Earlier this year Steve Denton was named president of LinkShare, following the resignations of Chairman and CEO Stephen Messer and President and COO Heidi S. Messer, who led LinkShare's development from its founding in 1996 through its $425 million sale to Rakuten in late 2005. Denton heads up all day-to-day operations including management and continuous development of the … [Read more...]
eBay: What’s in Store
Describing eBay as a commerce website is like saying Elvis was a singer. The 11-year-old company that began as a virtual flea market similarly has become an international phenomenon, spurring the creation of cottage industries and sustaining thousands of small businesses.And despite being one of the Internet's forebears, the company is in many aspects just getting started. As … [Read more...]
Scott Hazard: The Performer
Despite having many talents that often thrust him to the forefront, Hazard is a modest man who typically shuns the spotlight.For more than three years he's been an extremely active and vocal member of several online affiliate marketing forums. While many of his closest industry friends often refer to him by one of his message board handles, he prefers not to give away his … [Read more...]
CJ’s Missing Link
When Commission Junction announced its Link Management Initiative (LMI) on May 23, the reaction from the affiliate community was swift and decisive. It was interpreted as a mandatory change for affiliates from HTML to JavaScript links and it was not embraced. In fact, it sparked petitions, anti- LMI buttons, forums and message boards decrying LMI and hundreds of blog entries … [Read more...]
Sell Green to Make Green
For online marketers, green could be the new gold. The events of the past year opened the eyes of many consumers to the importance of being Earth-friendly, which in turn has created an unprecedented opportunity for the sellers of green goods. Hurricane Katrina, the popularity of the global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and President Bush's epiphany … [Read more...]
Optimize Your Blog for Search
Some folks compare organic search marketing to public relations, where you are trying to get free attention for your business. They further link paid search to traditional advertising. If the comparisons make sense to you, then maybe we can torture the analogy by comparing blogs to press releases. Your company can write a blog post or a press release to try to attract … [Read more...]
Going to the Mat
In the last two issues of Revenue magazine I've written about mistakes that affiliates make, highlighting common errors that most affiliates commit at some point in their affiliate marketing ventures as well as detailing my own outrageous faux pas. Turnabout is fair play, so in this issue we'll look at an example of how affiliate managers prove that they too are only … [Read more...]
Introducing Dr. Makeover
Not every website needs a complete redesign. Contrary to what most Web designers tell you, designing a website for results, or what I like to call Conversion Design, doesn't require a pretty website. I'm not interested in redesigning websites just for design's sake. So we're shaking things up a bit for this issue of Revenue. Instead of a complete visual overhaul of one site, … [Read more...]
Get a Second Life
Living in a virtual world may lead to innovation in the physical world.Innovation is the lifeblood of business. Failure to innovate is a common problem among businesses and even more common among big corporations where it is hard to turn on a dime and internal politics tends to slow down rapid thinking and change. This means that smaller marketers, boutiques and niche marketers … [Read more...]
Guerrilla Generosity
With the holiday season waiting just over the calendar horizon, I can't help but remember how holidays are disasters for the unprepared. To help prepare you, I want to activate your generosity awareness. There seem to be two kinds of affiliates: givers and takers. Giver affiliates are quick to give freebies to customers and prospects. The freebies may be gifts, but more likely … [Read more...]
Special Order
News of the death of the catalog is greatly exaggerated. It's no secret that the catalog retail universe is a big one. Brands that started as paper catalogs sent in the mail go back more than 100 years to the Sears & Roebuck catalog sent to families in rural parts of the country. In its pages people could order everything from bars of soap to do-it-yourself homes delivered … [Read more...]
Big Brands Believe
TV commercials and print ads aren't dead yet. Major brands still believe in traditional media. After all, a blockbuster commercial with a catchy jingle can positively boost brand equity. No one cares to dispute the power of a well-placed Madison Avenue ad. But nowadays, marketing teams are increasingly feeling pressure to account for the dollars they spend; they need to show … [Read more...]
Santa in September
Kathy Eickenberg, who runs PurpleBearsShopnEarn.com, knows exactly what she is going to do this holiday season to ramp up her Christmas sales. One is start early; another is she has started a newsletter. She's hopeful her Christmas ideas will help her move the teddy bears, arts and crafts, toys, children's clothes and other collectibles and party supplies she carries on her … [Read more...]
The Social Security
Sites that rely on user-generated content are altering the human fabric of the Internet and the way that performance marketers reach out to customers and merchants and communicate with each other. Online marketers are testing all of the new communication methods - blogs, social networking sites, wikis, and photo and video-sharing sites - to see if these platforms can help them … [Read more...]