Hey all just wanted to pass along some info Google just sent me about some upcoming Webinars they are running. Looks pretty good:

 Google Webinar Newsletter: Summer 2008

Advertisers like you have been asking for more hands-on AdWords training, and we’ve been listening: we’re pleased to present AdWords Webinars.  We’ll be offering several different topics this summer so we encourage you to browse the topics listed on our Webinar Calendar located here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/events.html

The topics will be repeated so be sure to read the description for each webinar to determine if this is a webinar you have attended in the past. Space is limited so please register your attendance today using your AdWords email address. We look forward to your participation!

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SAMPLE TOPICS

Some of the topics this quarter can help you if you are:

Looking to Improve ROI:
Register for our webinar on optimization to learn tips about how to get the most from your AdWords account.

New to AdWords:
Learn about account basics from a member of the AdWords team to get off to the best start possible.

Having Trouble Tracking AdWords Effectiveness:
Consider a Webinar on Conversion Tracking or Analytics to learn about the various tools that Google offers for measuring your advertising efforts with AdWords.

Specialized Tools:
Register for a webinar on a specialized Google tool such as Website Optimizer to learn more about how you can improve your business through Google tools.

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Whether you’re a new advertiser interested in learning more about AdWords or a seasoned veteran ready to take your account to the next level, these online seminars can help you meet your goals. Led by AdWords experts, our webinars will help you learn how to make the most out of the time and money you invest in AdWords.

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WANT TO REQUEST A TOPIC?

After each Webinar you’ll be given the option to complete a survey in which you can let us know what topics you’d like to see offered in the future. We’ll do our best to continue bringing you the content that would be most helpful, so speak up and let us know what you’d like to hear more about!

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WANT ADDITIONAL TIPS OR MISSED A WEBINAR?

Unable to make it during the scheduled times? Missed a webinar you planned on attending? Check out recorded webinars as well as other Advertiser Education on the Google Business Channel of YouTube. You can find it here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleBusiness

Online affiliate programs are possibly the best way for a company to increase their sales by allowing webmasters to promote their products/services and get paid on a commission basis. What could be better than this? However, your affiliate program has to be run right for it to have a chance to really become a significant revenue producer for your company. Many companies allow their employees to handle affiliate management in-house, but unless their affiliate management is highly skilled in areas HTML, SEO, PPC, social media and other traffic driving strategies, they will not be effective and the program won’t grow. These skills take years to master which is why there is so much bad affiliate management going on out there. Simply sending newsletters and banner code doesn’t make you an affiliate manager it makes you a maintenance person. Truly effective affiliate managers will get to know each affiliate on a personal basis and attempt to work with them to increase traffic and sales. I’m not saying all affiliate managers are not doing well, I’m simple saying as an affiliate of thousands of merchants I know the kind of lame affiliate managing going on.

That being said, there are some good affiliate managers that can be effective. Affiliates should be held up to the highest regard and motivated to make sales for your company. Coming up with innovative and creative ways to motive affiliates should be a priority. Doing things like running contests and facilitating interaction with affiliates is a must. Affiliate management has to come from within, you have to love it. You have to be willing to work nights and weekends to provide a higher level of affiliate support than other companies provide. There are thousands of affiliate programs vying for the same affiliates, so you have to stand out and seek to be different. Friendliness and likability on the part of affiliate management is also required. No boring or unenthusiastic people should be in the position of affiliate manager. Affiliate managers should be outgoing, proactive, friendly, helpful, ultra-responsive, and always looking to come with ideas to improve your affiliate program.

Where do you find the best affiliates? Affiliate are everywhere actually. They run some of the best websites and blogs on the Internet. By joining networks like Commission Junction you can gain access to 10s of thousands of affiliates that are wiling to promote your products or services. Once on a large affiliate network like CJ you can recruit affiliates by sending emails to their affiliate base and reaching out to websites that are related to your services. If outreach is not going on in affiliate management there is a problem. Recruitment should be going on at all times in one way or another. Working with current affiliates to build a good relationship and recruiting new affiliate into the program are the two activities that should be going on simultaneously on a constant basis.

