While more and more baby boomers are getting online, many marketers make the mistake of marketing to them like they are computer illiterate, or ignoring them altogether.
I'm in on the tail end of the baby boomer era - the first of the baby boomers are now over 50 (and you better not call us old!)
According to a recent article in MediaPost's Marketing Daily, ". . . when companies do target boomers, the marketing often misses the mark. Nearly one quarter of boomers say that they are insulted by advertising that's aimed at them."
The boomers today aren't gray haired "old people" and they resent being portrayed that way. We look younger, are healthier, and are more likely to be starting a whole new second lifestyle; one that marketers (affiliate marketers included) should pay attention to.
There's a great niche marketing lesson in all this: If you're doing affiliate marketing and concentrating on baby boomers, try to find products that will make life easier for a person - without portraying those products as "for old people."
One good example in the Media ... Read More →
Friday, September 29, 2006
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6:11 pm
Posted by
Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006
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11:19 am
Posted by
Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer
Pay Per Click advertising has been touted as the fastest way to get visitors to your site. And it is fast, but it can also be expensive if you do it wrong.
The first thing you need to do after you open a Google or Yahoo! Search Marketing account is to set up your tracking codes. These codes will help you determine how much of the traffic coming to your site is actually buying. You can usually find these scripts in the Account Set-Up areas - they're all ready to copy/paste into your transaction completion page.
The second thing I do is to see which keywords are performing the best. If there are some that are not performing, I do some keyword research.
Now, I know that there are programs like HitsLink and Indextools that will do this research for a small fee. But, I also know that in the control panel of my web site there is a place that lists the keywords that were used to find my site.
Don't be afraid to go into your web site's control panel! You need to get familiar with it because it is an easy way to track who is coming and going - and how they are finding you.
Anyway, I go into my stats section of the control panel and use the AWStats reports and find the... Read More →
Friday, September 22, 2006
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4:24 pm
Posted by
Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer
What's the first thing you do when you upload a new website? If you've read anything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the first thing you do is to submit your website to the search engines so people can find your site.
(Though that's controversial. Some people say if you submit to Google, it will actually take longer for them to index your site.)
However, did you know that you should also submit your blog to search engine directories? Just because you submit your website to the directories, doesn't mean your blog will be included in the indexing.
Read More →
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
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4:43 pm
Posted by
Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer
As an affiliate marketer, I thought it would be interesting to find out where people go when they are ready to buy online. I figured this information would give me a better idea of where to invest my advertising dollars.
Here are a few statistics I ran across:
According to a July 2006 comScore Media Metrix study, people searched (from home, work, and universities) most often using the following search engines:
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
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2:38 pm
Posted by
Mark Thompson
So you've created a great site that is going to earn you lots of money...if you can get traffic to it. What do you do to generate that traffic? A little bit of blogging? Write a few relevant articles and place your link in the resource box?
Maybe you do a bit of social bookmarking or submit your links to a number of good quality link directories. All of these are valid methods but why not take it one step further. Create your own social bookmarking site, article directory and you own link directory.
Software to create all of these sites is available for free and incredibly simple to set up. All three could be created in about 30 minutes. These won't be very effective immediately but in two or three months time, with a bit of care and a careful linking strategy, you could have three very useful traffic generation tools in your armory.
Read More →
Monday, September 18, 2006
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11:00 pm
Posted by
Anik Singal
I've been at CJU (Commission Junction University) all day today, but when I snuck out to briefly check my e-mail, I caught some very intriguiung news. (And no, I'm not going to talk about CJU - some other great bloggers have already done that!)
But the news I got almost knocked me off of my feet! Loren Baker from SearchEngineJournal announced on his blog today that he actually tested this Google service while it's in BETA...
I’ve tried (as a test) placing Google AdSense in Constant Contact powered emails and the ads were served and targeted almost perfectly.Yes, it seems that Google is letting select publishers give AdSense in email a try. Being an affiliate marketer through and through, I'm not sure how I feel about this. So far it looks like this service is only for Premium AdSense Publishers. But if it ever opens up to the rest of us, I can see some great potential for some of my small niche newsletters... Of course, the question remains: how will Google protect their advertisers from SPAM accusations, and how in the world are they going to handle the countless SPAM complaints? Since... Read More →
Thursday, September 14, 2006
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6:41 pm
Posted by
Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer
Ok, I admit, I want to make some sales for the Holidays. But I don't have a lot of time to set up a really fancy site. I thought I would test doing it the easy way and use GoldenCan's Datafeed option because datafeeds have been proven to increase affiliate sales.
Here's how a datafeed works:
* A merchant datafeed is a file with data about products.
* The file can include photos, diagrams, specs, descriptions, and prices.
* Each category of information is identified with a code - sometimes called a token.
* When you add these tokens to your web templates, the product information is inserted into your web page in the appropriate spot.
I decided to use GoldenCan because it is very simple. You just select the company you want to affiliate with. Then sign up for their program (through Shareasale, Linkshare, etc.) and they give you a simple line of code that you put on your site. You can even have several companies displayed on the same site if you want.
It's AMAZING to me that it works so well. It looks like I have an entire mall at that site. (If you use a company's individual Datafeed, there can be... Read More →
Friday, September 8, 2006
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11:18 am
Posted by
Anik Singal
So, I was dilly dallying around the internet today trying to help one of the students find some good affiliate programs for his list and so I thought "let me go to Clickbank.com" and see what's going on..."
BOOM!
It was like hitting a BRICK WALL - I looked at the URL bar again, then at the site, then at the URL again, then back at the site and then ran to the window to see if pigs were really flying?!
THEY MADE A DESIGN CHANGE ON THEIR SITE!!
Wow, they actually made changes, I'm proud of you ClickBank for finally coming around and showing that you are at least trying to keep up with the market now.
However, at the same time I have to say, I absolutely do not like your new site design one bit! You're a huge company (I know you are, I just know you are) - you can most definitely afford a much better design than this:
http://www.ClickBank.com
And, what's with this guy?
http://www.clickbank.com/promote_products.html
Need I say he looks goofy and I mean "dollar bills flying around" -
Thank you for making a change... Read More →
Thursday, September 7, 2006
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2:59 pm
Posted by
Ryan Hall, AC Forum Moderator
"I’ve been feeling a bit disturbed over the fact that some affiliate programs are asking you to have a web URL or domain name to sign up with them. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems a bit backwards? I want to be sure I can get into the program before I spend any money!"Think of it from the Merchants point of view. For one thing, requiring a domain name for affiliates to sign up weeds out the people who just go around signing up for every program out there, and not working on any. (I was guilty of this when I started). If a person has gone to the trouble of purchasing a domain name, then it is more likely that they go to the trouble to promote the program. Read More →
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
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2:21 pm
Posted by
Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer
Labor Day is over (for those in the U.S.) and the new holiday season is not far off. So, it's time to make sure that your affiliate business is up and running properly to take advantage of the upcoming busy season.
If you have a gift-related business, this will be even more important. Here are a few things you will want to make sure are working well.
Are your Auto Responder messages profitable? If you have had your auto responder messages set up for some time, it's time to review them. Perhaps you have come across new products to promote or higher ticket items that just never made it into the AR. Some people think that once you set up your AR messages you can forget about them, but that shouldn't be the case.
You should review them every now and then and put your most profitable messages at the front. While you still have the attention of the subscriber (and before they unsubscribe). It could pay handsomely to rearrange your AR's with the new products you have found.
Links – Are all of your links working? I was horrified to find out recently that one of my better paying promotions, set up in the AR, had a broken link. I had coded the ... Read More →
