Author: Pesach Lattin

Pesach "Pace" Lattin is one of the top experts in interactive advertising, affiliate marketing. Pesach Lattin is known for his dedication to ethics in marketing, and focus on compliance and fraud in the industry, and has written numerous articles for publications from MediaPost, ClickZ, ADOTAS and his own blogs.
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LinkBuilding 101

Most people understand by now that links have a very real influence on rankings in search engines. How it works and in which ways a link can influence your ranking is often unclear though, resulting in many myths. This link building 101 tries to explain the basics of link building and to refute some of the myths around it.

 

 

How does a link help your site?

A link to your site “helps” in four ways:

  • It adds value to the “receiving page”, allowing it to improve its visibility in the search engines.
  • It adds value to the entire receiving domain, allowing each page on that domain to improve its rank ever so slightly.
  • The text of the link is an indication to the search engine of the topic of the website and more specifically the receiving page.
  • People click on links, resulting in so called “direct traffic”.

The value of a link for the receiving page is determined in part by the topic of the page the link is on. A link from a page that has the same topic as the receiving page is of far more value than a link from a page about an entirely different topic.

On top of that, a link from within an article is worth way more than a link from a sidebar or a footer. Furthermore the more links there are on a page, the less each individual link is worth.

So what makes a good link?

Imagine, you’re working on a link building campaign and you get to choose where to place a link and what page to point it at. You’ll have to consider the following questions:

  • How strong is the site / page that’s going to link out?
  • Which receiving pages on my site make most sense as far as topic is concerned?
  • Which page of this set of sensible pages would deliver the best ROI when it’s ranking?
  • Which page is most sensible for the visitor of the linking page, clicking on the link?

The last question is often the one best to ask of yourself: link building delivers, if done well, better rankings and more direct traffic. You have to keep in mind though that in most cases those visitors coming to you directly from the other site will behave differently from people coming from the search engines. Say you get a link from a site aimed at elderly women, these people will behave drastically different from the diverse public you’ll get from the search engine when the page starts ranking. In your design of the page, you’ll have to account for both.

How strong a site and/or a page is, can be judged on several criteria, PageRank being one of them, though often not very accurate. MozRank is useful at times, but the most useful and sensible check often is the following: does the page that you want a link from, rank in the top 20, 30 or even 50 for terms related to the page you’d want it to link to? If the answer to that is yes, a link on that page is usually a good idea.

The anchor text

If you’ve decided which page you’re going to be linking to, the second question arises: which anchor text will you be using? The anchor text in itself influences two things:

  • The anchor text indicates to the search engine what the topic might be of the page the link points at and it can therefor help that receiving page rank for that term. If you want to rank for “WordPress SEO”, you’d want to have links to that page with anchor texts like “WordPress SEO”, “SEO for WordPress”, etc.
  • The anchor text also has an effect on how many people will be clicking on the link. While from the above bullet you might have gathered that “click here” is a horrible anchor text, as you probably don’t want to rank for it, it does tend to get clicked well and therefor gets you more visitors.

Of course, don’t overdo this. If all links, or a too large percentage of links to your site and / or page have the same anchor text, you’ll look like a spammer. So if you’re actively link building, vary your anchor text.

As you see, these are not trivial decisions, ones you have to make on a site by site and page by page basis. You don’t always have the luxury of controlling anchor text and to be honest, that’s a good thing; way too much sites out there would have a far over optimized “link profile” if they had such a level of control. Because you have to make these decisions on a site by sate basis, buying a “backlink package”, something still far too common these days, is often a wrong decision.

Are there any rules about links?

There are two kinds of rules that influence SEO and thus link building. First of all, there are the rules of the search engines, with Google having said most about links. Then there’s the law about advertising, these laws differ per country but especially within the EU they tend to have the same “ring”.

What Google says about links and link building

In their article on link schemes Google gives some examples of links that can influence your ranking negatively. This deals with both links to and from your site (f.i.: don’t link to spam sites). They’re most clear about paid links though: they’re a violation of their guidelines and can lead to a ban of your website.

This isn’t to say that such links would have an immediate negative effect. In fact, in the short term they might even boost your rankings, as quite often Google has to take manual action to discount those links, as not in all cases Google see whether a link has been paid for or not. But, especially keeping in mind the recent debacles with JC Penney and Overstock.com, both of whom have been penalized by Google and publicly scolded for their behavior by the press, this tactic is seldom worth while.

Google recently published an article on quality links on the Google Webmaster Blog, it’s worth reading to get their perspective.

The law about links

I’ve talked about the Dutch specifics in an article on Marketingfacts recently, which in trun goes back to an article on eConsultancy: if something is an ad, it has to be visibly (for the visitor) marked as such. A paid link could under these new rules be called an ad and would therefor have to be disclosed. I don’t see a court case just yet, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind.

Want to read more about link building?

Outside of this link building 101 a lot is being written about the topic and a large part of it is, excusez le mot, crap. Because of that I’d like to point you at some sources that I do consider worth while:

  • Wiep.net
    The blog of my fellow countryman Wiep Knol, an amicable guy and great link builder.
  • Eric Ward aka LinkMoses
    When I went to my first class in high school in ’94, this guy was already doing link building. His insights are therefor based on a treasure trove of experience.
  • LinkSpiel by Debra Mastaler
    She has more of a wider marketing approach to link building and is therefor very usable for each and everyone

——

Joost de Valk is one of the formost Expert in Tweaking Website and Link Building 101

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How to Get Higher Affiliate Payout Raises

I commonly hear from affiliates the same thing: that they need better payouts and more importantly, why they aren’t getting a better payout. In this industry affiliates have become damn smart and with that a little more demanding than say 12 years ago when I started in this industry.  Let me tell you a little secret then that many affiliate networks don’t want you to know: despite all their complaining about how their margins are very little, most of them are not completely honest and they have a lot more room for payouts than they are telling you. With that in mind, and armed with some knowledge about what other networks are paying, plus the following tips, you can approach affiliate networks and increase your payouts.

1)      Ask for Tiered Pricing. Most of the newer software platforms such as Cake Marketing have the ability to price the leads or sales based on quantity made.  If your affiliate manager is not giving you the best price, then ask them what they can do for more leads per month IF you hit that goal. While this can be a little risky, it shows the affiliate manager that you are interested in being a partner, producing more, not just asking for more money.

2)      Find where the Network is getting the offer. If you haven’t figured out by now, many networks just get offers from other networks. While its great to use stuff like OfferVault (yes, a little plug here) to find better pricing, it doesn’t always mean that you can get a better price. If you can find where  your current affiliate network is getting their offer from, you can often approach the other network with wanting to run the offer. Use HttpWatch http://www.httpwatch.com/ for tracking the clicks and seeing where it goes – it will show you ever jump from your click on an advertisement, to what network it is going to and then to the end advertiser. One of the great methods about this technique is that you can often approach networks, tell them that you are running “so many” leads for another network that they work with, and it’s more likely that you’ll be accepted into that network.

