| LED Digest 2557: Managing Affiliate Programs |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.WillMaster.com/Master : the LED's Key Sponsor Master Series Software - Get Connected with Your WebSite www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. December 18, 2007 Issue no. 2557 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Paid Search Foolishness ==-- ~ Dean Wright ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Affiliate Manager Wanted ==-- ~ Mark J. Welch --== International SEO ==-- ~ Big Bill ~ Peter D'Aprix --== Marketing Trends ==-- ~ Tom Aman ~ Beth Ann Earle ========= NEW ===================================== From: Dean Wright Subject: Paid Search Engine Foolishness! I have come to the conclusion that anyone who is using PPC to any degree is foolish not to have a keyword tracking system in place. Not doing so is almost like tossing a coin. You have no idea what is actually producing a profit. Would like to know if others agree or am I missing something. Dean Wright http://electricblanketupgrade.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Mark J. Welch Subject: Affiliate manager Jaffer Ali from PulseTV posted an ad seeking an affiliate manager. Here's my reply to him, which may be useful to other list members also: > We need someone to create and manage an > affiliate program. They should have at > least 10 big affiliates to bring to the > table to introduce the top products... - Jaffer Ali, LED Digest 2556 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1971/190/ (1) I'm concerned that your post makes it sound as if you've never tried this before -- but a quick search turns up information about an affiliate program you were offering in 1999 and in 2005. I suppose that might be a good "litmus test" for OPMs: if they can't figure this out and specifically ask you why the earlier program was discontinued, you probably don't want to hire them. (2) You might find better results by posting your ad on ABestWeb.com (I believe it's free). You'd certainly get replies from a number of the OPM (Outsourced Program Management) agencies (some of whom sponsor forums there, or participate actively in the affiliate-marketing discussions on ABestWeb.com). Don't post your company name anywhere else on ABestWeb unless you've paid for a program announcement (the community is very hostile to perceived "spam" and violations of the community rules). (3) I don't understand what you mean when you write: "They should have at least 10 big affiliates to bring to the table to introduce the top products" -- managers may have some good relationships with some super-affiliates, but nobody can promise to "bring" any particular affiliate, other than price-comparison and coupon affiliates who work with everyone. (4) See my extremely in-depth discussion of "affiliate marketing advice for merchants" at http://www.markwelch.com/affiliate-advice.php (5) When clients hire me for affiliate-program advice, I strongly recommend hiring an in-house affiliate manager, for several reasons. I sometimes work as an "interim affiliate program manager" for new programs until an in-house person can be hired and trained. (6) Before making a decision, you might wish to spend some time reading the "Merchant Best Practices" forum at ABestWeb.com (7) Be aware of situations in which your new affiliates might "poach" commissions for transactions that they didn't actually bring to you. This certainly includes "parasites" but also some coupon affiliates. Plan your program very, very carefully! Mark J. Welch http://www.MarkWelch.com/ ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= Here's a tip- The WebSite's Secret is a members vault of superb scripts for your website. PHP .. CGI .. JavaScript People will ask, "How do you do that?" http://bontragercgi.com/WebSitesSecretLED Watch this space for more great tips! ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Big Bill Subject: International SEO > As for English, it has more words rooted > in Latin than an autonomous language would > like to admit. - Alex Hughart, LED Digest 2556 Embarrassingly, many of them, prefect, magistrate etc. are to do with authority in general. Google for "Agricola Tacitus civilisation servitude" and see what it brings up. I suspect that this still is Roman Britain. The Romans left, but the social conditioning they put in place is still here. We live in it, and still mistakenly call it civilisation. It's why we're having this discussion about selling things. Big Bill -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Peter D'Aprix Subject: International SEO Reply to Mr. Mills in LED 2556 Despite Mr. Mills and myself having our little contretemps over whose arrogance is bigger than the other, that's all it is; a little jousting. I agree wholeheartedly with most of his posts. As long as the target audience is rather narrowly defined, and I believe I did address that in my post. I am interested in the point of the language called "English" which is spoken world wide in all its forms and evolutions. And I am interested in the difficulty of content that has to span more than demographic. Let's take aiming a site at the country of Belgium. As Roger Cohen describes it in today's New York Times "It has three regions, three language communities that are not congruent with the regions, a smattering of