Text Links vs. Banner Ads

As an affiliate manager, I'm often asked, "Which convert better: text links or banners?" At first glance, the most obvious answer it text links. Glancing at a report or statistics will reveal that most of the time text links do convert better than banner ads.

However, there's more to the story than just that. I believe it has to do with how text links are used as opposed to banners that contribute greatly to the higher conversion / success rate. Consider for a moment how text links are employed as opposed to banners.

Let's first take a look at how text links are commonly used. The greatest use of text links comes from product data feeds. These product data feeds employ the specific product name as the text link. Of course, any shopper who is looking for a specific product, sees the product name, and then clicks the link will have the highest possible conversion chance. If a visitor knows what they want, and has already made up their mind that they WILL be making a purchase, then closing the sale becomes a far less challenging task. I discussed this a bit further when examining effective affiliate landing pages.

Another common use of text link: they are placed into the body of a webpage. Content is built around the text link. It much easier to built a value proposition, or tell a story when you have content build around a link then it is to tell that same story with just a banner/picture with a short tag line.

In comparison, consider how banners are commonly placed. Either at the top of a web page, or along the sidebar. Experienced web surfers have already trained themselves to know, banners placed in these spots (especially the leaderboard banner across the top of a page) are trying to sell them something, It's quite easy to automatically tune out to those messages.

The common perception: text links lead to information, banners lead to a sale pitch. Now, this is not to say that banner cannot be an effective tool in promotion. Just don't expect to put up a page and slap a bunch of banners up and expect to have any success. Build up some content, tell a story through that content that appeals to your visitors wants.

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Strategies for Conversions through Effective Affiliate Landing Pages - Part 2 (Directing Visitors Who Want to Buy)

In Strategies for Affiliate Landing Pages Part 1 we discussed the idea of a value added landing page, talked about two types of site visitors, and discussed strategies for designing a landing page for early buying cycle visitors. Now, I'd like to discuss strategies for those buyers who know exactly what they want to purchase.

You can usually identify these buyers by how they are arriving at your site. If they've used exact product names, or very specific keywords, then you can generally assume that they have already narrowed down their choice to this specific product. Now it's all a matter of directing the visitor to where they can make the purchase.  Your job as an affiliate is not to convince them to make the purchase, this must be accomplished by the merchant. If you are promoting a specific merchant, then you should already know that the merchant is able to convert visitors to customers.

Visitors who have arrived at your page from typing in a specific product name, or model number, are expecting to see that product clearly on your page. Header, title, bolded, make it very clear to the visitor that they have arrived at the correct place. K.I.S.S., or Keep It Simple Stupid. Don't clutter up the page with unnecessary distractions, banners, etc. Be concise and clear, keep sentences short, paragraphs short, and even use bullet points. Emphasize promotions or coupons that a merchant has available, and make the value proposition clear.

If you have a comparison on the page of the product from a few different merchants, highlight the value proposition for each merchant. Guarantees, free shipping, return policy, etc. The visitor knows what they want to buy, now they need to be directed on where to buy from. Give them the information to make a quick decision, and pass them to the merchant to close the sale.

And finally, but critically important, make a very clear, very easy to identify, call to action:  Click here; Buy here, Buy now.

Don't be afraid to test and try different things.  Try two different pages and alternate them. Does one convert better?  USE it. Good affiliate marketing takes effort, so don't be afraid to put forth the effort and build a couple landing pages and test them.

Recap:

• Product name/keyword featured on the page.
• Keep it simple.
• Emphasize coupons/discounts/promotions.
• Provide short value propositions if different merchants promoted.
• Clear, visible, distinct call to action

If you have any other tips or advise, or want to share successes, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

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Strategies for Conversions through Effective Affiliate Landing Pages - Part 1

Well there was a lot of hubbub that came out of he Affiliate Summit and Jason Calacanis' keynote talk. He called affiliates to the table, especially those with what he termed "thin landing pages." The warning that he sounded, is that some bad affiliates are polluting the well for everyone.

Granted, deceptive landing pages, cookie stuffing, deceptive redirection, misleading offers, etc., are polluting the well, however thin landing pages really are just poor business execution. Affiliates aren't paid on clicks, they are paid only when the sale is made, so if affiliates do not send pre-sold or targeted traffic to a merchant, the affiliate isn't going to be making any money.  As more people get into the affiliate business, and start building value added sites, these thin landing page sites will get driven off the map. This is a natural progression, the cream will rise to the top.

