Category Archives: Marketing

  • Ten Things Your Affiliate Manager Will Never Tell You

    May 5, 2010 | Affiliate Marketing, Marketing

    1. Our “Screening” of Your Affiliates Is Limited To Auto Approval
    There aren’t many cases where an active affiliate manager should set your program to automatically approve affiliates. Fraud is rampant and many affiliate applicants should be rejected from the outset, especially if you are trying to maintain brand standards. Also, having a lot of inactive affiliates may be good for the stats, but it’s not good for the program.

    2. When We Get a Chance to Market, We Market Ourselves
    At industry conferences, many affiliate managers are often found promoting their management services rather than their programs—even though such events offer a rare opportunity to meet and recruit affiliates. This should be a warning about priorities. The best managers are found by referrals from existing programs they’re managing.

    3. The Reason We Can Charge So Little Is That We Do Very Little
    Many companies and managers spread themselves too thin, taking on a lot of small accounts to meet a client’s limited budget. If you are paying less than $1,000 a month for management, you are likely getting a manager who’s inexperienced, spread thin, not very engaged and may be managing 10+ accounts. Maybe this person sends out a few emails each month and possibly a newsletter, in which case it is pretty profitable work for $1,000. Between four and five accounts is the maximum that anyone can manage well on a full time basis.

    4. Coupon and Incentive Sites Are Our Best Friends
    Coupon and incentive sites are often the steroids of affiliate programs as they can provide a short term boost that create long term issues. They have the ability to drive a large percentage of sales for your program, but also have the potential to be margin killers and can make the program less attractive to non coupon affiliates based on their behavior. Make sure that your affiliate manager is not too cozy with these sites and can hold the line for your terms and conditions if there is a violation.

    5. Our Industry Expertise Is Whatever Industry You Are In
    Relationships in the affiliate space tend to be specialized around industries. A manager who runs non-competing programs that target the same demographic will be in a much better position to find and recruit new affiliates who are a good fit for the program. Make sure to ask potential managers about their clients and contacts in your industry.

    6. When We Say Personalized Outreach & Communication, We Mean Mail Merge & Answering the Phone
    Everyone knows a plug-and-play form e-mail when they see one: “Dear X, it looks like your site, Y, is a great fit for our program,” and affiliates read right through this. Sincere personal outreach is far more effective, but also more time-consuming. Less than 1% of managers will put in this type of effort and tend to just wait for what comes to them. You should work with your manager to indentify affiliates who are a good fit for your program as they might not be from the traditional affiliate base. Research and one to one outreach is time intensive, but it works.

    7. You Will Be Lucky to Hear From Us Once a Month
    A good program can’t be run without frequent two-way communication. If someone says they can run the program without your involvement, that’s a bad sign.

    8. Our Background in Marketing Is Limited To Affiliate Marketing
    Affiliate marketing is just one piece of a company’s larger marketing plan and how it integrates with these efforts will have a large effect on its success. To sell affiliates on the program and help them market effectively, a manager needs a strong background in online marketing. If your manager’s knowledge of online marketing is limited to the affiliate space, his or her performance will be limited as well.

    9. There Is a Lot of Fraud in Affiliate Marketing
    Fraud monitoring is an integral part of effective affiliate management. The issue is that managers want to reach their sales goals, so there is a disincentive to police this carefully. A good manger will see the forest from the trees and make sure that you keep dishonest affiliates, trademark bidders and other offenders out of the program. They will also set up processes to proactively void fraudulent or returned sales.

    10. Our Past Clients Are Mostly Out of Business & We Often Get Fired
    You want to associate yourself with success and people who are successful over the long term. Many new online retailers come into online marketing with a lot of money to burn, no real business plan and a lack of focus on profitability. Good affiliate manages are interested in clients who are going to be in business for the long haul. Check out past clients and see if they are still around. Also, the average affiliate manager tenure is often less than a year. Ask firms or managers why they lost accounts or call a few clients who fired them and find out the reason for yourself. The references that people don’t give are sometimes the most relevant.