3)      Tell your Affiliate Manager that you will rotate similar offers from another network into the mix (and do it!). If you haven’t learned already about rotating similar offers to find what works better, then you need to learn about this. It’s also a very, very effective method of making networks pay you more money, causing them to bid for your best traffic.  Also there is a factor where for whatever reason (well, there are actually lots of reason) sometimes offers don’t always consistently perform and rotating offers gives time for the “other” offer to refresh and perform better.  Frankly, it’s also a good “don’t put your eggs in one basket” method, for the “just incase” times when an affiliate network might have an “issue” about not paying.

4)      Offer to test other offers. Don’t be a one-hit wonder, ever. Ask your AMs what is doing well, and then tell them that you’ll start testing that offer if they raise the other one. If you are an emailer especially, this is a very particular and great strategy. Many AMs know what offers will work on your email list, but it makes sense that you want incentivize to try something new. Many times an AM will give in a little if you give a little back.

5)      Ask for a Bonus from their Advertiser. This is similar to tiered pricing, but a slightly different method. I have found that many advertisers, when questioned about if they will bonus certain affiliates who hit goals will actually jump on the opportunity. Ask your AM to ask the advertising side of their business to see if they’ll give you a $2,500 AX gift card (tax free!) if you do so many leads in a month. One great thing about this  is that there is no way for the Affiliate Network to take a “cut” from this.

6)      Ask Networks about their “Discrepancy Account.” It’s called by many other networks other names, but it exists in almost every single ad network and is probably one of the biggest secrets that affiliates don’t know about and that Affiliate Networks don’t want you to know about. You know when they tell you that you are getting paid a certain amount per sale or lead? That is based on their numbers and almost half of the time, campaigns on their system will underreport compared to their advertisers. Instead of crediting it to their affiliates, many of the networks will keep that money. Ask your AM if there are any unreported leads and if they can give you a boost from that account.

7)      Be Nice. Seriously. Affiliate Managers would rather deal with a nice guy than a jerk. While there are a few people out there who might take the abuse, you’d be amazed how many networks and managers would rather turn off your account than deal with a total putz.  Do things like add your AMs to Facebook, send them cards on their birthdays, and in general keep in touch. Don’t depend on conferences for the only time that you really engage the AMs! AMs spend their entire time in front of a computer, often only getting up once in a while to drink shitloads of diet-coke and then return for hours at a time.  Asking them about their life and offers will make you a friend and a business partner.

Written by Pace Lattin, originally published at ZacJohnson.com

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Quality Is in the Eye of Google

Adotas-“The Wall Street Journal’s front page is typically littered with mistakes now,” a coworker randomly commented.

“That’s because they laid off the proofreaders and copy editors to cut costs,” I snorted. “Huge mistake.”

I often lament not having a copy editor or proofreader at Adotas, not just because I’m in such a rush to produce content that I let mistakes seep through. Having another set of eyes examine your work before publication is invaluable. I see little errors all over the major tech sites I read — I figure the writers have to hit publish as soon as they type the last word, same as me. The Internet news monster must be fed… constantly.

“Isn’t there some kind of software publishers could use to copy edit?” someone else asked.

“Besides spell check, no, not really,” I replied. Grammar check is useless half the time because many English rules are elastic, and a good writer enjoys breaking the rules to draw attention to a point or sound colloquial. These are things a human can discern, but can you imagine an algorithm that could do the same? A computer can beat the hell out of a few “Jeopardy” champions, but it can’t replace a top-notch copy editor.

Yet copy desks tend to get axed at pubs when budgets are grim. Effectively, we’re killing our human quality control in published works, and there’s no machine to replace it.

I was thinking about the human element as I got up to date on the fallout from Google’s recent algorithm update — which affected 12% of searches and threatened to vanquish the hated content farms. One of the hardest hit by the update, human search engine and how-to video producer Mahalo, apparently has laid off a tenth of its workforce.

Mahalo founder and CEO Jason Calacanis announced the staff cuts were due to a serious dip in traffic and revenue, but that the company would not cut down on its video production. So just as much content pooped out with less actual humans involved — sounds like a winner.

Allen Stern over at Center Networks laments, “when Mahalo first launched, Jason told me numerous times he didn’t care about Google because he was going to build loyal users who would just come directly to Mahalo.”

That’s the dream, of course, but it seems hard to make it a reality as online publishers have become slaves to Google — the latest update shows King G can pick publishers off with a simple gesture. (Why do I keep thinking of the Queen of Hearts screaming “Off with his head!”?)

Although Demand Media, the company that epitomizes content farms for many tech journalists, did suffer a bit from the algo update, its flagship eHow site appears to have gotten a boost, much to the grumblings of the rest of the web. In addition, Demand seems to be bringing on higher-profile names to give the site the semblance of prestige. “Lifestyle expert” Racheal Ray, queen of the 30-minute meal, has been named the creative force behind eHow.com’s Food channel, putting her in charge of recruiting mules — I mean, talent — to create and be featured in original video programming.

Meanwhile, Associated Content, Yahoo’s content farm, admitted the algo change was cutting into its traffic. But sites having little to do with the mass production of cheap content also had the traffic rug pulled out from under them by the “farmer” update — Technorati, PR Newswire, Songkick, Slideshare, Complete Review, DaniWeb and Cult of Mac were slapped by the new algo.

But Cult of Mac has already been “reinstated” in Google’s search results — apparently Google Spam Czar Matt Cutts reached out to editor Leander Kahney after complaints about the delisting, and whaddayaknow? They’re back in.

Kahney suggests that the algorithm updates are still being tweaked, but ZDNet’s Larry Dignan thinks Cult of Mac simply got a pass: ”There will be more sites complaining about Google’s algorithm change and the search giant will probably make a few ‘one-off’ exceptions. The inflection point comes when Google has to make multiple ‘one-off’ calls. Ultimately, we’ve outsourced the quality call to Google.”

Doesn’t this sound horribly inefficient? And also terrifying in general?

Dignan asks a question I’ve been hollering for a while: how the hell does an algorithm decide something as subjective as quality? Dignan lays out the issues:

  1. “What’s the unassailable definition of quality?
  2. “Is an algorithm capable of making a subjective decision (one man’s spam is another man’s good read)?
  3. “And do we trust Google to be judge and jury via an algorithm we know nothing about?”

Here are the answers:

  1. There is none.
  2. Not that we’ve seen.
  3. Not a chance.

Quality control requires inputs and opinions from flesh and blood humans, and the search sector has technology now to do incorporate that kind efficiently. Of course, I’m talking about social search.

In effect, Blekko is basically crowdsourcing quality control with its upstart social search engine. Facebook has improved its search features because our friends make good curators, and Bing is highlighting Facebook data in its searches. Google’s social search injection the week before the algo update seemed to be far more useful, but Google has its hands tied without Facebook data.

The ineffectiveness of Google’s “farmer” update should be the final proof that we need a new discovery and research engine. Just like Mike Arrington commented, Google has become a resource mainly if you know exactly what you want — say I’m looking for the person who said such-and-such.

Just like publications need human editors to ensure editorial quality, it’s becoming clear search engines need human input to deliver quality results. And we publishers could really use a social search resource to emerge so we can escape from Google’s tyranny, gain some visibility for our insightful original content, build our ad revenue and hire back our copy editors.

