The arrangement described above has been the standard in the affiliate industry for many years. However, in the same way that it is disrupting numerous other industries, Apple is starting to be disruptive in the affiliate space as well. This is because the only shopping cart you can purchase an Apple application (app) from is Apple’s iTunes store cart. As more companies choose to develop and market apps for iTunes rather than conventional software, they lose the ability to offer an affiliate program, as they would have in the past, and also lose the accompanying valuable conversion data that would be required for other online marketing channels such as display, PPC, retargeting etc, since Apple controls all of the iTunes platform performance data and cart. Not only does this affect the company itself, but it affects affiliates who would normally want to be in its program, as they lose that opportunity and are forced to try to be an affiliate of Apple directly, who would then pay the commission from their revenue share. However, Apple is extremely selective about its affiliates, leaving many who want a piece of the action out in the cold, some of whom were past affiliates on a different platform version of the product that is now an app. As a result, companies choosing to develop and sell apps through iTunes are potentially alienating past successful marketing channels for all of their products and foregoing valuable data for future efforts, often without realizing the full effects of this decision.

It’s important to remember that when you sell an app, you are really turning over your marketing program to Apple, even if it doesn’t make sense to do so. This will likely become a bigger and bigger issue as more companies choose to sell apps, and may even get big enough that Apple is pressured to somehow let app developers include some piece of their own tracking code in the transaction process to better measure their own marketing efforts or even pay on their own for these channels that drive customers to the iTunes store in the first place.  It will be interesting to see how this develops and if Apple is willing to share the marketing burden with its app developers as competition increases. If not, many productive software affiliates are going to feel the squeeze.

The root of this ROI problem is that many companies are confusing the ability to manage performance with the ability to predict results quantifiably in advance. While this is certainly the wrong way to approach ROI, it is understandable, as these companies are simply seeking to shift the burden of risk away from themselves or the company to vendors. However, this is an unfair abdication of responsibilities and is equivalent to asking a catalog printer to provide the ROI of a planned mass mailing, when that is not their role. In this case, the marketing manager needs to do their due diligence on the economics of a catalog mailing and the company doing the printing is responsible for making it the best it can be, not the success of the mailing.

The reality is that if a firm knew ROI in advance for each client and marketing initiative, they would be very rich and you would be begging to do business with them at pretty much any cost. Since no one can be sure of ROI without any results, they keys are to not to overspend on any channel at the outset before data comes in and to have the proper measurement tools in place to appropriately shift the resource allocation as data does emerge.  As a marketing manager, focus on asking your vendors to do what they do well and put right measurements system in place before spending a lot of money on any new initiative, rather than always trying to plan ahead for ROI. Otherwise you are asking other’s to take on responsibility that is really yours and are likely to miss a big opportunity by encouraging employees and vendors to do only what is safe.

It is often tricky for websites just starting out in the international domain game to find the most ideal strategy for them. Since .com is an international domain, it will likely continue to rank highly in search rankings if that is the strongest TLD, regardless of whether there is a country-specific search engine such as www.google.co.uk. For this reason, it is a good idea to use a flag dropdown if you suspect that visitors are landing on the .com site, when you would prefer them to be visiting their own country’s site. The different links should not just change the language,but should also redirect the visitor to the appropriate site (ie: Union Jack to .co.uk and German flag to .de, etc).

Because the .com site is often significantly stronger for US based companies, it will still likely show up higher in the rankings to a local site, even on international search engines such as google.co.uk. Over time, as the new www.example.co.uk domain gets stronger (with the addition of links pointing to it especially from other .co.uk sites, unique content, and site authority) it should begin to out rank the .com domain.

One of the downsides to using different country-specific domains is that each site operates as a stand-alone site, so the success of one will not affect the other. Each site needs to be built up on its own merits within each country’s web ecosystem. However, you will see that over time, ccTLD’s (or the most common TLD in the country such as .com for the US) generally pull more weight within their respective countries.

In terms of SEO content on these sites, it is always best to have unique content, but it is not necessarily required. Though the language differences are subtle between US English and UK English, the .co.uk content should be unique and original, and preferably written by a British English speaker.

One other thing to keep in mind when developing a site with an international domain is that Google factors speed and IP address location into their rankings. Therefore, in order to give it a boast, it is important to make sure that each of your country domains are hosted locally. For example, if example.co.uk is hosted in the UK, Google will recognize the UK IP address, giving this site more credibility. Additionally, having the servers located closer to the visitors will increase the site speed, which is becoming more important in search rankings and is good for users.

We have covered a lot of information in this article, so if you can only takeaway a few suggestions, here are our recommendations:

- Having a flag dropdown is a good idea, and it should direct visitors to specific country sites.

