If you were going to launch a business as a publisher today, what business model would you adopt to make money? The affiliate marketing industry, like most technology based industries, is constantly evolving at lightning speed. The most successful publishers need a fluid business model that can readily embrace progressive change. While working to scale current profitable … [Read more...]
Consolidate, Optimize and Maximize
You can maximize the performance of your marketing campaigns by consolidating all of them under a single ad platform. This will save time on administrative tasks, offer comprehensive analytics on campaigns across multiple channels and help you optimize them accordingly. Affiliate software is in a unique position to consolidate campaigns from across different channels because it … [Read more...]
Affiliates Yearn For Standard Bearers
Affiliate marketing is entering its adolescent phase, but the lack of standards for delivering data is inflicting some serious growing pains. If the industry is to grow up as well as out, merchants and affiliate networks need to provide affiliates with consistent methods of accessing the data that feeds their development.While nearly anyone with a Web address can create a … [Read more...]
Search For Tomorrow
It was the summer of 1998 when GoTo.com launched its pay-per-click (PPC) program in a fairly straightforward way. Back then, there were few competitors and the bids were low. Often a top slot could be had for a penny a click, and the reporting was bare bones.It was morning in paid search country.Six years later, the paid search landscape has gotten a lot more crowded. According … [Read more...]
A Show-Stopping Performance
In times when change comes quickly, many things can keep online marketing managers up at night. The question is: What should keep them up?Some grapple with balancing their own search marketing efforts against affiliates' or understanding which marketing strategy delivers a better yield in terms of marketing cost as percentage of sales (CAPS). Others struggle with an increasing … [Read more...]
Using Data With Integrity
A crucial element of building and maintaining a database is data integrity - making sure your information is accurate and in the correct format, unchanged by technical glitches. You can personally verify information if you are entering it manually, but when users are filling out forms on your Web site, and that information goes directly into your database, you need another … [Read more...]
Setting the Data Table
The last issue of Revenue gave an overview of databases and how they can be used. Let's delve a little deeper into how you, as manager of an affiliate program, can use a database to improve your service and provide customized information for all of your affiliates.When creating a database, the first step is to understand what information you want to record, and the important … [Read more...]
A Nose For Data
As a canny entrepreneur, you'll want to monitor all aspects of your business. On the Internet, that comes down to tracking data, all kinds of it.Remember, an affiliate is really an Internet marketer and successful marketers of all persuasions love data. Marketers burn to know who their customers are, where they heard about the company, what makes them come back, what makes them … [Read more...]
Databasics 101
Most small business operators have dabbled with databases, but relatively few use them to their full advantage. So here's a crash course call it Databasics 101 on why you need them, how they work and what they can do for you.Businesses live and die on the information they collect and how they put it to use. For example, at my company, we send a reminder for unpaid ads on the … [Read more...]