Sound like a plan, guys? I know some great copy editors that could use work.

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Gavin Dunaway is senior editor for Adotas.com Previously he served as an editor at TheStreet.com and a staff writer at Mobility, the publication of trade association Worldwide ERC. He received a Bachelor’s degree in English from George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.  It is also rumored that he will be in the next season of The Bachelor.

 

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Five Tips on Creating Women’s Oriented Mailing Lists.

I’ve been very much into niche based marketing the last few months, believing that its one of the sure fire ways for performance based marketers to really compete in the marketplace. With the rise of Facebook as one of the main techniques to market products, there are so many options to target consumers. Women consumers I believe in our space have been under-targeted by CPA networks and affiliates and thus I’ve come up with some keypoints that I’ve learned over the last year to make a women’s oriented mailing list.

Before I start, probably the biggest issue I see in our space is that most affiliates are guys. The only contact that they have with women are at the  parties at stripclubs in Vegas during the convention. Thus, targeting women can be very hard, especially when faced with having to understand fundamental differences. Male Affiliates: When creating a list for women, remember that you haven’t a clue what women want (look how you dress, if you don’t get it) and that you are fundamentally retarded in this subject.

1)    Ask Women’s Opinions. While men might sign up for a product, enter their email and get the mail, women actually like answering questions and providing more information about themselves. Not only does this allow a feedback loop, but it also allows you to target and segment targets for follow-up mailings.

2)      Compliment Women in the Mailings. Make it clear that you are providing information and mailings because women “get it.” For example, if you are going to mail about a new coupon program that is targeted to them, don’t just say “This will get you 50% off at these stores” but do something like “Because I know you are looking only for the best deals, I’ve found the best coupon program ever… I  don’t want to bother you and waste your time…”

3)      Only send targeted emails. If you are stupid enough to send something that is obviously not for women, you’ll get an extreme unsubscribe rate. Remember that you’ve probably sold women on signing up to this list because it’s a women’s oriented list. This is always important – if you send an advertisement for the newest NASCAR racing DVD, women will not only unsubscribe but they will lose any trust you’ve created.

4)      Respect Women’s Time. Spam Sucks, so make it clear this is not spam and that you respect that time. Women are much busier than me, let’s be honest here:  often they are mothers, caretakers, business owners—all at once.  Point out sometimes that the product you are sending is not only because it’s great, but because it will make their life easier.

5)      Most Important: Create an Emotional Connection. Women do not respond to the “get rich” ads with women in Bikinis waxing cars. Remember that they want to see women that look like them and are doing things like them.  Study after study in marketing to women shows that women want to be able to look at marketing materials and say “That’s me!”  Remember, don’t sell the hype, but rewrite the copy (with permission) to sell how great it is for the woman you are targeting, and why they should get it. You’ll sell twice as many products and the women on the list will appreciate it much more.

What are some products you can market to women? EnvyusMedia has one of the largest Health & Beauty offers sections in the industry, you should really check them out.

After you build a relationship with you subscriber, you definitely need to try to the Cosmetic Surgery Referral Network. This offer is actually owned by a woman (Anita hi!) who has made it to appeal specifically to a real women’s audience and it’s one of the biggest products targeted to women on any network.

Don’t Forget that health and weight loss offers from AffiliateWise also do well for women, but I’d  make sure to work on the message. You need to make sure not to insult them, and find a good product that you know will show interest.

If you haven’t tried samples offers, you need to. This goes back to #1, of asking opinions. AxonMediaGroup has a great selection of Trial Sample offers

Have a great week, and get back to me on what you think of these ideas!

This product is guaranteed to help you crush your conversions.

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Cake’s Jeff McCollum puts frosting onto Affiliate Software.

In the affiliate and CPA network software game, there have been a few companies that have dominated the game. For almost a decade everyone used DirectTrack, and then came HasOffers and LinkTrust. For a long time, that seemed to be the only choice – until last year, when Cake Marketing started to play in the game, soon making it real name for itself. Since then we’ve seen half a dozen major affiliate networks move over and dozens of other companies become clients in a small period of time. I decided to sit down with their Chief Honcho, Jeff McCollum and find out what they are doing that is making people pay attention.

What inspired your company to make your own performance marketing software?
We had all been in performance based marketing for years and realized the industry was moving faster than the available technology. We were frustrated with the time and resources it took to do the most common daily tasks but were most concerned with the unreliable and an inaccurate tracking.  I had worked in Silicone Valley for many years and knew what was possible if good developers could apply solid technology to the fast growing industry. The one thing I did not account for was the 3+ years it would take to build right.

What can you tell us about your fraud prevention tools?
A lot of thought has gone into the toolset we provide our clients for catching and dealing with fraud quickly and efficiently. The collective experiences of our team in finding some of the more sophisticated and creative fraudulent activity of the past few years has been vital in our efforts to improve the accountability of the industry as a whole. From finding improper marketing methods to examining unordinary conversion rates down to the Sub ID level to locating quicker than average click-to-conversion times, Cake gives you immediate notice of fraudulent activity for you to examine, classify, and ultimately shut down within minutes.

As you know, a competitor was hit last year with the revelations that all the affiliate data of their affiliate networks were stolen and resold. What have you done to prevent this happening from you?
Having built Cake Marketing in house from the ground up using only the best modern technologies, processes and techniques, we are able to avoid many of the pitfalls inherent in older or less capable systems.  Security has been a primary focus for us and by basing our continued development of features and utilities on a solid foundation; we are able to maintain an impeccable systems security record.  As some of our competitors are finding out, it is difficult to adapt a software solution to a changing business climate with constantly shifting rules and goals without sacrificing something, often security.   This is especially true in affiliate marketing where the changes are quick and those who fail to keep up get left behind.  Cake was built with this in mind and as a software service, is equipped to maintain what makes it great while changing to adapt to the market.

In addition, by keeping all of our development in house with every line of code and every decision being made within the walls of our offices, we are able to dedicate ourselves as a team to this goal without the risk of outside security breaches.  This dedication extends itself into all aspects of our platform from the architecture of our data centers, peer code reviews and auditing to the customer support, training and professional services.

Cake sells itself as a fully integrated system, especially made for lead capture and distribution. What is unique about your platform that no other system offers?
Cake Marketing is unique in many ways, but the lead capture and distribution engine is the most powerful of its kind and as an added bonus, completely integrates with our affiliate tracking solution.  Being able to send a lead to an email address or simple CRM is not unique to affiliate marketing platforms, but with other systems you will eventually need custom development or a separately licensed product to send leads the way you really need to.  With other platforms, lead generation is tacked on as an afterthought, while in Cake it was built from the start side by side with the tracking solution and can also be used as a standalone lead distribution engine.  Every possible scenario has been thought out and made to be easily configured within the Cake interface without the need for expensive and time-consuming development.

Feature for feature, Cake can match and beat the top standalone lead distribution solutions as well as the best competing affiliate tracking solutions.  The fact that we do both of these in one tightly integrated approach makes us a solution that no other system can top.

