AffPlan Podcast – Affplan Strategies Session #8

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your affiliate marketing plan.

Thankfully, the talented Lisa Picarille moderated this episode about Affiliate Marketers and the Value of Blogging.

Joining Lisa, were Rosalind Gardner and Shawn Collins.

In previous episodes, we’ve focused exclusively on Merchants, Advertisers and Outsourced Program Managers. But not today.

Effective immediately, starting with this episode, we’re breaking out and expanding AffPlan, by covering the “Affiliate Side of Affiliate Marketing“.

…And this podcast is an impressive first “Affiliate Focused” episode of the Affplan Strategies Session. Listen now for some serious tips for profitable, efficient affiliate marketing with Blogs. 

Rosalind Gardner has been a leader in the affiliate marketing industry since 1998 and is recognized best through her “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online”, the NetProfitsToday blog for webmasters and her many articles as a columnist for Revenue magazine.  As a speaker, consultant and prolific blogger, Rosalind teaches affiliates how to build sustainable online businesses and merchants learn how to structure their affiliate programs to attract and retain loyal Super Affiliates like herself.

www.RosalindGardner.com

www.NetprofitsToday.com

Shawn Collins has been an affiliate marketer since 1997. He’s the co-founder of the Affiliate Summit conference.  He is also the Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine and the Founder of podcasting network GeekCast.fm.  His book, ‘Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants‘ is the best selling book in the space, and it is considered to be required reading by affiliate managers. He publishes the annual AffStat Report, a research, analysis, and benchmarking report for the affiliate marketing industry. The data in the AffStat series is widely quoted by trade publications, including Internet Retailer and Jupitermedia properties. Shawn writes a daily blog on affiliate marketing news and opinion at his Affiliate Tip site, and posts regularly to his Affiliate Tip TV channel on YouTube.

http://www.affiliatesummit.com
http://blog.affiliatetip.com
http://www.feedfront.com
http://www.geekcast.fm
http://www.twitter.com/affiliatetip
http://www.facebook.com/shawncollins

The discussion kicked off with talk about the benefits of blogging (additional traffic, automation); how to write copy for your audience; where to get free content; do to come up with ideas for posts; the best ways to monetize; what common mistakes affiliates are making when it comes to blogging; personal versus professional blogs and more.

Resources and Show Links

Twitterfeed.com
www.twitterfeed.com

Facebook
www.facebook.com

Twitter
www.twitter.com

RSS feeds
www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55

Aweber
www.aweber.com

WordPress
www.wordpress.org

Thesis
www.DIYThemes.com/Thesis

E-zine Articles

http://ezinearticles.com

Clickbank

http://www.clickbank.com

FTC Policy on endorsements and bloggers
www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

Social Oomph (formerly TweetLater)

http://www.socialoomphblog.com

Thanks for listening to the AffPlan Strategies Session. For more information and resources to take your affiliate marketing plan to the next level go to www.affplan.com

AffPlan Podcast – AffPlan Strategies Session #7

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your affiliate marketing plan.

Once again, the wonderful Lisa Picarille was the moderator for this discussion about trademark bidding with our guests, Deb Carney and Joe Sousa.

Deb Carney, president of Team Loxly.

Deb Carney is the president of Team Loxly, an outsourced program management firm. Deb has been creating websites for more than 15 years. She is currently an affiliate as well as an OPM. She enjoys teaching affiliates how to optimize their sites.  You can hear her tips on Affiliate ABCs and Make Your Mark (art marketing) podcasts on Geekcast.fm. In addition, Deb has also been a professional photographer for 30 years.

www.twitter.com/loxly
www.teamloxly.com

Joe Sousa, Affiliate Marketer and all around awesome guy.

Joe Sousa is an affiliate marketer. He started doing SEO work for clients back in 1998 and shifted to full time affiliate marketing around 2002. He has worked in both organic search and PPC with hundreds of merchants and built hundreds of sites over the years. Joe also works with his dad and brother and their company has developed many different marketing tools including the Traffic Geyser Video and Social Media Marketing System.

www.twitter.com/drcool73
www.whatdoejoethink.com

Today’s Topic:  Trademark Bidding and PPC Policies in Affiliate Marketing

In the wide ranging discussion we defined trademark bidding; discussed when it’s a good thing for affiliates and when it’s good for merchants; gave examples of when it makes no sense; the motivation behind merchant’s decisions to forbid trademark bidding; how some affiliates game the system; what it takes to police these policies; how to educate merchants and affiliates on the topic; software that helps affiliates do trademark bidding and more.

