AffiliatesNeeded.Com What's New In Affiliate Marketing

Google always has something new just over the horizon. This could be Google’s latest innovation:

Google tests putting images into search ads and new pricing

According to the Internet Retailer website Google has a big plan. The writer says, “Google’s new Product Listing Ads program is being tested by several online retailers as a new way to get paid search ads featuring product images in Google.com search results. Retailers are charged only when they make a sale, not on each click.” Interesting, huh?

A spokesperson for Google said, “We’re trying to figure out what type of information is most useful to searchers on Google.com. At the same time the Product Listing Ads program offers retailers a way to advertise their products in the results of searches conducted on Google.com without having to engage in bidding for keywords.”

Holiday Web Shoppers Hit Social Networks

The results of a study that is of particular interest to affiliate marketers has been posted over on the eMarketer website. The writer says, “According to research conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation and Yesmail, 27% of online shoppers who plan to both research and buy holiday gifts online this year will look for ideas about what friends and family want on sites such as Facebook. And nearly one-half (45%) will use social networks to research items, compare prices and look for offers.” If you’re not already utilizing the power of social networks, you’d better get with the program.

Bing Climbs In Search Market Share

I like Bing! It hasn’t yet replaced Google for me but it’s gaining ground. I’m glad to know I’m not alone. According to Laurie Sullivan, posting on the Media Post Publications website, “Microsoft continued a steady uphill climb in gaining U.S. search market share in October, according to comScore. Analysts say the uptick is partly attributable to features in its search engine Bing, released earlier this year.”

Newspapers Hold Out Hope for Paid Models

What would the online world do without hardworking journalists to break the news for the rest of us? Just keep going, a recent study by the American Press Institute’s study reveals. We may not mind being left in the dark.

“News providers were more likely to say their content was “very valuable,” while readers tended to settle on “somewhat valuable.” Even bigger variation exists in perceptions of how easy it would be to replace online newspaper content, with readers more confident that they could live without the information currently provided.”

American Express targets web and mobile payments with $300 million deal

If you thought you were addicted to your mobile phone now, look out: AmEx is planning to make it a whole lot more fun. The credit company is planning to purchase Revolution Money, a young payment card network, and use it to develop new ways to help consumers pay online and through their mobile phones. Now you can do all your holiday shopping while you’re on the bus.

Marketing Spending Pays Off for Small Biz
The experts say you should be spending MORE on advertising now than you were before the recession hit. “Marketers have seen budgets slashed in the recession, but that can create a dilemma: “More marketing spending in a downturn can help a company come out ahead when the economy picks up again.” According to the “Small Business Marketing Health Check” report from Hurwitz & Associates, there is a correlation between small businesses that are doing well and greater marketing spending.”

Study: Consumers Look to Social Media for Discounts
Everybody is looking for a “good deal.” Douglas Quenqua, writing on the ClickZ blog, says, “Among those who have friended a brand on MySpace or Facebook, a third did it mainly to gain access to exclusive deals and discounts, according to a new report from Razorfish. The number was even higher — 44 percent — for people who follow a brand on Twitter.”

Google Forgiveness: Hard to Achieve?
Tony Pantano, writing on the WiseAff website, is blogging about his experience with Google. Tony says, “A few weeks ago I received an email from Google suggesting that 1 or more of the ads in an AdWords account were disapproved. In looking at that account, I discovered that they were showing disapprovals for ads that had been deleted.” He goes on to detail his Google “disapproval” saga. I think a lot of us have equally hair-raising stories to tell. The moral of this story is: God will forgive you…Google will NOT.

Utilizing Guests Posts: A Basic How To
Jonathan Volk invited oinkgasp of the WickedFire forums to make a guest post on his blog. Oinkgasp’s post is about “guest posts” and how to use them to your advantage. He says, “Extracting some excellent and unique content from another specialist to post on your blog is almost always a win-win situation for everyone involved. If your blog is even mildly popular, having a guest post or two is a great way to expand your reach and draw in new visitors. You may even find that the content discussed in the guest post brings in a significant enough of a reader base to expand upon further in future posts.”