Your affiliate manager says, “There aren’t enough hours in the day to get all this done.” Wrong answer, they wither aren’t working hard enough or efficiently enough. If you are looking for the best affiliate management services on the planet you should contact us here at Experience Advertising. We put proven strategies into place for you program and work with affiliates to increase production levels. We seek to work closely with all affiliates regardless of their skill level or expertise. Contact us today and find out how far you affiliate program can really go!

Hey all, Ecomexpo has started and I highly recommend you check it out: http://www.ecomxpo.com/

Launching an affiliate program for your company is a great move into the online advertising space. You have some decisions to make however before launch your affiliate program. Many companies just choose to launch on a Commission Junction, Linkshare, Shareasale or Google Affiliate Network or a “large affiliate network” to handle it all through their systems. This is the easiest way to proceed. Launching on a large affiliate network needs to be done properly with good affiliate management in place. If you just launch the program with no plan of action or person in place to work with your new affiliates, you can’t expect your program to grow much or reach its full potential. Another way to go is to launch an in-house affiliate program by building an affiliate tracking program onto your website. This can be done relatively easily and cost-effectively, but you need the right specs and the proper coders to excute the application development. I have built several inhouse affiliate programs over the years and would be happy to assist in the design and development aspects.

Some companies choose to do both, build an inhouse affiliate program as well as launch on a large affiliate network. This is what I recommend to my clients as the best option long-term. This allows you to recruit both to your inhouse program as well as into your network program depending on the preference of the affiliate. You can also afford to payout more money per sale or per lead through an inhouse program which is desirable to the affiliate. Just make sure you pay on time every month. Launching affiliate programs on both inhouse and network platforms quires more affiliate management and upkeep. There are many tasks to perform on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Thats why you need an experienced affiliate management company, like ours, to handle this for you. Inhouse affiliate management can be effective when done properly with a large amount of proactivity on the part of the affiliate manager.

When you go to launch an affiliate program you have to make sure you have a good plan of action, good affiliate management in place, and the resources to stick it out for the long-haul. Nothing happens in affiliate marketing over-night, it’s a process that should grown every month and every year. But doing the right things with your affiliates you can be sure that you will have a flourishing affiliate program in no time at all. Contact Experience Advertising for more information about your affiliate management needs. 

Hey cool, nice to see a change of scenery. Google Affiliate Network merchant backend got a little face-lift but it just looks a little bit cleaner, nothing functional changed. It will be interesting to see what the Google Affiliate Network will do to catch up to the likes of Commission Junction and Linkshare…they have such a long way to go. CJ and Linkshare better stay out in front. Guys let me know if you want my guidance on how to crush the competition.

Well its official, Google Affiliate Network has been born out of the ashes of Performics. What will this mean for affiliate marketing as we know it? Not sure yet, but there could be good things in store of Performics merchants. Google definitely has the money and influence to serious grow their merchant and affiliate base. What will the Google Affiliate Network do for affiliates? I think it will benefit affiliate quite a bit. I think Google will try to bring its Adwords and Adsense advertisers into the performance-based marketing fold. Google Affiliate Network could be the greatest thing to ever happen to the affiliate industry. What a benefit to have those vast resources at your disposal to invest into the affiliate industry.