- Unique content on each site is not necessary, but highly recommended

- Country-specific domains should work to get links from other sites in that country

- Country-specific domains should be hosted  in their respective countries

1) Don’t Communicate to Affiliates with Customer Language
When an affiliate gets a newsletter talking about how they can take advantage of a big upcoming sale, they are often turned off as they are not the customer. Instead, the merchant should be explaining to them how to communicate the sale to their customers and why this sale will help them increase their performance, e.g.  “last year this sale was our best performing event for affiliates.”

2) Give Advance Notice
Your best affiliates don’t want to learn about a new product, initiative or offer from your website. Communicate the details to them in advance and give them time to prepare their own marketing. This also gives them the advantage with their customers of being “in the know.”

3) Build the Relationship
Get to know your affiliates, their website(s) and what drives their sales.  E-mail is easy, but if you find time to meet in person at industry events or talk on the phone you will develop  more productive relationships and get a much better response rate when you reach out to that the affiliates  with an offer or an idea that you would like them to promote.

4) Set Incentives and Objectives
People in sales respond to incentives. Having contests, sales goals and increased VIP commission levels are great ways to encourage your affiliates to focus on your program instead of others.  If you want an affiliate to focus their sales around a particular time period or product, give them an incentive around this behavior and you will see the results.

5) Develop a Sales Kit
If you want to really get the most out of your affiliates, think about giving them a “sales kit” around a specific promotion that has what they need to market to customers  as well as an associated incentive.  As an example, if Company A wants affiliates to be promoting their new widget, they should send affiliates an e-mail or newsletter in advance with the following:

- A customer promo for the widget

- New banners and creatives featuring the widget.

- New banners and creatives featuring the widget.

- Key selling points to use in the marketing of the widget.

- Sample marketing copy for the widget.

- A sales inventive based on the number of widgets sold.

By following these five steps, you will be giving your affiliates everything they need to be successful, and will in turn enhance the return on your affiliate program.

First things first: what are (not provided) results, and why do they matter? When looking in Google Analytics (GA) to see what keywords are driving organic search traffic to your site (you can do this by going to Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic), most sites are seeing (not provided) at the top of the list. This is a result of an October 2011 change by Google, which encrypted search queries for anyone logged into a Google account (Gmail, Google +, YouTube etc.) while performing a search. For example, if a logged in Google user searches for “striped shirts” in Google and your site shows up in the search listings, and the user clicks onto your site, this will show as (not provided) in your organic search traffic keyword list, rather than showing as “striped shirts”. If you have worked hard on your site’s SEO and want to really understand what types of keywords people are using to get to your site, this is a frustrating twist as it limits the ability to quantify results.

Another problem is that this change makes it difficult to differentiate between branded and non-branded search results. When looking at search traffic, it is important to differentiate between organic searches where the searcher was looking for your company (I.e. they searched for “Bob’s Shirt Company” – branded searches) and those searches that are subject-based and bringing new eyes to your company (I.e. searched “striped shirts” – non-branded searches) The increase of (not provided) results makes it harder to define the ratio of branded to non branded organic search traffic to your site. Whether you are doing SEO on your own or have hired an outside firm to help, this is a critical metric. Non-branded search traffic is often full of new visitors, whereas branded search traffic is usually comprised of visitors who already know about and were looking for your specific company. Successful SEO will drive non-branded search traffic to your site, while maintaining and building on branded search traffic.

So, what should you do about the (non-provided) search results? First, it is important to understand what is and is not impacted by this change. While a subsection of your analytics are affected by the change, the actual search traffic and organic search analytics are not.

So, now it is time to think statistically. Remember ‘sample sizes’ and ‘margins of error’ from statistics class? Same rules apply – removing the (not provided) results from keyword results still leaves us with a large, very statistically relevant sample to calculate branded vs. non-branded traffic with a relatively low margin of error. We’ll spare you the spreadsheet of calculations for the purposes of this article, but, put simply, if you remove (not provided) results from your initial branded vs. non-branded visitor and, where relevant, revenue numbers, you can find your branded: non-branded ratio. Extrapolate this ratio to the (not provided) results and then merge the two for a strong approximation of your total visitor and/or revenue splits.

While no one knows Google’s next move, all signs point toward an increasing number of (not provided) results in the future. Firefox recently announced that they are on track to use “secure search” as a default, and it would not be surprising to see others follow suit. It’s just one more moving part in the world of search analytics. Successful SEO will still be successful SEO; the key is to be armed with the knowledge, tactics, and analytics to address the ever-changing landscape of search engines and SEO.