How does your lead validation system work better than other systems? What would you say is the most unique part of your system?
Lead validation is a very important part of affiliate marketing because it affects revenue on so many levels.  It can be used to detect fraud, to clean data, to categorize your traffic or as part of your manual review process.  Unfortunately, this often requires continual updates and changes to your websites and forms as your validation rules change or as new offers are added.  As one of the most unique parts of our validation system, Cake has solved this problem by using the same elegant interface that the rest of the system uses.  After placing a simple Cake supplied script onto your form, all validation will then be handled automatically and any changes you make within your system will instantly effect how your forms work online, including alerting the customer of invalid data so that they can fix it themselves.  Using Cake’s proprietary technologies, you can utilize any of our multitude of validators in this process (many of which cannot be found elsewhere), to seamlessly validate your existing forms.

In light of the revelation that Internet Explorer will be blocking a lot of cookies, and that Firefox is looking to do this in a future release, your cookieless tracking system seems very interesting. I’d love to know more about it, what can you tell us?
From our tracking platform’s inception, dealing with cookieless sessions has been a large focus. Whether users disable cookies completely or enable the Do Not Track option in newer browsers, Cake is able to examine the browser’s fingerprint to uniquely track a session from impression to click to conversion sans cookie. We call this Session Regeneration and it’s built into every aspect of our platform’s foundation. We give our clients specific options to configure how exactly this works, but using our default configuration our clients have solved the problem of missing cookies. Additionally we allow the passing of unique identifiers back and forth between Cake and the advertiser if/when the advertiser supports it to enable 100% tracking accuracy no matter the situation.

I’ve heard some good things about your customer support team, what can you tell me that makes it different?
Our Client Solutions Team (CS Team) is more than just customer service. Our CS Team is truly dedicated to providing the most intimate level of service to all Cake clients. The team informs clients on unique Cake solutions applicable to their unique business needs. Furthermore, our CS Team has significant input into the ongoing product development, leveraging the knowledge gained from client interaction. However, the biggest advantage is we offer all of our clients FREE 24/7 phone support. We know that a great CS Team is vital to our success.

What inspires the management and staff at Cake?
After spending years working for online marketing industry leaders (including NBCInteractive, News Corp., Experian Interactive) we recognized the need for a top tier product which executed to the expectations of senior management as well as provided the blocking and tackling solutions for the front line employees. We are driven each day to meet those obligations. The management team here is competitive and we live for the challenges that come up each day to meet the demanding needs of our clients. Who wouldn’t love coming to work with the most dedicated staff in the market taking on the problems of the most sophisticated marketers in the world and helping them succeed?

IF someone wanted to move over to Cake, how easy would it be? What is the time period involved and do you have any examples of transfers that you can talk about?
We have designed our product to reach full deployment within days. Our goals as a team are to have our clients up and running on a time frame that is comfortable for them. When clients want to be up and running in full steam we can have them up within 48 hours. We understand the anxiety of moving systems and have put a lot of time into creating a comprehensive process. Clients get a dedicated implementation rep to guide them through the training and to import their existing data (affiliates, advertisers, offers, etc.) into their Cake instance.

For affiliates, if they are on a Cake system what will they see in the network that they wouldn’t see in any other program?
We’ve put a lot of time into the design of the Cake Affiliate Portal in an effort to make finding offers, grabbing creative assets, placing pixels, testing offers, viewing reports, downloading new suppression lists, and keeping track of invoices/bills as intuitive, quick, and easy as possible. Seeing up to the second stats, gauging overall performance, and finding new great converting offers are all available in one easy to use dashboard, and when necessary digging in to find more specific information is only a couple clicks away. Additionally, all of this information is available via our Affiliate API for those affiliates looking to integrate this information into their own dashboards.

Specifically the things you won’t find in other systems are:

1.      Pixel placement (traditional iframe/javascript/image AND Postback URL/Server Pixels) to testing with immediate success feedback removes the need for affiliates to wait on account managers to place and test their pixels.

2.      The ease in which per subid/creative pricing is viewable/manageable. No matter how complicated your payment structure is, Cake breaks it down and makes it easy to understand.

3.      One click import into your own Cake system making brokering offers from networks a breeze. No need to manually import links/creatives, it all happens for you behind the scenes!

Why use Cake instead of building your own system?
This is the classic buy/outsource versus build decision. Our product has been built from the ground up over 4 years with millions of dollars invested ensuring that our foundation was sound and provides the most flexibility for our clients. Our product allows for clients to have a customized solution within a SaaS license model. This flexible solution can be fully deployed in weeks saving valuable resources and time. Building an independent solution would likely lack the power and scalability required. Furthermore it would take significant time until full deployment. Why pay full price for the Ferrari when you can lease it for a fraction of the price!

What is your dream car and why?
I am not much of a car guy I drive a Prius. I would much rather have a plane so I could travel easily and often with my family.

If you weren’t doing this as career what would be your second choice?
Starting an organization that would educate, mentor, and lend resources to people in countries of extreme poverty to provide a better opportunity.

Want to learn more about Cake?

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Google Farming Update: Quest for Quality

During this week, Google announced a significant algorithm-update which aims to increase quality in Google’s search results. Domains containing low-quality content are supposed to be found less often, high-quality pages are to achieve better rankings. At the moment this update is active in the US-Index, more countries are about to follow.

Quickly named an “Anti-Demand-Media”-Update, I couldn’t find any real data proving this claim. I’d like to change this with this posting: Based on a dataset of one million keywords, which were checked before the update and yesterday I can determine the biggest loser of this algorithm-change. The SISTRIX VisibilityIndex is an index value calculated from traffic on keywords, ranking and click-through rate on specific positions. Let’s start with a list of the 25 biggest losers:

# Domain Change SISTRIX (before) SISTRIX (after) # KWs (before) # KWs (after)
1 wisegeek.com -77% 121,58 28,22 74.024 21.940
2 ezinearticles.com -90% 65,08 6,65 184.508 54.277
3 suite101.com -94% 54,04 3,28 178.373 36.904
4 hubpages.com -87% 55,16 7,40 152.998 50.178
5 buzzle.com -85% 43,25 6,55 86.472 24.423
6 associatedcontent.com -93% 38,29 2,57 216.429 53.512
7 freedownloadscenter.com -90% 30,26 3,01 42.486 7.992
8 essortment.com -91% 25,73 2,32 27.501 7.459
9 fixya.com -80% 28,78 5,83 62.034 36.167
10 americantowns.com -91% 24,88 2,18 26.000 9.799
11 lovetoknow.com -83% 25,75 4,28 49.544 17.833
12 articlesbase.com -94% 19,96 1,16 82.274 31.365
13 howtodothings.com -84% 21,20 3,39 33.222 7.601
14 mahalo.com -84% 20,49 3,23 33.875 9.740
15 business.com -93% 17,24 1,13 21.556 4.813
16 doityourself.com -77% 20,89 4,90 23.256 6.870
17 merchantcircle.com -85% 18,43 2,67 93.347 34.681
18 thefind.com -83% 18,95 3,27 74.506 45.495
19 findarticles.com -90% 16,98 1,74 64.810 20.189
20 faqs.org -91% 16,52 1,46 33.648 11.142
21 tradekey.com -89% 16,83 1,79 37.364 16.268
22 answerbag.com -91% 12,93 1,11 67.314 26.054
23 trails.com -87% 12,05 1,62 38.346 8.511
24 examiner.com -79% 10,54 2,19 70.781 31.272
25 allbusiness.com -88% 8,86 1,08 16.457 6.034

The table shows the domain, percentage loss, SISTRIX before and after the update as well as the number of keywords found from the one million dataset for this domain before and after the algorithm-change. It is sorted by the biggest absolut loss in SISTRIX VisibilityIndex. Comparing these results with the announcement from Google, they seem to have reached their goal: a whole lot of low-quality domains lost significant visibility in the US Google-SERPs.

