Affiliate ABCs host Deborah Carney joined Kim Salvino and Amy Ely of buy.at to discuss Q4 planning and ideas to generate the greatest revenue during one of the most lucrative times of the year.

Topics include:

·         Important information to ask merchants in order to effectively promote their program in Q4
·         Great Q4 holidays (beyond Black Friday) and niche topics to consider for promotion opportunities

Key takeaways:

·         Don’t wait on the merchant – know what you need well in advance, and don’t be afraid to ask
·         Plan out a promotional calendar and the dates you’ll need relevant creative from merchants
·         Consider creating a media kit detailing your audience demographics, planned promotions, and communications channels you use (email, PPC, etc) and send to potential merchant partners
·         Ensure your content and ads aren’t displaying expired promotions
Tricia Meyer posted a great seasonality calendar – http://www.tricia.me/SeasonalityCalendar.pdf

Helpful statistics:
·         comScore 4^th quarter sales reached $39 billion in 2009 and $43 billion in 2010 – presenting a huge revenue opportunity this year
·         The largest online sales day in 2010 was Cyber Monday and the peak week was December 5-12^th

Find us on Twitter:
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Learn more about buy.at:
Visit the buy.at blog
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: @buyatUS

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Merchant ABCs host Deborah Carney joined Kim Salvino and Amy Ely of buy.at to discuss Q4 planning, including tips on how to effectively support affiliates and generate the greatest revenue from this channel during one of the most lucrative times of the year.

Topics include:
·         Important information affiliates need to effectively promote your program in Q4
·         Great Q4 holidays (beyond Black Friday) to consider for promotion opportunities
·         Activities to avoid during Q4 that may cause your program to lose affiliates

Key takeaways:
·         comScore 4^th quarter sales reached $39 billion in 2009 and $43 billion in 2010 – presenting a huge revenue opportunity this year
·         The largest online sales day in 2010 was Cyber Monday and the peak week was December 5-12^th
·         Plan out a promotional calendar and the dates you’ll provide relevant creative to your affiliates
·         Send a list of best sellers, new Q4 products, and (for PPC affiliates) suggested keywords
·         Update data feeds daily and consider “changes file,” top sellers, and category specific sub-feeds
·         DO NOT plan major site updates or affiliate network changes in Q4
·         If your gift cards are commissionable, let your affiliates know, if they aren’t – why not?

Find us on Twitter:
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Merchant ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Learn more about buy.at:
Visit the buy.at blog
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: @buyatUS

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Drew Thorne-Thomsen from Ring Revenue, joins Affiliate ABCs hosts Vinny O’Hare and Deborah Carney to discuss the Ring Revenue service. Pay per call has been around for awhile but it is getting more traction as more affiliates are looking for ways to monetize offline advertising or other untraditional types of advertising and pay per call gives affiliates, networks and merchants a way to start tracking those sales. In addition to the call tracking, there is also a corresponding link that can track.

A little background on Drew:
Drew Thorne-Thomsen, VP of Customer Development at Ring Revenue - Drew is responsible for partner development and support, as well as new business development. Prior to joining RingRevenue, he was CMO at Trident Marketing, where he was responsible for customer acquisition for several Fortune 500 brands. Drew drove millions of phone calls to their own performance call centers through traditional and non-traditional marketing strategies. Before that, he spent nearly a decade at Commission Junction, where he launched and developed CJ Media and CJ PayPerCall. Drew spent six years on the United States Alpine Ski Team and competed at the World Cup level. He has a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Some of the main points for Affiliates: 
- Affiliates are earning millions in commissions
- Combine calls AND clicks to earn more
- Phone calls convert between 30-50% (clicks 1-3%)
- Average payouts above $10 per call
- Access more high-value offers
- Visit RingRevenue sign up with networks: www.ringrevenue.com/partners

We would love for you to leave comments and let us know if you are using Pay per Call or what questions you have about it. We will be scheduling a webinar for later in the month and would love to have questions from you!

More information on Ring Revenue:
What is RingRevenue?
Publisher Get Started Video

Contact info:
Drew Thorne-Thomsen
drew@ringrevenue.com

Find us on Twitter:
RingRevenue
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Merchant ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Drew Thorne-Thomsen from Ring Revenue, joins Merchant ABCs hosts Vinny O’Hare and Deborah Carney to discuss the Ring Revenue service. Pay per call has been around for awhile but it is getting more traction as more affiliates are looking for ways to monetize offline advertising or other untraditional types of advertising and pay per call gives affiliates, networks and merchants a way to start tracking those sales. In addition to the call tracking, there is also a corresponding link that can track. Plus if you think your program is too small or you don’t have a call center, there are other options for you to accept trackable and commissionable call.

