Affiliate Marketing talk by Marina Mann

Affiliate Marketing How to make money and do it right

Affiliate Marketing is part of the eCommerce ecosystem (cc) http://promote-my-site.com Thanks! My brand Stupid! Sucks! Love it! Love it! You rock! The Internet is the world’s largest market place. eCommerce or doing business electronically is changing business models and transforming corporations. Affiliate Marketing is the digital enablement of the word of mouth economy.

For publishers it’s away to generate revenue from your Web site Here’s an example of how a blog can build a CPA, or Cost Per Acquisition strategy with Affiliate Marketing. Leveraging the exchange of opinions within the community, these recommendations can turn into revenue in exchange for traffic to the merchant’s site.

Where the opportunity lies in understanding the opportunity

The advertiser is not in the business of generating traffic; publishers create content and context for referrals Cost $ 298 Pays $ 15

By creating relevant content, publishers drive traffic to merchant sites. A pay-for-performance program is where the publishers or affiliates receive a commission for generating a lead or a sale.

Affiliate

The affiliate marketing ecosystem Network Publisher Sends traffic Paid per performance Connects Affiliate to Advertiser Tools Pays commissions Engager Transacts Receives value Customer Advertiser Merchant Seller CRM payment & orders

Top advertisers and eCommerce powerhouses use affiliates as a virtual sales force

Targeted affiliate marketing promos, in all categories drive online sales.

The network is the technology and the relationship connector

Each network operates somewhat differently but all pay-per-performance

Moved from CJ to own in-house network in May 2008

$10 - $35 per lead

40%+ of winning bid revenue

Global network - get paid on actions made globally

Easy to sign-up

Pay affiliates per lead and commission sales

Represent ~50% of top 500 U.S. retailers

Great tools & profit tracking

Advertiser set up $12K, 4-6K/month

Difficult to join the merchant network

Require exclusivity from retailers

Have a large B2B network

Good screening of Affiliates

Pay flat fee per action

Pay on Try offers (free trial)

Pay on Sign-up, Subscriptions

Include Canadian retailers The Bay, Zellers, Home Outfitters

New UK player to watch

An affiliate displays a link, a visitor clicks on the link and makes a purchase, the affiliate earns a commission

Here’s an example of how an affiliate has built a business out of making eBay easier to search.

An different affiliate model born of transparency - “cash back shopping” surpassed $1billion in sales

“ Cash back” models share the affiliate commission with the customer. The average customer is the affiliate!

How WestJet grew to 850 affiliates in their first year and generated over $20M in sales

Due to the success of their Affiliate Program, WestJet encouraged soliciting charities to sign up! Not sure if the commissions paid were tax deductible.

Categories that worked Source: Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, 2007 Edition and internal data analysis. CJ lists the following as well performing product categories in 2007

Product categories consumers are buying online in 2008

Take a performing product category like “health and fitness” and strategically set up a niche site, create content to generate inbound traffic and links

Create content and generate inbound traffic…

Google Alerts for new stories

Search.twitter.com for RSS keyword notifications

Google trends for breaking stories

Use RSS to create a post around a news story and refer the source

Respond to top rated videos on youtube.com to generate huge traffic

Use StumbleUpon.com to generate in-bound links

By Sean Collins http://blog.affiliatetip.com

It’s not easy money

Affiliates

Top ~20% of affiliates make a substantial income

Merchants

Be careful not to bankrupt yourself with leads

Barriers to success: lack of internal resource, restricted budget & difficulty attracting affiliates

CPA fraud - Ask yourself: "Who is this affiliate, who came from nowhere to be my #2 biggest producer?”

Difficult to measure results unless you de-dup sales across different channels

Affiliate Marketing in email, social media , blogs and social networking sites

The emerging market is Social Media - it’s the ultimate formula to monetize the word of mouth economy with integrity. Imagine Facebook meets eBates! Also use contextual affiliate links in newsletters.

SEO, Real-time SMS , micro-blogging models continue to drive multi-channel marketing (online and in-store)

Game changers include: mobile/in-store technology & location based mobile coupon-ing as well as up-to the minute micro-blogging or word of mouth text and video broadcasting.

In an economic downturn Affiliate Marketing will thrive - offering a lower-cost way of finding customers in tough times

Don’t search for home runs, try and test

Practice transparency

Deliver context and relevancy

Your integrity rules

Opportunity doesn’t wait …

In an economic downturn Affiliate Marketing will thrive offering a lower-cost way of finding customers in tough times For publishers this space doesn’t cost money, it costs time