    Bonus

    11.  Our Last Big Hit Was a Long Time Ago
    What do venture capitalists, athletes, MC Hammer and many affiliate managers all have in common? The answer is that their reputation was based on a past success that has not been duplicated. This success may have also been during the bubble days of the internet for retailers when every site was growing their top line as fast as they could at the expense of profit, making for a rising tide that raised a lot of boats. Also beware of managers who tout a single blue-chip client because this client may claim the majority of their attention at the expense of other clients who feel underserviced. Focus on recent performance and client satisfaction

    To learn about top affiliate programs that we manage, check out our program overview pages for Tiny Prints, Blurb, Stella & Dot, One Kings Lane, Tea Collection, Layla Grayce and more.

  • What is Online Marketing Strategy?

    April 19, 2010 | Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

    You don’t start building a house by hiring a carpenter—you hire an architect. A marketing strategist is the architect for your website. It’s his or her job to figure out your needs and wants, translate those into workable plans and provide the proper oversight. Without this planning, what you get may not fit your needs or your budget.

    Many business owners and marketing managers unfortunately skip this critical step. They build a website without a clear mutual understanding of scope or priorities (think a house framed for a ranch when you wanted a colonial or framed out for 4,000 square feet when you wanted a 2,000 square foot home). Or they will start a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign without understanding the work being done. Too often, the result is not properly tied to business objectives (think kitchen on the second floor) and as a result the business owner and the vendor may have very different definitions of success or completion. This often leads to expensive mistakes and dissatisfaction. Acceleration Partners provides high level strategy and project management, bridging the gap between the business and the technical and design implementation teams.

    Learn More About How We Can Help

  • 15 Million Reasons B2B Search Optimization Pays Off

    March 9, 2010 | Client News, Search Engine Optimization

    Many owners and managers still don’t believe the Internet can be a valuable lead-generation and sales tool for their business-to-business company. Usually this is because they don’t currently get any leads this way, which may simply be because the company has little to no search presence. It seems obvious to say that you won’t get sales if you don’t have a visible web presence, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there looking for your company’s products or services. You have to meet your prospective customers where they are and many are online searching for products and services at all hours of the day. If all your sales today come via referrals today, it might mean that you are missing on an opportunity to double that business, not that no one is looking.

    Consider SPEC Engineering, a client of ours that builds specialty process engineering plants. In the past, the majority of its sales came through referrals and traditional sales efforts such as conferences and trade shows, which have a long lead cycle. Then the owner decided to let us help him apply search marketing principles from a new venture to his core business, changing the way the company generated leads at a time when many of its big competitors lacked even a fully functioning website.

    Working with web designers Fresh Tilled Soil (FTS), the company first developed a very professional looking and detailed website. We then worked with management to design and execute a strategy in partnership with the SEO group at FTS to get information out in front of searches around key products, product categories, services and geography. These searches might not have the volume of more popular consumer terms, but in many ways they are more important for prospective buyers. Our thorough plan required organizing and publishing more than 200 specialized pages of content designed to attract and convert targeted customers over a 6-12 month period. But the work paid off.

    Recently, SPEC closed a $15M deal (one of the largest in their history) that originated from an organic web search around a key term that we had been working to optimize. The client was searching for expertise in this area and was very impressed with the company’s overall web presentation, enough so that they reached out to start a discussion. SEO worked for SPEC because the strategy was designed around the needs of the business—targeting industries with the fastest growth and the company’s strongest product lines—and by thinking about what a prospective customer might want. SPEC is not an Internet business, but the Internet now plays a huge part in how it markets and presents its business to prospective customers.

    We continue to meet each month with management to review results and make changes based on what’s working and not working, trying to consistently innovate and expand our presence in fast growing and high value market segments. Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing commitment. As with any industry or marketing program, if you become complacent, the competition will eventually copy you and catch up.

  • Google Beer Goggles: Brand Premium for PPC?

    November 3, 2009 | Marketing

    Savvy marketers know the value of a brand. It’s the reason a bottle of Tide costs twice as much as generic detergent that works just as well. Companies receive a brand premium, not because they have shown that their product is better, rather it’s based on the belief and or perception that it’s better. But online advertising is different. Because you can clearly and quickly measure returns (unlike in the detergent example), Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising should be a completely performance-based product. Nevertheless, Google clearly commands a brand premium for its PPC services—and customers are paying up, even when they can see no clear return on their advertising investment. This does not make good business sense.

