Archive for January, 2006
Search Advertising Takes Away Top Spot From Email Marketing
Posted by Anik Singal in Affiliate Marketing, E-mail Marketing, PPC Monday, 23 January 2006 17:03 2 Comments
Well, it’s happening! More marketers are starting to focus on search engines rather than on e-mail marketing. Is SPAM just becoming too big of a problem? Are e-mails just not being read? Are consumers tired of all the ads in their inbox?Who knows, but if hundreds of companies are switching, there is obviously a reason.
By the way, these are “big companies” that spend millions on research and marketing – so you watching them and duplicating them is probably a GOOD IDEA!!
There is a great new report out by MarketingSherpa.com – Click here to read it…
Here is the summary they posted:
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What are some of the world’s heaviest Net marketers planning for 2006?
Discover the answer in MarketingSherpa’s third annual ad:tech study. We quizzed 680 marketers who spend an average of 44% of their total ad and marketing budgets on the Web. Key results:
o Search takes the top spot from email
o Search averages 34% of online budgets
o Behavioral ads have lost some of their luster
o RSS feeds and in-house blogs are favorite �emerging tactics�
See details and six handy charts below…
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Does Your Merchant’s Site Make Visitors Want To Buy?
Posted by Helen Montgomery, AC Magazine in Affiliate Classroom Magazine, Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Programs Monday, 23 January 2006 11:23 No Comments
Usability, usability, usability. Yes, we know we harp on it in the Affiliate Classroom training center (our private members area). And we admit that ugly web sites can and do sell.
But more and more research studies are proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that good old fashioned user-friendly web design still rules. According to a report at Clickz.com, web analytics firm Questus has released a study that shows visitors are more likely to make a purchase at sites with understandable navigation, good product descriptions, and a checkout process that inspires confidence.
Another reason to learn about good usability? To help you judge whether a merchant is doing a good job of selling once you get them a clickthrough. Merchants who don’t respect usability won’t close many sales – which makes them not worth promoting.
Check out the full article here.
January 2006 Magazine Issue!
Posted by Anik Singal in Affiliate Classroom Magazine, Affiliate Marketing Friday, 20 January 2006 17:26 2 Comments
It’s that time of the month again, the January 2006 Affiliate Classroom magazine is out and ready for you to download at absolutely NO cost.
Download Now!
Also, we announce the winner of the Affiliate Marketing Product of 2005!
Here are some of the others topics discussed:
- Top 6 Affiliate Resolutions in 2006
- Getting Inside the Mind of Internet Users
- Why the BEST SEO Advice does not cost a thing
- AC’s review of the Affiliate Summit
Also, to answer your letters, we talk about how to make your blog postings more efficient…
Microsoft is sneaking around affiliate marketing…
Posted by Anik Singal in Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Programs Friday, 20 January 2006 14:48 1 Comment
Linda Buquet beat me to reporting this, but I have been itching to talk about it since the Summit. For a bit I was debating whether I should be talking about it or not, but now I just said “what the heck…”
At the Summit, we had a very interesting guest at our booth – Mr. Sampathkumaran (Aravind Sampathkumaran – Product Manager for MSN Search). He and I had a great conversation for quite some time about affiliate marketing in general.
More interestingly, we spoke about why “he” was there at the summit and what MSN was up to. He revealed that he was there researching how affiliate marketing works, how affiliates want to get paid, how much they want to get paid – and more specifically what Microsoft can do to make THEIR program the most exciting.
Apparently Microsoft is looking to launch an affiliate program for MSN Shopping – can we see competition to Amazon?
Anyways, something to keep in the back of your mind.
Yahoo! takes on Blogger…
Posted by Anik Singal in Affiliate Marketing, Blog Marketing Thursday, 19 January 2006 15:23 No Comments
This month (January) magazine issue is (in my opinion) amazing – Helen Montgomery (the Cheif Editor) has really out-done herself this time. The magazine should be out any day now, so look for it.
Just to give you a feeling on what we’ll be discussing, there is a HUGE segment dedicated to spying on Yahoo and how their business model is changing (and maybe even becoming more affiliate marketing friendly).
To “tease” on what’s to come in a day or two – here is just an excerpt from the main article called “eYe on Yahoo!”
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Like that venerable old stand-by Blogger.com, Yahoo!360� allows users to create their own blogs. But that�s where the resemblance ends. Yahoo!360� has clearly learned from the popularity of the infinitely flexible WordPress and the innovative hosted application TypePad.
While Yahoo!360��s blogging features are primitive in some respects – like Blogger it doesn�t support categories – marketers should keep a close eye on it for its innovations in connectivity and collaboration. One of the smartest – and potentially most powerful – moves made by Yahoo!360� is the ability to hook your blog into the community of Yahoo! Messenger users. With one simple setting, you can allow anyone who views your Yahoo!360� blog to send you an instant message. That means with one click, marketers can build instant trust with blog readers/potential customers.
What�s even more exciting – though also open to potential abuse – is the Yahoo!360� mailbox. Users can specify whether they want to receive messages from everyone in Yahoo!360�, everyone they�re connected to, or only people in specific categories.
It�s obvious that users who leave their Yahoo!360� mailbox settings as open as possible are bound to be inundated with spam. But it�s also obvious that this feature opens the door to developing targeted niche communities who can communicate via email without the need for autoresponders – and without exposing their non-Yahoo! email addresses.
Yahoo!360� has also developed one of the simplest and fastest blog interfaces. Posts are instantaneous. Wondering whether your Yahoo! 360� RSS feed will get distributed across the Yahoo! networks? Or how to ping your Yahoo360� blog? To get the latest, dig into Yahoo!�s RSS Publisher FAQ at http://publisher.Yahoo.com/help.php.
And if you�re tired of being tied to your PC, Yahoo!360� also supports Moblogging – sending photos and posts to your blog from your mobile phone. Photo sharing and filtering (selecting which groups can see content) are also easy to enable.
The upshot for affiliates? Now�s the time to start business blogging on Yahoo!360� – while the service is young, the good URLs are still available,
and you have the opportunity to let your blog mature naturally within the Yahoo! index. Check it out at http://360.yahoo.com .
