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AFFILIATE PROGRAM MANAGERS NEWSLETTER
Delivered to over 6,500 Affiliate Industry Professionals.
CONTENTS
1. Will BHO's open the door for new predatory advertisers?
2. AffiliateForce handouts
3. Google Adwords proves affiliate friendly
4. 21 techniques to increase your ROI with Google Adwords
5. UK affiliate trends with espotting
6. PPC syndication chart
7. Are your affiliates no longer @home?
8. New meta search engine shows link relationships graphically
9. Affiliate manager job vacancies
Lack of sleep, a little jet lag and the odd hangover where the downsides to AffiliateFORCE/2002! But it was worth it...
Not only did everyone have fun but I know a lot of business also took place. AffiliateForce provided a fantastic 3-days worth of networking and opportunity seeking. Hope to see you at next year's event.
-Neil Durrant
1. Will BHO's open the door for new predatory advertisers?
Recently it was reported that an adaptation of a Microsoft technology could lead the way to a new form of predatory advertising. Raising serious implications for the affiliate industry.
Browser Helper Objects (BHO) allows a piece of code to attach itself to Internet Explorer adding additional features to the browser. Microsoft have provided this function to allow third party companies to extend a browsers functionality. However, it's been suggested that this technology could be open to abuse.
Newsbytes reported, "Morpheus Preview Edition, silently intercepts certain addresses typed by Morpheus users into Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser before redirecting them to their final destination."
Newsbytes also claimed that the Morpheus BHO causes addresses including radioshack.com, ebay.com, amazon.com, and toysrus.com to be intercepted and redirected via affiliate links.
Morpheus is a hugely popular peer-to-peer file-sharing program boasting almost 70 million downloads. That gives them a huge reach in the sheer number of browsers they can 'enhance' with their BHO. It's also been rumoured that many other similar peer-to-peer networks are developing similar technologies.
So why does a predatory BHO represent such a risk to affiliates and merchants alike?
Until Morpheus launches their full marketing version (planned for April) much of this is conjecture but many scenarios make for uncomfortable reading...
A BHO makes a semi-permanent update to the users browser - whether the host application is running or not.
Imagine 70 million web users including repeat/loyal visitors never being able to access your site directly without first going via a BHO affiliate link?
How would this affect your CPM based campaigns - you drive traffic to your site but it's intercepted by a BHO that overwrites your URL with an affiliate link?
Your affiliates work hard to merchandise your offer, only to have a predatory BHO enabled browser transparently steal the credit?
Worse still, could refusal to work with a predatory BHO enabled affiliate lead to them re-directing traffic intended for your site to a less scrupulous competitor?
All these are worst-case scenarios - certainly we do not yet know the full extent to which a BHO can be manipulated to work against you. Day-by-day the job of affiliate manager calls for a more detailed understanding of exactly how your partners are driving traffic and an awareness of potential channel conflicts created by these increasingly aggressive marketing tactics.
I'll keep you posted on any new 'BHO' developments. In the meantime if you have any experiences working with BHO enabled affiliates then please do report your findings:
neil@affiliatemarketing.co.uk
Further Reading:
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175305.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-864086.html
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,77432,00.html
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2. AffiliateForce handouts
For me the best part of the AfiliateForce conference was the opportunity to meet directly with some of the industries best players put faces to names and pick up on gossip, rumours and new ideas. The whole event embodies networking and the building of relationships. (Isn't relationship building one of our golden rules?).
I'd like to publically thank AffiliateForce organiser Herby Olchewski for working so hard to make this event happen :)
If you didn't make it this year I hope to see you there in 2003. In the meantime you'll find the speakers handouts available for download at:
http://affiliateforce2002.com/handouts/
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3. Google Adwords proves affiliate friendly
Wearing my 'affiliate hat', I've been generating some very positive results from Google's new pay-per-click Adwords Select program.
At launch I noted a little confusion amongst affiliates as to whether Google allowed direct affiliate links. Here's a snip from their terms and conditions:
"You shall not submit Advertisements where you are an affiliate partner to the web site targeted in such Advertisement, and you do not provide content at such web site that is substantially reflective of the Target(s) being used through the AdWords Select Program."
I read this to mean that the provision is enforced for irrelevant bidding - not that affiliates are unwelcome. In fact over the past month I've seen an increasing number of ads utilising direct affiliate links.
Regular Overture users will find that the subtleties of Google's system calls for very different strategies - striking the right balance between relevance, CTR's and bid costs takes a while to refine.
Since I started my testing I've discovered a number of affiliate programs that provide a perfect combination of EPC and affordable bidding terms. While initially my bids where purely designed for editorial research I've found my tests are driving considerable revenues...so now I'm rather loathed to reveal exactly how I'm doing this!
It's not a sustainable model but for now you'll have to excuse me if I enjoy the commissions while it lasts...(Hint: Think RealNames).
Google Adwords represent a valuable source of affordable traffic and may also prove to be a good topic for your next affiliate newsletter.