Let’s see in detail what Google did to the affected domains. The first conclusion is quite straightforward: the number of keywords these domains are ranking for dropped dramatically. Looking at mahalo.com as an example, it went from 33,875 keywords before the update to just 9,740 keywords after the update went public – a decrease of more than 70%. These were keywords like “zealand air“ (3), “digg“ (8) or “tax check“ (4) where the domain fell out of the top 100 results. The second outcome deals with the remaining keywords. Here is a chart on which Google result page the keywords of mahalo.com were to be found before and after the algorithm-update:
It’s eye-catching that mahalo.com did not only lose more than 70% of their keywords – the remaining keywords are also ranking much worse than before. More than two third of all keywords for this domain could be found on result page 8, 9 and 10. That’s the reason the SISTRIX value fell even more than the raw count of found keywords.

And how about Demand Media? Well, there is no sign that Google tried to downrank ehow.com. Ehow.com even gained SISTRIX value (from 270 to 310) and Keywords (from 317,320 to 324,021) during the algorithm-change. Looking at the SERP-Distribution chart from above for ehow.com, you’ll notice the difference. Quite a statement from Google regarding the quality of Demand Medias’ content, isn’t it? If you are interested in a full list of 100 Domains suffering from this update, please drop me a short notice.

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Reprinted from http://www.sistrix.com

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Three Types of Offers that Always Work

Despite the growing popularity of Internet TV, both DishNetwork and DirectTV are a growing business.  A lot of it has to do with the huge population of sports fans that know that they can get the best quality games via these methods, but a lot more probably has to do with the aggressive affiliate programs that the resellers use. If there is one program that year after year is a constant, it is the affiliate programs for DishNetwork and DirectTV. This search will show you DishNetwork Affiliate Programs at OfferVault. I’ve also heard a rumor that HybridAds has a private email submit for DishNetwork that is killing it.

With the Price of Gold Going up, Gold Kits and Gold Seller Offers are probably still one of the hottest offers for mailers, but also for all types of people. These offers are partially doing well because of the economy and the price of Gold, but also because of the enormous advertising push being done on FoxNews and late night TV. With people like Glen Beck pushing gold companies and talking about it, tons of people know about these programs. Thus, when they are given the opportunity to redeem their gold for money via a mailing, they are more interested. Try Envyus Media and their CashForGold offer.

I have talked about how to make money on Dating Affiliate Programs many times.   Dating Affiliate Programs will always be hot, because for whatever reason people are always searching for new loves. I read in a study that as more and more people get on dating sites, more and more people try OTHER dating sites – because it’s almost like an addiction. People love the attention of an unknown suitor or admirer.. who might be stalker, but still its fun.  If you haven’t tried already, try NICHE dating.  For example, Hispanic Dating can be huge, partially because its less competitive  but also because there are a lot of keywords that cost a lot less money than the rest. For example, Online Dating goes for as much as $4.00 per click, while Domincan Women goes for $.43 per click on Google. Let’s also be honest, nothing really sells like the photos of Sexy Dominican Women too, there is are just a plethora of great photos out there for your ads!

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Try a Little Tenderness With Your Affiliates

ADOTAS – The relationship between an affiliate and an affiliate manager can be very rewarding over the lifetime of an affiliate program. However, there are times when as an affiliate manager you may experience the wrath of an angry affiliate.

Affiliates can feel hurt about a company’s decision to lower a commission, or eliminate a popular method of promotion. What’s more, a simple misunderstanding via email can turn into personal attacks on you, the affiliate manager, in forums or through unsavory email messages to your boss.

Below are just a few scenarios that you might face, and suggestions for addressing them. These are not absolute cures; however, consider them as tools for repairing your relationship with your affiliates.

Scenario 1: You lower the payout of your affiliate program, because your budget is not big enough.

Solution: If it’s absolutely necessary to lower your payout due to a small budget, then do so. But remember that reducing all the affiliates in your program to a lower threshold is not the best alternative.

Not all affiliates are the same. Top performers that send through a high-quality volume of traffic and sales shouldn’t be equated with someone who just learned about affiliate marketing yesterday and needs more time to optimize their campaigns. Try offering a tiered commission, so that your partners are compensated based on their performance.

If tiered commissions aren’t possible then at least segment a handful of top performers into a higher commission group. Give them a friendly phone call to notify them of this benefit. Also explore rewarding lower-tiered affiliates with a bonus if they have achieved a high threshold.

Scenario 2: You abruptly kick out affiliates from your program because they don’t make any money.

Solution: Ask yourself whether or not you clearly communicated your performance requirements to your affiliates. Did you send them an email threatening to remove them from your program? Affiliates can’t all be super performers from the start. Take a step back and evaluate your relationships with the partners in your program.

Forums and popular blogs are filled with negative comments about “break-up tactics.” If they’re talking about you, make a public statement and admit your error. There’s nothing more humbling to an affiliate when they see an affiliate manager or program representative admit their mistakes.

Offer the chance to those affiliates who felt they were wrongly removed to contact you personally to discuss the problem. Also, a peace offering isn’t a bad idea; what better way to show your willingness to work together again than offering a promotion.

Scenario 3: A new affiliate uses your forbidden keywords in their PPC campaign and didn’t realize it. You decide to blacklist him or her from all your affiliate programs.

Solution: I have seen merchants get extremely irate when they discover that an affiliate has used forbidden keywords in a paid search campaign. However, I have also seen newbie affiliates genuinely forget to scrub their keyword list upon, say, switching their campaigns from Yahoo to Google. Sometimes merchants also forget to make forbidden practices explicit.

Unless the rules are blatantly communicated, it’s best to halt blacklisting affiliates. Make sure to communicate the rules clearly rather than have them simply listed in your terms and conditions.

Explain the details through your welcome email to new affiliates, on your sponsored forums, in your affiliate program description and anywhere else affiliates are likely to read about you. Let’s be honest, terms and conditions aren’t always a guaranteed way to prevent prohibited activity.

As you can see it helps to establish a communication strategy for attracting and maintaining quality relationships. Make it part of your affiliate program’s objectives to start sending out clear and transparent messages in your affiliate program.

If your internal objectives are only about earning as much money as possible in your affiliate program during the next three months, then you need to rethink those objectives. The message you convey publically has to convey the same message in-house.

If you are seeking conversions of 8% or more from affiliates with a relevant website with organic traffic, it’s important to communicate this in the beginning. An explicit description of the type of partners you want will attract more niche affiliates.

