Another year is upon us and its imperative that as an affiliate marketer we stay abreast of the most current trends in the ever changing world of affiliate marketing. A key online trend to look for would be the evolution of the world wide web from structured web pages to desktop applications such as Google Desktop. Adobe Air allows you to create software applications on your desktop without using a browser. Increasingly we are seeing less of a reliance on web browsers for accessing web content. Along the same lines content is being interspersed in multiple places whereas in the past you were restricted to trying to get users to land on a page for accessing content. You can now distribute content in the form of RSS feeds, widgets, etc. Feedburner, a news feed management provider, is getting attention. What this does is provide custom RSS Feed and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-content publishers. Affiliates looking to get ahead of the curve should focus on building up their brand.

Todays interactive web community needs more than affiliate links or ads simply stuck on a page to hold their attention. Looking for new ways to draw attention to your affiliate program is a good way of captivating your audience. You could for instance start your own blog. Also, actively research your the products you are marketing in order to come up with new ideas for drawing attention to your affiliate program. Don’t discount social networking sites either. Success may lie in embracing a community oriented approach to the web that goes beyond the one dimensional approach to affiliate marketing that has been used in the past. Just some ideas. Here’s to looking forward and embracing the future. Its a new year and its wise to embrace innovative and exciting new approaches to distributing content for your affiliate marketing program.

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The Internet has become increasingly interactive and community oriented. Perhaps, you never thought of social networking as a way of promoting your affiliate marketing program. I know it isn’t the first thought that popped in my head. That was not until I came across newsletter that made mention of using facebook applications for affiliate marketing. Come to think of it, I think we’ve all seen instances of social networking sites being used for marketing. Who hasn’t seen music bands or Hollywood movies take advantage of social networking sites such as Myspace to promote their commercial product? That is because they act like major marketing tools and offer tons of traffic that can be targeted towards a niche market. The huge traffic generated by these sites is a boon to affiliate marketing and their popularity as a way for people to connect isn’t something that will diminish anytime soon. Before using a social networking site for affiliate marketing thoroughly familiarize yourself of the rules of the site before you begin marketing your ActiveCampaign products. Be very clear about what you are advertising. Also, be aware of the audience you are targeting through your social networking site. Approach social networking sites in much the same way you would if you were creating a separate affiliate page for your products. Build trust with visitors by presenting them with benefits for buying the product you are promoting.

At a recent Affiliate summit in Miami a speech was given on the relationship between affiliate marketing and social networking. You can view this video below:

Its a common practice of newbie affiliates to take their existing web site and dump their affiliate banners, text ads, and images. While more experienced affiliates will build sites entirely devoted to promoting their affiliate programs. How you choose to promote your affiliate program will significantly effect the interest of your site visitors. We’re going to go over some different types of sites for promoting your affiliate program:

1) Comparison Shopping Sites and Directories
You can use these to promote several affiliate programs and then organize them into directories

2) Content and Niche Sites
Write product reviews about your ActiveCampaign products. Your reviews should write themselves!

3) Personal Websites
At the dawn of affiliate marketing it was popular to use your own website in order to promote affiliate products. This isn’t very effective and it has since sunk to obsolescence.

4) Blogs and RSS Feeds
Seems the way the way to go with everything else so why not.

5) Email List Affiliates
Use your 1-2-All Email Marketing program to promote this and other fine ActiveCampaign products!

6) Pay Per Click Search Engines
Affiliates pay for search engine ranking in order to promote their products.

Its better to build sites around the product you are promoting. Providing a little extra care, attention, and nourishing for your affiliate products will give your affiliate program the chance to blossom.

Here is a collection of phrases that you can use with our ActiveCampaign Affiliate Links.

1-2-All

• Superior Email Marketing. Generate Custom Subscription Forms.
• Time Sensitive Auto-Responders. Bounce Email Management.
• Track Subscriber Details. Unlimited Lists & Subscribers.
• Email Marketing made easy. Powerful List Management.
• PHP Email Marketing. Fully Rebrandable.
• Opt-In or Opt-Out. Permission Based Email Marketing.
• Powerful email marketing. Personalized mailings.

SupportTrio

• Set up Separate Public Interfaces. Email Parser for Email Communication.
• Comprehensive Help Desk in PHP. “Ajax” Enabled Work flow process.
• Help Desk Support. Ticket Management.
• Efficient Support Management. PHP Help Desk.
• Efficient PHP Help Desk. Operator Load Balancing Features.

