5 Star Affiliate Blogs

As you have probably heard (but have hopefully not personally experienced) Google Adwords is banning affiliate accounts like crazy. This means lots of affiliates out there are looking for other traffic sources to tap into.

Media buying or display advertising is one traffic avenue that should be explored. Like PPC however, there’s a lot to learn and there are several things to consider, in order to leverage this traffic source to your advantage.

The SuperAffiliateTwins have a great blog series going on Media buying. So in light of the current Adwords situation I wanted to be sure everyone knows about it. (And no, I don’t think affiliate marketing on Adwords is DEAD, as some gurus are saying. Post coming with more thoughts on that!)

Media Buying 101: Introduction To Inventory (A Step-By-Step Guide)
Part 1

Media Buying 101: Master Your Campaign With PPC First (Sources Included)
Part 3

Conversions… the end game. It’s what all affiliates and merchants work for, but is every step of your marketing and site layout designed to help consumers get to the final goal?

Today RevenueWire, one of our 5 Star Programs, wrote a great blog post about conversions. It includes good information for affiliates and merchants alike, to read and to implement.

A Plan of Attack For Maximizing Your Conversions

Remember the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz? Your purchase path SHOULD DEFINITELY NOT look like that. Customers don’t want a buying experience fraught with perils, dense forests, lions tigers & bears, forked roads, poppy fields, twists, tangents or turns. To boost conversions your purchase path should be straighter than an arrow and smoother than day-old pavement.

If you’re using an entire website or mini-site to sell your product, each page has to offer a first, middle and end step that ultimately leads to conversion. Treat each page on a site as an “independent agent” which provides the necessary steps to conversion all in one place.

Tamar Weinberg over at Techipedia has done it again. Every year on her birthday she boils down the best Internet Marketing posts of the year in a HUGE categorized list, that is sure to give you some great ideas and new blogs to follow. Tamar is the Community and Marketing Manager at Mashable and is also the author of “The New Community Rules”.

Here are just a few of the Internet marketing categories she covers: Social Media: Getting Started, Social Media: Implementation and Execution, Twitter, Facebook, Leveraging Other Social Media Sites, Blogging, Reputation Management, Content Development/Marketing, Video, SEO: Strategy, Link Building, PPC, Affiliate Marketing, Analytics, Landing Pages, Local/Mobile Search, Building a Brand/Brand Evangelism, Community Management/Engagement and General Online Marketing.

The affiliate marketing section is very light, but most of you read AM blogs anyway. However, some of the other sections have 15 or more hand picked blog posts with overviews, that will give you some great insights in marketing for the year ahead.

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009

Today, listen while you work as 3 industry professionals share some great ideas about what it takes to be a successful, thriving affiliate.

Linda Woods, the CEO of PartnerCentric is the host of Affiliate Marketing Insider radio show on WebmasterRadio. This broadcast was recorded on location from Affiliate Convention in Los Angeles to followup a panel presentation Linda was on titled “Becoming a Professional, Financially Successful Affiliate: the Dos and Donts.” Linda interviews her fellow panelists Bobbi Leach, General Manager of RevenueWire and Stephen Siphron, Sr Marketer of Cashbaq.

Tune in: Becoming a Professional, Financially Successful Affiliate

Affiliate Marketing Insider is broadcast at Noon Pacific (3 PM Eastern) every Thursday on WebmasterRadio.fm. Listen to some of the past shows in the archives here.

There has been a big shake up in the CPA rebill side of the affiliate marketing space the past few days. If you are a CPA affiliate doing rebills/continuity offers, whatever you want to call them, you may have found that a lot of offers were pulled over the past few days. What’s behind it is that Wells Fargo made the decision to no longer allow any transactions for rebill/continuity offers. Wells Fargo is the bank that many of the payment solution providers were using that provide merchant accounts for CPA offers, so overnight that payment option dried up and many offers were forced to close.

The concern is that Visa and others may follow suit. Between the banks and the FTC crackdowns, CPA rebill advertisers are really going to have to clean things up and get compliant quick to remain viable.

Affiliates running rebill offers need to carefully check them for compliance and avoid working with networks that allow non-complaint offers to run, or you could get caught in the middle and possibly not get paid. More importantly this shady part of our industry needs to be cleaned up because it’s only a matter of time before the banks or the FTC step in full force. Read below for full details.

Jim Lillig posted in the 5 Star forum a couple days ago about Wells Fargo pulling out of the rebill/continuity business. He quoted Copeac as saying:

“What you are seeing from today and yesterday is one bank pulling out of this industry. Its not Visa or M/C and the idiot at CB who told you that should be beat to death. Wells Fargo pulled out of the entire industry, the complaints were to much and the expense of dealing with irate consumers outweighed the money they made. This trend will continue if the industry as a whole doesnt clean up its act. More banks will follow suit.

