Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare talk to Legacy Learning Affiliate Program Manager Matt McWilliams about how affiliates can best promote the Legacy family of products. In this Affiliate ABCs Merchant Spotlight, we talk about the various ways the Legacy Learning programs can be promoted, the creatives available and target audiences you might not know about or think of. We had some technical difficulties at the end, so it actually ends rather abruptly.
Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards “Affiliate Manager of the Year” Matt McWilliams joins Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare discuss how are some ways that affiliates can maximize their communication with their affiliate program managers. A lot of affiliates are shy and hesitate to talk to affiliate managers and outsourced program managers because they “aren’t big enough” or they are afraid they are interrupting the manager. In truth, lots of affiliate managers are very glad to hear from affiliates and would love to give them advise and tips about how to promote their programs.
Some highlights:
*Find out if your merchant has a dedicated affiliate manager or an OPM (Outsourced Program Manager)
*Be sure the affiliate manager/OPM is available whichever way is best for you. Good ones will be available via, phone, email, IM and forums.
*Don’t be afraid to ask for creatives, advise, tips
*If you are promoting them successfully, ask for a commission increase. If you are a promoting a competitor successfully, show them and ask for a commission increase to change some of those links for the new program.
*Advantages of using instant messaging: can drop links to each other, instant feedback for both manager and affiliate
Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards “Affiliate Manager of the Year” Matt McWilliams joins Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare to talk about what affiliates should look for when evaluating a merchant to promote. One of the toughest decisions an affiliate has to make is which merchants to give the real estate on their website to. Matt, Deborah and Vinny have a candid discussion about what to look for to be sure a merchant is worth promoting and is worth “above the fold” attention (or not).
Some highlights:
*Find merchants in the networks you belong to and search by category or keywords
Take a look at the merchant from the Consumer perspective::
*First impression – would you shop there?
*Do they have “leaks” (banners to other sites, adsense, send shoppers away)?
*If there are links to other sites, do they actually track back to the affiliate program? Some merchants cross track with others.
*Easy to navigate? FAQ? Shipping information? Contact information, About Us, Whois Information matches the site About Us information?
*What is the shopping process like? Is it easy or are there roadblocks? Is there a prompt to call to complete the order? Is it secure?
Now look from the Affiliate perspective:
*Compare commissions, cookie duration, other program terms to other similar programs.
*Appropriate banners? Text links?
*Is it a site that you would promote with a datafeed? Do they have one? Is it well categorized? Is it available in 3rd party tools you may be working with?
*Send a note to the affiliate manager if there is something you would like created, see if they respond. Is there contact information?
*For Shareasale merchants: Are they on Auto Deposit?
*For any other network, what happens if the merchant’s balance with the network goes offline? Is there a way to check the merchants online/offline history?
Since so many bloggers are podcasting or are interested in podcasting, Deborah Carney and Daniel Clark decided to share how they record each of theirs. They talk about equipment, software and all things podcasty and geeky.
Blogging ABCs #5 is all about using social media to drive traffic to your blog. Host Deborah Carney is joined by Wendy Limauge who shares how she uses social media. Hopefully that will help give you ideas on how to get more traffic to your blog.
Merchant ABCs Episode #2 is a Case Study with Mom Entrepreneur Stephanie Elie, owner of LaLa Baby Boutique. Your host Deborah Carney talks to Stephanie about taking her existing online store to the next level with an affiliate program. We will be following Stephanie through the process and hope that other merchants will “learn as we go”.
LaLa Baby Boutique is an online baby and maternity boutique that caters to mom who aren’t afraid to maintain their sense of style when they become parents. You will find unique baby t-shirts, stylish diaper bags, flattering maternity t-shirts and more at LaLa Baby. We look for unique products that can’t be found out your local chain store.
Merchant ABCs is hosted by Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare of Team Loxly internet marketing. In this first episode they talk to merchants that are considering setting up an affiliate program and outline what merchants need to know before making the jump into creating an affiliate program.
Things we will be doing in future podcasts:
Case Studies
Merchant reviews
Covered in this podcast:
Setting up and starting an affiliate program.
Whether you should have an affiliate program.
What is an affiliate
Our podcasts focus on Retail, not ebooks or information products, or lead generation affiliate marketing
Something that people need
PMS – Solve a problem – Problem Make Solution
Set up your site to sell – affiliates won’t promote a site that isn’t already converting.
Get a consultant to optimize your site for conversions before you even think about about adding an affiliate program.
After your site is optimized to sell, decide if you want to have an inhouse or network affiliate tracking solution.
Affiliates get paid commission, networks get a commission and may have a monthly minimum.
Managing your program – networks don’t manage and recruit, they are just for tracking and payment. We don’t recommend adding the network services for management, they may not be in your best interests.
Some things to think about for your program Terms of Service
Network Vs Inhouse
Set up – Graphics, text links, other creatives
Affiliate Manager – Inhouse or Outsourced. Sales manager or PR person shouldn’t be the guy running the affiliate program. Outsourced Program Manager – OPM – company that manages multiple programs, short term or long term.
OPM – can find you good graphics people, help you decide on a network, introduce your program to appropriate affiliates – they are your shortcut to do things the right way.
Merchant – Affiliate – Network – OPM/Inhouse AM
Affiliate links to your site, the links track through the Network or your inhouse tracking – shopper goes to your site and completes purchase. Network takes the affiliate commission and their fee at the time of the purchase, but is invisible to the shopper.
Be sure to listen to this podcast too, to see how people who networked made a difference to their bottom line. Affiliate Summit was one piece of that puzzle…
A little more about Jim:
A graduate of The University of Akron with a BA in Public Relations and a minor in Sales & Marketing, Jim has spent time working for publicly traded firms and small businesses alike. Jim’s work and experience in the Internet marketing industry has branded him as a leading thinker and thought-leader in the community.
Affiliate ABCs episode 23 is another in our series of “Back in the Day” profiles of an internet and affliate marketing pioneer. Hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare are joined by Jim Kukral who started his journey online back in 1995. We talk about Jim’s transition from web designer to affiliate marketer to coach and consultant, with a lot of laughs along the way…
We dug up a couple of Jim’s first sites using the Wayback Machine: iQuit.com (which he eventually sold) AffiliateMakeover.com
We also talked about how we all got help with affiliate marketing along the way from ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing forum and how networking helps all of us.
A little more about Jim:
A graduate of The University of Akron with a BA in Public Relations and a minor in Sales & Marketing, Jim has spent time working for publicly traded firms and small businesses alike. Jim’s work and experience in the Internet marketing industry has branded him as a leading thinker and thought-leader in the community.
