Display Advertisements Vs Performance Marketing

It's been a very busy two months in the learning phase of Google DFP and Dot-nuke CMS for me since my last blog post. Display advertisement learning add 360 degree curve to my online marketing knowledge base.  So far my online marketing journey has been getting through rigorous assignments from affiliate marketing, SEO, SEM, Social Media and Content Management to GUI design and now Display Adverting.  Bhavik (DSIJ SBU Head – Online Sales) has taught me basic of Google DFP and then on I have learns Double Click Ad Exchange and Google Ad Sense.

My abundant knowledge to affiliate marketing helps me a lot to learn display adverting gimmicks in a short time. Digital marketing knowledge helps me to optimized advert inventory and click through, CMS knowledge help me for better ad slot placement. In short I have managed to increase our display adverting revenue by 300% in two months only.  

Since couple of month I have received calls from few leading Indian merchant about Affiliate Marketing Management. Indian online market is really in nascent stage for affiliate business model. Marketing managers just concentrate on impression mechanism to show something on paper as performance proof.   Does display advertisement is the only choice to spend your dime; being aggressive marketer don’t you bother about conversion.  Where does performance marketing fit in your integrated marketing approach? Let’s have a look on following stats.

Reference to above stats, any one can easily interpret the paradigm shift in online advertising.  Then have you ever seriously think about performance marketing possibility for your business model.  Utter to my Surprise few of Indian merchants has started judging “performance business model” without understanding their own business life cycle just to meet with sales targets.
 
Indian eCommerce Industry badly need a kick start with affiliate marketing, someone need to put serious thoughts on it. So far only Manish Vij sense opportunities in this space by investing in DGM-India after Letsbuy sell out to Flipkart.  Last week my training workshop for India’s upcoming Jewellery & Diamond eCommerce portal for affiliate marketing given me an opportunity to dig this space once again and analyzed the KPI’s  for Indian continent. Stay tuned here on D-Hawk I’m going to publish few insights related to affiliate marketing business model (context to Indian eCommerce industry), Affiliate tracking software reviews & Affiliate marketing management strategy.

Affiliate Marketing Business Model

Affiliate Marketing Business Model life cycle can be breakdown into five stages like Introductory Stage, Early Growth Stage, Later Growth Stage, Maturity Stage and Decline Stage. Being affiliate program manager you should know what action needs to take to establish your affiliate brand which stands out from the crowd

Affiliate Program Pre launch Activity:

• Affiliate Program Website - SEO Optimized, functional and trusted online presence for your business partnership avenue.
• Affiliate program FAQ, product portfolio, affiliate signup procedure documentation.
• Affiliate Tracking Software – installed, tested and functional.
• Creative – Industry standard and brand Introductory content.
• Website Database Collection – 10, 000 web master contacts ready for email campaign.
• Build SERP’s around affiliate brand website – Affiliate directory submission, SEO, Forum Marketing

Affiliate Program Introductory Stage: 5 Months Plan

This stage is very crucial in terms of positioning affiliate program in the market, the characteristics and USP of affiliate brand need to be taken in consideration.

• Affiliate brand positioning through available communication channels
• Try to establish affiliate managers clean image through forums (ex. Jay Marsh + Hexpress, Dag Arbisa + Betsharks - My last two affiliate manager assignments)
• More and more affiliate recruitment through email campaign
• Support is very crucial in this stage, even do not ignore rejected email – thanks them for revert back
• Penetrate market with all possible online marketing tools and technique which is applicable and available for you
• Start Affiliate Newsletter

Affiliate Program Early Growth Stage: 4 Months Plan

Early growth phase is very important in terms of overall affiliate brand and program success; we have to fulfill lot of expectations. Expectation from market or niche, affiliate expectations, management expectation and more impotently our own expectation from our own brand.

• The Financial activity related to affiliate business been started in this phase and we need to act it on promptly
• In depth affiliate account management and analysis need to be done
• Dormant to active >> Active to Earners >> Earners to Supper Affiliate process has been adopted aggressively
• Advertising budget need to allot to support affiliate signups smoothly
• Quality affiliate recruitment on certain special commission structure

Affiliate Program Later Growth Stage: 8 Months Plan

• Affiliates special performance bonus excel relationship
• Try to arrange affiliate personal meet to enhance future activity
• Devise special commission structure for super affiliates
• Introduce entirely new creative and advertising materials
• Affiliates feedback need to be collected and act on improvement

Affiliate Program Maturity Stage: 12 Months Plan

• Increase the brand locality and prepare your affiliate mindset for tight commission revision plan and target sales
• Introduce new products or earning opportunity to your value partners
• Build strategic alliances with industry leaders and vertical niche
• Increase frequency of Newsletter, performance reports to push your affiliates
• Introduce new ideas for promotions and brand loyality
• Start preparing business plan for new affiliate life cycle

Affiliate Program Decline Stage: 3 Months Plan

• Prepare Action plan for new affiliate program launch
• Personally meet your super affiliates and convenience them to work with you in near future.
• Offer special value bonus to your super affiliates
• Announce close date of old program and give 30 days break to you affiliate business partners

My six month affiliate management journey

Well, it’s been quite a while since I have written regularly on my blog. I basically decided to stop writing on my blog since Feb, so I could put more attention on my job responsibility. But I am now in a position to start writing regularly again. Let me share with you what has been going on in my time off.