Resources

Google Keyword Tool

http://www.google.com/sktool/

Keyword Spy

http://www.keywordspy.com

Wordtracker

http://www.wordtracker.com/

Datafeeds podcast, Affiliate Strategies Session #4
http://www.affiliatemarketingplan.com/podcast/strategies-session-4-datafeeds-galore

Joe Sousa’s Post

http://whatdoesjoethink.com/2009/09/merchant_restrictions_on_their_affiliates/

AffPlan Podcast – AffPlan Strategies Session #6

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your affiliate marketing plan.

Lisa Picarille moderated this episode. She was joined by Karen White and Lisa Riolo to talk about leveraging conferences as a great learning and networking experience.

Lisa Riolo is an online marketing veteran and an active member in the performance marketing community. As a consultant, she helps online businesses transform potential and opportunity into profits and results. Lisa’s previous experience includes a senior vice president of business development role at Commission Junction and managerial roles at Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Bank of America. Lisa is also a co-host on The Spew podcast focusing on women in online marketing.>

www.LisaRiolo.com

www.twitter.com/lisariolo

Karen White is Vice President of Marketing at SquirtGun Media Group, a performance marketing agency that specializes in outsourced program management.  As a Performance Marketing Strategist and Consultant, Karen works with corporate brands to define, develop and execute performance marketing initiatives; her current clients include Qwest Communications and Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.  Prior to SquirtGun Media Group, she was Vice President of Business Development & Marketing for Partner Fusion, her role there was to develop new agency accounts and oversee strategic development of client initiatives.  Over the years, Karen has worked with clients such as Qwest Communications, The Blue Man Group, and TaxBrain. In 2006, as Affiliate Program Manager for Wynn Las Vegas, she received the Commission Junction “People Horizon Award” for her excellence in affiliate program management. Karen is also a co-host on the popular Internet marketing podcast called The Spew, which broadcast weekly on GeekCast.fm.

www.twitter.com/karenwhite_LV

The group discussed the growing number of conferences and shows; how to pick shows that are right for your business objectives; factors used to determine whether you’ll attend a show or not; looking beyond the big shows for affiliates; how to find other conferences of interest; how to determine ROI at a show; tips for following up; and where to find out about events.

Lisa Riolo’s microphone was a little fuzzy at the very beginning, but the problem was fixed quickly and she sounds great throughout the vast majority of the podcast!

Resources

Affiliate Summit
http://AffiliateSummit.com

PubCon
http://PubCon.com

Interactive Advertising Bureau

http://www.iab.net/events_training

Direct Marketing Association

http://www.the-dma.org/eventcalendar/

LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com

EventsListed.com
http://www.eventslisted.com/

Las Vegas Convention Authority
http://www.lvcva.com/meetings/convention-calendar.jsp

Events in America

http://www.eventsinamerica.com/index.html

Event Resources
http://www.tsnn.com/

Pokens
http://www.JustPokens.com

Thanks for listening to the AffPlan Strategies Session. For more information and resources to take your affiliate marketing plan to the next level go to www.affplan.com

AffPlan Podcast – AffPlan Strategies Session #5

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your online affiliate marketing plan.

Lisa Picarille moderated a discussion about the CPA space with special guests Mark Roth and Jim Lillig.

Mark Roth, CEO of OfferVault.
Mark got involved with Internet Marketing as a PPC Affiliate in June 2005, focusing mainly on CPA offers. In March of 2006 he was able to get into affiliate marketing full-time and simultaneously developed Affiliate Radar and Offervault in 2007.  In addition to PPC and CPA, Mark’s expertise also includes split testing and landing page optimization, landing page design and SEO.
OfferVault.com
Twitter.com/markroth

Jim Lillig,  Director of Networks at ClickFusion
Jim is a long time Performance Marketing industry veteran.  He started his own consulting company in 1997 and over the last decade has held posts at various CPA networks. His latest venture, ClickFusion is a new CPA network that combines post transactional monetization with CPA network distribution. He recently authored a detailed report, called The State of CPA and is the director of network at DotComSecrets.
Clickfusion
JimLillig.com
Twitter.com/jimlillig
DotComSecrets.com

We talked about how CPA differs from CPM; why using CPA can be beneficial for affiliates; which affiliates CPA is right for; the tainted reputation of CPA networks and how to go about selecting one that adds value; what are the questions merchants need to ask when thinking about using a CPA network; how CPA is going to overcome issues about fraud, compliance, lack of transparency; FTC scrutiny; whether or not the big rev-share networks are going to get into CPA; industry consolidation and more.

