Well its official, Google Affiliate Network has been born out of the ashes of Performics. What will this mean for affiliate marketing as we know it? Not sure yet, but there could be good things in store of Performics merchants. Google definitely has the money and influence to serious grow their merchant and affiliate base. What will the Google Affiliate Network do for affiliates? I think it will benefit affiliate quite a bit. I think Google will try to bring its Adwords and Adsense advertisers into the performance-based marketing fold. Google Affiliate Network could be the greatest thing to ever happen to the affiliate industry. What a benefit to have those vast resources at your disposal to invest into the affiliate industry.

The question of should affiliate managers work on the weekends is deeper than just is it more effective. With a large percentage of affiliate marketers working on their sites/blogs on the weekends, it is great to be able to respond to affiliate questions and issues over the weekend to deliever the answers in a highly responsive fashion. It also shows that you put in extra effort for your affiliates. Of course, I think affiliate management should be a 7 day a week effort, but many times affiliate managers working for large companies will stick to the corporate schedule and never really give affiliates attention on the weekends or at night. The affiliate manager would have to have email enabled at their house or on their blackberry to be able to get their inquiries after working hours. And then it depends on the commitment your affiliate management has to being as responsive as possible. Of course, I think it’s extremely important to be there 24-7-365 in order to effectively grow your affiliate program and help affiliates to become more productive. You have to satisfy an affiliates needs when they are focused on your program or planning to give it attention. So in my opinion affiliate management should be done over the weekend and at nights to be as effective as possible.

This is really cool. Google is runnign a contest to see who can put a lander on the moon the quickest and giving away 20 million to the company that does it first. The lander has to land, travel some distance and then beam back data and video of the excursion. Better jump on it fast though…Google wants you there by 2012, but Im sure companies will try to go much sooner…stay tuned for updates. Here is the full article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/06/20/google.lunar.xprize/index.html

As a merchant looking to dive head first into the affiliate channel, you have a few things to consider before launching. First, you have to be willing to commit to a long-term affiliate program strategy that will grow over time. You also have to be willing to allocate and commit the necessary resources to growing your affiliate program. Most affiliate programs, when managed properly with intense attention paid to affiliates, will grow over time as more and affiliates come on board and start producing. Working with new affiliates and providing them the necessary tools to effectively promote your products and services should be a constant effort.

There are 3 main US-based affiliate networks that you have to choose from as an online merchant or lead generation company: Linkshare, Commission Junction, and Shareasale. Linkshare and CJ are the 2 primary networks that have been around the longest, however Shareasale has really emerged in the last few years as a very affordable and productive option. Since Linkshare has always maintained merchant exclusivity, online retailers have had to choose either Linkshare or CJ if they wanted to go big-time. I personally think all three are great and hold a lot of value for growing your affiliate program. I usually recommend Shareasale to merchants that want less initial risk but still want to create great affiliate relationships. CJ and Linkshare are pretty much a toss-up, but I personally tend to lean towards CJ because I’m just more familiar with the backend system and I feel more comfortable operating through there. I don’t think there is an issue at all by running in multiple networks simultaneously. Some affiliates prefer one network over another and it’s good to give them that choice.

There are several other affiliate networks like Performics, Pepperjam, Hydra, Rocket Profit among others that have show some good results, but overall you pretty much can’t lose with affiliate marketing if you run it well. Using the right affiliate management and recruiting technique is very important as well. Providing good ideas about how to actually promote the merchant on affiliates’ websites will help get more affiliates active and producing. If your company is looking for quality affiliate program management at affordable rates, you should use Experience Advertising. We know how to run affiliate programs in order to acheive the greatest success in the shortest period of time. We can be contacted through this website. Feel free to comment about this topic in our forum.

As a company looking to expand online, your affiliate program is one of the key aspects of your revenue driving strategies. Affiliates are your sales force on the Internet, so they should be treated as well as possible. Catering to affiliates needs and wants should be a constant priority. Quickly responding to questions and phone calls should be paramount. Make sure your affiliates are treated like gold, and provide them the tools and resources they need to prosper with your program. Equipping affiliates with things like top performing keywords, top selling products, custom banners for their site, and even unique content they can use on their site to describe your products and services. Futhermore, you should want to know how your affiliates are driving traffic to their sites currently, in order to provide them suggestion on how to improve what they are currently doing. 