4. 21 techniques to increase your ROI with Google Adwords
Just before I sat down to write this newsletter I bought and read a new report from Andrew Goodman of Page Zero Media, '21 techniques to increase your ROI with Google Adwords'. It won't reveal what I'm doing as mentioned above but it does give you a detailed insight into the intricacies of Google's Adwords system.
At $49 it may be a little pricey for all your affiliates but if you want a thorough understanding of how to make Adwords work for you - or to research a how-to article for your affiliates - then it's worth picking up a copy. It's a quick read, an hour or so worth of 48 pages in PDF format:
http://www.affiliatemarketing.co.uk/googleroi/
5. UK affiliate trends with espotting
A trend worthy of note from here in the UK...
Quite a few affiliates (typically directory sites) have discovered that they are increasing revenues by replacing direct affiliate links with search results powered by one of the UK's popular pay-per-click search engines.
Many have found that for certain themes, typically high bid value topics such as shopping and casinos, that the revenue share Espotting pay against click throughs exceeds the EPC generated by affiliate links. Ironically these PPC bids are often financed by merchants who have their own affiliate program!
Dan Winchester of UKshopsearch.com explained, "I've gone with espotting because the PPC model gives me a consistent and reliable return when I fulfil my part of the bargain, i.e. delivering the visitor. In contrast, commission-based schemes vary widely in terms of the return I get as a publisher, even when two merchants may carry similar stock within the same sector. It is this reliability and consistency of the return, as well the actual value of the return, which is important to me."
How does your affiliate programs EPC stack up against your PPC bidding?
More information on Espotting at:
http://www.pay-per-click-search-engine.co.uk/espotting.htm
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6. PPC syndication chart
Continuing this issues theme on performance based search results, I've published a new site showing you exactly how the PPC's syndicated partners display your search listings.
Upwards of 90% of the leading PPC search queries are driven by their syndicated partners however your results are not displayed the same across all syndicated partners.
So how can you maximise your positioning to capitalise on all the syndicated partnerships?
How will your search listings appear on these partner sites (many of the partner sites will not use your description text in full)?
The syndication guide will show you exactly how your listings will appear across all the leading syndicated partners for Overture (US and UK versions) and Espotting:
http://www.pay-per-click-search-engine.co.uk
7. Are your affiliates no longer @home?
Here's a useful tip posted by Shawn Collins on the (United States Affiliate Manager Coalition) USAMC discussion forum:
"As many of you know, @home.com e-mail addresses have been dying over the past few months. But have you examined your affiliate database to see how many of these e-mail fatalities are in your affiliate program?
I thought I had my e-mail list up to date, but there were still about a dozen that bounced back with my most recent newsletter. In most cases, I was able to find the new e-mail for each person by going to their site, but had to call some. Be sure to do this - otherwise you've got a bunch of affiliates that are not receiving your mission critical e-mail communications.
-Shawn Collins"
If you don't already subscribe to the USAMC discussion group then I highly recommend you join - it provides a wealth of valuable information and experience...
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/usamc
8. New meta search engine shows link relationships graphically
Here's a new meta search engine that you may find useful for your affiliate prospecting and research.
Kartoo is a meta search engine that not only queries a number of search engines but also provides some useful tools to refine your search query. Uniquely Kartoo also draws a graphical 'map' displaying link relationships between your search results.
Give it a try at:
http://www.kartoo.com/kartooen.html
BTW, my favourite Affiliate prospecting tool is still Neil Shearing's LinkSpider:
http://scamfreezone.com/iss/
9. Affiliate manager job vacancies
Here's a round up of the latest affiliate job vacancies. If you have a position you would like featured here please email the details to me:
neil@affiliatemarketing.co.uk
Internet Marketer, Eastwood Company Responsible for customer acquisition, managing affiliate sales, SEO, sub-page opt., pay per click, partnerships with portals... http://www.flipdog.com/js/jobdetails.html?ID=10440468&linkBack=index.html
Partner Program Manager, Intuit Job Description: Manage overall partner programs to ensure high levels of success and satisfaction including Turbo Tax for the Web Affiliate program...
http://www.flipdog.com/js/jobdetails.html?ID=10494985&linkBack=index.html
Program Manager, Affiliates, Gateway Position Description: Implement Gateway.com's portfolio of alliances and partnerships with leading portals, community sites and content providers...
http://www.flipdog.com/js/jobdetails.html?ID=10516045&linkBack=index.html
Affiliate Marketing Specialist
Network Telephone Services has a great opportunity for an Affiliate Marketing Specialist...
http://www.hotjobs.com/cgi-bin/job-show?J__PINDEX=J142932CO
Affiliate Marketing Coordinator, International Channel Seattle, Washington Assists the Affiliate Sales & Marketing department with the development, coordination, and implementation of marketing plans and programs for International Channel and the... http://www.flipdog.com/js/jobdetails.html?ID=10623796&linkBack=index.html
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Need help to create, launch or manage your Affiliate Program? Perhaps you have a specific problem or affiliate related project you need to outsource? Discover how I can help you:
http://www.affiliatemarketing.co.uk/consulting.htm
All the best,
Neil Durrant
neil@affiliatemarketing.co.uk
http://www.AffiliateMarketing.co.uk
http://www.AffiliateToolkit.co