What Can You Learn From The Affiliate Marketing Leaders?

I was going to post about the what many affiliates (including myself) do wrong.

But I'm a naturally positive person, so here's what you can learn from industry's best. Basically this post could have the subtitle: "How to create a long-term, successful affiliate business".

So here we go:

1) Provide something useful

Whenever I'm thinking of a break away but don't have a particular destination in mind I pop over to James Avery's Flight Mapping site.

James started his site a good few years ago and at the time was the only one that offered an interactive flash map of airports, airlines and the routes that connected them.

I know James has had his ups and downs with the site with Google rankings having a negative effect on where his fantastic locks start. But it's still a great site.

Obviously I'm not even sure of it's profitability but I'm sure he's made a good amount from it.

So what can you learn from James?
If you have a novel way of bringing affiliate links to the market or can produce a site that actually adds value to the internet you'll find it a lot easier to create a long-term, profitable site.

2) Focus and build on your strengths but cover your backside

Kieron Donoghue has done very well out of focusing on PPC. He's tested many different market sectors and niche products with PPC and has extended the breadth and deepend his investment into the areas that have given him the best returns.

He's reinvested some of earnings in keyword sourcing tools and (I believe) competitor/merchant analysis with Hitwise (I could be wrong mate). But Kieron has also built up sites focused on obtaining natural search engine traffic and built brands around niche topics and marketed them accordingly (more on these two topics later).

So what can you learn from Kieron?
If you're good at PPC try stuff out, work out what works, increase your knowledge of this strategy but always keep a "Plan B" to fall back on if CPC providers change the rules.

3) Think branding

Jason Dale's (well his business's) Loquax site is a great example of how to create a brand. It takes some marketing to build a site that has 153,000 mentions in Google.

For the past 5 years Loquax has been in the top 100,000 sites according to Alexa (yes I know it has credability issues). But to build a site that is pretty much resistant to the fickleness of the search engines is a huge achievement.

So what can you learn from Jason?
You can learn about building a strong site that offers people what they want but is supported by a strong brand that is put in front of users at every opportunity. His marketing strategy has branding at it's core - this is where many affiliate fail.

4) Be Passionate

There are two affiliates that come to mind when it comes to being passionate (3 if you include me). The first is Paul Wheately.

When something pisses Paul off we all know about it. And 99.99% of the time he's got every reason to be. If it's spyware, merchants that put phone numbers on their site, networks that don't communicate or whatever, Paul is always there letting the culprits know.

So we've got Paul that is Passionate about the industry. But there's also passion about your niche. For this I go back to James Avery. At any Get2Gether that I attend (far fewer these days) we always have a good natter about the travel/airline industry. Basically what James doesn't know about the airline industry isn't worth knowing. He turns up to the majarity of press conferences and get's his face out there. P.s. James, I wish you had a blog!

What can you learn from Paul and James?

5) Communicate with your users

Clarke Duncan, has been around since the start and has honed his sites to reduce the reliance on the search engines by incorporating newsletter subscription as a central revenue generating element of his Free UK Offers site.

This is something I brought into my own business model far too late (due to a lack of technical knowledge).

His mailing lists are massive and can make any affiliate manager get a stiffy when they think of the potential eyeballs on their offering.

What can you learn from Clarke?
Don't think of a visitor as having a short life span. You can earn from a visitor for years. It's far cheaper to keep a user than getting a new one. Build in an email subscription option on your site and communicate with them properly.

6) Use technology wisely

Chris Young runs CompareStorePrices. It may not be the most visually appealling site on the internet but it does the most important thing - make money.

CSP's may have had it's ups and downs, but a useful site it is. One thing I hate about Kelkoo and PriceRunner is that products are improperly categorised and you often get a load of rubbish in there. CompareStorePrices gives you the right products for your searches - and that's all you want.

What Chris has done well at is harnessing technology to make a very useful site. Many affiliates use technology to polish their egos. They make clever little scripts that do all sorts of crap, but Chris has used technology wisely and hasn't let any ego get in the way of his business.

What can you learn from Chris?

Less is more, technology should be used to enhance the user experience and to get them to the righ merchant's checkout as quick as possible.