In addition, if you’ve decided to message your affiliates about changes to your program, make sure it’s across multiple platforms. Assuming that affiliates will check their email or your terms and conditions is a misjudgement. Have a lateral flow of communication across your program and Facebook pages, and on Twitter.

There is no magic method for handling difficult scenarios with affiliates, but as an affiliate manager try to re-evaluate the way you treat your affiliates. Remember it’s easier to attract bees with honey than with vinegar.

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Maranda Moses is a communications strategist for Share Results and contributes some of their widely read blogs and articles on affiliate strategies, industry news, and trends. Over the years she’s honed her skills in the online marketing space as a senior account manager in the education, family, apparel and maternity insurance verticals.

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Learn more about Affiliate Management from Hydra GM in “Affiliates Need Facetime”

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Five Categories of CPA Offers that are Converting.

Time for our round-up of highly converting offers and ideas how to convert them even better.  If you aren’t trying new offers and new techniques and just relying on a “proven” converter, you’re going to find yourself eventually scrambling to make up for lost time. Also, try new networks that you’ve never worked with before, you’d be amazed how sometimes the same offer on a different network converts completely differently—especially with the huge advances in affiliate tracking software. So, without a delay, here are some of the offers that I think you need to take a look at.

First of all, if you’ve not tried anything in the insurance sector, you are missing out. Everyone is always looking for auto insurance, and perhaps one of the top companies out there right now pushing insurance is CPAWAY.  They are fast becoming known as the insurance superstars with tons of offers in the insurance category.  Obviously car insurance is a great place to start, everyone is looking for a cheaper quote and just reminding them that it cost nothing to search for a cheaper insurance plan is a great way to get people attention.  Also, with all the news about health insurance, this is a great time to inform people that very soon they will be required by law to buy health insurance.

Wonder what happened to all the trial and rebill offers? As you may have read, there was some serious issues with these offers and many companies stopped running them for fear of not getting paid. However, these offers are hot again and performing amazing after not being out there that much in the last year or so. If you’ve been curious who is still running them, you need to check out EnvyusMedia a company with tons of legit trial rebill offers. One of the good things about working with EnyvusMedia is their dedication to paying affiliates—as their CEO put it, they will pay their affiliates for traffic all the time, even if they aren’t getting paid. This is found few and far between in the industry, and one of the reasons that EnvyusMedia is growing very fast. Health and Beauty will always be hot, but expect as we get back into the summer that the diet health products start picking up seriously. It’s been a cold winter and when the spring comes, people will want to be taking off the fat more and more.

One proven success is trying all the “as seen on tv” offers, especially when they are being heavily promoted. If you seen the “WonderFile” and “Bionic Hearing System” (from Axon)   promoted late night, you know that these can sell amazing. I’d look at these offers and  seriously check out late night tv and see what is selling. If you are seeing a product promoted over and over again, it means that it’s currently very hot and a perfect time to try it via email, search and other systems. More and more people will remember a product and then go online and search for it, and if you can get in there to sell it first you’ll be the one making the serious dough.

Last of all, it’s time for international surveys.  While the US market is still hot, international surveys are amazing. The first reason is simple: many, many of the countries have tons of cheap inventory in display, search (especially alternative search and PPC engines such as 7Search) and even email that is readily available. The second reason is that for some reason, people love filling out those forms and it can make you quick money fast. The King of Surveys right now is PointClickTrack and they have surveys for almost every country.

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Learn about Dating Affiliate Programs, and other programs that always work. Also check out Email Subject Lines that always work.

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Five Must Have Marketing Books for Affiliates

I’m not normally someone who pitches books to people, since I believe that a lot of information can be found on the internet for free. That being said, my parents actually gave me a Kindle for the Holidays and because of that I’ve actually started to read again. So here are  Five books that are “must have” books if you are involved in marketing. I’ve linked to the paperback versions of the books, but highly recommend also getting the kindle versions. That being said, I highly recommend also, if you haven’t already have one, getting a Kindle. Please note, I actually own (on the kindle) all these books and have read them.

Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions
Tim Ash is one of my heroes, if only because he’s managed to look really good bald, something I’ve been working on for a year now.

Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer
If you haven’t been using Google Optimizer, and would like to try it, this is a great introduction. It’s worth the $18 price even if you don’t use it because it comes with $25 worth of Google Adwords 

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Something that isn’t talked much in the industry is Usability. Many of the techniques are basic, but understanding them completely, very complex.

Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results
My friend Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock recommends this book, and so do I.  Simply put, if you don’t know how to get people’s attention, what gets them to actually buy, you’re behind the curve.

Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars
I love you Ann! Really, if you are engaged in any landing pages, PPC conversions, I highly recommend you also learn about content. Why? Just because you are sending customers directly to a landing page doesn’t mean you can’t also create content on that same site.

Learn how to Get Free Traffic

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What are some CPA Offers that Convert?

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The Google Guillotine

ADOTAS – I can’t stop grinning about Gavin Dunaway’s truth-sharing post, “Google Stands Up For Its Search“; no doubt bloggers like us “are giving big G a headache.” I applaud him for having the courage to write the truth as he sees it. (There is only ever what truth we can each deduce which the many will never agree on.)

Big G intentionally created these problems with their MFA (made for AdSense) offering that I explained in my post about Google Killing the AdWords Golden Goose and their official Google AdSense© for Domains offering that pays big bucks to people who have littered the Internet with parked domains full of canned ads.

These tactics are what PPC (pay-per-click — i.e. AdWords and similar ads) experts call distribution fraud because advertisers can not opt out of them and a page full of canned searches is not a search and will not convert like a search. (If anyone can provide proof that these do convert I invite them to send it to me and I will publish it.)

Another “groan-inducing defense” that is getting old is the company that creates the problem claiming they are “fighting” the problem. Oh please.

Big G is trying to “clean up” the Internet to favor big brands and that has very serious implications for small local and e-commerce businesses and bloggers alike. I commented in this post on SEOBook by Aaron Wall regarding the now-famous Internet Cesspool quote on what I believe their CEO meant.

The Google MayDay update slammed e-commerce sites. The PageRank update that occurred over this past weekend G-slapped my blog for the first time. That is not surprising because I am firmly in the DoFollow, CommentLuv, KeywordLuv camp and am a champion of supporting small businesses. Because of that, my posts have a ton of outgoing links in the comments.

Allowing those links runs contrary to what Big G wants, but bloggers like me should hold fast to doing what is right and not what G wants because reversing this economic decline requires understanding that marketing is not evil — it is how we find what we want and need from non-big-brand companies.

That last link contains statistics that clearly show what is destroying economies around the world and what we — those of us who are willing to make better decisions — can do to reverse that. I encourage anyone reading this far to open that last link up and read those statistics so they clearly understand how dangerous not changing our shopping behavior is.

By moving the dollars we currently spend to small local and online businesses, we can create buying communities that may escape the worse of the inevitable collapse of the U.S. dollar. Anyone who believes that the economy can recover is in for a huge surprise. As many have been quoted as saying throughout time, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

The handwriting is on the wall and easily interpreted if we only look around and read the excellent information available on the Internet — much of it compiled in “What Caused the Great Depression is Now.”

