Podcast: Download (Duration: 19:58 — 18.3MB)
Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare talk to Karen Varecka, Client Services Manager at buy.at, about SEO, SEM and PPC marketing. What are the basic differences and how to utilize SEM in your site traffic plan.
Questions we discuss are:
What is the difference between SEM, SEO and PPC
What are the pros and cons to SEO and PPC advertising
What are the major search engines and the second tier and how can you use them all.
**Yahoo search could be entirely powered by Bing as early as September
How to use 2nd tier search engines – less competition, lower conversions, but lower costs.
Miva –> used to be FindWhat
Searchfeed -> now takes you to Miva
Dogpile
Kanoodle
7search
Pageseeker
Metacrawler
Alta Vista – yep, they’re still around
Webcrawler
Find us on Twitter:
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs
Geekcast.fm
Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 21:38 — 19.8MB)
Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare talk to Amy Ely (Marketing Manager) and Kim Salvino (Sr. Account Manager & Affiliate Evangelist) about the buy.at network. We talk about the network history and the special tools they have available for affiliates and merchants to use.
buy.at is a global affiliate network and a leading industry player in the UK. A wholly owned subsidiary of Digital Window, buy.at drives growth for over 300 of the world’s leading brands.
Learn more about buy.at:
Visit the buy.at blog
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: @buyatUS
Find us on Twitter:
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs
Geekcast.fm
Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 27:03 — 24.8MB)
Join your Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare and their guest Angel Djambazov, Custom Tailored Marketing and Managing Editor for Revenews. The topic for this episode is how affiliates that think “outside the box” and get on board with local niches and social technology will be just that much ahead of the game.
Couponing on Twitter and Social Media – Not the way to go. There is too much.
Groupon – online and local
Some things affiliates can do that are “out of the box” and can be very lucrative.
Virtual Products:
Zynga, Second Life
Tie virtual products to real life products, gifts
Gift the virtual product, but let them know the real product is available
Popshops – 48 million products – make a virtual product tie to a virtual goal then link to the physical product
Prints – virtual art – create and send as a real print not just a virtual print
Loxly Gallery, CafePress, Zazzle are perfect examples of sites that can be utilized. Always check with the merchant first!
Second Life – JCPenney failed there because you can get the products locally
Virtual High End items – Create unique products only available there
Create a virtual storefront
Twitter – smart merchants use it to manage customer service
Good affiliate talks about snowboard bindings, gives good information, then tweets the link with the information in answer to questions or complaints. Offer alternatives, give links to reviews and share your experience with a product.
Mice – right handed, for left handers tell them where to find mice that are ergonomic for left handed people
Extension of review sites, more recommendations, tell why the products you recommend are better, don’t just sell. Tell people why they should buy the product you are promoting.
Jones Soda as wedding favors
Keen Shoes – why are they better than other sandals
Facebook app – needs to serve a new function with a new purpose
Set up a Facebook group vs a page – more interaction
Own local – Foursquare – have a local meeting at a place you are an affiliate for, post photos to flickr, drive customers to links on your site to sell.
Find us on Twitter:
Angel Djambazov
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs
Geekcast.fm
Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.
Lisa Picarille was the moderator for this discussion about trademark bidding with our guests, Deb Carney and Joe Sousa for the AffPlan Strategy Session about Trademark bidding.
Today’s Topic: Trademark Bidding and PPC Policies in Affiliate Marketing
In the wide ranging discussion we defined trademark bidding; discussed when it’s a good thing for affiliates and when it’s good for merchants; gave examples of when it makes no sense; the motivation behind merchant’s decisions to forbid trademark bidding; how some affiliates game the system; what it takes to police these policies; how to educate merchants and affiliates on the topic; software that helps affiliates do trademark bidding and more.
For complete show notes and to listen to this podcast, click here.
Join Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare as they talk to James Martell about what to do around New York City while you are in town for Affiliate Summit East August 15-17, 2010.
You can also listen to find out what to do in New York City anytime you find yourself in town for a visit.
Click here to listen.
I am puzzled by a question that has been raised frequently as of late: “In my store can I affiliate link to other products that I don’t carry?” The short answer is no. The longer answer is to actually ask a question back – “Why do you want to send the shoppers looking for your products away to someone else?”
If you are an ecommerce site (meaning you sell products using a shopping cart) and you have an affiliate program (meaning you pay affiliates to make sales of your products) you want to keep your traffic on your site purchasing from you. Many affiliates will not promote merchants that are featuring products not for sale on their own site. They don’t want to send you their traffic when you might receive compensation, but they definitely will not.
Aside from the affiliate aspect, there is the fact that you as a merchant want to look professional and trustworthy to the shoppers that find your site. If you have links that send your shoppers away, even if they were going to purchase your products and they were just curious and they clicked a link that took them away, they might never find their way back to you. Oops. Plus, it devalues your site and your product(s). Shoppers could get the uneasy feeling that you don’t believe in your product line if you are also selling other people’s products through outbound links.
