Since Google's change of URL policies, some companies have been helping their affiliates by full page / full site creative for their affiliates. DentalPlans.com is one of the companies that has been doing a great job with this. They have published full site templates in their In-House Program as well as on Commission Junction.

For an example of one of their templates, see Low-Cost-Dental-Plan.com.

Just buy a domain name, implement their code, and start marketing. It couldn't get much easier.

DentalPlans.com has agreed to offer Goyami readers an extra $5 per lead if they sign up for their In-House program via the following Dental Plans Affiliate Program link.

Halloween is a great time for affiliate marketers. It's one of the few times in the year where everyone is buying the same type of merchandise: Costumes for Kids, Costumes for Adults, and Halloween Party Supplies. So it's time for affiliate marketers to build Halloween Costume Sale sites and publish their Halloween Coupon Codes and Deals provided by their merchant partners.

Here are some of the top merchants with Halloween Merchandise:

Japan's largest online shopping mall operator, Rakutten, has agreed to buy Linkshare for $425 Million. Rakutten plans to take Linkshare into more overseas markets.

In Japan, Rakuten runs top-ranked sites for online shopping, travel, golf reservations, community and greeting cards. The acquisition, Rakuten's largest yet, is expected to close next month. This is the Tokyo-based company's first expansion in the United States, though the company hinted that it expects to make more.

Linkshare had recently opened up Linkshare Japan, and was pushing hard on expansion in that area.

Stephen Messer, LinkShare's chairman and CEO, and Heidi Messer, president and COO, were also LinkShare's largest shareholders, with a 40-percent stake. Venture capital firm ICG held a 35-percent stake, with Mitsui & Co. and Comcast holding the remaining shares.

On July 13th, Jeff Molander of Molandar & Associates released a list of the top 200 retail-focused Web affiliates, The Affiliate List. The $200 list has been controversial from day one. Connie Berg and Shawn Collins do a good job of laying out and discussing the controversy.

I was a little confused about the contents of this list at first, and had a chance to catch up with Jeff Molander to get some questions answered:

Goyami: Interesting list, would affiliates like myself or Todd be listed?

Jeff Molander:
No... I don't think you're a "retail" guy are you? I thought your biz (and this is a planned "top affiliate list" that we might roll out next) was more specific to data feeds and SEM. I view that as somewhat separate from "retail" sites like FlamingoWorld and FatWallet. Also, it's all third party data and publicly avail. information.

Goyami:
I thought this was a list of top affiliates? IMWAVE and The Tweedy Group are typically considered one of the top affiliates of most programs we actively participate in. We do paid search, and online sites, blogs, etc...

Jeff Molander:
Understood. Yes... I think there's a lot of value in rounding it out with PPC/SEO/SEM affiliates given how much is driven by them as a group. I appreciate the feedback.

So it would appear the list is focused on large website affiliates who have publicly available information. It's a great idea to rank affiliates so merchants can quickly identify the professionals. Jeff should probably consider some sort of form on their site to submit information and update listings. Much of what is publicly available is out of date.

Like their Magazine, Revenue Magazine's newly updated Blog, provides a lot of good content about the affiliate world. However, the blog inadvertently fuels the online sblog world (weblog spam). By listing and providing links to recent referrers and top referrers, the blog's home page has quickly become a list of links to black hat search engine optimizers who drive traffic to sites offering these links of recent referrers to get inbound links.

A quick look at their recent referrers shows xanax, rape glow, and hydrocodone sites... Nice...

Perhaps their choice of blog software and feature implementation should be re-considered...

Affiliate marketer and president of The Internet Marketing Center, Corey Rudl, was killed on June 2nd on the California Speedway while riding in a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT. Corey was the pioneer of the long format ad as well as many email markteing techniques that have been adopted as standards in online sales and marketing tactics.

There are many tributes to Corey already posted on WebmasterWorld boards. A news report about the incident was reported on NBC-4 News.

Adam and I wish to express our sincere condolences to Corey's family and friends. He will be greatly missed.

Todd and Adam

Attention all outdoor industry affiliates: Lorrie Thomas, Director of Affiliate Marketing & Internet Marketing Manager for Affinity Group will be attending the Great American Outdoor Rally as well as Affiliate Summit Conference.