A little background on Drew:
Drew Thorne-Thomsen, VP of Customer Development at Ring Revenue - Drew is responsible for partner development and support, as well as new business development. Prior to joining RingRevenue, he was CMO at Trident Marketing, where he was responsible for customer acquisition for several Fortune 500 brands. Drew drove millions of phone calls to their own performance call centers through traditional and non-traditional marketing strategies. Before that, he spent nearly a decade at Commission Junction, where he launched and developed CJ Media and CJ PayPerCall. Drew spent six years on the United States Alpine Ski Team and competed at the World Cup level. He has a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Some of the main points for Merchants: 
- Pay-per-call is delivering millions in new revenue for merchants
- Access increased distribution channels online, offline and mobile
- Phone sales typically worth 1.5-2X online sales.
- Define caller quality criteria
- Pay only for quality calls
- Visit RingRevenue to find out more: www.ringrevenue.com

We would love for you to leave comments and let us know if you are using Pay per Call or what questions you have about it. We will be scheduling a webinar for later in the month and would love to have questions from you!

Find out more about Ring Revenue and Pay Per Call:
What is RingRevenue?
Advertiser Get Started Video

Contact info:
Drew Thorne-Thomsen
drew@ringrevenue.com

Find us on Twitter:
RingRevenue
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Merchant ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Merchant ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare joined Kim Salvino, Amy Ely, and Jeannine Crooks of buy.at to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of running programs on multiple networks.

Topics include:

·         Managing creative, promotions, and information across all networks
·         Considerations: Ts & Cs, setup and monthly fees, tracking, network quality measures
·         Identifying network benefits: different affiliates, tools, verticals
·         Actions that negatively and positively impact program growth

Key takeaways:

·         Avoid confusion – be consistent with promotions and communications across networks unless you’re running separate tests to gauge performance
·         Be strategic when beginning a new network relationship – consider the added value vs. added time and effort to manage another account
·         Grow 2-3 relationships vs. joining every network – this will enable program managers to work effectively with each relationship vs. reactive program management to simply keep up
·         Avoid network hopping – affiliate marketing is a marathon, not a sprint; don’t upset affiliates by repeatedly closing on one network and opening on another
Find us on Twitter:
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Merchant ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Learn more about buy.at:
Visit the buy.at blog
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: @buyatUS

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Affiliates, in the comments, let us know if you will work with merchants on multiple networks, and why or why not.
Merchants, in the comments, let us know if you are on multiple networks and if they perform equally.

Today’s Affiliate ABCs podcast features the MakeBeer.net affiliate program on ShareASale. Host Deborah Carney is joined by Karen Garcia from GTO Management, the OPM managing the MakeBeer.net affiliate program.

MakeBeer.net offers a full line of Cooper’s Home Brew kits, ingredients and equipment for brewing beer at home. The Cooper’s Brewery in Australia was founded in 1862 and the MakeBeer.net product line contains eighteen varieties of beer from the Master Brewers at Coopers Brewery including popular beers such as IPAs, lagers, ales and stouts and each kit makes 6 gallons of beer. Their Cooper’s DIY Beer Kit contains all the equipment and ingredients needed to brew a full batch of beer and is very popular as a gift during the holiday season as well as Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day in addition to year-round sales.

The MakeBeer.net affiliate program is exclusively on ShareASale and offers a 15% commission and a 90 day cookie as well as a full product datafeed which is also available in PopShops. They have several video creatives available as well as a Top Sellers widget that is updated weekly.

Join the MakeBeer.net Affiliate Program

Show Links:
MakeBeer.net
GTO Management

Find us on Twitter:
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

This podcast outlines what conversion optimization is and covers the most common questions associated with how conversion optimization works. Lindsay Viscount and Sarah Bundy from All Inclusive Marketing discuss with Deborah Carney of MerchantABCs the most essential “need to knows” about conversion optimization and how it works.

An ecommerce conversion rate is one of the most important KPIs to understand and maximize when it comes to online sales. With all things being equal, if your conversion rate increases, your website sales will increase. Conversion rate impacts every channel, from your SEO to your affiliate marketing program and is a main determining factor of each channel’s success.

