We all know that mobile commerce is poised to explode in the next few years. While its adoption has seemed slow when compared to the volume of commerce already taking place on desktop PCs, it’s only a matter of time before mobile devices are the preferred vehicle for online shopping. Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group forecast that within fi ve years half of today’s … [Read more...]
The Publisher’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing
In the fall 2012 edition of this magazine I wrote an article, The CMO Guide to Affiliate Marketing, that established the basic principles every marketer needs to launch an effective affiliate marketing program. Now, I’m turning my attention to the entrepreneurial side — the affiliate/publisher. As an affiliate myself for the better part of a decade, I know that none of the … [Read more...]
Avangate Affiliate Network
Europe's Biggest Software Affiliate Network Comes To America Avangate is a network that ranked well in our 2012 BLUE BOOK survey and so deserves a closer look. Judging by what we have seen this year and the early survey results for 2013, that position seems likely to improve. We will see for sure when the new BLUE BOOK rankings are released in January, but in the meantime we … [Read more...]
The Benefits Of Going Performance
Big Brands and Direct Marketers Alike Can Recognize Greater ROI Through Dynamic Profiling. One of the most common demands from brand managers and CMOs is the ability to access good quality traffic at scale. The problem is that all too often, it is hard to differentiate good traffic from bad because not enough is known about the potential customer. If more information was … [Read more...]
The CMO Guide to Affiliate Marketing
Having built and run multiple performance marketing divisions over the past decade, I’ve learned that the best thing I can do for the industry is bring more advertising budget into our space. I’ve partnered extensively with Revenue Performance magazine over the last three years, and we are collaborating again to offer this guide for CMOs to help educate them on best practices … [Read more...]
Retail Publisher Strategy: Making The Leap to CPA & Lead-Gen
Many publishers promoting retail advertisers on a cost-per-sale basis are hesitant to move to the “other side” and promote customer acquisition or lead generation offers. Perhaps they don’t think it fits their model or their type of customer. Yet with demand growing among advertisers for new customers, and more US states looking at taxing affiliate sales, now is the time for … [Read more...]
Why You Should Embrace, Not Fear, Performance Marketing
All too often CMOs and brand managers are slow to adopt performance based marketing approaches. This has the effect of placing them at a real disadvantage in today’s marketplace, running the risk that a competitor will out-distance them by simply adopting performance marketing more quickly. Cost-Per-Action (CPA) is a results-based form of advertising in which you only pay for … [Read more...]
Can A New Tracking Platform Change The Industry?
Tom Dietzel’s CPAWay and Incentivize networks have made a lot of friends in the industry over the last couple of years. Now he is preparing the launch of a new performance marketing tracking platform. We caught up with Tom to find out his views on where tracking platforms and the industry go from here. Revenue Performance: You have had a lot of success with CPAWay and … [Read more...]
How-To Post of The Week: Building A Niche Website
The first of an ongoing series in which we will pick out one especially good how-to piece from around The Internets. This week a post that is terrific in its simplicity: how to publish a niche Wordpress site that Does Not Suck. It is such a seemingly easy process yet suckitude reigns. Noobs (and really, anybody who wants to be reminded of just what one should trying to do with … [Read more...]
Facebook Makes Its Mobile Move
Facebook today began to allow its data to be used for targeting mobile advertising in apps and websites. This is an extension of its "ad exchange layer" concept in which, rather than creating its own ad network, Facebook instead layers its demographic- and interest-based targeting on top of existing networks. If you wanted to know how Facebook can monetize without annoying its … [Read more...]
Achieving ROI With Social Media
At a time when pretty much every organization or affiliate has a social media presence, it's amazing how many don't have any idea how to make it pay for itself. Key performance indicator (KPI) is the term of art for the metrics that matter. Webtrends identifies the most important KPIs: "What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you evaluate the success of … [Read more...]
11 Keys To Content Marketing Success
Getting your content marketing strategy right is more important than ever. Understanding your audience, your objectives and the landscape in which you are working is critical. Here are 11 simple things to focus on: "Know your reason: Why are you creating content? Your answer certainly doesn’t have to be altruistic, but you have to be able to answer that question." … [Read more...]
Your Web Design is Killing Your Conversion Rate
Let me tell you an inconvenient truth – your baby is ugly. No, I’m not offending your family genes. The “baby” I’m referring to is your website. The design elements that you’ve invested tons of time and money into have created severe problems that are contributing to your low conversion rates. To make matters worse, this predicament was completely avoidable: you have been a … [Read more...]
Usability Basics for Landing Page Optimization
If a visitor cannot find something on your landing page, it might as well not exist at all. Have you used common sense in the design of your landing page? You probably think so. But there is often a disconnect between how a website designer approaches a site design, and what actual users experience when they visit the site. The point of good usability is to make things easy for … [Read more...]
Landing Page Optimization – Testing your way to higher profits
In the online marketing world, a lot of time and resources are spent driving traffic to a website or landing page. Huge budgets are spent on pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, e-mail marketing efforts and search engine optimization. You analyze campaign performance with almost religious fervor in order to extract the last penny of revenue and profit possible from each internet … [Read more...]