If you've never met Lorrie -- now is your chance. Lorrie is one if the *BEST* affiliate managers in the business.

Here is her contact information:

Lorrie H. Thomas

Internet Marketing Manager

Affinity Group, Inc.

805.667.4161 Phone

lthomas@affinitygroup.com

or goodsamaffiliate@affinitygroup.com

I received a "Network Quality Announcement" from Commission Junction today indicating that they are taking a stand against allowing affiliate marketers from buying advertising from companies who download and install software on an end-user's computer. Here is the meat of their message:

In order to sustain this open marketplace of information, Commission Junction will no longer allow special programs engaged in the purchase of media from ad services that download and install software on an end-user's computer. For special programs currently engaged in such practices, Commission Junction requests that you immediately discontinue such practices. We will continue to monitor such programs to insure that special descriptions are properly updated.

The message then goes on to say:

As described in the Commission Junction Publisher Service Agreement (PSA), publishers who distribute ads using third-party services and/or place links on Web sites, not owned or operated by the publisher, must be disclosed as a special program. Special programs require both Commission Junction and advertiser approval, and Commission Junction reserves the right to reject a special program at any time.

Congratulations on the Parasite stand!!! This is long overdue. I am concerned a bit about the general verbiage. This message clearly opens up the ability for CJ to disallow any and all advertising other than links on a publisher's page.

It would seem to me that affiliate marketing has clearly moved so far beyond just this type of marketing that there should be more specific information about what is and is not acceptable without asking for special permission to do just about anything.

I recently received my first consolidated check from Linkshare, who up until now has sent out individual checks for each merchant that affiliates earned commissions from. The check arrived with no information about what merchant's commissions made up the payment, and no report could be readily found to derive such information. When I asked emailed Linkshare, they gave me the following directions to obtain such a report:

"The payment report is only available now through Beta Synergy Analytics.
You will find a link to this at the top left hand side of your home page.
In reporting click on the 4th tab Network Transaction Analysis and on the left side of the page you'll find the link to the payment report."

Great, this works.

Wouldn't it just be easier to give details on the check stub? Or make this report available under the "payment reports" link on the main console?

I love the idea of consolidated check or direct deposit, but let's make it easy to do the accounting work guys!

This reminds me of the daily frustration of getting individual checks from BeFree and having to write the merchant's name on the check stub, because the only place the name exists is on the check and that goes to the bank.

Little things like this could pay of big for the networks by enabling affiliates to focus more time on earning more commissions and less time on non-commissionable accounting tasks.

The direct response marketing mantra I learned while working for a specialty communications agency within WPP’s media empire was desired behavioral objective. The focus I believe leans toward the cause-side of what Jennifer Rice labels the Law Causality.

The phrase, Desired Behavioral Objective, if spoken quickly three times in a row is likely to produce a primitive resonation that sounds more like a chant than a method or system for assigning tactical marketing tasks.

Personally, I don’t need any more tasks. That’s why all advertising and branding stinks: we have enough things to do already. I’ll bet your to do list is huge too. Of course, the impending arrival of our #2 child is only adding more tasks to my personal list. In fact, I’m getting tired just thinking about how tired I’m going to be after doing only half of those tasks. I think it’s one reason why I’ve nearly stopped watching TV and why I own 500+ DVDs. My task list is just full.

The natural response to: act now, learn more, use promotional code xyz, click here, subscribe today, don’t wait, limited time offer, take an extra 15% off, hurry, get your $25 mail-in rebate, get your free $10 reward card, shop today through Sunday, wait there’s more, plus there’s even more, redeem your bonus today, new, save, on sale, clearance, everyday low prices, special values, huge savings, 5 days only, book online and save, zero payments, no interest if paid in full, and my favorite of all time “operators are standing by” is to just to mute the volume. In fact, it’s what my Dad was doing before Tivo.

So how should we task our prospects? Focus on more benefit statements? Perhaps.

You might think that after reading Jennifer Rice’s response to Freddie Daniels commentary concerning a statement published in the Spring issue of Marketing Society’s Market Leader magazine that your mission in marketing as an affiliate should not be to change customer behavior in order to generate revenue growth but rather to be of service. She’s absolutely right. While I wouldn’t go as far to say that you need to love the customer, I believe the marketing conversation is likely to be more successful for both parties when we’re receptive and open to dialog. The conversation creates commerce. It’s about being a good neighbor.

