By the time Revenue magazine hit newsstands in January 2004, performance marketing and affiliate marketing had already had their share of ups and downs. Online marketing had survived the dot-com bust and continued to evolve from the e-commerce craze into something that sparked enthusiasm and life in a shell-shocked market.The idea that retirees, housewives and those with "real … [Read more...]
Resolutions Require Resolve
It's mid-January. The holiday revelry is over, Christmas decorations have been packed away and the leftover turkey in the fridge is turning green. What about your New Year's resolutions? Are they also becoming stale and moldy?Are you still hitting the gym regularly, forsaking Haagen-Dazs and renewing your determination to avoid the evil weed with each nicotine fit? What about … [Read more...]
It’s Just Direct Marketing
As I go around the country teaching workshops on pay per click (PPC) I get asked many varied questions on search engine marketing (SEM), depending on which city I happen to be in. Larger marketers seem to have more sophisticated questions; smaller marketers tend to focus on subsistence tactics. However, one theme seems to reoccur frequently: the myth that SEM is some kind of … [Read more...]
Home Page Makeover Unleashed
In this first installment of Revenue Magazine's "By Design Makeover," I worked with my team at Sostre & Associates to choose one site and give that lucky winner a visual redesign of its home page. After reviewing more than 50 submissions from readers like you, we finally selected - drum roll, please - OriginalDogBiscuit.com.We chose this site because it serves as a prime … [Read more...]
Defining Affiliate Marketing
Guerrillas know that affiliate marketing is just a fancy word for selling and treating people well. It's more common sense and patience than anything else. But people often think affiliate marketing is a bunch of things it isn't.You're going to save a lot of money, time and stress simply by avoiding these many misconceptions about what you really do for a living - especially if … [Read more...]
Educating and Informing Your Publishers
As anyone managing an affiliate program knows, educating your network of publishers is a vital and often daunting part of building and growing an affiliate program.This is definitely true for RealNetworks' program, which focuses on digital media subscriptions, including Rhapsody, with more than 1.3 million songs, GamePass with hundreds of games and SuperPass with premium news … [Read more...]
Casting a Wider Net
Podcasting is emerging as an interesting and potentially lucrative opportunity for online marketers who want to reach a wider audience.The figures for podcasting vary, but by all counts the podcasting market is poised to explode and online marketers want in. A report from The Diffusion Group, a technology research consulting firm, showed that the use of podcasts is expected to … [Read more...]
Pitching a Fit
Sites related to health, fitness and total body wellness are humming at this time of year based on the good intentions of millions of people who make New Year's resolutions to get in shape, shed unwanted pounds, start exercising more and devote more effort to their overall health and well-being.But what happens when the resolve begins to dissolve and consumers begin the … [Read more...]
Denied
On a cold Minnesota afternoon, affiliate marketer Connie Berg checks her email fearing the worst: a message from a dream merchant saying her affiliate application for either iShopDaily.com or FlamingoWorld.com has been denied. You see, Berg's sites post coupon information - a once-hot commodity now shadowed by merchant belt-tightening and recent incidences of customers … [Read more...]
Feeding the Beast
If you're doing online marketing and you're not leveraging RSS, what the heck are you waiting for? New technologies that both publishers and advertisers use to connect with online consumers are always continuing to emerge. From HTML to Macromedia Flash to streaming video, the arrival of distribution methods requires organizations to periodically reinvent how they speak to their … [Read more...]
Taxing Times
Back in the early days of the dotcom boom, rampant speculation arose about how or even if online sales should be taxed. For consumers, e-commerce was almost too good to be true: an ultimate extension of mail order, where any product could be ordered from an out-of-state seller with the click of a button, avoiding sales tax, albeit paying any shipping fees that were charged. … [Read more...]
Flipping the Switch
Maybe your relationship with your network has soured. The reports are frequently late, revenue is down and your questions are not being answered in a timely fashion. You're thinking about switching to another network, but that means learning new tracking processes and establishing relationships with an unknown group of affiliates.So, is it really worth all the potential trouble … [Read more...]
An Unbridled Love of Shopping: Q & A with Michelle Madhok
Michelle Madhok has a lot of experience mixing content and commerce online. She has worked at CBS Broadcasting as a director of entertainment marketing for the new media group and was group director of editorial products for AOL. Madhok understands the power of promotion when it comes to the world of online shopping. Her latest venture, SheFinds.com, offers information to busy … [Read more...]
Richard Kohl: This is No Retirement Party
Richard Kohl may be 70, but he sure knows how to party. As the head of a big family - he's got four children and six grandchildren, while his second wife has four children, 15 grandchildren and two great grandkids - Kohl has hosted and attended lots of family functions in his day, and now he's on a mission to make it an exciting, fun and pleasurable experience for others to … [Read more...]