The question of should affiliate managers work on the weekends is deeper than just is it more effective. With a large percentage of affiliate marketers working on their sites/blogs on the weekends, it is great to be able to respond to affiliate questions and issues over the weekend to deliever the answers in a highly responsive fashion. It also shows that you put in extra effort for your affiliates. Of course, I think affiliate management should be a 7 day a week effort, but many times affiliate managers working for large companies will stick to the corporate schedule and never really give affiliates attention on the weekends or at night. The affiliate manager would have to have email enabled at their house or on their blackberry to be able to get their inquiries after working hours. And then it depends on the commitment your affiliate management has to being as responsive as possible. Of course, I think it’s extremely important to be there 24-7-365 in order to effectively grow your affiliate program and help affiliates to become more productive. You have to satisfy an affiliates needs when they are focused on your program or planning to give it attention. So in my opinion affiliate management should be done over the weekend and at nights to be as effective as possible.

This is really cool. Google is runnign a contest to see who can put a lander on the moon the quickest and giving away 20 million to the company that does it first. The lander has to land, travel some distance and then beam back data and video of the excursion. Better jump on it fast though…Google wants you there by 2012, but Im sure companies will try to go much sooner…stay tuned for updates. Here is the full article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/06/20/google.lunar.xprize/index.html

As a merchant looking to dive head first into the affiliate channel, you have a few things to consider before launching. First, you have to be willing to commit to a long-term affiliate program strategy that will grow over time. You also have to be willing to allocate and commit the necessary resources to growing your affiliate program. Most affiliate programs, when managed properly with intense attention paid to affiliates, will grow over time as more and affiliates come on board and start producing. Working with new affiliates and providing them the necessary tools to effectively promote your products and services should be a constant effort.

There are 3 main US-based affiliate networks that you have to choose from as an online merchant or lead generation company: Linkshare, Commission Junction, and Shareasale. Linkshare and CJ are the 2 primary networks that have been around the longest, however Shareasale has really emerged in the last few years as a very affordable and productive option. Since Linkshare has always maintained merchant exclusivity, online retailers have had to choose either Linkshare or CJ if they wanted to go big-time. I personally think all three are great and hold a lot of value for growing your affiliate program. I usually recommend Shareasale to merchants that want less initial risk but still want to create great affiliate relationships. CJ and Linkshare are pretty much a toss-up, but I personally tend to lean towards CJ because I’m just more familiar with the backend system and I feel more comfortable operating through there. I don’t think there is an issue at all by running in multiple networks simultaneously. Some affiliates prefer one network over another and it’s good to give them that choice.

There are several other affiliate networks like Performics, Pepperjam, Hydra, Rocket Profit among others that have show some good results, but overall you pretty much can’t lose with affiliate marketing if you run it well. Using the right affiliate management and recruiting technique is very important as well. Providing good ideas about how to actually promote the merchant on affiliates’ websites will help get more affiliates active and producing. If your company is looking for quality affiliate program management at affordable rates, you should use Experience Advertising. We know how to run affiliate programs in order to acheive the greatest success in the shortest period of time. We can be contacted through this website. Feel free to comment about this topic in our forum.

As a company looking to expand online, your affiliate program is one of the key aspects of your revenue driving strategies. Affiliates are your sales force on the Internet, so they should be treated as well as possible. Catering to affiliates needs and wants should be a constant priority. Quickly responding to questions and phone calls should be paramount. Make sure your affiliates are treated like gold, and provide them the tools and resources they need to prosper with your program. Equipping affiliates with things like top performing keywords, top selling products, custom banners for their site, and even unique content they can use on their site to describe your products and services. Futhermore, you should want to know how your affiliates are driving traffic to their sites currently, in order to provide them suggestion on how to improve what they are currently doing. 

Affiliate management is not an easy job, it’s highly skilled job, and takes a super-human effort practically in order to motivate as many affiliates possible to participate in your program. Good, effective affiliate management is what is needed to propel your affiliate base into over-drive. For this reason, you should seriously consider outsourcing affiliate program management to whats called an OPM or Outsourced Program Manager. Of course you have to choose the right company to provide this service. If you are rethinking your affiliate management options and considering outsourcing your affiliate managers, please consider Experience Advertising. We are expert affiliate managers and recruiters with over 10 years in online marketing. We can be contacted through this website today for a free consultation.