7) Think outside the box, think niche

What I like about Keith Budden is that he doesn't get caught up in the general shopping sites that are two to a dozen. He thinks ahead and thinks of the niche sites that people get attacted to and stick with. Sites like Charles and Camilla, was a great coup for Kieth and got a fair bit of press and his Find cheap petrol sites hit the mark big time, but for a short period.

Site's don't have to be like Jason's, James's or Clarke's to provide great revenue. A great approach (which I've certainly learned from) is to create sites that go with a bang, they earn very good revenue in a short period of time. If you hit the mark, you'll rake it in.

What can you learn from Keith?

Think ahead, take risks and build sites around future events or around topics that bring the nation together.

Who Were The Big Winners Last Christmas?

As affiliates we could probably name a few of the merchants we promote and say that they expect those merchants had a great Christmas based on the level of traffic we sent them.

For me I did a nice amount with Woolworth's (Affiliate Window) and HMV (Buy.at) (amongst others). But why do I mention these two merchants?

Well there's three reasons. The first is that both had "fulfillment issues". Woolworths apparently couldn't get the stuff in and out of their warehouses fast enough. And (for me) HMV had serious issues by apparently taking orders for the Wii Console - despite not having guarenteed supplies but continued for far too long letting us send traffic to them (at our own cost) without knowing they'll be able to fulfill those orders for quite some time.

The second is the recent analysis by Hitwise that HMV and Woolworths had bumper traffic the last festive period.

Heather Hopkins, reported that, when looking at the top 100 retailers that HMV and Woolworths had very significant increases in web traffic year on year with Woolworths up a very healthy 26% and HMV up a stonking 58%.

HMV set me an email asking how I was generating traffic as it was a bit "unusual" whilst Woolies obviously couldn't convert the traffic I was sending them into fulfilled orders.

But I wonder how many other affiliates were sending these retailers good levels of traffic and how much did affiliates contribute to that huge increase in traffic over the previous Christmas?


The third reason I mention these merchants is that there's no point hiring affiliates, SEO gurus (cough), PPC experts, media buyers and offline marketing guys if you balls the fulfillment up!

There's an interesting report in The Guardian entitled "Woolworths confirms fears over festive trading". The title gives it away but one paragraph hit me:

Mr Bish-Jones (Woolworth's Chief Executive) said today that underlying sales in the six weeks to January 13 had remained in negative territory, falling by 4.6%. This compares with the 6.5% decline reported before Christmas.

and,

But the real problems came in entertainment, where it has been hit not only by fierce competition from online rivals and the supermarkets, but also by falling prices and the lack of major new releases.

but then you get:

Multi-channel sales at the group rocked by 204%, boosted by the successful launch of its Argos-style Big Red Book catalogue. But the higher-than-expected demand from customers pushed up delivery costs as the group laid on extra deliveries to meet orders in time for Christmas.

So sales were down in the entertainment area of the business but massively up in the Big Red Book part of the business.

So what does this teach affiliates?

• Just because you're promoting a big brand it doesn't mean that you'll have a trouble-free time promoting them;
  
• If you're promoting a niche product then you have to be constantly on the ball, checking your emails and constantly contacting the merchant and network to get information about product avaliability;
  
• If you're promoting a very high demand item such as the Wii Console then start early; get your PPC costs down before the demand really kicks in; don't be greedy and chase the sales that you're not guarenteed to get; and finally, don't be afraid to complain and publicly voice your concerns about poor campaign management.

But affiliates aren't the only ones that need to learn lessons from last Christmas. Merchants need to think about the huge risks that affiliates are taking. As a merchant, if you've got some affiliates that are sending significant levels of traffic, keep them happy and make sure you know in advance when their products are likely to go out of stock.

Hopefully next Christmas we won't have fulfillment issues, poor campaign management and unpaid commissions - wishful thinking I know - perhaps I'll just wish for not getting suckered next time!