Offers which hide the terms, force upsells on consumers, and dont respond to customer service calls will eventually be shut down.”

I read Ruck’s post when it came out and think he was 1st to break the story:

The Death Of Rebills? I Think Not.

Ok so a lot of rebill offers went down today. What we have here is a miscommunication of “why” they went down and more importantly we have a ton of “speculation” on events that have not even occured yet. Speculation is a real bitch in this business. Trust me on this one.

There is also a long thread about it over at WickedFire. Mike Kongrel from Copeac does a good job of dispelling the rumors, shining a light on what is really going on and explaining how it’s affecting that segment of the industry.

Then on Saturday Jim Lillig wrote an insightful piece that summed it all up nicely.

Wells Fargo Smackdown on Continuity and Rebills – What’s Ahead in CPA

As I write this today, I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg of additional jettisoning of high risk, card not present (CNP) transaction types. I fully expect to see Visa weigh in with additional category shutdowns as they have instituted recently on the Acai Berry products, as well as transactional type smackdowns, such as the negative options.

Now that Christmas is over, it’s time to promote products that sell well the 1st part of the new year. Think of New Year’s Resolutions. What do people want to accomplish the 1st of the year? What are common goals? How can you help them reach them?

Here are a couple posts that have some good ideas.

Explosive Formula for Affiliate Marketing in the New Year

There are two things that make the New Year a fantastic time for affiliate marketing

1. All the brand advertisers that were buying and bidding up prices leave the market place. So reps for ad companies actually want to talk with us again and have time for us affiliates.
2. New years resolutions. It’s a new year everyone wants to stop what they’re doing and start doing something better.

(He lists the top resolutions according to the US Government)

Any of these niches look familiar? Ironic isn’t it? Pretty much a list start to finish of the best converting niches in affiliate marketing. Ironic Isn’t it?

So lets recap:

Cheap Media ( brand advertisers leaving ) + motivated buyers ( new years resolutions ) + pain products ( see previous post here ) = Dollars in your Wallet.

Make More Affiliate Commissions with These Hot Niches in 2010

…as the dawn of the New Year approaches, we’ll also be looking ahead and planning for our future affiliate marketing successes.

The “formula” for choosing a successful market hasn’t changed for thousands of years…and it won’t change in 2010:

FIND A NEED AND FILL IT!

(Click the link above to read the list of niches)

2009 zipped by and 2010 is already here. It’s really true that the older you get the faster time flies. So I hope you make every minute count this year and that you reach new levels of success and prosperity in 2010.

On behalf of all the 5 Star Merchants and Affiliate Managers

Happy New Year!

Thanks for your partnership and support over the past year.
We wish you all a profitable and successful 2010.

Want a glimpse into the new year? Do you like reading marketing predictions and resolutions? Well, look no further – I’ve compiled some of the best online marketing predictions out there, for your reading enjoyment. Below are some social marketing, search marketing, PPC marketing and general marketing predictions and resolutions from some inspired marketing insiders.

Affiliate Marketing in 2010 – Bring It! – Missy Ward shares her predictions.

10 Big Marketing Predictions For 2010 – This is a great list!

Five Search Marketing Predictions For 2010 – From SearchEngineLand

5 PPC Resolutions for 2010 – From PPC Hero

10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010 – From ReadWriteWeb

Five Social Media Predictions for 2010 – From SocialMediaToday

Design Predictions for 2010 – From 10e20

Trends to Watch — All of eMarketer’s 2010 Predictions

Top Digital Trends for 2010 – From AdWeek

Digital Media Predictions for 2010 – From Clickz

2010 Predictions – From ReadWriteWeb

Four Email Marketing Predictions for 2010 – From MediaPost

Two execs predict 2010 trends – From BizReport

The Changing Face of Digital Media & Marketing >> Predictions for 2010
Note: this HP blog gets my award for being the hardest to read – but if you can read it, some of the insights are good.

Happy New Year!

Now that the Christmas holiday is over and we are 3 days away from ringing in the New Year, it’s time to take a quick look back at the best (and worst) of 2009. I’ve collected some good lists for your viewing pleasure.

Best Posts of 2009 from Top Internet Marketing Blogs – Mike Tekula of Unstuck Digital selects the top 3 posts of the year in each of the top 27 Internet Marketing blogs he reads regularly. I discovered some great new blogs I didn’t know about to add to my RSS reader.

Best and Worst of 2009 By Loren Feldman – “I think the web is finally becoming mature. Porn, stealing music, gossip and games. I could do this all day, but I figured I’d stop somewhere. Let’s look back shall we.”