The monopoly Google has on both organic and paid search — clearly seen in this spreadsheet of Google market share by country — gives them a guillotine over the heads of every business, blog and website owner. They are also behind serious threats to net neutrality that could further favor those with deep pockets and cripple independent websites of all kind.

We Internet users have collectively handed them this guillotine and only we — by using alternative search engines — can take it away from them.

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Gail Gardner is a Social Media Marketing and Internet Strategist at GrowMap.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

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Affiliates Need Face Time

ADOTAS – Even though it’s early February, you might still be recuperating from Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas. If you weren’t there – big mistake!! The affiliate community was out in force (more than 4,600 delegates), taking part in the mayhem that Vegas has now become renowned for – endless seminars, impromptu networking, crazy parties and casino games beyond your wildest dreams. Safe to say, you need a vacation after the show to fully recharge your batteries before you can get back to business, but it’s so worth it.

For affiliates who work independently or with a small team, a conference is paramount to maintaining their sanity and reigniting their zest for the career they have chosen. You could feel the buzz in the air during the entire show, and one can only sympathize with the other Wynn guests who weren’t part of ASW; there was a perpetual sea of bodies in every bar, restaurant, meeting area or hallway with those tell-tale Summit badges.

A quick scan of a badge and you’re instantly chatting with a super affiliate, a blogger, your affiliate manager, etc. Everyone is really approachable and down-to-earth, no superstars here.

For those of you spending your days pouring over performance metrics, having face time with your account manager is really important to be able to get a network-wide perspective of trends or opportunities you may see. Yes, much of this can be done by e-mail or IM, but we all know that sitting down with someone in front of data is a whole different experience than the sound-bites you might pick up when multi-tasking.

A Reciprocal Arrangement

Ad networks require truly effective listening skills to be able to deliver exactly what their affiliates need; is there a more efficient forum than a private meeting or dinner at a trade show?! If you’ve expended the time, energy and finances to attend, you should demand a positive return and assume the responsibility for achieving that.

Your physical presence will increase your recognition amongst the strategic partnerships you wish to develop and continue, which in turn may result in preferential treatment plus more regular attention from your AM.

Effective Time Management

Once you’ve made the decision to attend an industry event, don’t just leave it to chance to have a productive experience. Plan your time wisely to cover as much ground as possible and ensure that your interactions leave you with actionable take-aways, and you return home buzzing with fresh ideas to implement.

Some things to consider:

  • Schedule meetings with your network AMs, and if possible get an introduction to their Department Head. Find out what’s hot on their network, successful campaigns with other affiliates working in your space, discuss your anxieties about testing new categories and get their opinions. Are there any product enhancements in the pipeline and how can you get advance notice of such developments? Identify some common ground, maybe a sporting interest, leisure pursuit – this will give you an edge and help put you on their radar of “memorable” clients.
  • Attend relevant workshops. Identify key industry trends (blog monetization, the impact of social) or regulatory updates and see which sessions can make you more efficient and productive in the pursuit of your revenue goals.
  • Networking. Whether you target some key super affiliates (maybe you’re looking for a mentor?) or just want to meet like-minded individuals to brainstorm and share ideas with, this is the real beauty of a trade show.

The next time an “Affiliate Dream Team” is assembled, use the opportunity to block out some time and consider it a worthwhile educational/networking expense; better still, include it in your personal ROI calculations and await the returns. If 2011 trumps last year’s online sales, you’ll want every tool possible to claim your slice of the pie.

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Greg Bayer is general manager of the affiliate division for Adknowledge and has over 15 years experience in affiliate marketing and digital media.

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Rebecca Madigan of the PMA leads her Army of Affiliates

For as long as I remember the affiliate and performance marketing industry has been attempting to create a trade organization to represent the industry. Every time they tried, it failed miserably without exception — until the Performance Marketing Association came along. At first most of the industry universally panned the idea of another organization, thinking it would be no more than a loose fraternity that allowed a few CPA network owners to drink scotch together once a year. However, with the leadership of Rebecca Madigan, the Executive Director of the PMA, the organization has become a force in the industry, fighting for the industry as a whole and providing much needed leadership. If you ask anyone who is involved with the PMA, they will tell you that one of the main reasons for its success is Rebecca and without her the industry might already just be a footnote. I sat down with her this week and asked her some difficult questions about the PMA, industry as a whole and learned that she dreams of jet planes.

How did you get involved with this industry initially? I joined CJ in early 2005 in product management. I have extensive background in product management for technology products, including broadband, telecom and wireless/mobile. I was the product manager for the first ‘voip’ product called Web Talk, a browser based Internet phone (back in 1994). When I was in wireless and mobile, I was really involved in industry and standards organizations (founding member of the Bluetooth SIG, for example), and saw first hand the benefits of a unified voice dealing with public policy (buying of spectrum) and standards (wireless LAN, GSM, CDMA, etc). It struck me as odd and limiting, along with many people, that the affiliate space didn’t have any industry organization.

Why do you think the industry needs a separate organization for “Performance Marketing?” The industry needs AN organization for performance marketing, there is no other organization serving this business model. We tried to get others like the IAB, ERA and DMA to pay more attention to performance marketing, but those groups aren’t chartered to do so, and haven’t had an interest.

What would you say to those who argue that separating ourselves from the IAB just hurts us? Why not join the IAB? The IAB has been disinterested in performance marketing, in the US anyway. In the UK they do have an affiliate group, but nowhere else. And the IAB is structured for very large companies, or that was the case when the PMA formed. There wasn’t a long tail membership until recently. But most importantly, they aren’t chartered around the performance business model, nor do they even embrace affiliate marketing. We’re still the ‘red headed stepchild’ to them.

As we’ve talked before, the PMA represents both networks and merchants. Isn’t this combining two different groups with different goals? How can they really work together? Actually, the PMA represents the entire ecosystem of performance marketing. We have more affiliates as members than any other segment (>25%), and advertisers are represented the least (14%). We also represent networks, solution providers, agencies, and investors. The way for this industry to mature is for us ALL to work together to drive growth, change, innovation, and trust. I would argue the thing that has held this industry back is the fragmented nature, business segments unable or uninterested in sitting down together to solve problems.

Isn’t having Dell, Amazon, Google and other major players dilutes the influence and ability of smaller players and networks to make changes? As I mentioned, we have more affiliates as members than any other segment, including our top level, platinum. Publishers like FatWallet, Offers.com, RetailMeNot, and Fabulous Savings, are platinum members.

Additionally, the way we’re structured is to allow for smaller companies, specifically affiliates, to be involved, participate in working groups, take leadership roles, vote on initiatives, etc. We all feel very strongly that this industry is only as strong as the entire ecosystem, and in particular, we all need affiliates to thrive for everyone else to thrive.

Lastly, though, I’ll add that we’re an organization that is chartered with doing a lot of things. Our biggest activity to date has been fighting the affiliate nexus legislation, which directly targets affiliates. We’re also developing standards and best practices to improve quality and effectiveness, and stimulate growth (let’s make it easier where we can so companies can spend more time on the important things). All these things take enormous time, resources and money. Where does that money come from to fund these initiatives? Membership dues. The PMA is non-profit and we’re only as strong as our members and our ability to raise money.