We have put together a list of the top 10 ways that businesses can optimize their Pinterest account:

1. Setting Up Pinterest
- Even if you are not ready to get started with Pinterest, reserve your handle now!
- (http://pinterest.com/landing/)

2. Optimize Your Website
- Add the Pinterest Icon to your Homepage (http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/).
- Add Pins to Product Pages (http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/).
- Example: http://www.laylagrayce.com

3. Engage Other Users
- Follow other users (there is a high follow back rate).
- Repin other people’s Pins.
- Share Your Pins on Facebook & Twitter.
- Make some of your Boards open so other people can post to your page.
- Make customer favorite boards and repin from a particular customer or group of customers.
- Example: http://pinterest.com/wholefoods/

4. Promote Your Lifestyle
- Create lifestyle boards (goal is 9) including products & images from other companies
- Pin more than photos – quotes, videos, blogs etc.
- Create boards that cover a broad range of interests, rather than maintaining a single board devoted to one topic.
- Example: http://pinterest.com/renttherunway/

5. Market Your Products
- Pin images of your own products to your board
- Your business can have multiple boards
- Group products by theme, size, features etc.
- Use the area provided to describe your product and Incorporate keywords to optimize your Pinterest SEO
- Example: http://pinterest.com/gap/

6.  Lead Prospects to Your Website
- A feature allows you to add a Price Tag for any item you Pin, which lets you add a link pointing back to your website so viewers can learn more or purchase.
- When you add a Price Tag and link to your Site, the products are automatically added to Pinterests “Gifts” page where users can click on “Gifts” to find gift ideas grouped by price ($1-$20, $20-$50, etc.).
- Example: http://pinterest.com/etsy/home-sweet-home/

7. Hold a Contest
- One creative way to utilize Pinterest is to hold a contest by encouraging users to browse the website, create Pins of items they liked and the most creative and stylish entry wins.
- This kind of contest can engage your audience and also gets directs users to your site and requires them to browse your products and link to them.
- Possible prize ideas include a gift certificate to your Website or an Item that they Pinned.
- Example: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150517045950803

8. Use Pinterest as a Social Online Focus Group
- Test out new products or an upcoming ad campaign.
- Show “sneak peeks” of upcoming products.
- Example: http://pinterest.com/potterybarnkids/spring-2012-sneak-preview/

9. Create Gift Idea Boards
- Create specialized gift idea boards for individuals (ie: Gifts for Her, Gifts for Kids)
- Create gift idea boards for holidays (ie: Valentine’s Day, Christmas)
- Use a combination of your own products and products found elsewhere.
- Example: http://pinterest.com/LaylaGrayce/favorite-gifts-to-give/

10. Learn From Those Around You
- Browse Pinterest to see how other companies are using it. Industry leaders include: Rent the Runway, Bergdorf Goodman, Wholefoods,Mashable, The Travel Channel, HGTV, Oreck, Michael Kors, Gilt Home and  Kate Spade.

Tiny Prints’ affiliate marketing program achieved several key milestones in 2011, including more than 100 percent growth for the fourth consecutive year in a row; and 200 percent growth for its Storefronts program used by professional photographers, non-profits and local PTA’s. The program now has more than 6,000+ affiliates and is managed by a four-person team committed to exceptional one on one service.

We (the Acceleration Partners team) accepted the award on behalf of Tiny Prints, as we have worked closely with them on the design and management of the affiliate program since its launch in 2007. Winning this award is another example of how companies who take the time to carefully and actively manage the growth of their affiliate programs and develop meaningful, long lasting relationships with affiliates will receive both a higher return on investment and a more positive brand impact.  Congrats to all!

Considering that the average person visits a website landing page multiple times a day, we are surprised by how often we are asked, “what is a landing page?” The following overview is meant to help companies understand how they can use landing pages to optimize their websites.

In the simplest sense, a landing page is any page on a website that serves as the initial point of entry for a user to the website.  Some landing pages are core pages on the website and are in the navigation. However, there is another type of landing page, called a gateway page, which can be created just to attract users to the site and is not meant to be discovered through the primary navigation or by browsing on the site.

Landing pages offer an opportunity to develop specialized pages that feature the same products in different ways and allow you to tailor your products and services in the exact way that people search, hoping to have that page appear higher in a search result. There are essentially four types of landing pages that we refer to when architecting a site.

1. Category Pages (core landing page): A category page is part of the core navigation and can be found through the site hierarchy.  Category pages often serve as product overview pages that link out to an individual service, product or sku page.  See an Example.

2. Product Pages (core landing page): A product page is part of the core hierarchy and is often found clicking through from a category page.  A product page is the ultimate call to action page where you see sku or service details including price, color and dimensions.  On an e-commerce site, the product page is the place where one can add an item to a cart and check out, where as on a service-oriented site, it is the place for a lead generating form. See an Example.