Affiliate management is not an easy job, it’s highly skilled job, and takes a super-human effort practically in order to motivate as many affiliates possible to participate in your program. Good, effective affiliate management is what is needed to propel your affiliate base into over-drive. For this reason, you should seriously consider outsourcing affiliate program management to whats called an OPM or Outsourced Program Manager. Of course you have to choose the right company to provide this service. If you are rethinking your affiliate management options and considering outsourcing your affiliate managers, please consider Experience Advertising. We are expert affiliate managers and recruiters with over 10 years in online marketing. We can be contacted through this website today for a free consultation.

Most companies that run an affiliate programs, or affiliate program management companies on behalf of clients, send an “affiliate newsletters” every month. This is piece of html email that is supposed to be intended to inspire production by affiliates for the merchant’s program. But what does an affiliate newsletter really do? Let’s take a closer look at the effectiveness of affiliate newsletter sending. Affiliate managers will say, “But how are we supposed to communicate with our affiliates??” The answer is by using effective means of communication to work each individual affiliate on a one-to-one basis. When my phone rings at 10 o’clock at night with an affiliate call from California or somewhere else in another time zone I don’t not answer it because I’m relaxing for the night. I answer the phone pretty excited that I am about to make another really solid connection with a potential producer…and often times a friend. Some may ask, “Should you really become friends with your affiliates?” If you are asking this question, then you definitely shouldn’t be an affiliate manager. Of course you should! Building relationships with affiliates will lead you to some really awesome experiences and meeting some cool people. It’s pretty self-evident that affiliates that like you will promote your program isn’t it? Getting back to the newsletter thing…they are simply too impersonal and passe. What really works well is actually individually emailing your affiliates and asking to review their site and give them pointers on traffic driving strategies. Another thing I like to do is to put all my contact information in the email and encourage affiliates to call, IM, or email me, day or night, Monday-Sunday. I always try to make myself available to answer affiliate questions whether it’s the weekend or at 11 o’clock at night on a Friday. If you are not making yourself available like this then you will only ever be so effective Monday through Friday 9-5. If you aren’t willing to sacrifice for the good of your affiliate program then you will only ever be so effective. Affiliate newsletters are rendered even more pointless with a subject line like: “The Retailers Affiliate Newsletter - June Edition”. Ya thats gonna get a lot of opens, probably in the 10% range. Try a more emphatic subject line like: Achieve Success with these Affiliate Traffic Strategies or Some Ideas for Getting Your Affiliate Site More traffic. Of course you have to provide some traffic driving strategies and fill your email with ideas and concepts intended to inspire the affiliate into production. I’m not going to give away all the secrets! If you are interested in learning how an affiliate program should be properly managed contact us though this website today. If your company is in need of explosive affiliate growth and would like to discuss hiring Experience Advertising, Inc. contact us through this site. Thanks and now get out there and drive some traffic!

Affiliate programs generally will produce a great amount of ROI or return on investment over the long haul if managed properly. It really depends on how well your products or services convert for affiliates and how much affiliates can generally make in commissions with your offer (Your EPC or Earning per hundred clicks). A good deal of this depends on how well your website converts and the demand of your products or services. Assuming your company has a good converting product that’s relatively in demand, you can expend an excellent return on investment from your affiliate channel over time. You need to give your affiliate program between 3-6 months to really gain some traction with affiliates. We recommend launching on one of the major affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Linkshare or Shareasale.
Your affiliate program should be a significant focus for your company, simply because your affiliate program is your sales force on the web. If you take care of and manage your affiliates properly, with the right tools and attention levels, you can expect to grow a loyal affiliate base that produces for your company long into the future. A truly well-managed affiliate program should continue to grow and produce more revenue every year. By getting more and more affiliates involved, by recruiting them into your program, you can expect to see increases in the production of your affiliate program year over year. If you are not seeing this type of growth or your affiliate program is stagnating, it’s likely due to poor management and/or lack of affiliate recruiting.
Why not allow Experience Advertising, Inc. to manage your affiliate program for you? We are the leaders in outsourced affiliate program management and have connections with the biggest super-affiliates in the world. If you would like more information please contact us through this website.