KnowledgeBuilder

• Knowledgebase FAQ Solution. Effective Self Help.
• Frequently Asked Questions. Quick answers.
• Instant Response for Questions Asked. Knowledgebase for FAQ.
• Supports ATOM Web Feeds. Export Articles into PDF or HTML format.

iSalient

• Web based Survey Software. Easy Distribution.
• 18 Different Question Types. PHP Survey software.
• Dynamic Charting Capabilities. Intuitive AJAX interface.
• Easy Survey creation. Detailed Reporting capabilities.
• Powerful Ajax Survey Creation. View Results Instantly.
• Create Interactive Surveys. Real-Time Access to Survey Results.
• Score Survey Results. Graphic Survey Analysis.

TrioLive

• Manage multiple chats with Site Visitors. Operator to Operator Chat.
• View Detailed Visitor Information. Live Visitor Typing Preview.
• Monitor Your Site Traffic. Detailed Graphs for Site Traffic Analysis.
• PHP Live Chat. Real-Time Messaging for sales, support, or internal communication.
• Provide immediate online assistance. Increase Customer satisfaction.
• Powerful AJAX enabled live chat solution. Help desk integration.

For better or worse, its gone from cliché to necessary to discuss the modern online landscape in terms of web 2.0.  Indeed, web 2.0 has become a catch-all phrase that is used to describe the rise of blogging, RSS feeds,  interactive online communities and other new technologies, web sites and services.

Forums allow affiliates to interact but they can also be widely used to disseminate misinformation.  Blogs on the other hand have tied affiliates closer to merchants as they can be used as an efficient means of delivering affiliate members with incisive information. The rise of Web 2.0 has resulted in effective detection and weeding out of harmful practices towards affiliates.   Due to lack of detection and prevention, per-click commission based sites fell victim to scams involving unscrupulous individuals or programs clicking on commissionable links.  Google, a name that has emerged at the forefront of 2.0, helped restore commissionable links with its AdSense technology.  AdSense helps ensures equitable compensation for commissionable links.

The per-click business is once again alive and thriving. In the past, Adware posed a threat to affiliates as it often overwrote their tracking cookies and resulted in a decline in commissions.   Adware usually provides no useful to the oft unaware user that has it running on their computer.  Another threat was the use of various applications which redirected affiliate links.  Today, various technologies provide security for affiliates by allowing them to link directly to their site.  This removes the threat of redirection or rewriting of cookies.   The names you should be aware of here are FusionQuest, KowaBunga Technologies, and Link Connector.

More information on Affiliate Marketing 2.0 can be found here:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/7308.asp

Shawn Collins has Ten Christmas Tips for affiliates.  Some of these have no relevance to ActiveCampaign affiliates but it makes for an interesting read nevertheless and is quite useful for members that belong to other affiliate programs.  There’s no shipping involved and you are not likely to sway site visitors to buy 1-2-All Email Marketing as a substitute gift idea for that next generation game console or mp3 player.  You can however use the holiday season to generate interest in your affiliate program.  Who doesn’t expect an end of the year discount or promotion?  Currently, we have 20% off specials for all our products if clients switch over from a competitor. That is our way of generating excitement for the holidays. You too can find creative ways of using the holiday season to generate excitement for use with your affiliate program.

Here are some ideas that you can apply directly to your affiliate program:

• Include ActiveCampaign product as part of your suggestion page.  ActiveCampaign products have a lot of practical real world applications that will boost productivity for the upcoming year.  Everyone looks at the end of the year as a measure of productivity.  It is also a time to begin planning for even more success next year.
• Inspire holiday impulse buying.  Everyone is in a spending mood at the end of the year. Our products can generate excitement by making next year a much more efficient year for their business.
• Make your Affiliate program more visible.  Remember that out of sight is out of mind. If you want to generate conversions you need to make your program’s presence known.  Draw your site visitor’s attention to the affiliate link.
• Support your Affiliate program.  Your site visitors trust products that include contact information, reference commonly asked questions, and vendor information.
• The best view is the long view.  Use 1-2-All for all your future email marketing endeavors.

Happy Holidays. 

Here’s to another year of successful affiliate marketing!

1. Keep Your Site Consistent with Your Market
   Know your audience and keep your site consistent with the product that you are marketing.  What kind of traffic does your site generate?  Identifying your site visitors allows you to do targeted marketing towards them.  Choose affiliate programs that captivate your site visitor’s interests. Obviously, a web host that sees an affiliate banner for SupportTrio or TrioLive is going to be so captivated they are going to want to click on the banner.  Are your site visitors marketing goods or services?  They are likely to be enthralled by a 1-2-All Email Marketing banner
2. Avoid Signatures that Look Like Spam
   Be tasteful about where you include your affiliate text links.  If you throw a bunch of obnoxious text links onto your signature line you are making your mailing look like spam. You can be tasteful and still include links if your signature.  One way of doing this is by including attention grabbing messages along with the link.  Keeping your signature down to 5 lines is a good rule of thumb.

   A good example of a tasteful signature line can be found in all our outgoing support center replies:

   ActiveCampaign, Inc.