When our management was decided to put affiliate marketing responsibility on my young shoulder (the ex affiliate manager was left two month back and new executive was not from pure affiliation background), program showing an exact reverse trend in terms sales performances. An affiliate portfolio of monthly £ 100K continuously failed down up to £ 18k.

The enormous challenges like affiliate communication, affiliate financial, program updates, creative building and many more, standing in front of like a Goliath. The main challenge was how to integrate all the available resources in vertical way, to push them towards one common goal. The tracking system was performed in the worst way like reordering bug, content management and database management. Site manager was on their toes, the remaining half financial year will keep them really busy and under pressure to chase missed target due to Reductil ban and few other internal down falls. Being an affiliate marketing guy, I was more concern about my affiliates and their earnings.

The first step was taken by me, to release all pending payments of affiliate as soon as possible, them start to communication all super affiliate and understood the problem faced by them in course of last six month related to program. Mean time working with our developer and Affiliate pro guys on tracking software, and rebuild the system within 5 days. Then turn towards mass communication process. One of our site manager was against the transparency, i want to keep with my affiliate regarding tracking problem and payment issues, but i was very firm and focused. With our first official Newsletter, I was focused on the messed which was happed in past,on the same time I assured them on better performance, communication and support in near future

Mean time I was forced my team to work on fresh design for both interface as well as on creative s to made our program entirely new. Though our CEO want me to start recruiting new affiliate, I was decided to rejuvenate relationship with my old worriers and make them earners. This strategy gonna clicked and within short period of time we again picked up the business. That time I was decided to chase small small affiliates not for the big one. That strategy shows a very promising result as the number of earners increased day by day. Being an affiliate marketing guy i am always stress on statistics and figures. I was Force my team to collect each small small activities and report it in such a way that we can able to devise a strong strategy for near future.

Throughout this six months journey, I was learnt a lot in terms of how to handle affiliate relations and communication, working with top level management, working with technical and artistic staff and how to manage financial goals.

Guys it's time to remind my financial guys to work on pay date cause we are facing little trouble with wire transfer for USA and Indian affiliates, I need to stop story here, Will get back to you very soon with fresh topic "how to develop a communication loop with affiliates"

Affiliate marketing to boom in 2009

A new Econsultancy report has predicted that the UK affiliate marketing sector will generate over £4 billion of online retail sales this year.

Last year, the sector saw growth of 22 per cent to reach £3.82 billion, the Affiliate Marketing Buyer's Guide 2009 says.

Affiliate publishers and networks received an estimated £227 million in fees and commissions in 2008, with the industry's growth being attributed to the increase in demand for performance based marketing from advertisers.
Econsultancy suggests that the affiliate marketing sector accounted for almost ten per cent of all UK ecommerce sales last year.

This year will see the cost per acquisition model gain further ground within the online marketing sector, while voucher code and cashback websites will grow in popularity among consumers, the organisation predicts.

"Because it is rooted in performance, affiliate marketing is continuing to prosper as an industry and we believe the affiliate sector will remain at the forefront of ecommerce as it continues to drive a high proportion of online sales," states Linus Gregoriadis, research director at Econsultancy.

Research conducted by Econsultancy and Affiliate Window earlier this year found that one third of full time affiliates generate at least £50,000 of monthly sales for their merchants.

Less than a third of respondents to the survey said they thought the recession posed a threat to their marketing operations.

Affiliate Marketing: Choose your Right Niche

The internet is the most effective equalizer that’s ever been launched. When you want to start your own affiliate marketing online business or home based business. And the internet levels the playing field for all of those who want to make money online.

As an affiliate marketer on the internet you have the very same opportunity to pull traffic and earn money for each respective sale those who brought into program. Your presence in the business environment is not less than any business partner. In the internet marketing, the importance of Value chain is enormous, and Affiliate marketing is the back bone of Modern internet marketing field.

The effect of recession is playing their best; lot of people around world is losing their job, unemployment increases day by day. The last time when the recession was drag around the world (1999 -2003) Dot com segment is the major force behind the recession. The analyst and Marketing Pundit firmly state that in this recession period the internet marketing or dot com industry is doing well not just doing well but put forward all time best sales records.

