Over the last five years, almost all of the topics I’ve written about focus on some aspect of performance-based advertising. My fascination with the subject stems from a desire to understand the role performance-based ads play in the broader ecosystem for advertisers, merchants and affiliates.What I’ve come to believe is that the performance marketing world has two … [Read more...]
Raising Your Score
Over the last seven to 10 years, paid search has proven to be a cost effective channel for affiliates and performance marketers alike to drive high quality leads while maintaining strong ROI. In fact, search engine marketing (SEM) frequently represents an inordinate portion of a performance marketer’s business – often more than they care to admit.The decline in … [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...]
Search Wars
Even though Google would prefer not to be a verb, the search giant is just that and more. To Google is to search for products, maps, healthcare plans, cars for sale, images of Britney Spears, coupon sites, new mobile phones, the population of Moscow, blogs on gardening - the world really. And more so now.As of last May, Google changed the way it serves results pages. It isn't … [Read more...]
Harrison Gevirtz: The Yearling
This sounds like any hard worker in the performance marketing space, you think. The only difference is that Gevirtz is a freshman. No, he is not a freshman in college, not the next Shawn Fanning (of Napster fame) working out of a dorm room. Gevirtz is a freshman in high school - a 15- year-old wunderkind. Gevirtz first got exposed to the world of online commerce by selling … [Read more...]
The Affiliate Lifestyle
For many aspiring affiliates, the phrase Affiliate Lifestyle conjures up visions of big beautiful homes and shiny new sports cars. Graphic images on affiliate training sites encourage visitors to imagine themselves at their desk, dressed in pajamas and smiling the big happy smile as hundred-dollar bills miraculously fly from their computer monitor. Those images often include a … [Read more...]
Overcoming Your SEO Fears
Ask nearly everyone and they'll say that search engine optimization is intimidating. Search engine optimization - SEO for short - should be a familiar term and practice for anyone or any commercial company with a website. SEO is what you do to your website to get a higher ranking on search engines,particularly Google,Yahoo and MSN.The higher you rank the more likely someone … [Read more...]
Hybrid Auctions Are Taking Over
As author Robert C. Gallagher observes, "Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine." And so it comes as no surprise that paid search engines are changing too. The biggest change is one of the most fundamental, affecting which paid ads are shown first in the results. The tried-and-true high bidder auctions, pioneered by Overture (later acquired by Yahoo), are being … [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...]
Mistakes Lead to Success
Learn from your missteps and the path to affiliate success will be paved with opportunity.Lurk around any affiliate marketing forum for more than a few minutes, and you will surely encounter a post that reads much like this: "Affiliate marketing sucks! I'm not making ANY money and I've tried EVERYTHING - Google AdWords, AdSense and affiliate programs. NOTHING works. My … [Read more...]
Domain Reign
Domains are the undeveloped land on which e-commerce properties are built and like real estate, it's about location, location, location.Gary Kremen is driving along I-5 in San Diego. He's talking on his cell phone and sounds like he's just had a pot of coffee he talks fast and furiously. Kremen is not from Southern California, but he seems to relish his newfound role as alien … [Read more...]
Affiliate Market Maturing
The affiliate space is getting more sophisticated and complex, according to the findings of the AffStat 2006 Report, an annual study examining the state of the affiliate marketing industry.Released earlier this year by Shawn Collins Consulting, the survey polled nearly 200 affiliate managers from a cross section of the industry on their overall statistics, as well as a number … [Read more...]
Data Double Duty
Website publishers are up in arms about the potential threat posed by employees at companies, who have access to their crucial data that could be used to compete with them.Insiders have nicknamed the situation "Triple Jangro," after the catchy title of a blog post on Revenews.com by David Lewis, CEO of 77Blue. The title refers to ex-BeFree/Commission Junction product manager … [Read more...]
Retooling the Web
Microsoft was late in recognizing the profit potential of online search. Meanwhile, upstart Google surpassed older search sites such as AltaVista, America Online and Yahoo to become the clear leader in search and, therefore, online advertising revenue. In late 2005, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and chief technical officer Ray Ozzie wrote widely quoted memoranda acknowledging … [Read more...]
Mining for Keywords
Now that you've set up your search engine marketing campaign and it's chugging along nicely, how do you take things to the next level? You've picked out some good keywords, written some good copy and you're getting a reasonable ROI, but every time you look at your pay-per-click campaigns, you just know there's more that you could be doing to maximize your investment. And you … [Read more...]