Now, how do you as an affiliate ensure that you are part of the cream that rises to the top? It's not a secret sauce, and it's not rocket science. One need only add some value to the buying cycle.  There are essentially two types of buying traffic, people gathering information and in the early stages of the buying cycle, and those who have pretty much decided and looking to make a purchase. Each visitor has different needs that must be met. You can get an idea on what type of visitor will be arriving at your site, based on where they are coming from and the keywords they are using to reach the web page. Let me provide an example, I run the program for Baghaus handbags. Now if someone arrives at a site using the keywords, "Celebrity Handbag", I know they are generally early in their buying cycle, and just shopping around for ideas or information. However, if they hit the site using a very specific handbag name, I can deduce that they are looking to purchase that specific handbag.

Visitors in the early part of the buying cycle should be directed to a different type of page that late cycle buyers. How can you add value to the early cycle buyers?  Here are some ideas:

• Show many different products listed and compared.
• Informative content / articles concerning the type of product or niche.
• Comparison chart

The important thing to consider is, "what is going to be valuable to your visitor, and convince them to make or return and make the purchase through your site?" Establish your site as an authority site for information about this product or niche for this visitor.

Let me tell you, slapping up a site with a ton of banners mish-mashed all over the place isn't going to get that done. Put yourself in your visitor's shoes. If you hit that type of site, how will it help you in making a purchasing decision? What value is it adding for you in the buying cycle?

On your site, add a "About Us" page and also a "Privacy Policy". Fill these in as well, to give your visitor a sense that your are running a real business, and are committed running a professional operation. I guarantee having these two simple pages will increase your conversions and return visitor numbers.

Next post, we'll deal with how to build pages for those late cycle buyers who are intending to make a purchase.

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Can you make BIG money in Affiliate Marketing?

Yes, you can! Paul from Uber Affiliate just put up a new site compiling some of the pictures and earnings from a few large affiliates over at S.eriously.com. Those checks and earnings reports can certainly be motivating (Granted there is some discussion and debate over how many are real and how many are...touched up). But either way, as a firm, AMWSO has issued some big checks over the past few years. Of course these aren't generally net earnings, as a lot of that traffic might have been paid for via paid search ads. So even though an affiliate gets a check for say $100,000, they might have to pay $99,000 to Google, Yahoo or MSN for search advertising. Then of course, there is this other tried and true method of "earning big money via onlne marketing" :)

However, who can argue with an extra $1000 in the pocket. Plus, there can be ancillary benefits. Imagine if you're paying for all of those search ads on a credit card that gives cash back, or rewards points. 99,000 rewards points can add up to some nice all paid vacations in a short amount of time, or cash back, or any other benefits offered by credit card companies.

How can you start earning some of these monster checks? It isn't easy, but it's attainable, however it does take effort and work to build sustainable protected earnings.

The first thing to do, is to decide what product and how you'll be promoting a product or program. Basically you can make a niche site that is content focused, or a more general type of site like a coupon site or reward site.

If you decide to go with a niche site, then you must decide on what that niche is. There are various recommended ways of deciding on a niche, some advise to start off doing keyword research. I would recommend to start writing down some topics that interest you. At least, while you're learning to be an elite affiliate marketer, you'll also be learning about a subject that inspires you. Find some affiliate programs centered around these niches, sign up, and ask the affiliate manager for a keyword list. Then do a bit of keyword research to see what kind of traffic the recommended keywords are getting. See if you can come up with your own long-tail keywords using the provided list as a base. I would do a review of keyword tools here, but I don't think I could be more comprehensive that this keyword tool review by Aaron Wall.

In another post here, we'll talk about what kind of costs you might incur when investing in a keyword tool, getting a web host, getting some design help, and promoting your site.

If looking for program ideas, sign up for one of the AMWSO programs and get some help from one of the AMWSO managers to get you on the fast track to receiving one of those monster checks!

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Performance Marketing Support Group re-launches Monthly Teleconference for Internet Retailers and Marketing Professionals

Every 3rd Wednesday of the month, at 4:00pm Eastern Time, Allan Dick from Vintage Tub & Bath and Jeff Molander host a conference call to help e-marketing and e-commerce professionals find solutions to any issues or problems faced on a daily basis. Issues are discussed amongst peers, and advice will be offered from industry experts on the call.