   Powerful support management software.
   http://www.activecampaign.com/supporttrio/

3. Be Original in Your Choice of Copy
   Recycling web copy that can be found on different sites makes your message weak. Use copy that speaks to your audience.  Keep it personal.  A reader will not take something they can find on a list of different web sites seriously. When writing copy for your affiliates think about your audience. A web host would likely see dry technical writing as a sign that you are promoting a serious product.  A product like 1-2-All Email Marketing is commonly used by people with no technical writing.  If your site attracts a general audience then you are going to want to stray away from any language which is likely to frustrate and confuse your audience.
4. Free Domain Names Make You Look Like an Amateur
   Keep your site looking professional by registering your own domain name with a service such as GoDaddy.com.  For a small yearly fee you can have a site name that will be taken seriously by visitors.  Having your site taken seriously means that your site visitors will take your banner ads and text links seriously. People tend to be weary of free generic web sites.  Usually those pages are best reserved for non-commercial enterprises.

Login to your affiliate account

Recently I took some quality time to look around for sites that had information that would be useful to our affiliate members. A lot of the sites that I came across were nothing more then a consortium of paid advertisement under the guise of genuine affiliate advice.  I wasn’t willing to spend the $30 it took to find out if they were at all useful. Sites that interested me tended to be sites that allowed affiliates to freely exchange information and ideas with other affiliate members.

1. Affiliate Programs Community – This is a message board where members can discuss new affiliate trends, SEO techniques, email techniques, PPC tricks, and affiliate news related items.  You’ll have your own private section where you can freely exchange tips and discuss your affiliate program.
2. Affiliate Summit – Register for Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas from January 21-23, 2007.    Targeted presentations include Blogs & RSS, data feeds, lead generation, incentives for Affiliates, PPC and SEO, badware, segmentation of affiliates, B2B Affiliate Marketing, and becoming a Super Affiliate.
3. Affiliate Programs Directory – In addition to serving as a directory of Affiliate programs it includes a variety of interesting affiliate resources such as the aforementioned message board as well as affiliate blogs, news, articles, and conference listings.
4. Google AdSense Program Policies – Google AdSense is a popular word that is being spun around by many sites that offer resources for Affiliates.  You are better of going directly to the source in order to learn more about whether this makes sense for your affiliate program.

While scouring the internet for Affiliate related resources that can be used to grow our loyal affiliates programs,  I came across a lot of people trying to sell books.  Having once been an avid reader myself I can appreciate the power of novel to transform the human mind and soul.  However,  I got the feeling that these authors were more concerned with lining their pockets then they were about effecting life altering change.   If there was one thing these sites had in common it was that they all seemed to promise a quick fix without offering anything truly remarkable.    Every once in a while I came across something that was actually useful and that interested me.  Unfortunately, most of the affiliate related resources that I happened upon were hopeless leads. Above I’ve posted 4 that I found useful.  I’ll continue to find these for you so that you can use this information to your advantage.

Affiliate marketing is serious business and like all business it is essential that you operate it resourcefully and efficiently. Networking and connecting with other affiliate members is still one of the best ways of mapping out your affiliate marketing  strategy.  There are no hidden costs involved with hearing what other affiliates have to say. My advice is to always be weary of someone trying to sell you something you do not need.  A common experience for anyone who’s spent any considerable amount of time surfing the internet.  Some of the best information can be found in freely distributed articles, blogs, tips, and message boards.  They tend to work best when they address the needs of people who are in situations similar to yours.

Mini sites are the latest buzzword for online marketers and you can use them to boost traffic and generate sales for your affiliate program. Mini sites are easily maintained web sites that consist of 1-3 pages and rely heavily on a well written sales letter along with your affiliate link. They are easy to build and you can publish them quite successfully using a variety of free web hosts and search engines. You can also register a domain name that looks more professional and then redirect to your main sales page. If you pick a domain name that is related to the content that you are promoting, this will increase your search engine rankings. Another advantage to creating mini sites is that you can pick a separate domain name for each of the products that you are promoting and easily maintain them. A successful affiliate mini site is heavily reliant on search engine results.

When relying on a search engine to get results for your affiliate mini site, use headlines and descriptions that are search engine friendly. It is possible to get top results even when using a freely hosted mini site but it is necessary that you first find out what search engines are looking for so that you can feed them what they are looking for. Another advantage to creating a mini site for the affiliate program that you are promoting is that these sites are not content heavy so they are easy to maintain. You do not have to worry about updating your site with fresh content. Mini sites are quick and to the point which can be an effective way to close a sale. We have extensive sales documentation on our site. When you write your sales letter you are going to want to focus on soft selling your customer. Be sure to mention plenty of product benefits. You can use any of the material off our site to help you craft an effective affiliate sales letter. When you write your sales letter you do not need to worry about hard selling your client, leave that to the site where you are directing them to.