| Affiliate Marketing Views |
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Welcome to the exciting world of affiliate marketing! Or, win-win marketing, because when done well, everybody --- the marketer, the affiliate and the affiliate network---wins. I'll discuss current happenings and my own insights into the implications and provide a forum for constructive discussion in the win-win spirit of affiliate marketing. Hopefully, we’ll create a platform for insightful, prophetic and even contentious thinking, while ensuring it is interesting, informative and valuable. |
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PPC arbitrage v/s websites
There was this question posed on Shawn Collins' website by an affiliate on whether owning a website was more profitable than simply leveraging PPC arbitrage. Most professional affiliates have probably gone through this dilemma sometime in their affiliate marketing adventure; like many other questions, this probably doesn't have a black-and-white answer to it.
PPC arbitrage is akin to instant gratification; in many ways, capitalizing on PPC arbitrage is no different from a stock trader selling short. Undoubtedly, if you are good at it, the rewards can be great and immediate, but if you don't do it well there are direct risks as well as the risk of lost opportunity.
Nurturing a website is like a long-term investment in your most prized stocks-- you hold on to it through some periodic ups and downs and continue to invest in it and develop your portfolio.
The good thing is that both of these approaches aren't mutually exclusive; at the same time, both strategies don't have to be used simultaneously. Point is, each game is a new one...
Affiliate marketers, by the nature of our role as lead generators for others' wares, are bound to continuously face newer challenges --- be it restrictions on PPC, use of the methods we use, the unpredictable nature of how search engines view us and list us in their indexes etc.
In many ways, affiliate marketers face the 'damned if you do, damned if you don't syndrome; but it's not without its fun, thrill and rewards.
I doubt if you'll ever hear of serious affiliate marketers worrying about keeping their brain cells fertile; the exciting opportunities that keep coming up laced with newer constraints and challenges ensure there's always something interesting round the corner.
Until next time,
Ben Flux
Google Page Creator-- Cause for cheer for amateurs?
Google launched its web page creation and hosting tool, and promptly closed registrations due to "heavy demand". But we all now know of the existence of this tool and that it will be out sooner rather than later.
Free web site hosting services, despite the popularity that they enjoyed a few years ago, are not really on everyone's must have lists. Most people who can don't really opt for such sites; but these are definitely good for amateurs and personal pages. Yet, Googlepages may get better attention, because it comes from the Google stable.
From a business perspective, will these be beneficial? I am sceptical.
It seems that creating this website is tied to your Gmail account; which gives me the impression that at this point, a user cannot have multiple websites using the free service. That doesn't really help professional affiliates (who in any case may want to have pages with their own domain name).
But it certainly opens some possibilities for personal sites and amateur affiliates, who could set up a website without too much hassle and put in a few affiliate links.
It also has the potential to boost AdSense revenues as the number of amateur publishers increase significantly. I am not sure if Google is allowing AdSense on these pages yet; but my instinct is that they will at some point.
While we don't begrudge publishers earning revenues from the program, to what extent the increased distribution of AdSense will affect the quality of the traffic that will be generated is an important question that Pay-per-click advertisers will have to bear in mind.
Until next time,
Ben Flux
Valentines' Day, the weather and simple lessons
One of the big days (and probably the first in the year, after New Year's) in the online retail calendar just went past, and all indications are that it was a good one. According to comScore, as reported in this article, sales on Valentine's Day gift-related items grew over 22% year-on-year in the month leading up to it. Despite some mixed signals slowly finding their way regarding the prospects for online sales this year, the results augur well for the year ahead, and seem to be in line with the earlier bullish projections that were being made.
While on the subject of Valentine's Day, super affiliate Jeremy Palmer writes about his experience from this year's V-Day sales. Two simple things that one can take away from Jeremy's piece: watch what is happening to get a better understanding of one's target demographic as he found out (yet again- that men are from mars, women are from venus...) and secondly, plan ahead if you are planning to drive any kind of traffic from organic search results.
Most professional affiliates know these already-- but there's absolutely everything to gain in reminding ourselves to take stock occasionally.
In a similar vein, I saw Shawn Collins asking affiliates to take advantage of the bad weather in several parts of the US forced people to stay indoors. Simple yet great tip, I think; afterall, like all businesses, external factors that we may or may not have much control will often dictate our success or failure; so, why not convert some of these circumstances into great opportunities?
Timing IS everything.
Until next time,
Ben Flux
Putting eggs in one basket......
We know the consequences of putting all our eggs in one basket; once in a while, we get a rude awakening-- just as DGM seemed to have got one a few months back.
Elementary & common sense, one would think; but like with most other things, when the going is good, we hardly take a step back to consider our options. Ultimately, it is about continuing to have that revenue stream flowing with as much momentum as possible.
As affiliates, I believe there are two aspects that we will be best served by revisiting and periodically asking ourselves if we are indeed putting all eggs in one basket (it is as much a reminder for myself as it is for any affiliate reading this).
(i) Relationships: Niche, Focus, Loyalty are great; but are we too dependent on one particular segment or merchant? Even the staunchest optimist is advised to consider the worst case scenario and look at alternatives available.
(ii) Marketing: Are you too reliant on paid search marketing? Or Organic traffic?
I am not really asking that we fix something if it ain't broken; by all means we should continue and optimize the things that work best; but let's consider the possibility of something 'breaking' or not working for some inexplicable reason. Can we bear to wait and find an alternative at that point?
Until next time,
Ben Flux
p.s: i) Read about the changes at the top at LinkShare
ii) Seems like the next Google SearchQuake (a borrowed term from somewhere on the Internet) is about to happen....watch out for it. See the update re. BigDaddy to get a clue to the impending quake.
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