3.Location Pages (gateway landing page): A location page can act as a gateway page for a person searching for a particular service in a specific location.  This type of landing page allows you to focus your core pages on a more general area, while tailoring each landing page to a very specific geographical location.  Location pages are often hid on the footer of the site or are linked out from other embedded pages.  See an Example.

4. Keyword Pages (gateway landing page): A keyword specific page can be created as a gateway page to target specific search words that rank highly in keyword research.  Since there are often many keywords that describe one product/service or a set of products/services, a keyword page allows you to drive targeted traffic to your site based on each specific search word.  See an Example.

By creating multiple types of category pages, product pages, location pages and keyword specific pages with custom meta titles, meta descriptions, URLs, page headers and custom content, a website is able to capture a wide variety of traffic from organic search, and have a better initial user experience for targeted PPC campaigns and email marketing.  By designing the site to direct traffic to specialized landing pages rather than to the homepage, websites will find an increased ROI and improved conversion rate. Wondering why? It is because the info on the page that the user sees will be most relevant to what they are specifically looking for and by this point they are further down the conversion funnel.

Knowing all of the above, you would be surprised at how often landing pages are underutilized when developing or improving a website.

Creating an effective landing page requires a fair amount of trial and error.  We encourage clients to be persistent and try different tactics with careful measurement until they find the strategy that best fits their individual business model.  The majority of landing pages are extremely easy to implement and test; it just requires very unique page content and attributes.  Once a template is generated, there is no limit to the number of pages that can be created so long as they are truly differentiated from one another. The extra time and work that it takes to improve and create landing pages, can often make the difference between a highly successful website and one that has a low conversion rate and underutilizes Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

While the award is for the “Exceptional Merchant,” the Tiny Prints affiliates in the program deserve much of the credit. Acceleration Partners has spent a lot of time with Tiny Prints making sure that the right affiliates are in the program and that the wrong affiliates are kept out. We are consistently impressed by the quality of our affiliates and their ability to both innovate and find new ways to promote our program. Without them, this nomination would certainly not have not been possible.

Being nominated for this award demonstrates that companies who take the time to carefully and actively manage the growth of their affiliate programs and develop meaningful, long lasting relationships with affiliates will receive both a higher return on investment and a more positive impact on their brand. To learn more about the Tiny Prints affiliate program, please visit http://www.acceleration-partners.com/affiliate-program-management/.

To see all of the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award nominees, please visit http://www.affiliatesummit.com/pinnacle-awards-finalists-at-affiliate-summit-west-2012/. You can also leave comments on the nominations at http://forum.affiliatesummit.com/topic/2167-pinnacle-awards-finalists-at-affiliate-summit-west-2012/.  Best of luck to all the nominees and we look forward to hearing about the winner at Affiliate Summit in January!

Principal Responsibilities:

• Serve as an associate on client projects working with a manager and director in a typical consulting model.
• Monitor, track, and report on paid search metrics, including trend analysis.
• Assist in keyword research and competitor analysis and provide support for search engine optimization recommendations.
• Provide support for social media optimization recommendations and implementation.
• Interact with Marketing Manager and clients to optimize copy and landing pages for Search Engine Marketing.
  Provide support for the team including setting up of new campaigns and QA creative

Job Requirements:

• BA or BS in business, marketing, communications or related subjects.
• You must be web savvy, both in the sense of being able to do research and knowing about many of the latest websites and tools. A demonstrated knowledge of the Internet, online trends, and the use of the Internet for social networking
• Experience with WordPress, blogging and social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter
• Knowledge of SEO practices, PPC campaigns and Google Analytics
• Strong communication skills, organizational skills, and attention to detail
• Must be a team player and self-starter with the ability to set and keep deadlines and commitments
• Experience with display advertising and affiliate marketing a plus
• Excellent writing and proofreading skills
• Proficient with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel (know how to do basic modeling, formulas) and Powerpoint
• Experience with new website launched and redesigns a plus

We are looking for an individual who thrives in an entrepreneurial environment that requires strategic thinking, outstanding analytical capabilities, creativity, and a desire to roll up your sleeves and get things done. The successful candidate will have at least 2-3 years of previous experience in online marketing or strategy roles. Although this is flexible work-from-home position, online and over-the-phone meetings are required and setting and adhering to deadlines is key. Hours and compensation will be discussed during the interview process.

To Be Considered

• Please send a detailed cover letter describing why you would be a good fit for the position in the body of your e-mail with a resume attached in MS Word format to Lindsay@acceleration-partners.com
• Please visit www.waxingpoetic.com or www.laylagrayce.com and tell us what you like about the site, what could use improving and one or two suggestions for how to improve it.
• Generic submissions and submissions that don’t follow this format will not be reviewed. Please keep in mind that we are looking for individuals who are thoughtful and stand out.