from the FTC due to spamming affiliates.

Q: Which is the best software to recruit affiliates… ARELIS or Link Capture?

A: There are a handful of software programs for affiliate recruitment. In addition to ARELIS and Link Capture, there is also the Internet Success Spider and Syntryx.

ARELIS is the most popular and lower in cost than Link Capture, but I prefer Link Capture. I also like Syntryx – it’s more expensive and more robust than the others.

It really depends on your pricepoint. If it’s between ARELIS and Link Capture, I’d go with Link Capture. If cost isn’t as much a concern, I’d suggest Syntryx.

Q: My latest question is from an affiliate manager. It’s actually not really a question, but more of a solicitation. It’s a bit long, so I’ll excerpt some of it:

Hello Sir/Madam,

Greetings!

I’m Savitha from the affiliate team of Knowledge Online services!
I was browsing through your website and we found that we could partner up to work together.

We invite you join our affiliate program!

A: The submission goes on to explain all of the attributes of their affiliate program. The problem here is that they submitted this “question” as AskShawnCollins.com – the site is solely dedicated to accepting questions on affiliate marketing.

This affiliate program pitch totally untargeted. There is a profound disconnect between what they are selling (educational services) and what I’m doing (answering questions on affiliate marketing).

I think this is a prime example of a bad attempt at affiliate recruiting.

On a positive note, it’s something all affiliate managers can learn a lesson from, especially Savitha. Invest the time and energy to find quality prospects that make sense for your affiliate program.

Don’t just go out there with a shotgun method where you address people as Sir/Madam. Make an effort to reach out to an individual and understand what their site is about. Then, endeavor to make a real connection, instead of this sort of spam.

Personally, I’d never join an affiliate program that marketed to me in this fashion. Try picking up the phone or sending a note by mail to affiliates who you’d like to recruit into your affiliate program.

Just don’t bring your affiliate program down with this sort of lazy, counter-productive tactic.

Q: I drive affiliate traffic through pay per click search engines straight to affiliate links without a landing page. How can I track which keywords are converting best?

A: It’s actually a fairly easy method. I’ll tell you what I do to track the effectiveness of my pay per click keywords in affiliate campaigns.

I use sub-IDs for each keyword. Most any affiliate network ought to offer the ability to do this – it’s a string of alpha-numeric characters that you add on to your affiliate link. I would suggest using each keyword as a sub-ID, so you can evaluate the reporting quick and easy.

For example, here is an affiliate link through Commission Junction to promote 1&1 Internet Web Hosting:

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1544023-10365666

If I were running a pay per click keyword campaign to promote this affiliate program, here is an example of a link with a sub-ID I could use for the keyword “web hosting”:

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1544023-10365666?SID=web_hosting

The structure of the sub-ID varies for each affiliate network (CJ calls it SmartRewards), so check with the respective affiliate network about how to create sub-IDs for their links.

Q: What is your perspective on the recent interview over at New Media Age magazine with Nick Robertson, CEO of ASOS?

A: First, let’s start with the quote that’s gotten the UK affiliate blogs stirred up…

“Next year we’ll reintroduce affiliate marketing but as it should be, as opposed to affiliates as they were. [There’ll be] no silly commissions being paid to grubby little people in grubby studios growing income at our expense, getting in the way of genuine sales.”

Now unless there is some sort of language barrier there, and I don’t think there is, apparently Nick is a little confused or something.

I can’t really imagine what the motive is behind that statement, but if he really anticipates relaunching the affiliate program with that perspective, I think he’s in for a rude awakening.

I don’t think affiliates are going to be willing to promote ASOS, and in all likelihood there will be some sort of boycott against the brand and affiliate program by affiliate marketers.

I think this new way of affiliate marketing he has in mind is going to be nothing but a mirage.