    What company would keep paying a PR firm or marketing consultant each month without seeing clear results? Savvy business owners should give their paid click business to any channel that produces a positive return on investment consistent with targeted margins. The “glam” factor that makes advertising worth more when it is associated with, for example, the Super Bowl, simply does not apply to pay per click advertising, companies buy search traffic because they have something that they want to sell to you today.

    Consider the case of an affiliate website I work with which receives a lot of traffic around a key product, which we will call “widgets.” The site organically ranks in the top five on Google for a variety of terms related to widgets. When users come to the site, they read about the widgets and get links to buy widgets from retailers. It’s extremely targeted. You would think widget retailers would want to enter into PPC relationships with such a website, but they’re more likely to insist on a performance-based or affiliate relationship and even balk at paying a cost per click that is 50% less than Google. Companies continue to overlook the advantages of these smaller websites on a pay per click basis even while forking over money to Google, simply because they see their competitors there. This is the kind of herd mentality that will never produce a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

    So why does Google get a free ride? I recently had a prospective client whose choices shed some light on the subject. The client was paying tens of thousands of dollars a month to test a PPC campaign with Google as part of a new online marketing program. We suggested that they also consider an affiliate marketing program, which would have an upfront cost of about a quarter of their monthly PPC spend. But they were resistant to the upfront cost. What they didn’t realize was that they were measuring the cost of the affiliate program against the cost of managing the PPC program—they weren’t even taking into account the huge costs associated with the Google program itself. What was fascinating was that the fiscal oversight was so much more lax on money going to Google than on money going to consultants—even though the money spent directly on PPC was not producing any tangible results and was about five to ten times higher. The fact that Google PPC was a service and not a person or a firm to be held accountable was clearly affecting the budgeting. From my perspective, money is money, and it should go to the channel that can show the best return on investment, whether that be a person, a firm, a service or a product.

    I am convinced that that if Google PPC were an individual or a consulting firm rather than a service, it would get fired much more often. The brand name is getting Google off the hook for all the wrong reasons.

    What You Can Do
    The bottom line is that companies need to get over the thrill of traffic volume, which PPC can provide, and start to measure real performance—in conversion to sales. It’s nice to be able to turn on the floodgates, but if your web visitors aren’t buying, it’s a temporary high. Before committing your online advertising dollars, do a careful analysis. You may find that better ROI can be achieved through channels with less competition, ones less susceptible to price manipulation and that have higher barriers to entry. Options include improving your organic search ranking, building an affiliate program (for retailers) and finding lesser-known sites that rank highly for content related to your key search terms. (You can do this though online tools such as SEM Rush, www.semrush.com.)

    You should know exactly what a click is worth based on the channel it comes from, so you can adjust your allocation and spending accordingly. Only then will you be able to take advantage of opportunities based on actual performance, rather than perceived value. Once you’re done, I suspect you might find it’s time to re-evaluate your business relationship with Google.

  • Affiliate Marketing FAQ’s for Beginners

    June 16, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing

    A lot of people ask the same questions when they are trying to learn about affiliate marketing, so I have tried to compile all of the answers here in one place.

    Q. What Is An Affiliate Program?

    A. An affiliate program is a system where your website posts a link to another website, and if a visitor to your website clicks on that link and then buys something you receive a commission. It is a great way to share in the revenue generated when you drive traffic to someone else’s site and works best when you have content that is relevant to the product being sold. For example, let’s say you have a site all about dogs, and you are an affiliate of Petco. Bob the dog owner comes to your site to do some research on a rare breed, and sees the link to Petco. Realizing that he could sure use some more dog food, he clicks on the link, goes to Petco.com, and buys $100 worth of dog food. Since you are the affiliate that sent Bob to Petco, you receive a commission of $10.

    Q. What Kinds of Companies Offer Affiliate Programs?

    A. There are literally thousands of companies with affiliate programs, ranging from big ones like Amazon.com and Best Buy to smaller niche retailers.