Resources

• DirectTrack
• The State of CPA

Thanks for listening to the AffPlan Strategies Session. For more information and resources to take your affiliate marketing plan to the next level go to AffPlan.com.

AffPlan Podcast – AffPlan Strategies Session #4

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your online Affiliate Marketing Plan.

Lisa Picarille moderated this episode about datafeeds in Affiliate Marketing, featuring Deb Carney and Eric Nagel.

Deb Carney, president of Team Loxly.

Team Loxly is an outsourced program management firm. Deb has been creating websites for more than 15 years. She is currently an affiliate as well as an OPM. She enjoys teaching affiliates how to optimize their sites.  You can hear her tips on Affiliate ABCs and Make Your Mark (art marketing) podcasts on Geekcast.fm. In addition, Deb has also been a professional photographer for 30 years.

Eric Nagel, president of Eric Nagel & Associates.

Eric Nagel is an affiliate marketer specializing in PPC and SEO. He started his career as a freelance web designer in 1998.  In 2005 he became a fulltime programmer for an affiliate in London. Four years later he left that job to become a fulltime affiliate.

Today’s topic is “DataFeeds and Affiliate Marketing“.

We started out by defining datafeeds as a database or digital catalog of a merchant’s products that can come in a variety of forms (including .xml). These datafeeds can be subscribed to by affiliates, who would then use that information to help them build their website.

We also discussed the benefits of datafeeds to affiliates and merchants; how hard it is to implement a datafeed; why datafeeds are not standardized (Deb would like them to be standardized. Eric took the opposing view); the challenges of dealing with them such as categories and broken links; using datafeeds as a tool for keyword generation and more.

Here are some of the tools mentioned in the show that help with datafeed process including creation and management:

• DataFeeder

  http://www.datafeedr.com/

• DataFeedFile

  http://www.datafeedfile.com/

• PopShops

  http://www.popshops.com/

• Golden Can

  http://www.goldencan.com/

• Web Merge

  http://web-procreate.com/wm-about.htm

• ShareASale Make a Page

  http://www.shareasale.com

Thanks for listening to the AffPlan Strategies Session. For more information and resources to take your affiliate marketing plan to the next level go to www.affplan.com.

Brook Schaaf is big on setting realistic expectations for his clients.  As president of Schaaf Consulting, a Los Angeles-based firm specializing in outsourced, turnkey affiliate program management, Schaaf has more than eight years experience in online marketing having previously managed in-house programs Zappos.com, Shoes.com, and Edmunds.com. Over the years he’s grown programs from virtually nothing into multimillion dollar channels for merchants.

That’s why we enlisted Schaaf to share some of his frank insights into the difference between the online performance networks. As an OPM and a former program manager Schaaf has relationships with all the networks and is skilled at finding and recruiting new performers, cultivating and tracking relationships with existing ones, delivering the support and customer service, detecting fraud, and evolving methodologies to optimize performance.

AffPlan: What’s changed at the networks over the last 10 years?

Schaaf:  Well, in the last few years there has been a positive shift among traditional networks and rather than seeing OPMs as rivals, the networks are working with us. We work closely with them starting with the sales process.

The old thinking was that OPMs competed with networks. The new thinking is that OPMs are agencies that can bring networks business. Any good OPM can grow the program and thereby increase revenue to the network. The networks that have made these changes have indicated that they’ve been very happy with them. For our part we greatly appreciate the strength and productivity of these relationships.

AffPlan: So, in your opinion, what are some of the differences between the networks.

Schaaf: The Big Three – LinkShare, Google Affiliate Network (GAN) and Commission Junction – all have similar  footprints, meaning they have a similar base of active affiliates. LinkShare tends to have higher pricing and exclusivity. Traditionally they have only done batch tracking but I understand they offer pixel tracking now. CJ offers more functionality – more robust technology for email blasts to affiliates. GAN does the best job of categorizing merchants and affiliates. All three companies have sharp people and any retail program you want to launch would probably do fine. Merchants would have access to the types of affiliates they are looking for within the Big Three. We are also happy to work with other networks, including ShareASale, which offers great technology at price point lower than the other three.

AffPlan: Who does what well?