Useful sites:
Trading still 'difficult' at HMV - BBC News, UK - 10 Jan 2007
MD steps down at HMV as trading remains 'difficult' - Guardian Unlimited, UK - 11 Jan 2007
City Column - There's little music in the ears of HMV management - Retail Bulletin, UK - 25 Jan 2007
Has Woolworths passed its sell-by date? - Scotsman, UK - 17 Jan 2007
Woolworths disappoints again - Hemscott, UK - 17 Jan 2007

Page Similarity Checker - Useful Tool

For all of those with clients or wish to optimise their own sites, here's a useful tool that allows you to check on the similarity of of pages within your site (and external ones to check for copying).

If you've got over 90% then you'll need to get jiggy with it.

Over 50% then you've got a fair bit of work to do.

Over 30% try and take a look at your site-layout just to see if you can squeeze some extra juice out of it.

We all know that most sites are template-driven and it's hard to work on differentiation when you've got the same navigation on each page. But there's the answer look at, subject based navigation and "also relevant" links. Crumb trails are useful features to utilise which will allow you to streamline the impact of having sitewide navigation on each page.

Similar Page Checker Enter First URL Enter Second URL

Dissecting Affiliate Marketing

Ok - this is an attempt to sum up all the ways affiliates make money and my take on them.

1. PPC
   Pretty damn obvious what this is, but there are so many flavours of affiliate ppc'ing.
   
   a. First off you've got the traditional PPC'ing using landing pages on your site which you expect people to use fully. With this you have to make the offer and call to action extremely compelling to prevent users being distracted by your content. There are advantages of this form off PPC as search providers don't particularly like "Made For Adwords sites". But there is the advantage of allowing users a true alternative to the merchant or product you're offering.
   
   b. "Made for Adwords" Sites, I know a number of highly successful affiliates that do this they'll create landing pages that don't offer any other content than to get the user to click on the affiliate link. They're successful for now, but I see the SE's putting pressure on to make the site's more useful.
   
   c. "Mimic-sites". I've seen this recently with Virgin Atlantic on Affiliate Future where someone bought a domain similar to the virgin-atlantic.com one and copied the site and then ppc'd. I'm not sure how long it lasted, but I can't see it now. This is a risky approach as you pick a merchant that is hot on it's brand you could be in hot water.
   
   d. "Direct-to-merchant". This approach has variable results and 90% dependent on the products you choose to promote, 10% general merchant factors such as the buying process etc. It is crucial to talk to the merchant or network first to find out what is selling and jump on it ASAP.
   
   e. "Brand-bidding". Awe "brand bidding", many have made a nice mint out of it (I've made a few quid too), but it's slowly unravelling. Merchants are getting more clued up about it. It's always worth giving it a go when you're allowed, but don't be stupid. Be careful with your budget before you get too far out of pocket. Know who you're up against and get to know their tactics. Each affiliate competitor has their own approach and when you've got enough experience you'll know how to beat them.
   
   f. "Arbitrage". This is where you pay say 5p per click and hopefully earn multiples per click on your own site. I don't like these sites as they generally don't ad value to the user.
   
   
2. Respectable SEO
   
   This is my preferred route, there's so much to write about it that'll have to a full-length post to get my thoughts across.
   
   But the basics entail:
   
   a. Start off by working out if you want to create a site around a topic, product or merchant.
   
   b. Look ahead for what's going to be big in the next year, 2 years, 3 years etc and get building.
   
   c. Think about your hosting, 1&1 has it's hosting in Germany think about how this will affect your GEO-location in the search engines.
   
   d. Think about how you're going to create it. Do you need a CMS, will a Dreamweaver site do the job? Will you need a bespoke solution created for a price comparison site?
   
   e. How much competition is there?
   
   f. How much work will you have to put in?
   
   g. How much do you expect to earn per visitor? Will the site make money for a week, a month or for ever?
   
   etc. etc.
   
   
3. Community Sites
   
   a) Work out what software you'll need? Blogger, WordPress or Drupal.
   
   b) Can you really create "buzz" about your site?
   
   c) Do you have the features to create a community site?
   
   d) Do you really have what it takes to spend hours with no return for the first few months?
   
   e) Can you keep it going?
   
   I love these sites when they're done right, if not, they just end up being the belly-button fluff of the Internet.
   