    Q. How is my affiliate account managed?

    A. The vast majority of affiliate programs are managed by a third party “network” such as ShareASale, Linkshare, Google Affiliate Network (formerly Performics) or Commission Junction. These networks will get you registered as an affiliate and then let you apply to individual programs. On the network site, you will have access to tools to add banners and links to your site with your tracking id. The network will also offer real time reporting and handle payments and tax forms. That way, if you earn commissions from 15 different vendors in a month, you won’t get 15 small checks. Instead, the network will consolidate all of your commissions into one payment. This system makes it much easier to track your income and adds an added layer of protection because you are paid out of an escrow account at the time of a sale so that the merchant cannot run out of money before you are paid.

    Q. Are there any start-up fees or other costs associated with joining an affiliate program?

    A. No. It is free to sign up, and free to add banners and links of your affiliates to your site. Web merchants are looking to gain traffic and sales– they are more than willing to not charge you anything AND pay a commission for your help.

    Q. Do I need any special qualifications to be an affiliate?

    A. Not as a rule. However, individual merchants do have the power to approve or turn down your affiliation application, and some are looking for specific qualities in their affiliates. Often, merchants will not approve sites that are sexually explicit, violent, violate international property laws, advocate discrimination, promote radical religious or political views, or advocate or promote any illegal activities. If you do not do any of things and are turned down, you may want to check with the merchant you are applying to to see what they are looking for.

    Q. Do I have to have a currently operating site to become an affiliate?

    A. No. You can usually register a site that is not live as an affiliate, as long as you own the domain name. Just make sure that you use an email address associated with the website-in-development, otherwise it will be very difficult for you to get past the affiliate fraud screening process.

    Q. How much are commissions?

    A. Commissions range largely based on the margins for that industry. 10% is probably the average, however, this can vary. Big ticket items like TVs may carry lower commissions, while high volume affiliates (those who refer a lot of customers and generate a lot of revenue) can get 15% or even 20% commissions. Check with your affiliate program to find out the specific commission available as well as their performance tiers.

    Q. How often will I get paid?

    A. Most networks will aggregate your commissions and then send you a check or make a direct deposit somewhere in the middle of the month for the previous month’s sales. If you enroll in direct deposit, you will generally receive your money a few days earlier than you would get a check in the mail.

    Q. What is a cookie?

    A. A cookie is a small piece of data that is transferred to a computer in order to mark it for a later transaction. Affiliate programs are based on cookies. The way they work is that when a user comes to your site and clicks on the link of a site you are affiliated with, a cookie is placed on that user’s computer. Then, even if they leave the site and come back a week later to make a purchase, you will get credit for the purchase and receive a commission. A merchant can make the duration of a cookie as long or as short as they want, depending on their needs and strategy. Some are a year long, other only a few days. Generally, smaller and more specialized vendors will have longer cookies, while big consumer companies like Wal-mart or Best Buy will have very short ones.

    Q. What is a product feed?

    A. A product feed is a system by which you are able to easily able to choose, manage and modify the products you offer on your site on behalf of a merchant you are affiliated with. Product feeds are only important for online stores and other sales sites– if your site just has a banner linking to a merchant, you do not have to worry about it.

    Q. What is an RSS feed?

    A. An RSS feed is a system that allows your site to be easily and automatically updated based on the banners, links and products you display.

    Q. What does EPC mean?

    A. EPC is an acronym for “earnings per hundred clicks.” Think of it as a way to measure one program against another. If a program has a $20 EPC, that means that for every 100 people you sent to their site, you should net $20 in commissions on average. This number takes into account the programs conversion rate, commission level, etc. Generally, a $20-$30 EPC is considered strong.

    Q. How much do I need to know about computers to become an affiliate?

    A. You or someone you work with should be familiar with HTML, so that you can copy and paste banners and links from merchants onto your site. If you are uncomfortable with technology, this is not an industry for you.

    Q. Do I have to live in the US to be an affiliate?

    A. No. The great thing about the internet is that it makes geography irrelevant

    Q. If I have multiple websites, do I need to create multiple affiliate accounts?

    A. Most affiliate programs and affiliate managers allow you to register multiple websites under one central account, allowing all your commissions to be aggregated. However, you should check with your individual affiliate programs and affiliate manager.

