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3 Simple Habits for Monitoring Affiliates
Take Control of your Affiliate Program Why do you need to manage affiliates? Conditional tracking 5 Myths of Affiliate Marketing - for Merchants Regular Checks on the Search Engine Results Could asking for discount codes on your website be losing you sales? New Alternative to Affiliate Networks Do you need to provide a datafeed? Line-of-fire affiliates Subscribe to this blog's feed [What is this?] Search |
3 Simple Habits for Monitoring AffiliatesEstablishing some routine checks for your affiliate program is as essential to the health of your business as balancing your books and making sure you lock the door each night. It's not hard and will pick up most offenders.Posted by Gayle at October 16, 2008 | Full article Take Control of your Affiliate ProgramThe online retailers we promote tend to be a pretty savvy lot. They have built some impressive businesses and brands while having to deal with issues like websites, seo, taking credit cards online, chargebacks, couriers and suppliers. However, affiliate marketing can leave them baffled and frustrated. Here are some tips to (re)gain control of your affiliate program and make it work for you.Posted by Gayle at October 16, 2008 | Full article Why do you need to manage affiliates?Affiliate marketing is often promoted as set and forget, no risk marketing. Merchants are told that affiliates are just like a vast commission-only sales force. The only cost is commissions on sales the affiliates bring. Is this too good to be true?Posted by Gayle at October 14, 2008 | Full article Conditional trackingConditional tracking is often used by merchants to manage multiple affiliate networks. It involves the merchant using their own tracking to decide which affiliate network is the latest referrer and only showing that network's tracking...Posted by Gayle at September 9, 2008 | Full article 5 Myths of Affiliate Marketing - for MerchantsCan you believe everything you hear about affiliate marketing? Here are 5 common myths that we hear about affiliate or performance marketing from a merchant or retailer viewpoint.Posted by Gayle at September 5, 2008 | Full article Regular Checks on the Search Engine ResultsIf you run an affiliate program, especially if you use open affiliate marketing networks, you need to monitor what your affiliates do in their quest to get commissions. Some affiliates will promote you on their websites, some will use ppc on the search engines. Some will do it in a positive way, providing you with extra sales and customers. Some will not.Posted by Gayle at June 27, 2008 | Full article Could asking for discount codes on your website be losing you sales?Part of the process of deciding whether to promote a retailer on our sites is to approach the website as a potential customer and test out the conversion process. One thing I often notice is the box asking the customer to enter their coupon or voucher number for a discount. Does your site do that, and what effect does it have on your customer?Posted by Gayle at June 27, 2008 | Full article New Alternative to Affiliate NetworksThe new OEPL performance marketing network, owned and operated by Online Encounters Pty Ltd, has gone live this week. I see this as a natural progression in a rapidly evolving industry.Posted by Gayle at June 22, 2008 | Full article Do you need to provide a datafeed?Retailers often find themselves under a lot of pressure to provide a datafeed to affiliates. They are told that it is essential if they want affiliates to promote them, that they should provide complete information including prices and that they should update it daily. But is it really in your interests to do so?Posted by Gayle at May 21, 2008 | Full article Line-of-fire affiliatesThe promise of affiliate marketing is pay-on-performance advertising - we put you on our site, where our website visitors will see it and, if they buy, you pay us commission.Posted by Gayle at May 14, 2008 | Full article Pay-per-click and search engine issuesTry pretending that you are a new or existing customer who tries to get to your site by typing your web address or name into the search engines. (Many users do this if they can't remember if you are .com.au or .com, if they are unsure of the spelling, or simply out of habit.)Posted by Gayle at May 14, 2008 | Full article Deciding on your terms and conditionsI'm getting lots of emails with revised terms and conditions from merchants in response to the recent changes in Google's policy on trademarks. While these don't directly affect me because we don't do any ppc, they are interesting reading and they do make a difference.Posted by Gayle at May 13, 2008 | Full article Trends in Affiliate MarketingI've joined two new networks in the past month and noticed two welcome features.Posted by Gayle at May 13, 2008 | Full article How do I find out which affiliate is behind a ppc advert?A lot of affiliates use ppc to buy traffic. They can be very inventive, thinking of unusual keywords and angles. They also have the expertise and commitment to monitor their programs to make sure that they can maintain a profit by buying traffic for less than they make in affiliate commissions. For merchants, this can be a very cost-effective way of outsourcing ppc advertising.Posted by Gayle at April 9, 2008 | Full article Affiliates Bidding on your Brand NameIf you had a mainstreet shop, who would you pay for your advertising to reach? Potential customers who had never heard of you? Yes. Potential customers who had heard of you but could do with reminding? Yes. Potential customers who have already decided to walk into your shop? Maybe not...Posted