Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Tips
- ARTICLES |
There are many expensive ways to drive traffic to your site to incur sales of your affiliate programs that you are promoting. there are many less cost effective ways, but sometimes unfortunately you may have to resort to some of the more costly methods or you would be likely to have disappointing results.Here are ten things you should focus on to improve the performance of your affiliate marketing program:
1. Optimized Data Feed: The easiest way to get increased distribution is to have the most robust, complete, up to date product catalog possible. This makes your products immediately available to publishers and across comparison shopping engines. It’s also the thing we hear most often from publishers as being the most critical piece to working successfully with advertisers.
2. Effective Creative: Publishers, also known as affiliates, spend time and money promoting your products or services, so you need to make sure you provide effective creative to help them sell your products. Effective creative has consistent brand messaging and a consistent look and feel every place the consumer interacts with it in the buyor- try conversion funnel, from the banner on a publisher’s site to your landing page to your shopping cart or lead form. Effective creative also has a clear and highly visible call to action and a compelling offer (see #3 below).
3. Competitive Offers: Are your offers in line with your vertical or industry? Take a look at what your competitors are offering for similar products or services and evaluate whether or not your margins allow you to provide a comparable or better offer. The trend of offering free expedited shipping proved successful for online retailers during the 2009 holiday shopping season and is continuing to be popular with consumers in 2010.
4. Deep Linking: It’s well known that that deep linking (linking directly from your offer on a publisher’s site to the landing page where the product or service can be ordered) converts better than linking to your home page. The fewer pages a consumer has to click to before reaching the item, the more likely that shopper will complete the purchase. An easy way for online retailers to provide publishers with their complete and up-to-date product catalogs is through the use of data feeds, which a comprehensive affiliate marketing solutions provider can set you up with (see #1 above).
5. Optimized Landing Pages: Your publishers can drive quality traffic for you all day every day, but if your landing pages aren’t optimized, then your conversion rate will suffer. Make sure that there’s visual consistency between your ads and landing pages, that your copy resonates with your target audience and that you follow through on the promise of your ad by making it clear what shoppers need to do next to get the special offer.
6. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)/Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search publishers in the affiliate channel can complement your existing investment in PPC by filling in the gaps in your current search strategy whether that is managed through in-house program or through a search agency. These specialized publishers are able to elevate your ranking on the search engine results page where you may be outranked by your competition. In addition, if you’re not using paid and/or natural search campaigns to test the effectiveness of your ad copy, you’re essentially just guessing at what works.
7. Simple Checkout Process: Streamline your checkout process to reduce the steps required to purchase a product. To prevent shopping cart abandonment, list shipping charges early in the checkout process and include thumbnail images of items next to their descriptions to provide a visual reminder for customers returning to their carts from previous visits.
8. Incentives: Top-performing publishers drive the majority of your revenue and expect to be compensated accordingly. So don’t let them down by offering the standard commission you give to all your publishers. By offering special incentives that you tie to a specific product or to a volume or time-based goal, you’re letting your best publishers know that you’ll reward them for achieving the results you need.
9. Communication: Lack of communication with your publishers is the cause of many failed relationships. Make it a priority to communicate frequently and clearly with your publishers using the methods they prefer. Many publishers rely on email or instant messaging, but there may be times when they’d appreciate it if you picked up the phone or visited in person — this especially applies to your top revenue-producing publishers.
10. Quality Online Presence: When was the last time you looked critically at your Web site? If it takes forever to load, has confusing navigation or amateurish graphic design, then consumers are likely to perceive your products and services negatively. Invest in a graphic designer or user interaction designer (or a talented intern) who is skilled at presenting information from a consumer’s point of view rather than from a corporate perspective.
Great Home Business Opportunity
There are great MLM businesses out there, and I have been a member of quite a few in the past. However, recently I discovered a great home based business opportunity that you can run from the comfort of your home quite easily.
The reason why this is so easy is because of two reasons.
Firstly, the products are amazingly wonderful and easy to sell and they are so good for you and have the best ingredients that I have ever seen in natural health products, and I have been a natural health products researcher for a very long time now.(more than 20 years).
Secondly, they are relatively cheap for what they do, if a customer wants to purchase just as a customer and not join any thing else, it is a cheap price that he would have to pay to get the products monthly. As a representative, where you are given the opportunity to sell the products and invite people to join under you , it is also relatively cheap to stay a member with a $25 subscription, where you get a product of your choice monthly for your $25 subscription. This is rather exceptional as the cheapest monthly subscription I have seen is just over $100.00
I invite you to take a tour of this great opportunity. If you have MLM members under you already it really is a great opportunity to market these products while using them yourself. Since I have started using them , I have observed a significant increase in my energy levels, and in many other areas as well.