    Q. What is a sub-affiliate?

    A. A sub-affiliate is a website that you have recruited to become an affiliate of a merchant. Many affiliate programs offer rewards for bringing in sub-affiliates–either payments or increased commissions.

    Q. Do I have to have a website to be an affiliate?

    A. No. If you do not have a website, you can create special text links and either use those directly yourself to place orders on behalf of clients or you can e-mail the link to friends, family or customers.

    If you are looking for new programs to join, please check out our list of Affiliate Programs that we manage. We represent some of the fastest growing programs in the industry including Tiny Prints, Blurb, Stella & Dot, One Kings Lane, Tea Collection, Layla Grayce and more.

     

     

  • To NDA or not to NDA – The Relevance of Non Disclosure Agreements

    November 4, 2007 | Business Plans, Marketing

    In my career, I have probably read over 2000 business plans from entrepreneurs seeking their first round of investment capital. I tend to cringe (as do all venture investors) a little bit when folks ask me for an NDA simply to hear their idea. As a general rule, I believe the entrepreneurs who are taking this approach have been given bad advice and often tend to be putting too much focus on the idea itself. They are often hunkered down holding onto the belief that their idea is proprietary, when in reality, what will make them successful is their ability to execute on that idea. This has more to do with the team, key business relationships, intellectual property, etc. An NDA is really more appropriate if you are trying to protect specific information such as a trade secret, real financials (i.e. historical), etc. or to protect your core information as part of a formal relationship with a service provider. However, if you ask for an NDA just for someone to hear your pitch, you may create a negative first impression. Very few repeat or serial entrepreneurs will ever ask for an NDA as a prerequisite to hearing their idea, mostly because they know that their competitive advantage lies in their unique ability to execute.

    The advice I always give to entrepreneurs is to tell everyone what they are doing, because it can lead to important discoveries, new resources and/or learning about a well financed competitor who has a significant head start. I can promise that it’s better to know this information before making the decision to quit your day job. If you are starting a new business, resign yourself to the fact that someone has the same idea and instead focus your energy and resources on winning the execution game. As a prominent venture capitalist once said at a conference I attended “We don’t consider ideas proprietary, we consider execution proprietary.” Make sure that you focus your business on the “how we do” as much as the “what we do”.

  • The Top 10 Do’s & Don’ts of Affiliate Marketing

    October 29, 2007 | Affiliate Marketing, Marketing

    Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest growing segments of online commerce. Many people often ask me, what is affiliate marketing exactly? The easiest answer I can give is that it is the process by which online businesses give other websites access to tools and marketing collateral to sell products from their website on the company’s behalf. Just to get the terms right, an “affiliate” (i.e. Mike’s Tech Reviews) is a website that sells on behalf of a business, known as a “merchant” (i.e. Best Buy). These affiliates receive a performance (usually 5-10 percent) commission on each sale sent from their affiliate website to the merchant. These days it’s hard to find a major online store that does not have an affiliate program and now smaller companies are getting into the mix. Merchants love affiliate marketing because it creates an online sales force motivated by performance based commissions, effectively extending a merchant’s reach to a whole new client base. Websites with a lot of traffic or a targeted user base see affiliate marketing as a great way to convert visitors into revenue without having to carry products or fulfill orders.

    Sounds easy, right? Well, it’s not! This is not a “get rich quick” scheme as many are led to believe. There are many nuances throughout the industry (such as rampant fraud) that you should understand before you take the plunge. To help get your business started, I have created my Do’s and Don’ts list for retailers/merchants who are considering an affiliate marketing program.

    Affiliate Do’s

    Do Join an Affiliate Network
    For most top affiliates, it’s just too difficult to manage thousands of one-to-one relationships. The affiliates also worry about getting paid fairly and on time. Joining an affiliate network will give you credibility with top affiliates because the network acts as the escrow agent, providing consolidated reporting and payments to affiliates for multiple programs. They also take care of tax forms and complacence testing to ensure orders are being properly credited. The networks charge a set-up fee and then take a percentage of the commissions that merchants pay to the affiliates, typically 20-30%. You can certainly set up a direct program, but once you have even a handful of affiliates, administering these tasks yourself is just not worth the time or effort. The most popular affiliate networks are Shareasale.com, LinkShare, Commission Junction and Google Affiliate Network.