French Believe Internet Is Most Trustworthy Source
A French survey ranked the Internet as the most trustworthy source of relevant advertising recently, with 29 percent support among respondents. Television ranked as number two. “The survey looked at different areas of the shopping process. Internet for example was also rated most highly as a medium providing information relevant to a purchase. The least effective measure is outdoor advertising and in store advertising.” Look out, Old Business; don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Going Social Anywhere and Everywhere

On the eMarketer website there’s an interesting article about the power of going social. Under the subtitle “Tweeting while driving ” the writer says,

“Despite the slowing growth of Twitter after its explosion earlier in 2009, many users still cannot get enough. Crowd Science reports that in August 2009, although only 27% of Twitter users posted daily, 46% checked for updates every day. Almost one in five social media users reported using Twitter in the past week.”

H1N1, Swine Flu Prevention Affiliate Marketing Scams

Linda Buquet, writing on the 5 Star Affiliate Blog, has brought to our attention a blog post on an affiliate blog called Money Making Scoop. Linda says, “The blog post suggested a marketing ploy that is dangerous, unethical and illegal. He suggested affiliates try to sell various herbal products by saying they will ‘prevent’ the swine flu.” DON’T DO IT! You can get into big trouble with the FDA or FTC for making false medical claims.

PPC Classroom V3.0 is LIVE!

It launched only an hour or so ago. There are Over 20 courses offered now just $1.And there’s an ENTIRE suite of TOOLS that will automate your PPC for you 100%. These have never been released to the public before! You don’t want to miss this opportunity.

Amazon Associates Now Integrates Directly with Twitter

There’s a post on the Amazon Affiliate Blog today that’s of interest to all Amazon affiliates. The writer says, “We are excited to announce the launch of a new feature called Share on Twitter. You can access Share on Twitter from the Site Stripe and post links to your Twitter account from Amazon detail pages in just two clicks.”

Craigslist Now Warns About Affiliate Scammers and Tells Users How to Get Back at Them Where it Hurts – Right In the Wallet!

Linda Buquet has a very interesting and helpful post on the 5 Star Affiliates blog today. Linda says, “I think (hope) most affiliates know that they aren’t supposed to do affiliate marketing on Craigslist. Not only is it against Craigs TOS, but many affiliate networks prohibit CL marketing and will withhold your commissions.”

Ah….but apparently not. Cragslist has a full page warning to users and details how to get back at unscrupulous affiliate marketers. Beware you black hats!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

IAB Takes Up Arms against the FTC’s Latest Endorsement Regulation Campaign
On the ReveNews website, Andrew Wee is blogging about the FTC’s latest ruling. Andrew says, “If the Federal Trade Commission had the intention to spark off a wave of sometimes worried, sometimes angry and often indignant blog posts and forum chatter with their “Final Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”, they’ve certainly succeeded.” Read the rest of this post — you’ll want to know this.

Affiliate Links being Blocked by AVG AntiVirus
Linda Buquet, writing on the 5 Star Affiliates Blog says, “I was reading a couple of disturbing threads at ABestWeb over the weekend. Members there have discovered that AVG, the #1 free antivirus program, is totally blocking all Linkshare affiliate links and is also blocking CJ links on one of their domains. This is a very serious issue as we head into the busiest shopping season of the year.” It certainly IS a serious issue. Linda provides links to two threads in which the issue is being discussed. You should probably check this out.

Tips From A C2M Millionaire
Ruck has posted an article on the Convert 2 Media website about a publisher who is only 21 years old. Ruck says, “this publisher achieved $1,128,000.00+ change in the month of June. An incredible feat by any means but what is truly remarkable is that he’s only 21 years old and been in the business for a little over a year.” You’ll want to read the rest of this success story.