What do you think about the growing trend of “gurus” in the industry? My main concern is that they perpetuate the concept of ‘get rich quick’, which doesn’t help our industry. Being successful takes a lot of time, patience, perseverance, talent and a little luck. We believe the way to grow this industry is to focus on long-term growth, not the quick buck.

Affiliate Summit was highly attended but there was almost no mainstream media coverage for some reason. What are we doing wrong in getting that coverage? Good question. It’s an event for industry insiders, the topics of discussion assume a certain level of knowledge (you won’t learn about what performance marketing is at the show). You might ask Missy and Shawn about that, did they invite the press?

Are we the affiliate marketing industry, or the performance marketing industry? Is there a difference? We opted to use the broader term ‘performance marketing’ for a couple of reasons. First of all, the performance model (ads being paid based on results) is bigger than just online. It has been around on television and radio for a long time. We see tremendous growth and opportunity in looking at where experts in the performance model can take it into new channels, like mobile for example. And ‘affiliate’ means something different in those channels, like a TV station or wireless carrier partner.

Secondly, for right or wrong, ‘affiliate marketing’ has a reputation burdened with lack of trust, the ‘wild west’, if you will. We’re an industry maturing into one with very professional companies, and we don’t’ want to be held back by an old reputation.

Thirdly, on the legislative front, the term ‘affiliate’ has come to mean agent or distributor or subsidiary, causing laws to be created that damage our industry. Our ‘affiliates’ are simply websites that earn revenue from advertising, they have no other relationship or level of ownership by merchants.

What is happening on the Affiliate Tax Front?  Does this really affect the “average” affiliate or just the large companies like Amazon? The unfortunate thing about this legislation is that it’s been called the Amazon tax and people think it impacts only them. The affiliates, large or small, are the unintended victims in this. The law basically says that if an out-of-state merchant has an affiliate in the state, the out-of-state merchant must then collect sales tax. So merchants simply terminate their affiliates to avoid collecting sales tax. Not only have Amazon and Overstock terminated, but hundreds of other merchants. It’s passed in NY, NC and RI, but we’ve prevented it from being passed in 15 other states. The way we’ve stopped it is through affiliate involvement – putting faces and success stories behind the name.

This is going to be a bad year, it’s already shown up in more states than this time last year (IL, SC, MS, CT, CA). States are still desperate for budget dollars and they think this is a quick fix. So we go to every state, recruit affiliates to help, and we slowly but surely convince legislators it’s a bad idea.

Aren’t you just pissing off the people in power by filling suits against the state and making the performance marketing industry look greedy? We haven’t filed a single suite against any state. What are you talking about? (BTW, we’re way too small of an association to file a suit of any kind, even if a reason arose – which it hasn’t).

What can we do as individuals to stop this trend of states taxing affiliate sales? Get involved when it hits your state. We have up-to-date information on our website.
Get to know your personal legislators. They’re very approachable and really want to learn about their constituents. If they learn about you now, and understand what you do and how this will impact you, you can build support to block progress. We’ve had this happen with affiliates in VA, IL, CA, CT, GA, TX and PA just this year. These affiliates are learning more than the lobbyists!

What is the PMA’s position on the FTC as a whole? Do you think the FTC recognizes that unique status of affiliate marketers as being different from $100M companies? What do you think the FTC will do in 2011 that might affect our industry negatively or positively? The FTC has a charter of protecting consumers from false or misleading advertising – and we support that charter completely. It’s a tricky balance between having an effective government-run regulatory agency and letting an industry self-regulate. This industry has done an awful job self-regulating, and it’s no suprise the FTC is stepping up its scope and authority.

The FTC recently published a proposal nicknamed the “Do Not Track” proposal, essentially suggesting consumers should have more say and control over how their Internet activity is tracked, and how and where personally identifiable information is used. In theory that seems fine but as we know in our industry, tracking of a user is extremely complex but also delivers the great targeted online experiences consumers come to expect.

There’s been some speculation as to why the FTC put out this proposal. My belief, and I’m not alone, is that it is a challenge to all advertising industries to step up the game in self-regulation. And we completely support that goal.

The PMA is preparing our own response to the FTC, so that we’re sure the unique perspectives of our industry are heard. The submission deadline is February 18th, and we have a volunteer member group crafting the response.

What is your dream car? I work at home and travel a lot. I no longer dream of cars but I could really use a private jet, like a G4.

Read Another Great Interview Mike Krongel of COPEAC

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Higher Landing Page Conversions: Paradox of Choice

Last week we talked about a simple problem with many landing pages: too many choices. It’s simple: despite what people think, that more choices are better, it generally proves to be completely incorrect.  Noted Psychologist Barry Schwartz wrote this in his book “The Paradox of Choice.” According to most economic situations, the Paradox of Choice basically says that at a certain point that too many choices is counterproductive. In direct response however, I believe that we need to take this to a totally different level and completely remove any choices in landing pages.

In Performance Based Marketing the idea is to drive a customer to a product and get them to buy that product immediately. There are no extra points given to how many people view your page and think about it, just on conversion rates. The payment is simple, as we all know: the more people who sign up or buy the product, the more money that is made. We only care about that conversion, that is the golden goose, that is the end-game.

However, when you drive a user to the website, and there is a “choice” often it will result in the user having to think about the product, have to consider if they really want the product.   This is especially important in PPC and email campaigns, where the person has already “made the choice” of clicking on the advertisement to get to that page. They are interested in the product, you’ve already done the hard part of sending them there, the next step is getting them to buy. If you give them another choice, they are going to question their initial choice of actually clicking on the advertisement.

For example, if you created an advertisement that said “Get a $5 Large Pizza” but then then landing page has a choice of 5 other pizzas of higher values, you’d think that perhaps people would say “hey, those are good deals too.” However, the very fact that you are presenting them with higher prices might make them reconsider the initial buy and they would go “Hmm.. maybe I want something else, maybe not a Pizza” while considering their buy.  If you want to sell something more expensive, you do the upsell after they have already bought the pizza and started the order. It’s simple, they start the order for the $5 Cheese pizza, start entering their info, then you offer them the additional choices of “perhaps you’d like for $1 more some Extra Cheese” or a “Coke for $2.50.”

In Education PPC campaigns, this actually is one of the biggest mistakes on conversions. I’ve cut and paste below two EDU PPC campaigns, both for criminal justice. One of them does much better, because of the lack of choice. The person has already chosen that they are interested in Criminal Justice, but for some reason one of the online universities thinks that it better for them to give them an additional choice. They feel incorrectly that “perhaps there are people who might want a different degree.” Maybe a small percentage will look over it and decide that they really want to go to nursing, but the vast majority were looking for criminal justice school because they were sincerely interested or were thinking about it as a possibility. The school might have created doubt in their mind that this was a good opportunity, because there are so many options and their next step may very well be to search for something else.

Next week I will bring up “fake choices” — where you basically make the user think they may have choices but really are only given them one choice. It may seem the opposite of what we just talked about, but its basically the same.

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