    Do Assign a Dedicated Manager to the Affiliate Channel
    Helping others effectively promote your business requires focus, attention and a deep understanding of the nuances of affiliate marketing. This marketing channel is very different from marketing directly to end consumers. It’s a great opportunity to reach new customers, but there are many pitfalls that can threaten a merchant’s selling potential. A dedicated affiliate marketing manager will serve a merchant’s business much the same way a franchiser helps franchisees to perform better. Most small companies find that it’s better to outsource their program to a firm that manages multiple programs simultaneously. It’s not a full-time job, but this ensures a dedicated focus and responsive service for your affiliates. More on this later.

    Do Attend an Affiliate Summit
    It’s a great way to meet a lot of interesting affiliates and merchants. Simply stated: this is where deals get done. Networking and personal relationships are important to success in affiliate marketing. Check out AffiliateSummit.com for more information on attending.

    Do Reward Your Affiliates With a Tiered Commission Structure
    The top performing affiliates will want a better commission level and the smart merchants will be set up to reward them with higher commission rates.

    Do Be Patient
    It can take up to six months to develop meaningful traction through your affiliate program, so don’t be discouraged if results don’t come right away. A lot of the legwork is upfront. However, the rewards come over a multi-year period. Over the long term, merchants should expect affiliate marketing to account for about 5-10 percent of overall sales volume. Keep that in mind if you are a merchant that is just starting to generate revenue, it could make the payback period even longer. However, once you have productive affiliates, they tend to remain that way for years.

    Affiliate Don’ts

    Don’t Automatically Assume Big Affiliate Networks Are Better
    Affiliate network sites such as LinkShare, Commission Junction and Google Affiliate Network are really suited to larger established merchants (Home Depot, Best Buy, et al). A smaller company (less than $10 million in sales) often becomes very frustrated by their upfront charges, minimum fees and lack of customer support to affiliates. Smaller networks such as Shareasale.com (my favorite), AvantLink and KowaBunga! are great alternatives when starting a new program on a limited budget.

    Don’t Get Screwed by Coupon Sites
    As mentioned above, there is rampant fraud in affiliate marketing. While some affiliate coupon sites can help create new buyers for merchants, many just take advantage of their natural search engine positions to attract buyers who are already committed customers – even at the point of a sale. They may also bid against you in paid search ads (using clever tricks to make these ads go undetected) and drive up your own marketing costs.

    Don’t Assume All Sales Are Good Sales
    At Acceleration Partners, we have learned through experience how to identify fraudulent behavior and we carefully monitor our client’s programs to catch bad behavior early on in the relationship with the affiliate. A good “terms and conditions” policy is a critical first step in combating fraud. It also helps to know which affiliate sites are reputable and which ones you should avoid. Outsourced firms who have this knowledge base can save merchants time and aggravation down the road.

    Don’t Focus on Quantity of Affiliates
    This market exemplifies the 80/20 rule. Most merchant sales will only come from a handful of good affiliates. Don’t get excited about hundreds of websites joining your program, because over half will never send you any leads. Many of the less sophisticated affiliates will actually just waste time and resources. Focus on the big fish. An affiliate who doesn’t start producing traffic within the first few months will likely never become productive. Time should be focused around making good affiliates better and this will drive a large portion of the merchant’s growth. Also, proactive outreach to a targeted affiliate audience is important, because some of the best potential affiliates may never find you.

    Don’t Make Unnecessary Mistakes
    Consult with someone who has experience setting-up an affiliate program before you launch. There are many repeatable best practices and avoidable pitfalls. Experience with the mechanics of the marketplace can matter more than experience in your specific industry.

    If you have any questions or would like to learn more about our affiliate marketing or performance marketing services, please visit see our current Affiliate Programs Under Management. We represent some of the fastest growing programs in the industry.