by Gayle at March 16, 2008 | Full article Protecting Your Brand OnlineWhen you have hundreds of affiliates joining your program it can seem like less trouble just to give them automatic approval. After all, does it really matter if your banner is out there on lots of non-performing websites?Posted by Gayle at February 27, 2008 | Full article Setting your own Terms & ConditionsWhether you run an independent affiliate program or use an affiliate network, it's worth spending some time to set your own terms and conditions. Most reputable affiliate networks provide this facility. Why can't you just...Posted by Gayle at February 1, 2008 | Full article Why does it take so long for affiliates to add my site?I often get calls and emails from merchants eager to be advertised on our pages. They've set up their program, it's gone live, they've approved BCL as an affiliate, then day after day they check and there are still no links. What's the hold up, they wonder...Posted by Gayle at November 4, 2007 | Full article Checking tracking is on all payment methodsAre you paying commission on all your sales? Could affiliates be spurning you because they know your sales don't all track?Posted by Gayle at November 4, 2007 | Full article Private or Invitation Only ProgramsThe affiliate marketing, or percentage of sale, model appeals to many businesses but concerns about the quality of the affiliates who might want to join their program puts them off. Private or invitation-only affiliate programs could be the solution...Posted by Gayle at September 26, 2007 | Full article One-off or repeat commissionsIf an affiliate sends you a new customer, should you pay one-off commission on the first sale made or pay commission on all sales from that customer within the cookie life?Posted by Gayle at August 17, 2007 | Full article Adware - how it hurts honest affiliates and merchantsThere has been a discussion about the use of adware by affiliates on the A4U Australian affiliate forum recently after some affiliates discover the widespread use of zango/hotbar targetting Australian merchants. Several merchants have expressed...Posted by admin at July 6, 2007 | Full article Closing your retail website for a few weeksSo you've been swamped with orders and sold out of all your Christmas hampers half way through December, or maybe you just want a few weeks holiday. What you want is for the orders to stop coming in now and start again when you're ready to start trading again. Ideally, online businesses should trade all year round because that's what their customers expect. This isn't easy for very small businesses and sole traders. In the offline world, many businesses close from just before Christmas to after New Year. Can online businesses do the same?Posted by admin at December 28, 2006 | Full article Is putting affiliate links on your pages such a good idea?It's one of those things that can seem like a good idea at the time. If people don't buy something from your online shop, why not make something out of them using affiliate links? Two bites of the cherry as the saying goes...Posted by admin at August 16, 2006 | Full article How do you choose an affiliate network?So you've decided to join an affiliate network to promote your site and they all claim to have thousands of affiliates waiting to bring your sales. How do you choose? Here are some of the features that we would look for...Posted by admin at February 26, 2006 | Full article So you want us to join your independent program?Some merchants want to join our site using their own internal affiliate program rather than an affiliate network. There reasons vary but I think the most common reason is the desire to save paying network fees on top of commission. But is it really a saving?Posted by admin at January 17, 2006 | Full article Closing Your Affiliate ProgramBecause affiliate marketing is a long-term activity, abrupt closure of your program can be unfair to affiliates who are investing time and money in promoting your site. Here are some pointers to make it a painless process:Posted by admin at November 21, 2005 | Full article Is being on more than one network a good idea?Many online merchants join more than one network, or have their own in-house program as well as being on one or more networks. Does it pay off? Is there a downside?...Posted by admin at September 29, 2005 | Full article What if I delete my tracking without telling anyone?Most affiliates know at least one merchant who has deleted their affiliate tracking and enjoys getting the sales without paying commission... for a while.Posted by admin at August 11, 2005 | Full article How long should I set my cookie duration?If you use a session-only cookie, you only pay if the customer refered by your affiliate buys immediately. A 7 day cookie means that you pay commission if they return and complete the sale within 7 days, a 30 day cookie gives them a month to come back and buy. What length is best for you?Posted by admin at August 10, 2005 | Full article How to attract good affiliates.So, you have an online shop and an affiliate program and want website publishers like BCL to start promoting you... but for some reason they seem reluctant to do so. What's going on? Read more here...Posted by admin at August 2, 2005 | Full article Advantages of affiliate programs for online advertisingBCL prefers to deal with advertisers through pay-for-performance affiliate programs. For advertisers, online shops, travel, services and other sites, they advantage is clear. They only pay for something that works. For publishers like BCL, there are advantages too.Posted by admin at August 1, 2005 | Full article |
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