Coupon feeds are a great way to make money but automating around them can be technically intimidating. There are lots of tools around that can help. Geno Prussakov brings his list together in a great post: "This is one of the most powerful coupon integration tools out there. The solution “offers an automated, customized affiliate coupon feed which consolidates” 20,000+ deals … [Read more...]
Daily Deals Dead? Or The Future Of The Industry?
The former darling of the daily deals industry, Groupon, yesterday suffered a terrible day on the stock market, falling 6.5%. It is now worth just one-third of the $15 billion at which it was briefly valued on the day it went public. Does this mean the daily deals space is dead in the water? Are the performance marketing networks that glommed onto daily deals as a potential … [Read more...]
Coupons – A Necessary Evil?
Between December 2010 and December 2011, searches for “coupon” and “coupons” (broad matched) ballooned to over 63 million for a year-over-year increase of 37%. Many retailers understandably cringe knowing that these last-minute coupon scoopers could be unnecessarily driving down the price of their goods among consumers who will actually pay full price. … [Read more...]
5 Amazing Insights From Forrester: Coupons, Brands, Google and Social
LinkShare is holding its Symposium event here in San Francisco this week and the opening keynote by Forrester senior analyst, Andy Hoar, contained some terrific insights into the state of the performance marketing industry. I picked out five that look at coupons, social marketing, and growth opportunities: 1. Affiliate Marketing Growing 16% p.a. Affiliate marketing in the USA … [Read more...]
Pushing For Luxury
Judging by the way our economy has plummeted in the last year, it seems the 2009 holiday season does not bode well for retailers — online or off. Tens of thousands of people are still getting laid off every week, the job market simply won’t do us the kindness of opening up, and consumers are squeezing pennies so hard that Lincoln feels their pain. Given this … [Read more...]
Tried and True Performance Strategies
There are a lot of ways to approach affiliate marketing. Here are a few of my favorite tips.Feature Co-branded Messaging –Among the fastest-growing areas of affiliate marketing, loyalty and cash-back sites have come to play an increasingly important role in affiliate programs. Given that these types of sites are responsible for delivering a huge number of sales and often … [Read more...]
Trends in Travel
With the economic downturn, many of us are tightening our belts. What does that mean for travel marketers? Are people still traveling? Should we downgrade our revenue expectations?Here’s some good news. According to a PhoCusWright report, the U.S. online travel market continues to grow at a pace that far exceeds the overall travel market. Travel is the No. 1 sector in the … [Read more...]
Growing in an Unhealthy Climate
Economists, politicians and media types are no longer arguing whether or not the economy is in a recession. Instead most are debating how long it will last. If recent trends continue, the prognosis is relatively dismal for real estate values, gas prices and the unemployment rate. And as corporations and consumers grow frugal, cutbacks in advertising threaten the vitality of … [Read more...]
.mobi for All
Neil Michel bought .mobi top-level domains as soon as they were available without consulting his bosses. As eMedia Director of Prosper magazine in Sacramento, Calif., he saw it as his duty to claim ownership of the mobile domain names before anyone else could capitalize on the company's brand name. He managed to snag ProsperMag.mobi and ProsperMagazine.mobi but not … [Read more...]
A Call to Action
Someone is hijacking your traffic and stealing your commissions. That someone might be a competing affiliate marketer, or worse, the merchant whose products you are promoting. To my dismay, I discovered that traffic from one of my sites was being diverted when a friend sent me some screen captures of that site's home page. The first screen shot showed my site open in a browser … [Read more...]
Redemption
It all started with Asa Candler, a "prescriptionist" in Atlanta 112 years ago. A modest pharmacist who dealt in tonics and medicines, he bought an unassuming recipe for a patent medicine called Coca-Cola. When he gave out handwritten slips of paper for customers to try the new drink for free, the coupon was born.The simple yet brilliant marketing idea Candler conceived has, of … [Read more...]
Taking It Offline
If baseball is the thinking person's game, then online advertising is the thinking person's medium. Much like the national pastime, part of the draw of online advertising comes from the ability to break down performance into limitless particles of useful (and useless) information, such as batting average with runners in scoring position after the 7th inning, or the clickthrough … [Read more...]
Anne Fognano: The Mother Lode
The old adage that necessity is the mother of invention is certainly true when it comes to this mother.More than a decade ago Anne Fognano, then a new mom, needed a way to earn additional income while being able to work from home.She had just completed her master's degree in clinical psychology when her son Austen was a year old. And while it was her dream to be a therapist … [Read more...]
The Mobile Marketing Monster
Tony Phillip will tell you the exact moment he knew that mobile marketing and advertising - predominantly via cell phones - had crossed over into the mainstream. It was when American Idol, the extremely popular TV singing contest, allowed viewers to vote for their favorite singer via text message - and more than 50 million did in 2005 versus 21 million in 2004, according to … [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...]