It’s why I like sites like 43things.com, del.icio.us, and Wikipedia. These sites are tapping into social conversations. More benefits and no call to actions. It's more than a PPC buy on Google or Yahoo. It's much much more than a simple site build around a data feed. It's a conversation.

How are you conversing with your customers??

Two busy shopping seasons are quickly approaching. Graduation and Father's Day. To prepare for Graduation and Father's Day look at deals being offered by your merchant partners. I am sure a lot of the merchants will be offering specials. I have found deals from Brooks Brothers, Ashford, Cross Pens, Vistaprint, Circuit City, Proflowers and more!

Let me know if you find any other gread deals for Father's day or Graduation.

Adam

I just read through Lawrence Deon's inciteful look at Google's recent Patent filing, and what struck my as most interesting was the part about potentially punishing sites for having "too many" affilaite links and also potentially punishing sites that link to pages with too many affilaite links.

Here is the section of his post I found interesting:

According to their patent filing Google records and scores the following web page changes to determine freshness.
• The frequency of all web page changes
• The actual amount of the change itself… whether it is a substantial change redundant or superfluous
• Changes in keyword distribution or density
• The actual number of new web pages that link to a web page
• The change or update of anchor text (the text that is used to link to a web page)
• The numbers of new links to low trust web sites (for example, a domain may be considered low trust for having too many affiliate links on one web page).
Although there is no specific number of links indicated in the patent it might be advisable to limit affiliate links on new web pages. Caution should also be used in linking to pages with multiple affiliate links.

Why do you think Google has targeted affiliate markeitng as such a bad thing?

I didn't have time to setup a Mother's Day Gift site this year. I had meant to re-configure my Valentine's Day flowers site into a mother's day gift's site with a similar look and feel. Most of the same merchants would work as well. But alas, time got away from me, and here we are just days before the Mother's day shopping season ends.

Then I had an idea, I am receiving all of these special coupon codes in my email for Mother's day, why not just take these deals and post them to my web-coupon-codes.com site in a special Mother's day deals section. This way I can leverage my coupon codes blog and have a mini-site that lists any deals I want to post for Mother's day. Since all the deals are specific for Mother's day, the section of the blog would be right on topic and might score high organically.

Todd and I have noticed blog entries ranking well and getting indexed fast in search engines. I think the nature of their RSS feeds and the ability to ping sites as new posts are entered make them great search spider food.

Personally, I like TypePad as my Blog software of choice. You can get a basic weblog for just $4.95 per month, 3 blogs for $8.95 per month, and for $14.95 a month you can get an unlimited number of blogs. The unlimited deal is great for any serious affiliate who plans to make the most out of blog technology.

Why Typepad vs Blogger? The main reason I switched from Blogger to TypePad was the permalink option which takes each post and makes a single page out of it along with any comments posted to that page. Goyami uses the same technology using their server side product, MovableType. TypePad is their hosted version.

I received a broadcast email today from the good folks at Kowabunga proposing a tactic to deter spyware affiliates from participating in a merchant's affiliate program by relying on affiliates to police programs directly with the added twist of a referral incentive.

Is it a great idea or simply a PR ploy? We'd like to hear from you....

Todd

===============================================

Dear Merchant,

We know that many of you are doing what you can to attempt to keep spyware affiliates out of your programs in order to not only be more profitable, but also allow your honest affiliates to get the commissions they deserve. We applaud those efforts and have some news that we hope will help you in your anti-spyware efforts.

We've been working behind the scenes with some of our merchants and third parties to help identify spyware within different programs. As many of you know, these affiliates can be hard to detect in many cases, as they may strike up side deals with the spyware company or funnel traffic through a CPA network. What we've found is that your best affiliates can often be the best tool to combat spyware -- they have a vested interest in keeping your program clean and they also understand the technology employed by spyware and can help you detect it.

One of our merchants, DishPronto.com, has taken the lead in this effort, and we want to encourage you to consider following that lead. Essentially, they have added language to their affiliate agreement that not only warns potential spyware affiliates not to join, but offers honest affiliates a bounty -- up to the amount of commissions due a spyware affiliate -- for evidence that a spyware affiliate is in their program.