   
4. Web Spam / Made for AdSense / Blog spam
   
   Ooh this used to be good for me. I used to earn shed loads knocking up thousands of pages a day and waiting a few days for the Google listings. Now I suppose its a case of "Poacher turned Game-keeper" as they really annoy me now. There are still way too many of these, create some good content and you'll be loved for ever! Well nearly!
   
   
5. Email Spam
   
   Will you bugger off now please! I've had my main Hotmail account for 10 years now and it's just bombarded with spam now that I've moved over to Gmail. But it does pay! There's a serious amount of cash to be made if you've got the data and the technology. If you can sleep at night knowing you're sending lonely, single men adverts for Viagra then good for you. Just leave it.
   
   
6. Spyware / adware / malware
   
   It's been many a year since I got vocal about affiliates fighting together against spyware. And today we've seen a massive improvement. But I do think we're due another audit on spyware and how/if merchants are working with those companies. Cue Fraser ...
   
   
7. Affiliate Referral
   
   This where you get loads of affiliates into your second tier and let them earn for you. This reminds me to get my backside in gear over my "affiliate marketing India" site. I've even got a kick-ass domain for South Africa for the World Cup and must get round to setting something up.

So the basics are:

• think months and years ahead,
• think about creating sites that you can easily manage,
• think about SEO from the outset,
• think about playing by the rules - there are advantages in it,
• think about listening to sucessful affiliates,
• think about creating an affiliate business built to last.

What I'm listening to: Fasten Seatbelts - Space

PPC for Link Building

It may be a novel concept, or perhaps I've been missing the boat for the past few years but ...

... i ran some ppc promoting the new england football shirt on my Euro 2008 site just to get a gauge of the CTR's of the ads and the effectiveness of the landing page.

And even though I realised that the ad's were fantastically effective and the landing page crap there was a side effect that I didn't really think of all that much and that's the next day when I looked at the Google Analytics stats and saw a absolutely stupendous increase in traffic.

At first I thought it was that my request to pause the ads didn't go through, then I thought Google had added loads of pages after I messed around with the templates, and then thought MSN or Yahoo! could be the culprit. Then I looked deeper ...

... there were loads of fora that picked up my ads and posted my site with comments saying the image of the new kit I had were fake.

What do I care, loads of extra traffic, loads of extra bookmarks and some nice cookies set.

Q: So what could any Noob learn from this?

A: Don't be afraid to think of PPC as a long term, brand-building tool as well as an instant commission method that most other think of it as.

And is the image fake? I dunno!

Christmas: It chuffing pays the bills

Well I've been out for a ruby with some mates and generally talked about work and women etc. However, the important issue that came to light is .... Christmas only comes around once a year and thank fook for that!

We all put too much pressure on each other buying presents and the expectations from your family and friends can be a bit too much.

But my take on it is that Christmas pays my bills, without having Christmas to work for this job would be a damn site less interesting.

I start planning Christmas SEO and PPC back in February / March of that year. I sit down and work out what domains I've got hanging around and which I could make something of. I also look at what products are coming out that year and try and match a decent domain to match. I do a lot of research and do buy a few too many domains for them - but I don't mind taking a risk with a couple of quid per domain and maybe spending a day setting up a basic site that I could do a bit of test ppc on.

If the product converts during that test then I'll go for it and spend a couple of days refining the PPC, design, really get to grips with the merchant and try and get some simple linking in done.

Perhaps I won't share my successes with you just yet, but I'll show a failure. A site like "Pink iPods" has shed loads of people looking for that product but far too few actually interested in buying. I thought about it, I've got some decent merchants on there, I've got Amazon which converts like a dream on my other sites but nowt much happened. After wasting a couple of hundred quid on ppc, I decided to pull the plug and see if any natural traffic comes along. Even with my "red ipod" site, it ranks chuffing well, but still very poor conversions.

Learnings:
It's all well picking products to build sites around and/or ppc. But at the end of the day it's all about conversions and how much each sale will earn you. Most electricals pay poor rates so unless you've got the rare ability to convert high searched on terms with relatively high costs into loads of sales - choose something less competitive and with decent commissions. Trust me those products exist!

What I'm listening to: Big Love, Fleetwood Mac