This is a great opportunity to hear what your peers are facing, and listen to new insights on solutions to problems. The call on February 20th will center around the debate on how to balance paid search with affiliate marketing strategies. We at AMWSO are certainly keen to listen to the thoughts of other retailers and consultants on this very hot topic.

The monthly calls are a life blood for me. As the sole person charged with e-commerce marketing management at a mid-sized multi-channel retailer, I need a support group that speaks my language,

- Trish Tickle of Kitchen Collection.

Even after the call finishes, participants are invited to join a web based discussion group to network and continue helping one another. Trish continues:

Networking with other affiliate managers lets me find out about new ideas, explore and ask questions about things that I don t have time to research completely. Between calls we can email each other or the whole group about issues that can t wait until the next call. In fact, just yesterday we were discussing international affiliate marketing.

To sign up for the call, contact: Allan Dick at allan@vintagetub.com.

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Will Affiliate Marketing Evolve?

Recently, there was a merchant who was outed on Abestweb for trying to entice affiliates into providing a non-affiliate link back to the merchant site in exchange for a 1/2 percent commission bonus. This practice was summarily criticized by affiliates, and the merchant was forced to withdraw the offer, make several apologies and replace the consultant responsible for the idea.

I think there were basically three camps of reasoning's behind the negative acceptance of this idea. 1) People were slighted at only being offered 0.5% commission increase for this valuable rank benefiting link back. 2) People felt that this idea was unethical search engine manipulation and 3) some people felt that the affiliate marketing program shouldn't be mixed in with the SEO strategy.

Reason #3 inspired me to think about how affiliate marketing will evolve in the future. I think the idea of keeping affiliate marketing as is, and not mixing it up with other online marketing efforts is going to be impossible to maintain in the near future. The perception of affiliate marketing is under assault and this assault is leading merchants to seek additional ways to gain the best value value from their affiliate programs.  The assault is coming from trademark bidders and parasitic affiliates and even coupon affiliates (not to question the overall value of coupon affiliates, just observing that SOME merchants question the value of coupon affiliates). Affiliate marketing is a great channel, it provides a measurable ROI, builds out brand presence, and employs some very creative individuals working for the benefit of a brand. Given the tremendous value affiliate marketing offers however, there will always be a trend by any business to seek more value out of a channel.

How can an affiliate channel demonstrate NEW value-add while under this constant assault from non-value adding affiliate enterprises? I think the misguided link back idea was an attempt at addressing this idea. While it was resoundingly criticized, it was an attempt at adding something new to the affiliate channel.

Can affiliates be asked reasonably to get involved in other marketing endeavors on behalf of a merchant?  Perhaps commission bonuses for helping to vote up an article on a social site? Generating comments and content to help with spin reputation management?  If it's true that the affiliates of a merchant are like an independent sales force can this sales force be employed further for the benefit of both the affiliate and the merchant?

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Dominating a Niche in Affiliate Marketing

David Wilson made a post over at Social Media Optimization (a blog I frequently visit now that AMWSO has started offering social media consulting services), talking about the approach used by one SEO for reputation management, I felt that many of the same principles can be applied to affiliate marketing toward dominating the search results for a particular niche. Why be satisfied with simply achieving a high search engine placement for particular keywords. Why not aim for owning 5, or 10 slots, and target that consumer from many angles to definitely make a purchase through your affiliate links.

If you have a site or page targeted toward particular key words within a niche, do you have a Squidoo page to compliment your main landing page?  Have you set-up a blog on a different domain, or a blog hosting service? How about a Myspace page, or Hubpage, or Wetpaint Wiki or PBWiki?

Build up some support pages, interlink them, and dominate the search results in a particular niche.

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Word of Mouth Marketing and Affiliate Marketing

If you're involved in marketing, then you know the latest trend receiving much discussion involves conversation marketing and word of mouth marketing. Affiliate marketing never seems to get a lot of respect from other marketing designations, but I believe affiliate marketing can fit perfectly within the new conversation paradigm.

Conversation / word of mouth marketing is getting a lot of attention because it's effective. The world is interactive, and large corporations must adjust. It's almost as if we're taking a step back, to the neighborhood business, where you could  go right up to a store owner and manager, and discuss any issue. Now large corporations have to adopt back to this role on a global scale. The Internet is truly making us a global village. Additionally, word of mouth is not something new, but now the marketing world is waking up to the power of people that has been extended by the Internet.

