online marketing

As any company grows & realizes some level of success (whether lasting or fleeting), the question arises - what do we do with the profit?

Conventional wisdom would have us investing in diversified stocks or (more likely) Real Estate. However, online marketers, as a group, can't accurately be labeled as conventional.

We just added feeds from some of our favorite online marketing blogs covering SEO, Domain Names, Online marketing, Google & more. Just to prove that the internet is not completely full of idiots, we are including lots of posts from smart people.

The feeds import a teaser from selected sites/content & then link to the full content on each site. Hopefully you will find some great blogs & sites that you were not yet aware of. Unfortunately some of the feeds only export the title (boooo.) so we had to remove those.

We will be adding detailed descriptions for each featured blog/site soon.

Today Google announced a Pay Per Action beta test destined for their adsense contextual advertising product. In essence, PPA does not incur a cost to the advertiser unless the visitor takes an "action". This could include a purchase or completing a form.

Needless to say, this has lots of Search Engine Marketers, Publishers, & Affiliates buzzing about what it means to the industries.

Nothing... yet.

However, it could become significant in a number of ways.

Some see an opportunity for smaller advertisers to begin advertising online as they would not have the risk of click fraud. Advertisers could determine what their profit per visitor is & then bid a percentage of that profit for a PPA advertisement. It's measurable.

Assuming PPA grows beyond the content network into the search network, the advantage over PPC still eludes me, though. Search engine marketers do this all day, every day with CPC (cost per click). The really scientific ones could tell you conversion rates & revenue per visitor by keyword & time of day. Most of the time this can be done without surrendering conversion rates to a third party like Google.

PPA requires conversion tracking in order to count an "action" (and charge the advertiser). Congratulations. Now another company has almost as much information about your online business as you do... and the resources better analyze the data.

While the PPA Advertising option is in beta & limited to the contextual network, I wouldn't bet on it staying there. If there is any indication that Google can increase profitability by expanding this, it will be scaled. Increase profitability... that's a clue.

Companies spend money to make money. The enhancements that Google has offered with Conversion Tracking, Web Analytics, etc. are given away for FREE (!) despite their development & maintenance costs. The true cost to advertisers is data. Nothing is free.

Some say this is the end for the Affiliate networks & aggregators or even the end of CPC - probably not... but truly it's too early to know if or how this will be adopted.

In the interim, I'm staying on the sidelines & building Content.

The Affiliate Marketing business is all about relationships.

For a number of reasons, including relationships, we tend to pursue independent affiliate programs. However, we still have accounts with some of the big affiliate networks.

Today, I decided to check the internal mail on crappyaffiliatenetworknamewithheld.com & noticed that we had been TERMINATED from 2 programs.

Actually seeing these emails requires logging in to their system. That would be problem number one. The likelihood of mail sent through the internal system being read in a timely manner is pretty low. I wouldn't bet money (or a relationship) on it.

Free Tip: Communicate directly.

Problem number two is that we actually do a big job, by any standard, with other companies in the same niche as the advertisers who terminated us as affiliates... and the traffic is squeaky clean. Is this the type of affiliate you want to alienate? Duh.

Free Tip: Communicate directly.

Granted, we were not actively pushing their particular programs but a direct email (not a form email... affiliates hate that crap.) or a quick phone call would have been enlightening for all parties involved. It may or may not have changed anything, but to just terminate an affiliate using the anonymity of the select box on the advertiser control panel is short-sighted & demonstrates a lack of willingness to address a problem directly. Don't be a girly-man. Communicate directly.

Affiliate marketers have good memories & top performers are in short supply. Additionally, a poor performer might GROW into a top performer given some time & guidance. Every top affiliate out there started out as a poor performer. I guarantee it.

To be fair, part of the problem is with the interface which displays network earnings. This can be remarkably misleading. For example, we do very little with that particular network so our 'network earnings' can be accurately described as unimpressive. We do a big job - just not within that network.

A question for affiliate managers: If there is no violation of TOS, what is the point of terminating an affiliate? What was really gained? Maybe there is some hidden cost of which I am not aware. I dunno.

The more effective affiliate managers understand that this business is about relationships. As many of the programs are competitive with each other - relationships are a key to acquiring & maintaining affiliate publishers. The more effective managers also recognize small achievements as what they are... stepping stones to larger ones.

It is hard work to develop and maintain relationships with your affiliates. If you want easy work, look elsewhere. If you want to grow your business, communicate directly.