The Affiliate marketing is best option in this recession period, you can earn good amount of beans from your home, the requirement is just you have to have one PC and Internet connection. Recently I come across a very good Affiliate Program which is the best of their niche, here is few highlights of Online Clinic Pharmacy Affiliate Program, Good conversion rate, Outstanding affiliate support, Transparent Tracking system, Monthly reliable Pay system, Recognized by Online marketing authority.

Here are broad benefits when you choosing your Online Pharmacy Affiliate Marketing Niche:

• Online Pharmacy is a niche that isn’t too big or too small with a large customer base.
• Online Pharmacy is a niche with a potential customer base that is affluent enough to purchase related products and services.
• Online Pharmacy is a niche that ranks high in the number of search engine searches.
• Online Pharmacy is a niche is popular but not overly crowded with affiliate marketers.
  

Online Pharmacy affiliate marketing is a wide open opportunity for those who are willing to work at it. A great many affiliate marketers make a “way – better – than – okay” living from affiliate marketing.

Which Online Marketing Tactic Delivers Highest ROI?

A survey of over 1,200 Internet marketers conducted by MarketingSherpa and has found that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising tops the list when it comes to return on investment (ROI). Around 51 percent of marketers surveyed said paid search delivered a ‘great’ ROI.

Survey respondents voted email marketing as next best effective, with 44 percent describing email as having a great ROI. This was followed by search engine optimization (SEO) with 39 percent of marketers deeming it to have a great ROI.

Here’s the list of how those surveyed viewed a range of online marketing tactics:

• PPC - 51 percent said it delivered a great ROI, 8 percent said it delivered a poor ROI.
• Email marketing - 44 percent said great, 16 percent said poor
• SEO - 39 percent said great, 15 percent said poor
• Behavioral targeting - 32 percent said great, 18 percent said poor
• Affiliate marketing - 31 percent said great, 28 percent said poor
• Contextual targeting - 26 percent said great, 16 percent said poor
• Rich media ads - 23 percent said great, 27 percent said poor
• Contextual text ads - 32 percent said great, 17 percent said poor
• Banner ads - 13 percent said great, 34 percent said poor
• Emails to third party (rented) lists - 12 percent said great, 49 percent said poor
• Popups, pop-under - 9 percent said great, 67 percent said poor

MarketingSherpa also examined how much marketers spent on each tactic. Interestingly, they found that quite a few tactics rated as poor still attracted substantial funding. Marketers spent significantly more on banner advertising than email marketing… yet email marketing ranks significantly higher in terms of ROI. It will be interesting to see how this chart looks next year if, as many expect, marketers focus much more on measurable / direct response oriented online marketing tactics.

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3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Need To Survive Online

Every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful market that gives the biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually, it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication.

There are tactics that have worked before with online marketing and is continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

What are these three tactics?

1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do to those who buys them. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to try and read more, even contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so it they simply cannot be missed. Try to create auto responder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect.

Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product they thought they want later and will find out that the sale is closed. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.

Focus on important points like how your product can make life and things easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word “free” because there are still older spam filters that dumps those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that are focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest.

Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day.

Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day that means you can made 10 sales based on the average statistic.

The tactics given above does not really sound very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part.

Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end maintaining a good source of income and surviving in this business that not all marketers can do.

The Return on Investment for Online Marketing: PPC or Affiliate ?

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Which gives the best return on your investment - Pay per Click advertising, or building strong affiliate partnerships?

Our in house affiliate Program, which is the best of niche industry. When we discuss about how PPC campaign effect total affiliate marketing as well as the promotion of our websites. The cost incurred for PPC is really worth For ROI or the affiliate marketing itself is better option for our online pharmacy business.

Building and maintaining strong PPC campaigns is becoming increasingly difficult in what has become a very competitive marketplace.

At the same time, many companies report poor performance with their affiliate programs. The question we asked ourselves is this:

If companies invest sufficient time and effort to develop strong affiliate programs, can affiliates deliver a better ROI than PPC advertising?

Instead we are suggesting that a strong affiliate program can deliver additional revenues with a very favorable ROI. Also, with skilled affiliates working on your behalf, and with some of them using PPC advertising them; you can extend the reach of your total PPC exposure, and reduce your PPC costs.

That is to say, many affiliates will be running their own PPC campaigns to attract the same traffic you have been fighting for yourself. They will then refer the most qualified of those visitors to your site, in the hope of achieving a sale and earning a commission.

One approach to take when searching for top affiliates is to look for good content-driven sites. Many top affiliates have websites that are content-centered, instead of ad-centered. These affiliates will attract traffic and qualify it through their website and content before sending it on to you.

In the beginning, some of these site owners may be skeptical about becoming an affiliate. They may fear alienating some of their visitors, or may be suspicious of the payout terms or their ability to make a profit.