I would put forth that any business with an army of happy and motivated affiliates is much better positioned to get into the conversation than a company without. All it takes is leveraging the relationship with the true value-adding affiliates by treating them as true partners.

Part of the bad rap that affiliate marketing earned for itself has come from the desire to drive hard revenue growth via the channel. The affiliate concept began as a way to bring new customers to a business. It evolved into a pure sales growth vehicle via rewards sites, trademark targeting search affiliates and even coupon sites. It has been argued that these type of sites really add no value to the brand and the marketing experience, thus the whole of affiliate marketing gets relegated to some sort of grey area in marketing circles.

Affiliate marketing has the potential to come out of the grey. Consider the idea of using an affiliate program as a means to approach your brand advocates and customer enthusiasts. Consider by bringing them into the affiliate program, it provides an additional means of feeling a part of the company/culture and environment. Now consider the potential impact on "the conversation" that all of these motivated brand enthusiasts can have.

A well run, balanced affiliate program will already have content based, value adding affiliates as well. These affiliates are already involved in the conversation. Build that relationship with them, harness the power of word of mouth, and get your message our onto more waves, for more people to experience.

Affiliate marketing is not a new concept, but it can be adopted to the marketing 2.0 world with incredible results. If you don't have an affiliate marketing program, consider starting one today. Not only will you receive cost-effective sales, but it' a a channel by which to jump into "The Conversation."

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Duplicate Content Search Engine Penalties and Affiliate Marketing

Many merchants who run affiliate programs make available content for their affiliates to use on affiliate sites. A common question / concern asked of AMWSO is if this content is being distributed to all affiliates, and multiple affiliates are using the content, will this incur a search engine penalty?  It's a question asked of us both from the merchant perspective, as they redistribute content on their own pages, and also from the affiliate perspective, since the affiliates want to use that content.

First, having a page considered as a duplicate does not earn you a penalty in the search engines. Search engines aim to retrieve the best result for any given search, so if a page is considered a duplicate, it is simply filtered out of the results for that particular search query. Your site and domain do not receive any penalty once this happens. To quote from one source written by SEO expert Jill Whalen:

Reprinting someone's article on your site is not going to cause a penalty. At best, your page with the article will show up in a search related to it; at worst, it won't. No big deal either way.

If you are really concerned about duplicate content, and your objective is to get those pages with the content ranking in the search engines, then Webconfs.com provides an excellent article with tips how to get around the duplicate filters. Steps suggested are as simple as writing a brief editorial around the content, or simply changing the page structure around.

For the merchants out there, don't let the fear of duplicate content filters dissuade you from providing valuable content for your affiliates. After all, these affiliates are working to drive that traffic to your site in the end.

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Commission Junction Damaging the Future of Affiliate Marketing!

If you're an affiliate marketer or read affiliate blogs, then you must have heard that Spybot Search and Destroy is now immunizing it's users against CJ links. Any Spybot user using this immunization feature will be lead to an error page after clicking a CJ link. No chance for a sale to be made for the affiliate, no affiliate cookie is ever set.

CPA-Affiliates wrote a blog article breaking this story and Shoemoney also wrote a nice follow-up. In the comments many people call on CJ to "fight against the Spybot program" or address / correct this issue with Spybot. I suggest CJ would do much better to address the root reason why these spyware protection programs block CJ/affiliate cookies.

Anyone in the industry knows that CJ permits too many shady practice affiliates to operate on their network. Much of an affiliate manager's daily activity with a program on CJ revolves around weeding out bad affiliates. Bad affiliates that are using shady practices such as browser hijacking through toolbars, cookie stuffing, forced redirects and forced clicks. Lip-service is paid to the CJ terms of service written against these practices, but true enforcement is passive and minimal at best. The short-term benefit from the added commission revenue just seems too tempting on a broad network-wide scale. However, short-term shady profit acquisition will damage the long-term health of the affiliate industry. Affiliate marketing's reputation will further slip toward the perception of shady/bad business.