We are very pleased to welcome aboard Care.com to the Experience Advertising, Inc. family. Care.com is a tremendous web property that specialized in connecting consumers with quality, affordable babysitters, nannys, housekeepers, tutors, and senior care providers. They have an excellent converting website and affiliates do very well promoting their services. Care.com is currently running on Performics, Shareasale and will soon be available on Commission Junction, so look out for that! If you are interested in partnering with Care.com, please contact us throught this website and we can forward you all the details on how to get started and how to effectively promote the program. Thank you for your time!

Launching and growing an affiliate program really is an investment in the future of your company. A well-managed affiliate program should grow quite dramatically over time and if it’s not there is likely reason for this. An existing affiliate program should be intensely managed and each affiliate should be worked with individually and properly to ensure their future production. Most companies rely on inhouse affiliate management to work with and recruit affiliates for their program, but only if these inhouse managers are extremely proactively building relationships with your current affiliates and recruit new affiliate partners will this work out as the best solution. One of the biggest problems with most affiliate managers is they don’t have enough knowledge to really bond with super-affiliates on their level. Having knowledge of SEO, PPC, HTML, and site building is a must for whomever is managing your affiliate program. Affiliate management is definitely more than just saying hi, sending a monthly newsletter, and emailing affiliates tracking links and banners. Hiring an affiliate management agency, like Experience Advertising, can really benefit your company for the following reasons:

• We have existing close relationships with 1000’s of super-affiliates
• We manage 10s of thousands of affiliates across multiple large networks
• We have advanced knowledge of SEO, PPC, HTML and site building
• We have over 10 years experience in the online marketing world
• We have the tools and techniques to get affiliate producing on a broad level
• Plus many other reasons…

When you consider hiring an affiliate program management agency you should be very careful, there are many companies that claim expertise but really do very little. Have a conversation with the company to determine their expertise and knowledge level in affiliate marketing. At Experience Advertising, we pride oursleves on working diligently to grow and manage affiliate programs to reach their ultimate protential. If you would like to speak to us or know our rates, please contact us through this website today.

Your daily spending limit is very important to set in your Yahoo Search Marketing account. You can set daily spending limits, the amount you want to spend each day, for your entire account and for each campaign (if you wish). You can estimate your monthly budget to be approximately 30 times your account’s daily spending limit. If you reach your daily spending limit, your ads may stop displaying for the rest of the day and you will be notified with an alert. Make sure your daily budget is an amount you are comfortable with. You can rack up a lot of clicks quickly if you don’t have this under control.
 
Account Limit vs. Campaign Limit - Although you can set your daily spending limit at both the campaign and account levels, the system generally won’t spend more than your account limit. So make sure your account limit is high enough to cover what you want to spend on all of your campaigns put together. 

Keep in mind that if you add keywords and campaigns, you may want to consider increasing your account daily spending limit, so that you can get the amount of clicks you want for each campaign. If you go over your daily spending limit, your ads may stop showing for the day.

Make sure to setup and manage your Yahoo Search Marketing account so that you don’t get killed with clicks and charges before you know what your ROI will be.
 
 How Much Should I Spend?
• There’s really no definitive answer. Like most advertisers, you may start by picking an amount you can afford and see how well it performs over time.
• Don’t spread yourself too thin—pick your most profitable products or services to start with, and focus your budget on them. Start small and expand as appropriate.
• It’s important to look at how often your clicks are turning into sales, and keep it in mind when adjusting your budget. This concept of calculating your return on investment (ROI) or cost per acquisition (CPA) takes a little bit of effort, but the work pays off when you’re spending wisely. If you need to hire a company to manage you Yahoo Search Marketing campaign, Google Adwords or MSN Adcenter, let us know and we can assist you today!