Banner Ad Turns 15, Earns Learner’s Permit
Do you think banner ads are as old as the Internet? Have you ever thought about it? Me neither! But Click Z reports, On this day in 1994, HotWired.com made Internet history by becoming the first online publisher to display a banner ad. The unit was 468 x 60 pixels and was purchased by either Volvo, MCI, Club Med, Zima, 1-800-Collect or AT&T, all of which reportedly bought ad space that fateful day. The AT&T version above asked/promised, “Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will.” Interesting read!

Bad Campaign Worse than None at All
During its analyst day presentations yesterday Carol Bartz (Yahoo! CEO) told financial analysts not to worry about the move, insisting it was just a matter of “running out of time.” Still, it does make you wonder what the big guys are up to. We might want to keep an eye on this one.

Social Shopping and the Brand Experience
Denise Zimmerman, president and chief strategy officer of NetPlus Marketing Inc., has spent 18 years of her career “focusing on the emerging digital landscape and best practice applications in marketing, advertising and communications. She talks to eMarketer about the different forms social commerce takes and how retailers can understand it.” Read this interview to find out Denise’s take on social shopping and brand experience.

Google Wants to Make AJAX Crawlable
Barry Adams, writing on the Search Cowboys website, says, “The SEO repercussions are obvious — you can now let users link to different states of an AJAX page, and these links will be indexed and can appear in search engine results.” It’s all a bit technical, but basically, ”Google’s proposed solution is to use an exclamation mark in the URL that would allow crawlers to access a different page state, and thus different content.”

Six NEW YouTube Practices to Grow Your Business
The Lurn editorial staff has made an interesting post on the Affiliate Classroom blog. Last week the Lurn’s YouTube tip sheet last week was posted and this post provides six simple steps to use video marketing on Twitter to attract customers. The first tip is “Try out TubeMogul to publish your videos….”. Read the entire article to find out what the other five steps are.

College Kids Are the Digital Demo
According to the eMarketer website, if you’re not marketing to the college crowd, you’re missing the digital demographic bull’s-eye. “College students are the most connected demographic group in the US. They own multiple electronic devices and are a prime audience for online video,” says the writer. Read the rest of this interesting and timely article.

If I Had to Start Over as an Affiliate Marketer…
Rosalind Gardner, writing on her Net Profits Today blog, says that she’s often heard the question, “What would you do (differently) if you were starting your affiliate marketing business over from scratch today?” Then she answers that question, and you might be surprised at her answer.

Affiliate Marketing with a Cause
There’s something satisfying about doing what you do and helping others in the process. Here’s something you might want to consider. This is from a post on the Share Results Blog: “If you are an affiliate looking to promote products associated with a charitable cause this fall, you may want to consider partnering with T-Shirtmonster.ca. This October, the online t-shirt retailer is working in affiliation with the Breast Cancer Society of Canada to offer fully customizable t-shirts in honour of Breast Cancer Awareness month.”

FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements & Testimonials
Chris, writing on the Cash Tactics Blog, says that you’ve probably already heard about Acai Berry or the Google Bizops going around so you already know that most of the landing pages that affiliates are creating have several testimonials included. Soooo…you need to know that “Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect.” This is information you need!

Six Insider YouTube Practices to Grow Your Business Faster
Anthony Glynn, writing on the Affiliate Classroom Blog today, says that you can “Learn several of the practices that empowered Lurn’s CEO and super affiliate Anik Singal to make over $350K with only 20 hours of work and one video on YouTube.” This is an eye-opening read that you don’t want to miss.

The Hidden Dangers Constant Stat Checking

In an interesting article on the Revenue Wire Blog, the writer asks, “How many times a day do you check your affiliate sales stats? Once, 5-times, 10-times, or minute-by-minute hitting refresh?” The writer goes on the explain, “We’ve learned from experience that checking the current day’s stats has hidden land mines that could negatively affect the way you make campaign decisions on a short and long-term basis.” Could be….it’s something to think about……….