Schaaf: In the race, I think it’s CJ and Google and then LinkShare. CJ offers less contact info for affiliates like LinkShare and Google, but for the most part we have tight relationships with affiliates and that’s not such a big factor. I wouldn’t hesitate to launch a retail program in Google or CJ or LinkShare.  LinkShare is harder to work with if you have search affiliates because of the batch tracking-  though, again, I understand they also offer pixel tracking now.. ShareASale is also appropriate for retail and in some cases the biggest bang for the buck. I might go with AvantLink if I was dealing with products in the outdoor space.

AffPlan: If a program isn’t doing well in one of the big networks, is switching to another network the answer?

Schaaf: If the program is failing at a major network, you’re probably not going to cure anything by switching networks.  If the merchant has failing conversation rates and changes aren’t working, it could be that affiliate marketing is not right for your business. And we will be frank with clients if that’s the case.

http://www.schaafco.com/

Lisa Picarille is an online content strategist and consultant. She blogs at www.lisapicarille.com.

Whether or not merchants allow trademark bidding on their terms is a complex and important issue for the entire performance marketing space. Veteran affiliate Joe Sousa does a great job of looking at this complicated problem and synthesizing it in a way that’s easy to understand.

He was kind enough to share with us a recent blog post, which ran on September 17, 2009 – so that networks, affiliates, and merchants can gain more understanding of trademark bidding from the perspective of a successful affiliate.

If you’d like to read more of Joe’s insightful postings, check out his blog http://www.whatdoesjoethink.com.

Merchant Restrictions on their Affiliates

By Joe Sousa

Throughout my years as an affiliate marketer I have seen all sorts of different terms of service, marketing restrictions, prohibited keywords, etc. from the merchants I work with. Some of these restrictions are good for both the affiliate and the merchant and some are just outright stupid for one or both parties.  Let me break down a few different restrictions and see how the affect both the merchant and the affiliate.  I will mainly be focused on PPC restrictions, trademark bidding, and stuff like that.

Level 1:  No restrictions. When an affiliate sees this, it is like they just found an ATM, especially if it is a large, well established, well known merchant. With no restrictions the affiliates can bid on any keywords they want and many times the most profitable keywords are the brand names and trademarks of the merchant. Also the affiliate can link directly to the merchant’s site off their PPC ads.  In many cases this is a gold mine for the affiliates.

Let me give you a couple examples:

Back in the early days of the CPA networks most campaigns didn’t have any restrictions.  There were two in particular I remember making me a lot of money: NutriSystem and eBay. If I remember correctly NutriSystem paid out $60 for a sign up and the conversion rate on keywords like “NutriSystem” and “NutriSystem diet” and other trademark terms like that was somewhere around 10-20 percent.  That would be an EPC of $6-12 and when I could get the traffic for around well under $1?  That campaign alone made me and a friend of mine many, many thousands of dollars a month.  It was a similar situation with eBay.  The payout was around $35 for a new signup and I could get traffic for keywords like “eBay” and “eBay auctions” for around a quarter.  The EPC on that one was $4-5 or so.  It was like printing money.

Why would a merchant allow this?  Two reasons.  First, they don’t know.  There are a lot of clueless merchants out there.  They just see the bottom line numbers and don’t care how they get there and in many cases don’t want to know. They just see “wow, this affiliate sent me a ton of sales this month.  That is awesome”.  They don’t run their own PPC stuff so they have no idea the affiliate is bidding their keywords.  Second, they don’t care.  The smart merchants know what the lifetime value of a customer is. If they make $200 for every customer and pay out $50 in commissions they are making $150 for every new customer.  Yeah, maybe they could have got that customer for $5 if they did their own PPC and kept affiliates from bidding on their trademarks but it isn’t worth the hassle for them.  They are still making money so they aren’t too concerned.

The affiliate is making money and a good merchant is making money but still leaving a lot of money on the table (and other affiliates are potentially getting screwed. More on this later)

Level 2: No trademark bidding. This is one of the more common restrictions placed forth by merchants. A smart merchant that has good name recognition will realize that people who are searching for their store name are most likely buyers.  Maybe they visited the store in the past and want to find it again; maybe a friend told them to shop at a certain website, or whatever.  When someone searches for your stores name they are ready to buy.

A smart merchant will realize that they can make more money if they restrict affiliates from bidding on their keywords. Why pay out 10 percent to an affiliate when the customer acquisition cost can be 5 percent or something like that?

Also, this keeps affiliates from creating ads like “Amazon sucks!  Don’t shop at Amazon until you read this” and having them show up when someone searches for Amazon.