2009 Top 10 Worst Make Money Online Sites “So Nicky has once again put together a list of this years online embarassments… Yes, Nicky realizes that he has given all these guys links, and do-follow ones at that. The hope is that they will see this link pop up in their wordpress console and come take a look and hopefully permanently shut down their sites as well as throw their computer away (for our sakes) AND possibly take a bath with heavy involvement of their plugged-in toaster.”

ReadWriteWeb’s Top 5 Web Trends of 2009:
1) Structured Data 2) The Real-Time Web 3) Personalization
4) Mobile Web & Augmented Reality 5) Internet of Things

Best Of B2B Search Marketing 2009 “Articles and blog postings on B2B search marketing are often hard to find. At Search Engine Land, we’re fortunate to have a stable of experts who regularly contribute great content and make the Strictly Business column a success. But during the year, I’ve found a lot of other great content, too. I chose 30 of my favorite B2B search and internet marketing posts from 2009.”

I have an aversion to exercise. Always have, but hopefully 2010 is the year I kick it.

Was just reading a great post about how doing the quick 10 minute “Home Office Workout” in the post below, can add more brain power to your day and an extra hour of peak performance. Now who doesn’t need that! I know working out would help me be more productive, but this post helped drive it home and provides a couple different ideas for quick workouts.

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Several recent developments in the social marketing space are going to make it even easier for non-affiliates to generate affiliate commissions. Social media makes it so easy for the masses to create user generated content and share their opinions on products. And now with more and more new tools available that can help people add affiliate links at the click of a button, anyone with little or no knowledge of affiliate marketing can generate affiliate revenue.

Merchants may think all these small, casual micro affiliates won’t generate much volume, but added together I think they have the potential to drive some long tail cumulative sales.

Here are some articles and recent announcements about easy affiliate linking tools, that will enable the masses to become micro affiliates.

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ShareASale just announced the winners of their 2009 Performance Awards.

The Performance Awards recognize achievement in categories such as: Exceptional Affiliate, Merchant, Affiliate Manager and more.

ShareASale Performance Awards 2009

Congrats to all the lucky and deserving winners!

2 new free keyword tools were just launched today that you can add to your affiliate marketing toolbox. The new WordStream tools are designed to help identify the most profitable keyword niches and then group and organize those keywords into manageable lists or ad groups.

I was talking to WordStream a few days ago and asked them to send me their press release about the new tools, so I could share it with you on launch day.

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This is a guest post by CT Moore.

Affiliate marketing can be an exceptionally low-risk and cost-effective way to bolster your online acquisition strategy. First, the only risks entailed are the initial set-up costs (i.e. there is no real long-term commitment to infrastructure) so if your program isn’t performing, you can pull the plug any time. Second, its performance-based model means that you pay only for results; it’s kind of like having an army of salesmen and/or advertisers that worked strictly on commission, so that you don’t pay for anything until it actually converts into a sale.

That being said, affiliate marketing is not some miracle acquisition tactic that can cure all your marketing woes. If you do not want to reach a point where you have to pull the plug, and if you want to get the most out of it, it’s imperative that you set it up in the right way.

There are five things you should consider before taking an affiliate program live: (1) your own numbers, (2) the competition, (3) the software that will power your program, (4) how you’ll manage your program, and (5) how well your own site performs. By addressing each of these before going live, the only limits to your affiliate program will be those set by your pre-existing business model.

Knowing What an Affiliate is Worth to You

The first thing you should do prior to launching a program is know your own numbers. This will help you understand what you can afford to pay for an affiliate referral and, down the line, whether you’re in a position to run an affiliate program at all. This includes knowing:

• your profit margins,
• your average cost of acquisition (CPA) across all other channels,
• and the average lifetime value of one of your customers.

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Today is predicted to be the top online sales day of the season, so I’m wishing you your fair share of what COULD be a $900 Million dollar shopping day!

According to the most recent eCommerce stats from Comscore, the 2009 Holiday shopping season has peaked at almost $20 billion in online sales so far. That’s up 3% over the same period last year.

So far Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2008 was the biggest shopping day and reached $887 Million. It’s possible that today we will top the $900 Million mark.

Happy Holidays and Happy Selling!

Friday night’s ABC 20/20 news program featured a report warning consumers about how some companies use deceptive images to sell products online. The show highlighted a CPA network that used some pretty shady practices. It’s too bad that often when our industry makes news headlines it’s bad press.

Part of the show focused on Jesse Willms of Just Think Media and how he used stolen images to promote Wu Yi diet tea. They ripped the before and after images from a woman’s blog, who had lost weight through regular diet and exercise and used them on their Wu Yi diet tea packaging without her knowledge. The program also mentions other deceptive practices used to promote shady rebill offers like tooth whitening and acai berry and goes briefly into the story about people using fake testimonials by Oprah and Dr. Oz. Obviously these are the types of marketers the FTC is gunning for and rightly so.

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