Work from Home
1. Optimized Data Feed: The easiest way to get increased distribution is to have the most robust, complete, up to date product catalog possible. This makes your products immediately available to publishers and across comparison shopping engines. It’s also the thing we hear most often from publishers as being the most critical piece to working successfully with advertisers.
2. Effective Creative: Publishers, also known as affiliates, spend time and money promoting your products or services, so you need to make sure you provide effective creative to help them sell your products. Effective creative has consistent brand messaging and a consistent look and feel every place the consumer interacts with it in the buyor- try conversion funnel, from the banner on a publisher’s site to your landing page to your shopping cart or lead form. Effective creative also has a clear and highly visible call to action and a compelling offer (see #3 below).
3. Competitive Offers: Are your offers in line with your vertical or industry? Take a look at what your competitors are offering for similar products or services and evaluate whether or not your margins allow you to provide a comparable or better offer. The trend of offering free expedited shipping proved successful for online retailers during the 2009 holiday shopping season and is continuing to be popular with consumers in 2010.
4. Deep Linking: It’s well known that that deep linking (linking directly from your offer on a publisher’s site to the landing page where the product or service can be ordered) converts better than linking to your home page. The fewer pages a consumer has to click to before reaching the item, the more likely that shopper will complete the purchase. An easy way for online retailers to provide publishers with their complete and up-to-date product catalogs is through the use of data feeds, which a comprehensive affiliate marketing solutions provider can set you up with (see #1 above).
5. Optimized Landing Pages: Your publishers can drive quality traffic for you all day every day, but if your landing pages aren’t optimized, then your conversion rate will suffer. Make sure that there’s visual consistency between your ads and landing pages, that your copy resonates with your target audience and that you follow through on the promise of your ad by making it clear what shoppers need to do next to get the special offer.
6. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)/Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search publishers in the affiliate channel can complement your existing investment in PPC by filling in the gaps in your current search strategy whether that is managed through in-house program or through a search agency. These specialized publishers are able to elevate your ranking on the search engine results page where you may be outranked by your competition. In addition, if you’re not using paid and/or natural search campaigns to test the effectiveness of your ad copy, you’re essentially just guessing at what works.
7. Simple Checkout Process: Streamline your checkout process to reduce the steps required to purchase a product. To prevent shopping cart abandonment, list shipping charges early in the checkout process and include thumbnail images of items next to their descriptions to provide a visual reminder for customers returning to their carts from previous visits.
8. Incentives: Top-performing publishers drive the majority of your revenue and expect to be compensated accordingly. So don’t let them down by offering the standard commission you give to all your publishers. By offering special incentives that you tie to a specific product or to a volume or time-based goal, you’re letting your best publishers know that you’ll reward them for achieving the results you need.
9. Communication: Lack of communication with your publishers is the cause of many failed relationships. Make it a priority to communicate frequently and clearly with your publishers using the methods they prefer. Many publishers rely on email or instant messaging, but there may be times when they’d appreciate it if you picked up the phone or visited in person — this especially applies to your top revenue-producing publishers.
10. Quality Online Presence: When was the last time you looked critically at your Web site? If it takes forever to load, has confusing navigation or amateurish graphic design, then consumers are likely to perceive your products and services negatively. Invest in a graphic designer or user interaction designer (or a talented intern) who is skilled at presenting information from a consumer’s point of view rather than from a corporate perspective.
Great Home Business Opportunity
There are great MLM businesses out there, and I have been a member of quite a few in the past. However, recently I discovered a great home based business opportunity that you can run from the comfort of your home quite easily.
The reason why this is so easy is because of two reasons.
Firstly, the products are amazingly wonderful and easy to sell and they are so good for you and have the best ingredients that I have ever seen in natural health products, and I have been a natural health products researcher for a very long time now.(more than 20 years).
Secondly, they are relatively cheap for what they do, if a customer wants to purchase just as a customer and not join any thing else, it is a cheap price that he would have to pay to get the products monthly. As a representative, where you are given the opportunity to sell the products and invite people to join under you , it is also relatively cheap to stay a member with a $25 subscription, where you get a product of your choice monthly for your $25 subscription. This is rather exceptional as the cheapest monthly subscription I have seen is just over $100.00
I invite you to take a tour of this great opportunity. If you have MLM members under you already it really is a great opportunity to market these products while using them yourself. Since I have started using them , I have observed a significant increase in my energy levels, and in many other areas as well.
Work from Home