There is a downside to this though. If you let affiliates bid on your trademark you can knock your competition who is bidding on your trademark off of the first page of ads.

Level 3: No direct linking. Most smart merchants who realize the value of PPC will not allow direct linking because they are probably doing PPC themselves.  A few years ago it didn’t really matter because you could have 5 or 6 different ads out there from your affiliates all using your domain as the landing page URL but Google stopped letting that happen and there can only be one ad for any particular domain. So if a merchant is doing their own PPC and they have affiliates bidding on the same words there is a good chance that the affiliate will take that ad spot from the merchant.

But if a merchant doesn’t know what they are doing with PPC they should just let their affiliates direct link because the 10 percent commission (or whatever they are paying out) is probably less than the merchant would spend on PPC. It is also less risk for the merchant because they know they only pay on sales if they let their affiliates handle the PPC stuff and don’t have to risk sending a ton of clicks with no sales.

Level 4: No PPC at all. There are quite a few merchants I work with that don’t allow their affiliates to promote their products via PPC at all. To me this is just kind of stupid.

If I want to spend my money for ads that are directing traffic to my site that is something I should be able to do.

One merchant in particular has a team of people doing their own PPC which is very smart, but part of their job is also to check ads to see if they are for their affiliates. I can understand no trademark bidding, no direct linking, and stuff like that but restricting affiliates from sending traffic to their own sites?  That is a bit over the top. But it gets worse.

Level 5: ”You can’t use our trademark names in your meta tags”. Ok, now we are to the point of idiocy. I recently got an updated terms of service from a certain merchant (who will remain nameless). This was a merchant I used to promote a few years ago and I did very well with them. The conversion rate was good, the profits were good, and I really liked the product. Then the company got sold and I can’t remember if they dropped their affiliate program for a while or just restricted what I was doing with PPC but I stopped promoting them. A couple months later I realized that I was missing a check from LinkShare. They were the only merchant I was promoting on LinkShare at the time so I started to try to figure out why they didn’t pay me. They said that those payments were the liability of the previous owner and not them — which is ridiculous.  So basically the fat headed new owners screwed me out of a couple grand. I quickly put them on my blacklist and decided never to promote them again.

But the problem is they are a very popular merchant with a totally unique product that fits perfectly on many of my sites.  So when they reopened their affiliate program at CJ I signed up. I still haven’t done anything in the way of driving traffic to them but I wanted to keep the option open if I changed my mind in the future.

One thing unique about this merchant that you don’t always see with others is for the most part the only keywords people would search for when looking for their products are their trademarks. So this new terms of service comes out and says “you can’t use our trademarks in your meta tags on your websites or searchable keywords“.  First of all this shows me that this merchant is fairly clueless about SEO. Second, it shows me that they aren’t confident in their own SEO efforts. If they need to restrict affiliates from using their keywords in meta tags that shows me they really aren’t confident in their ability to rank for their own name.

So what should a merchant do?

Well, there isn’t a cut and dry answer for every merchant. Each merchant’s situation is different and if I were to advise a merchant I would have to look at things like how strong their brand is, how good their own PPC efforts are, and other stuff like that.

Here is where I would start as a general rule of thumb:

Don’t allow affiliates to bid on your trademark and don’t allow affiliates to direct link.

Now if every merchant adopted these policies that would suck for me since I have made a decent amount of money bidding on trademarks and direct linking (assuming it was allowed by the terms of service). But I know how those things can be profitable and I would suggest a merchant do their own PPC and take care of their own trademark bidding and direct linking.

Another good option is to find a handful of affiliates who really know their PPC stuff and allow them to bid on trademarks and direct links and stuff like that — but restrict everyone else.

If a merchant can get 2 or 3 good PPC affiliates doing “their thing” they will most likely be able to do better than if they tried it on their own.

But like I said, it can be different for each merchant. So, I would also suggest hiring a qualified affiliate manager to take care of stuff like this.

A good affiliate manager will be able to advise a merchant on what would be best in their particular situation and properly explain the benefits and downsides to different policies.

If it is a big company they can probably hire someone or a team of people full time but for most merchants their best bet will be to hire an OPM (Outsourced Program Manager).

Here are a few OPMs I would highly recommend:

ARC Consulting:  Andy, Emelio, Steph, and the rest of the crew really know their stuff and manage successful affiliate programs for many merchants.

JEB Commerce:  Jamie Birch and his crew manage many large programs and can help you with all facets of online marketing.