One way to approach these kinds of owners is to buy advertising on their site. If the results are positive for you, approach them about becoming an affiliate and be candid about your stats. You want them to know exactly what they are signing up for.

The objective is to partner with happy affiliates. Someone who is satisfied with the program and your company is going to send you much more traffic, and put more thought into their own campaigns, than someone who feels they have been misled.

Pay per Click campaigns can still be a strong channel for many online marketers. As with any channel, the higher the level of your expertise in this area, the better your results will be.

If you plan to implement or improve an affiliate program to increase the overall ROI of your marketing efforts, keep in mind that many affiliate programs fail. And they fail because companies do not invest enough time and resources in research and program management.
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Online Marketing : Traffic Gimmiks

Online marketing is simply a means to boost traffic to your site. There are a myriad of ways that this can be accomplished, and most of them are relatively easy to do. The downside is that you may have to spend some time working on your site, and you may have to sink some money into your site before you see any dividends. However, if you have the patience, it’s not like you’ll have to invest thousands of dollars, and the rewards of online marketing are potentially well worth the initial investment.

The Importance of Links:
Most of the search engines use links as a way to rank your site. It’s in your best interest to use reciprocal links, which will help search engines find and index your site.

Submission:
No, the title wasn’t meant to sound dirty! One of the very first things you should do in order to have your site indexed is to submit your site to the major search engines. Really, only Google, Yahoo and MSN are important. Once your site is indexed within these vaunted search engines, the smaller ones will find you. Don’t get sucked in to fancy advertising campaigns that promise to submit your site to hundreds of search engines for a fee. The process is easy, and can be done by you for free.

Article Directories:
Article directories are a great tool for online marketers. Previously it was mentioned that links are a great tool, and by inserting your link into your articles, you also build more links to your site. You can write your own articles for submission, or hire a professional writer to write them for you. If you’re not that great of a writer, you might consider hiring a ghostwriter. It may cost you a few bucks, but it’s better than having articles floating around with your name on it, that are riddled with typo’s.

Keywords and Content:
Your site should be interesting and well written. On top of that, you need to do some research into keywords. Search engines use keywords to rank your site, so you better know what the best ones are! However, don’t have too many keywords, or you’re likely to drive your visitors away. Try to incorporate your keywords seamlessly, so that your visitors aren’t even aware that they’re there.

Forums:
Online forums are a great way to encourage customer interaction. If you participate in the discussion, you can also build your reputation as an expert in your field. You can also cash in on the opportunity to constantly upgrade your site with new material. The forum can give you some great ideas when you’re trying to come up with new content, and every time someone comments in the forum, you essentially get new content.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to excel at online marketing. Patience, perseverance and motivation are online marketers best tools. Learn the basics, and watch as your web site takes off.
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It's a New Day, It's a New Start, Affiliate Marketing Challenges & Opportunites

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Yesterday we were celebrate small get together office staff and our head office member who was in Pune for routine visit. It' was a Wednesday, not a really weekend type of party, we were gather at our company guest house and made our own food, the usual stuffs (Tonic,Diet) & also including entertainment stuffs like Antakshri and Dumsheraj (which is very common in india) even we was discuss a lot about our daily work and how we market it with our targeted audiences, the healthy discussion with boss about new challenges and opportunities face by online pharmacy.

Which was a really brainstorming activity for us at that time, even boss was not in the mood to discus about routine work, when we are in party, somehow we touch the affiliate marketing challenges we face with our product portfolio. Online pharmacy has relied on affiliate marketing as a key selling strategy for nearly as long as e-commerce itself has existed. But the relationship between marketers and their publisher partners has become more complex during the process and targets.

Parasite Marketing, CAN-SPAM, keyword competition, and growing concerns about fraud, does affiliate marketing still make sense as an investment for merchants?

One way that marketers have responded to changes in the industry is by pairing down the size of their affiliate networks -- giving them more direct control over their publishing partners and how their brand is managed.

That helps to cut down on a potentially unmanageable number of partners, brand-damaging activity by rampant affiliates, and cases of fraud. And in some cases, it can actually improve the return on investment from affiliate marketing.

Very fewer affiliates means that a merchant can keep a close eye on how sites handle their brand, while spending more time helping them to boost sales -- which can have a positive effect for both publisher and advertiser.

Affiliates can do a lot of things that can't normally be done by merchant, we’ve seen search become really important for our clients. E-mail was a big factor in delivering volume for affiliate programs. Search has taken up where e-mail has left off, and affiliates doing search arbitrage are delivering the volume that e-mail used to deliver.

We almost finish with our long discussion, someone call us for participating in Antakshri and first song repetitively buzzes on my mind which was….. Here I am .......It's a new day, its new start........
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