Here is a quick overview of the questions discussed and some of the suggested answers provided by the All Inclusive Marketing team:

Q: What is conversion optimization?
A: The process of testing and improving the conversion rate of a website. Making sure that the website is generating as many sales, leads or whatever the goal of the website is as possible.

Q: Why is conversion optimization so important for ecommerce sites?
A: Generally with an ecomm website, you want your website to be your best salesperson and when you are directing customers to your website, you want it to be able to close the deal. If your website isn’t performing at the potential that it could be, you could be losing out on large amounts of revenue daily. Especially if you are spending $$ on advertising, you want to make sure that you are getting a generous return on ad spend.

Q: What things are taken into consideration when developing a strategy for conversion optimization?
A: Website goals (primary and secondary), page goals (moving traffic to where you want it to go), target audience, the product, current landing page and trends, sales pitch, and common objections.

Q: What are the most important pages to optimize and why?
A: Home page – this page usually generates the most traffic to a website
Category page – to move traffic to the product page
Product page – close the sale
Each step of the checkout process – once you have closed the sale you don’t want to lose it during the checkout process. Measure drop off and identify issues

Q: What are some of the key elements that you test with A/B testing?
A: Long page vs short page
1 page vs multiple pages
Product imagery
Color
Content – keyword usage, language, simplicity, headlines
Call to actions – buttons, wording, placement

Tune in to hear more detail and specific examples on conversion optimization and how this strategy can help your web sales, by some of the leading conversion optimizers in the industry.

Where to Find Lindsay Viscount and Sarah Bundy:
Sarah’s LinkedIn account (bio)
All Inclusive Marketing website
All Inclusive Marketing blog
All Inclusive Marketing Twitter:
Sarah’s Twitter:
All Inclusive Marketing phone: (604) 560 2542

Find Us On Twitter:
Deborah Carney
Merchant ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Today’s Affiliate ABCs podcast features the OfficePlayground.com affiliate program on ShareASale. Host Deborah Carney is joined by Karen Garcia from GTO Management, the OPM managing the OfficePlayground.com affiliate program.

OfficePlayground.com carries over 1300 fun toys just for your desk and their office toys also make great gifts, party favors, and are fabulous for meetings and events. Some of their products include stress balls, slingshot flying animals, zen gardens, Hoberman spheres and Newton’s cradles. Their product line is very popular year round and their biggest holiday, Bosses Day, is coming up soon in October.

The Office Playground affiliate program is exclusively on ShareASale and offers an 8% commission and a 30 day cookie as well as a full product datafeed of over 1300 products. They have several widgets available, including a Top Sellers widget that is updated weekly, and are adding new product videos each week.

Join the OfficePlayground.com Affiliate Program

Show Links:
Office Playground
GTO Management

Find us on Twitter:
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Affiliate ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Affiliate and Consultant Eric Nagel joins experienced affiliate managers (OPMs) Vinny O’Hare and Deborah Carney in a very important episode of Merchant ABCs. Many merchants are not aware that if they don’t have an Affiliate Agreement in place they are giving affiliates carte blanche to do whatever they want to promote your affiliate program. Eric joined us today to help explain to merchants both new and existing why they need a properly created affiliate agreement. Affiliates want you to have an agreement so they have guidelines and so they know that your affiliate manager and company have thought about the many ways affiliates can promote the merchant’s site. Affiliates will also assume that once you have an agreement in place that you will enforce it appropriately.

Topics we cover are: Search Engine Marketing – both PPC and organic, Direct to Merchant Linking in PPC and social media, Domain names – including subdomains and subdirectories, Coupon site regulations, Loyalty site regulations, Email restrictions, Social Media links and posts, iFrames and other framing of the merchant site, Policy about adware, spyware, toolbars and other downloads, Prohibited Affiliate Website Content, Unacceptable Web Sites (Banner farms, PLR sites etc).

Find us on Twitter:
Eric Nagel
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Merchant ABCs
Team Loxly
Vinny O’Hare

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Rick Calvert and Karen Garcia join Blogging ABCs hosts Tricia Meyer and Deborah Carney to discuss the dilemmas faced by bloggers about whether or not they should monetize their blogs and if yes, how. It’s a candid discussion covering both sides of the issue.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Affiliate ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
GTOMan

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.