GTO Management: Wade, Joel, and Karen work with a wide variety of merchants and won’t steer you wrong.

Suluta: Mike Nunez and his team have many years experience in affiliate program management and can help tailor a program to a specific merchant’s needs.

Schaafco: Brook and Forrest Schaaf and their crew manage programs for a wide variety of merchants

There are many more OPMs out there and this is just a partial list. If you are a merchant check them out and see what they can do for your program.

Obviously, there are many more restrictions a merchant can employ and this is by no means an all inclusive list but it is some of the more popular restrictions I have seen. Am I missing something as far as the terms of service? Any other restrictions you commonly see? Any reasons why a merchant should restrict their affiliates?

AffPlan Podcast – AffPlan Strategies Session #3

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your online Affiliate Marketing Plan.

Lisa Picarille moderated and was joined by two very well-known and well-respected OPMs:

Karen Garcia, a partner at GTO Management

GTO Management offers nearly 20 years of combined experience in developing and managing successful programs in affiliate marketing. They have expertise in Web and graphic design, SEO and SEM, conversion analysis, and recruiting. They work with over 200 of the top producing affiliates from various networks and have thousands of affiliate relationships. Karen also a big foodie and blogs at www.ultimatefoodie.com. In addition, she has spent countless hours helping grassroots efforts fighting the advertising tax in California and other states. http://gtomanagement.com/

Jamie Birch, owner and principal at JEB Commerce

JEBCommerce is a full service, online marketing agency specializing in performance marketing. It services both large and small organizations with a heavy focus on affiliate marketing. Almost ten years ago, Jamie began his career as a Search Engine Marketing professional and has extensive experience in all aspects of Internet Marketing.

http://jebcommerce.com/

Today’s topic is “Working with New Clients as an OPM“.

We discussed the importance of evaluating if a client is a good fit for your company; if there are types of merchants that these OPM don’t want to work with; setting realistic expectations for merchant’s about their affiliate programs; what merchants need to put in place internally to make a program work; the importance of picking the right network; measuring a program’s success; tools that help in the process and more.

Karen and Jamie gave Lisa an “under the hood” look at life as an OPM, including some comedic anecdotes and many profound insights during this lively and entertaining discussion.  (And, for the first time in AffPlan Podcast History:  The audio quality is great!)

Another big “Thanks!” to Jamie Birch, Karen Garcia, and Lisa Picarille for providing us, and our entire Affiliate Marketing Industry such excellent content and an overall excellent podcast.

Recommended Tools:

• Drop.io

  http://drop.io/

• HootSuite

  http://hootsuite.com/

• PoachMark (from BrandVerity)

  http://www.brandverity.com/

On the surface most of the performance marketing networks seem very similar – acting as intermediaries between advertisers and publishers and offering many of the same basic services including tracking technology, reporting tools, payment processing and payment aggregation. But dig deeper and you’ll find that there are substantial differences between the largest networks with each having developed its own unique flavor over time.

We asked some industry leaders that know and understand the networks to give us their take on the differences. We started with outsourced program managers (OPMs) because they work with a variety of networks and a range of client programs.

First up, Heather Paulson president of the Paulson Management Group, Inc. PMG offers Affiliate Program Management, Search Management, and Social Media Management services. PaulsonManagementGroup.com is the only OPM currently producing and integrating affiliate videos into the affiliate networks as well as worked with an eco friendly client to introduce a patent pending affiliate widget to the affiliate community. Advancements in affiliate media technology are dependent on the networks technological capabilities and Paulson is in a position to know the networks intimately since over the last 10 years she has launched and managed programs on all of the major networks – Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network (formerly Performics), ShareASale, PepperJamNetwork and more. Ms Paulson is on the Advisory Board for Affiliate Summit and Affiliate Classroom.

We asked her a few questions to get her take on the networks.

AffPlan: What are the major network differentiators?

Paulson: Cost, vertical strengths and technology are primary differentiating factors. There are tier one networks such as Commission Junction, Buy.at, Linkshare, Zanox, Google Affiliate Network, which offer unique technology differences surrounding affiliate communications, reporting, media integration, and regional as well as vertical strengths. There are also many CPA networks such as Bridaluxe, Market Health, XY7.com, MediaTrust, ROI Rocket, AzoogleADS, which ride off either proprietary tracking solutions or are on DirectTrack or LinkTrust tracking and reporting platform which all offer unique differences and opportunities.