local parliaments, a mainly French-speaking capital (Brussels) lodged in Dutch-speaking Flanders, a strong current of Flemish nationalism and an uneasy history." He adds there is a small minority that speak German. Yikes! What's a web designer to do? Probably what most businesses in Europe have to do; they make the same site in English, German, French, Italian and often Spanish. Just like the packaging experts have to do with product descriptions and instruction manuals on products sold in Europe. Often results in large boxes for small products. One way or another, someone speaks at least one or more of those languages; hopefully. On websites, often instead of using text like "UK Engish" that apparently sounds silly to some, they use the national flag to designate the different languages the site is offered in. I have indeed seen some that have the British Union Jack as well as the American Stars and Stripes. Since English (shall we agree to call the language we all know as English, despite its regional differences, "English" for the purposes of discussion?) is probably the most taught second language in the world, most products include it but certainly not all. But what form of it? We have all laughed and then cried at assembly instructions that were clearly composed with the use of a pocket English dictionary. But generally we figure it out. Just as the language we know as French in 1800 was only spoken by 11% of the population and a hundred years later that increased to only 20%, It was not until World War I that it could be said that French, as we know it today, became the universal language within France itself. This was due not only to the war, but also to roads, railways, and the telegraph. (Source: "The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War") Prior to that each region had its own dialects and sub-dialects. Thank God we did not have to build websites in those days! But I think the key is in the last line. The language became increasingly more universal due to the technology of roads, railways and the telegraph that started to link up communities. The language became more homogenized. Local love of tradition kept it from becoming completely homogenized. I think that the internet poses the same jump in technology that can and will spread a wider and more homogenized English language (sorry Mr. Mills). I understand that almost all text books for engineering are written in English or an industry defined English. The very code of the internet is based in English. So I think (and I would welcome other opinions) that despite more countries publishing web sites in their native language, most will have to also do a version in English since it seems the most common means of communication. Who has not seen a Frenchman and an Italian communicating in English? If Belgium has problems, there are hundreds of languages in China often with such differences between close villages that they can't understand each other. Imagine building a web site for that country alone! Imagine trying to run a manufacturing plant employing young women from all over the country, mostly poorly educated, and getting them all working off the same sheet. So the point I was actually trying to make in my reply to Mr. Mills, is that with the global reach of the internet and English being one of the common links, we all need to make our content as easy to understand for everyone by using the simplest forms of the language possible or risk leaving a lot of potential buyers out in the cold. Everyone using the net, needs to be forgiving about how the language is spelled since there are so many words that differ between the accepted spelling in the US as opposed to the UK. Not everyone learning English is learning the British form. I mean look at how many words have been highjacked by the computer world itself that carry different meanings that the Oxford dictionary would turn over in its grave. So if your site needs to be as inclusive as possible the language used must be also. But as I mention in my previous post, if your target audience is highly specific, then the language needs to be tailored for that group, slang, spelling and all. But there is nothing new in this. The advertising industry has been using focus groups for years to test market everything from visual packaging to copy. I think our biggest challenge is when we have to address several disparate target groups such as, for product, end users and the trade at the same time. When the age group is everyone from kids, teens, young adults, parents and grand parents, i.e. spanning several generations all with their own imbedded cultures. How do you address one without alienating the others? If the content is homogenized and sanitized to the extent that it will not offend anyone, will it snare anyone? And right now I am only talking about language, the first thing search engines see and the last thing visitors focus on. So we have to add to our demographic the two different ways visitors to our sites will view the site itself. One looking for tagged text and spiderable code, the other looking at the whole visual page first, then drilling down to the body copy after lingering on the head line. So much for template built web sites. So, yes, Mr. Mills, as users, if we get too much caught up in the form, we will miss the substance and