Yahoo also dropped meta keyword tag
Well, I suppose the only thing that never changes is that everything changes. At the Search Engine Marketing Expo (SMX) East meeting, Yahoo! made an announcement of interest to all affiliate marketers. According to the writer on the Search Cowboys website, “In the session “Ask the search engines” Yahoo! said during the Q&A that they stopped using the meta-keyword tag. That means none of the search engines is now using the tag.”

Avoiding the Loneliness of the Affiliate Marketer
An interesting post on the Affiliate Classroom Blog today concerns a problem that all affiliate marketers face. The writer says, “Being an affiliate marketer can be a lonely career choice. The many hours sitting in front of a computer screen researching products and creating sites can lead to a feeling of isolation. Some people thrive in this environment; but most of us thrive when we interact with like-minded people.”

The Art of the Pitch
Jonathan Volk is lying on a beach in Maui. He says that there’s always someone trying to pitch him a JV opportunity. Jonathan says, “95% of the time, I can tell if they have any experience simply by how they pitch it to me.” He then he gives four handy tips for making a pitch better.

Fraud Alert: Accounts For Sale?
Scott Parent, writing on the Media Trust blog says, “We’ve noticed a pretty alarming trend in the industry over the past few months here at Media Trust — the concept of people “buying” affiliate accounts on our platform and other networks. At first glance I wondered why would you need to do that.” Then Scott goes on to explain the how and why of this fraud.

Boost Your Sales with Data Feeds
In an interesting post on the Affiliate Stuff blog, an unnamed guest posted this: “Getting a lot of click-through but few sales? The secret to improving your conversion ratio could lie in using data feeds. Data feeds are particularly important for affiliates selling a lot of product from the same merchant.”

Pre-qualifying Your Clicks
On the CDF Blog today, the writer says, “An important concept you don’t hear much about in pay per click or social media advertising is prequalifying your clicks. That is, discouraging unwanted clicks by giving the potential customer more information about your offer, before they click. This can help you save a lot of money from non converting curiosity clicks, which drive up advertising costs.”

Quick Steps to Accurate Keyword Research
Ann Smarty, writing on the Daily SEO Tip website, says, “Most SEOs and internet marketers are already quite aware of Google’s free keyword tool. However, there are some details that you should pay attention to when you use this tool to get the best results when doing your keyword research here.” Then Ms. Smarty goes on to explain the details she refers to.

8 Tips for Tracking with Google
In an interesting article posted on his website, Fields Marshall offers some excellent information, and this read will be well worth your time! He says, “If you are tracking clickthrus, events, conversions using Google Analytics here are a few tips, ideas and hints for tracking and then later on improving your webpage using Google tools: analytics, adwords and Google website optimizer.”

You Are the Definition of Quality in Affiliate Marketing
There’s a post on the Affspot website that you really should read. The writer asks, “how can we look at the big picture and define “Quality” as affiliate marketers? What is a standard of “Quality” that is broad enough to cover our affiliate marketing businesses but narrow enough to be actionable and meaningful?” He offers a free eBook, “Magic Ebook of Quality”, to answer those and other questions.

5 Ways to Market like a Psychotherapist
Posting on the Copy Blogger website, Melissa Karnaze compares psychotherapy to marketing. She says, “Psychotherapy, a discipline intended to help people, is actually a form of marketing” and she goes on explain how the two are related. Melissa makes some good points. This is a good read and worth your time.

Zero to 1B Hero: Watch Tony’s Story this Weekend
On her blog, Rosalind Gardner says that it’s not often that she blogs “about a single speaker that I’ve seen at an event, but I did that back in February after attending the Undergound Seminar and hearing Tony Hsieh (sounds like ‘‘Shea’ or ‘Shay’) of Zappos speak.” Now, Rosalind says, you can hear his speech free and in its entirety at http://www.undergroundonlineseminar.com/zappos/?spook