A great example of a prime difference in the system architecture within a network is the AzoogleAds network this is an open network system where affiliates can apply to the network and once accepted can run any of the offers within the network rather than having to have their individual applications be vetted (Manually approved) for each program that they apply for within that network, such as would happen in many of the other 350 US networks that exist today.  In an open network environment the affiliate partner once approved and active is quickly able to start marketing all of the programs that reside within that network where in a closed network system the affiliate would have to apply to each program within the network separately and wait for their application to be manually approved for each program (Vetted by the program manger) unless of course the program was an an auto-approve system.

Another example of network technology differences that a merchant might want to be informed of before choosing the right affiliate network partner would be sub id level tracking data. PPC affiliates are attracted to networks such as AzoogleAds and Commission Junction as well as other affiliate networks that offer SUB ID tracking so search affiliates can track their performance at a keyword level. SUB ID tracking is also helpful to remnant ad buying affiliates who purchase remnant ad space across mass network ad distribution platforms and need to have each campaign monitored per page or site across the distribution points within that ad network.

There are many different “types” off affiliates within all affiliate networks that can be categorized by their marketing style or performance. Some networks offer you the ability to group these affiliates so you can easily send each affiliate group specific updates and announcements via intra network emails by either textual content or HTML newsletters concerning their marketing media needs, or other brand or product related news. The ability to group and manage affiliates within a network also allows the merchant to reward and incentivize specific performance groups with custom media, coupons, or campaigns. There are affiliate networks that do not offer the opportunity for you to perform “intra network” communications or grouping and this can impede the merchants’ ability to communicate with affiliate partners if it is imperative that the merchant strategies depend on direct communications with the affiliates.

Consulting with a professional affiliate management agency concerning which network and network launch plan is right for their brand and their program goals and terms of conditions is a “significant” factor in the success of the program and the overall dependencies of the success of their other online channels as well. Affiliate management agencies or OPM’s (outsourced program managers) are experienced with working with many networks and have experience to help merchants ascertain which direction should be taken concerning choosing the right affiliate network. Often times as well an OPM will have a relationship with that network and can offer discounts and savings to the merchant concerning launch fees and other network fees by negotiating on behalf of the merchant.

One important new development in the affiliate space is that many merchants who find success with one network are now inclined to launch their product or service within multiple networks to increase their online presence as well as sales through the affiliate channel.  Multi-network launches and management take an extreme amount of organization, collaboration, as well as vast knowledge concerning each networks strengths, opportunities, threats, and trends. Tools such as AffiliateReporting.com is something that Paulson Management Group, Inc will be using to ensure multi-network reporting is streamlined and well attuned to the goals for each of our clients. Affiliate Reporting.com is the first and only multi-network reporting aggregation service in existence and will lend itself as a vital tool in streamlining a merchants multi-network reporting efforts.

AffPlan: What’s not so obvious?

Paulson: Program strategies. There will be many technical differences that merchants will not be aware of unless they have firsthand knowledge of each network’s core technological strengths. An affiliate programs brand management and overall media strategies will be determined based on the networks technology and how that technology is wielded to ensure success of the program.

As an example in Commission Junction merchants are able to locate affiliates within the network via a recruiting tool that can assist merchants in pushing offers for their program to new affiliates, this is an intra network recruiting strategy that we at PMG use for our Commission Junction affiliate program accounts and many of the other networks do not offer this type of technology. Another example would be if the merchant wants to allow social media affiliates to market their brand; WebGains is the only network currently that has incorporated a shortened URL function within their network allowing for social media traffic monitoring of affiliates in Twitter as well as other social media venues. The merchants affiliate program strategies have to be able to be realized with the technology the network provides so careful scruitinization of each networks technological capabilities is an important factor in choosing the right network for the merchants needs.

An important consideration as well for merchants concerning what might not be realized is the relationships that the affiliate network might hold within the affiliate community. Relationships that affiliates hold with these affiliate networks are the primary factor that propels success of the program within that network and the transparency level in this channel is high especially on affiliate forums such as AbestWeb.com and AffSpot.com. So merchants should research and learn how affiliates regard each network as it can vastly affect the success of an affiliate programs sustainability within that network. Merchants need to understand that affiliate partners are the marketing force behind their programs and any affiliate networks success, it is important to hear affiliates as a community to ensure their needs are being met and respected by the networks.

AffPlan: You seem to like CJ, do you have a special relationship with them?