only have our own stubbornness to blame. As users, we have to stay loose and focus on the meat if we want to benefit ourselves. In this global internet world we have to stay flexible as users. However, as creators of sites, I think we have to focus as much on how we say things as what we choose to say even more than on the technical back bone of the site itself with all its complicated coding. We need to be visually as well as literarily aware of how people see and how the eye travels to information. How it affects them emotionally first and rationally second. If visitors speak just a little English, how we can support the message with visuals to make clear the text. They all go hand in hand and depend upon each other as well as an awareness of the end user of the site. I also agree with Mr. Mills about spelling when the spelling conventions are uniform for your target audience. And I know that was the focus on the start of this thread. However, many sites will have a number of target audiences who may well not share a common spelling convention. Even worse, may have different associations with visual symbols and colors that carry meaning. The choice then is to either create different sites to address each of these audiences or a single site that will provide content that they all can understand. Obviously the multiple site is the most effective, but also the most expensive and not all companies have the budget for that. In which case, the single site has no choice but to be the most understandable to the widest audience possible and accept the fact that they will loose some audience as a result. You can please some people all the time . . . and so on. So if an American is making a site to appeal to a British audience, the site better have a test run on a sampling of British people who fit the target demographic. Everything including the form of English, its spelling and slang as well as its whole cultural approach should be tailored to that specific demographic. And the reverse is also true. But this does not just apply to countries; it applies to any target audience anywhere. There is so much that can be said about this topic that the LED is just not the place for it. So I will leave off here and thank you all for your patience and hope I have contributed something even if it is just to ask your client "who EXACTLY is your target audience at the beginning of your first meeting?". Amazing how many don't really know. Peter D'Aprix - Visual Communications http://peterdaprix.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Marketing trends > Suggesting that video is going to go > away is like saying global warming isn't > happening. - David Spahr, LED Digest 2556 No one is suggesting that it is going away (but it will be nice when the quality improves). We are also not saying it is new, it is some of the uses, like YouTube, that are new. Good video has been around on the Web for a long time. What we are saying that it is not "the latest and greatest to be used by everyone". The former "latest and greatest" items that so many used badly are still around and still used but now, in most cases, used well and used where they are appropriate. The use of video should be no different. It is great for some things, totally useless for others. Like using Frames, Flash, Blogs, etc., etc., "just because you can doesn't mean you should". The use of video (on site, via YouTube, or whatever) should be limited to those things for which it works well and to those who can produce videos of reasonably good quality. > I find it interesting that on Myspace about > every aspect of questionable design exists > there and people are still visiting in > droves. What demographic and for how long will it continue? Personally, I find it is mostly a great time waster - I have better (to me) things to do with that time. Many of the questionable aspects (like heavy pages, music, etc.) are not questionable in that particular context because that is what visitors who enjoy that kind of experience expect to find on that site. But set up the same kind of pages to sell some other product where it is really inappropriate and people would likely leave in droves. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Beth Ann Earle Subject: Marketing trends > This is video. Like we have seen on our > TV for the last 50+ years. Sorry but this > is different... Also, it should be noted > that this is not just the "latest and > greatest". It has been around for quite > some time now. - David Spahr, LED Digest 2556 OK. This is the first explanation I've seen that helps put the whole video thing in perspective for me and differentiates video from the trends (frames, etc.) that seem to come and go on-line. Video is different from current/past trends, and it is something people are already used to (and I couldn't figure that out for myself, why?). Of course, few of our b2b manufacturing clients are likely to jump into videos right this istant (it doesn't make sense for any of them to advertise on tv right now, either), but this is the first post that actually makes it seem logical for widely published videos to one day be part our clients' marketing efforts. All the best, Beth Ann Earle www.pilotfishseo.com (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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