Affiliate networks need to follow the Shareasale example, and clean up their act. Networks are making a few extra dollars now, but what happens when Google / Yahoo / Firefox / Spybot etc., start using this justification to block affiliate links and cookies on a much wider scale? What happens when merchants start taking a hard look at the bottom line and realize that shady affiliates are cannibalizing other sales channels and start bailing out of their programs in droves? Poor perceptions can quickly outweigh the perception of value found from hard-working, true value adding affiliates.

Clean up your act CJ, and gain further leverage with Spybot and other spyware programs to stop blocking affiliate links. Even a small step such as providing full click source data to merchants to view and audit could carry a long way toward cleaning things up.

If you have a program on CJ that is infested with bad affiliates and poor performance / ROI, consider seeking the services of an outsourced affiliate program manager before terminating your program.

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Affiliate Marketing Can Answer Consumer Online Ad Blindness

E-Consultancy reports on a Deloitte & Touche survey backing up what most of us already know, consumers are looking to avoid on-line advertisements. Blogs, online videos, social sites are all gaining users daily, and new users are becoming more adapt at training themselves to avoid advertisements as numerous eye-tracking studies have shown. Users have gone so far as to install ad-blocking software. Some of the highest rated and most popular add-ons for the Firefox browser include ad blocking modules.

Each quarter, business world publications release a slew of studies and surveys showing ad spending via the Internet is rising dramatically. More people are getting comfortable with using the Internet to make purchases and review and get information about products. Sure, if you're Coke or GM, slapping up banner ads on a cost per impression (CPM) basis makes sense. Their primary focus is to implant their brand in your minds, but if you're in the business of SELLING your merchandise via a website, an affiliate program is a vital tool for success.

Affiliate programs allow your affiliate partners to talk about your products, put text links right in front of their site visitors, and find other creative means for promoting your brand and products. Text links usually convert at a much higher rate than banners, and part of the reason is due to the inherent flexibility permitted with promoting a text link.

Relying on search pay per click is a great advertising tool, but to have a full Internet marketing arsenal an advertiser must also have affiliate partners. As users become more savvy searchers, the natural tendency is going to be to ignore those paid ads to the left and right of search results. Keep in mind; those users who are most comfortable with making purchases now, ARE already ad savvy. Build an affiliate program with high quality affiliates adding value to the sales process, and this could have an equal impact on sales as the pay per click efforts.

An affiliate program is one of the most efficient and cost-effective means for acquiring customers, provided that the program is not on auto-pilot. Manage the program effectively, keeping out parasites, BHO domain targeting, and effectively managing trademark bidders are part of the success formula for having a hugely profitable affiliate program. AMWSO affiliate program services can help you create a cost-effective, vibrant affiliate program that works in concert with other online marketing efforts.

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Incentive Browser Plug-Ins / Add-ons Deceive Merchants, Rob Affiliates and Damage the Affiliate Marketing Industry

I was prompted to write this post upon reading about a fairly new Firefox browser add-on called CashAddOn. It was especially distasteful since I am an avid fan of Firefox and open source software, and users have the mistaken impression that his type of add-on is being endorsed by Mozilla and Firefox or that it’s gone through some kind of ethical / good behavior test.

Scott Jangro has an excellent write-up on the bad practice of Cashaddon operates.

From a consumer perspective, the idea of getting some cash back in addition to any regular coupon or discount is very attractive. Many consumers are not overly concerned that a nameless/faceless webmaster might have had his earned commission stolen due to the bad practice of this particular browser add-on.

The merchants that this add-on targets need to be made aware, that this is costing them money, sacrificing goodwill amongst knowledgeable affiliates, and providing NO added value in return. A comment in this discussion from Alex truly brings to light the lack of knowledge about how this add-on operates. The comment expounds the belief that merchants are HAPPY to have this kind of affiliate since it is driving added traffic to the merchant site. However, Cashaddon drives no traffic and adds no value at all. It simply leaches off the traffic ALREADY headed to a site, either via PPC, affiliate link, or simply natural search.

Partnering with affiliates that bring added value to your customer interactions provides the best way to really bring long-term prosperous benefit and growth to an affiliate program. Getting rid of these leaches from a program will not only benefit the bottom-line, but also help to build excellent positive relations with true affiliate partners that have a common interest in parallel success.

AMWSO and many other OPM firms have long promoted ethical and value-added affiliate marketing. If your affiliate program is overridden with parasites, and your other marketing channels are being cannibalized, contact us for a service review and let us apply our value-added principles to cleaning up your program and expanding your bottom-line.

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