While you may not have enough merchandise to sell, or you think people are looking for something you don’t have when they land on your site, the better way to handle that is to be sure that your site marketing efforts attract the right shoppers. Then once you have them, you make them feel that you are the only place they should be buying from. If you are selling blue widgets and people are landing on your site from searches for pink widgets, then you need to look at your site structure and content so that you are getting consumers who want to buy blue widgets.
It is the same for information products and sites selling services. If you can’t supply the service directly, have your visitors contact you about what they need, and then you can refer them privately after you have discussed their needs and determined you aren’t the right fit. Sites selling information products tend to cross promote, but again, you are sending your potential buyers off on a “maybe”. It’s much better for you to focus and sell them your own product instead.
You built an ecommerce site to make money by selling your own products. If you want to sell other people’s products, make a separate Web site.
Deborah Carney is an Outsourced Affiliate Program Manager and eCommerce Consultant (TeamLoxly.com) with a site dedicated to teaching affiliates and merchants (ABCsPlus.com) how to maximize their online earnings.
Originally published in FeedFront Magazine Issue 9.
Download the entire FeedFront issue 9 here
Podcast: Download (Duration: 20:09 — 18.4MB)
Join your Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare and their guest Angel Djambazov, Custom Tailored Marketing and Managing Editor for Revenews. The topic for this episode is Emerging Technologies, the affiliates that think “outside the box” and get on board with new technology will be just that much ahead of the game.
Pay per Call:
Ring Revenue
Shareasale
Commission Junction
LinkShare
Plugs phone “leak” – good for merchants where shoppers make calls
Pay per lead, more frequently pay per length of call
Affiliates get their own phone number
Good for high priced merchants
Legacy Learning Affiliate Program – up 30% with pay per call
Smart Phone Apps:
Jones Soda – Affiliate created a special iPhone app
Affiliate will need to work carefully with a merchant on something like this
Needs to be something special, not just a “go buy”.
What cool interactive thing can affiliate approach merchant with, must be interactive
Game plan proposal
Acceptance, legal agreement with merchant, needs access to merchant api, graphics that wouldn’t normally be available.
Customization merchants would be good to approach, like Zazzle
Merchants don’t have the technology or time to develop themselves.
Don’t create another “coupon app” – there are enough, Apple stops allowing duplicate or similar apps.
Don’t limit to iPhone, go into other Smart Phone platforms as well – Droid, Blackberry, etc.
Site where you can build an iPhone App
We would love it if you can leave comments about other emerging technologies, and links to resources for building phone apps.
Find us on Twitter:
Angel Djambazov
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney ( a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs
Geekcast.fm
Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 24:09 — 22.1MB)
Join your Merchant ABCs host Deborah Carney and Affiliate Eric Nagel as they talk about things merchants need to consider before they start an affiliate program.
Look at merchant site from shoppers perspective
- missing images
- broken links
- lack of professionalism, would you give them your credit card
- links on same site? Go offsite right away?
As affiliate:
- goes through checkout looking for leaks, places where shoppers could abandon cart, phone prompt,
- live chat that is commission based (bad)
- cart recovery – giving away info to 3rd party
- privacy policy
- bad color combination
- bad design
- about us should be complete
- consistent branding, does tracking carry over
Is merchant acting as an affiliate?
Here is an article Deborah wrote for FeedFront Magazine about this topic.
- sending traffic away to same or complementary products
- if you are running affiliate program can’t do that, need to get the merchandise in your cart
Really Basic:
Must link to only your own products on your own site or sites of yours that still track all the sales to your affiliate
Have very clear privacy policy, about us, and contact us pages and information
Live Help – not commission based, convert the sale with the affiliate retaining credit for sale
Make it clear to affiliates about non-commissionable items
No adsense, affiliates can target you
Adsense is a separate bot from the Googlebot, Adsense doesn’t bring search engines to you
Phone numbers:
Sales
- must be trackable, via tracking ID visible on site for operator to ask for, operator must ask for it, affiliates will test this before they promote you
- Pay per Call: affiliates get paid for the call by time in call, may be able to track percentage per sale soon
If Customer Service – as long as sales are completed by the customer online, not a problem
Make sure tracking works, test test test
Back up analytics so you can track where transactions came from and can find problems if they exist.
Get a good management firm, at least do a consultation with an expert, don’t try to do it all yourself.
Find us on Twitter:
Eric Nagel
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Merchant ABCs
Team Loxly
Geekcast.fm
Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 11:54 — 10.9MB)
Join your Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare for a discussion with Jenny Richman DeVore about Land the Interview Resume Editing, Interview Coaching, and Individually Targeted Job Search Consulting site and affiliate program. In today’s economy there are a lot of people that are looking for jobs and affiliates can point these job seekers to Land the Interview.
Jenny Richman DeVore has been an expert writer and editor for 15 years. She began her career as a Broadcast Journalist, then went into Public Relations where she began using the written word to sell – selling both her clients’ products and her own knowledge of the industry. She sold herself so well that she started making appearances on TV and Radio shows all over the country, being touted an expert in her field.
Visit the Land the Interview website and join the affiliate program.
Find us on Twitter:
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney ( a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs
Geekcast.fm
Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.