Paulson:  Over time we have developed relationships with many affiliate networks, we have a running affiliate network list and are now offering single and multi-network launch strategies so building affiliate network  relationships has always been a  focus for PMG. I have years of experience working with the Commission Junction affiliate network either as an affiliate or affiliate manager so their technology is well known to me. Most of the clients we work with are larger eCommerce brands that need dedicated pro active affiliate management and support. Commission Junction is able to offer a high level of reporting as well as technology factors to those larger brands that assist PMG team members in launching new media initiatives such as affiliate videos which are easily integrated into Commission Junction. ShareaSale, PepperJamNetwork, Google Affiliate Network, LinkShare, Buy.at, Zanox, there are so many fantastic affiliate networks in our space all offering varied opportunities to each merchant so a thorough check of the channels landscape is important when choosing to work with any affiliate network.

AffPlan: What else makes you want to work with a specific network?

Paulson: We choose the network based on our clients goals, strategies, vertical, as well as many other factors. As an example some merchants might need to batch their sales or leads after carefully scrutinizing them to ensure they are valid and commissionable, the merchant can then batch or send sales or leads to the network to ensure affiliates are commissioned. Other merchants might prefer a pixel tracking system. Not every network offers batch processing so it is extremely important for merchants to speak with a professional management company concerning this choice and options and  if they are not having their programs professionally launched and managed by an affiliate management agency with experience then at least to have a consultation would help save them undue time and cost.

http://PaulsonManagementGroup.com

Lisa Picarille is an online content strategist and consultant. She blogs at www.lisapicarille.com.

AffPlan Podcast – AffPlan Strategies Session #2

Welcome to another episode of the AffPlan Strategies Session, a podcast where industry leaders share their expert advice to help you with all aspects of creating and refining your online Affiliate Marketing Plan.

For our second AffPlan Strategies Session we tackled another key component of your Affiliate Marketing Plan:  Recruiting Affiliates.

Recruiting Affiliates into an Affiliate Program takes a lot of time, energy, relationships and effort — and is, for better or worse, a key metric used in determining the success (or potential success) of an Affiliate Program.

During the discussion, our expert guest panelists, Brook Schaaf and Stephanie Lichtenstein, help us uncover some fundamental rules of engaging a new affiliate, the importance of “activation” vs. “raw recruitment”, using social media for recruiting affiliates, wooing super affiliates, the role of networks for recruiting — and the age-old adage of “quality vs. quantity”.

Also, as Affiliate Marketing is “all about relationships”, we spend time discussing strategies for building and developing relationships for long-term success.

Again, the amazing Lisa Picarille moderated this episode and was joined by these two very respected OPM’s (Outsourced Program Managers):

Stephanie Lichtenstein, Affiliate Program Manager, Andy Rodriguez Consulting

Stephanie Lichtenstein is a proud affiliate program manager with Andy Rodriguez Consulting, one of the top outsourced program management firms in the country. She has managed numerous affiliate programs in the ShareASale Top 100 PowerRank and Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. To grow an affiliate program, she believes in maintaining open communications with her merchants and affiliate partners. Her company has been running successful and ethical affiliate programs since 2001.

Stephanie’s other passion is social media. She consults and educates her clients on best practices in social media. She teaches techniques that strengthen personal branding, grow businesses, improve customer service, and gain a competitive advantage. She also uses social media to share her industry knowledge and bring the community together on important matters such as the advertising tax.

Stephanie has become an industry advocate, public speaker, and blogger for what matters in affiliate marketing and social media. She recently spoke at Affiliate Summit on the panel Getting Noticed Fast: networking and social media techniques on how to get noticed in the industry.

http://stephanielichtenstein.com/

http://andyrodriguez.com/

Brook Schaaf, CEO, Schaaf Consulting

Brook Schaaf has been the Affiliate Program Manager for multi-million dollar programs at Zappos.com, Shoes.com, and Edmunds.com, growing one from $25,000 to over $1,000,000 in monthly sales in less than two years. In 2006 he and his brother, Forrest, founded Schaaf Consulting. He has been actively involved in the affiliate marketing community since its early days and most recently was elected to the board of directors of the Performance Marketing Alliance.

http://schaafco.com/

Stephanie and Brook gave us great examples and insight on a number of recruiting tips, including the tools and sites listed below.

Recruiting Tools

• Affiliate Summit http://affiliatesummit.com
• Twitter http://www.twitter.com
• Arelis http://www.download3000.com/download_730.html
• Compete http://www.compete.com/
• Syntryx http://www.syntryx.com/
• PPC Bully https://sales.ppcbully.com/
• Sugar CRM http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/