We believe this tactic is not only a cost effective and self-corrective way to police your private program, but allows you to continue to run your program without a third party having to monitor your behavior or intrude on the relationships you have with your affiliates.

We're thus encouraging all of our merchants to consider trying this method by amending their own affiliate agreements. If you add the appropriate language to your agreement, we will also list your program as "Anti-Spyware" in our Kolimbo network, meaning affiliates will immediately know your stance on this issue, and will be more likely to join your program as well as help you keep your program free of spyware. If you are a part of Kolimbo you will receive a separate email from Ben Ellis with the details.

For now, here is a sample of the agreement language you can use:
http://www.kolimbo.com/antispyware.htm

Please email me with any thoughts or questions. As with all other things we do, our clients are always the first source of change and innovation, and we will continue to build software and services based on your needs and best practices.

Jeff Doak
CTO, KowaBunga! Marketing
A Think Partnership Inc., Company

Ad Blocking Issue Heating up at Commission Junction

In the latest release of Norton Internet Security, Norton enabled a feature called Ad Blocking which will attempt to strip out advertising from the web pages you are viewing. When Commission Junction realized that their domains were on the list of blocked ads, they quickly moved to add new domain names and encryption options to their merchant’s advertising urls. A series of emails, see below, indicate that the issue may be heating up and causing some friction between Commission Junction and their Merchants.

Email from Merchant:

You’re loosing commissions!

Hello All,

You're losing commissions due to Norton Antivirus blocking your cj.com links. I've noticed many of your tracking URL's you have for us begin with qksrv.net. These are being blocked. I'm positive though that if you switch this url to one that is not on the banned list, you'll immediately see your efforts payoff and commissions triple. You can ask cj.com for a new url which is not being blocked yet they call it reintergration. They are trying to stay ahead of Norto*n by switching urls, but it maybe a temporary fix until that url is add to nortons list.
These are some articles to help you get a better understanding.
http://www.keywebdata.com/articles.aspx?article=10.
http://www.stevedawson.com/article0001.php
http://accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html

Regards,
Richard Chu
Online Marketing Manager
NGC Worldwide Inc.
rchu@ngcworldwide.com
617-848-4257 Office
646-270-7883 Cell

P.S. we are also on networks that are not currently being blocked and you can just replace cj's urls to the network of your choice. I can not spell these out because cj will filter this email so ignore the * s*hare*asal*e.com, cli*xgal*ore.com, and lin*kcon*nect*or.com all free to setup. Rather than fixing cj.com we would love to have your join us on one of these other networks.
The golf season is here. Being the number 1 performing sports site for cj.com last year, we'd like you make some money with us. We have proved copy that sells. Attached are new banners you may use.

Email from Commission Junction

Clarification of Ad-blocking Issue

Dear Affiliate,
You may have recently received an email message from one of our advertisers, NGC Worldwide, describing their view of ad-blocking effects on Commission Junction's ad-serving functionality. Because we value you as a client and your confidence in the reliability of our technology is essential, we'd like to more completely and accurately address how we've handled the ad-blocking issue.

As online marketers we are, of course, aware of the rise in use of software that blocks ads on an end-user's desktop. The affect of ad-blocking software can range from relatively non-invasive pop-up blocking to interference with general Web site viewing regardless of the presence of advertisements; these effects are often unwanted and unintended by the end-user. Ad-blocking software uses a variety of methods to accomplish its goal, and often aggressively blocks a large list of domain names including Commission Junction's "qksrv.net," "service.bfast.com", and ValueClick's "valueclick.com". Although Commission Junction has attempted to work cooperatively with ad-blocking software companies to approach controls more rationally, progress has been slow.

In response to the situation, last August Commission Junction released changes to our tracking technology in the CJ Marketplace, which allow advertisements to be served from new, unblocked domains and allow for encryption of some information in the link itself. To take advantage of this technology, publishers must renew any links which had been associated with qksrv.net. Our BFAST® also includes new technology to serve links from unblocked domains. These solutions have proven to be effective in combating the more onerous ad-blocking technologies.

If you need information about how to renew or use encrypted links, please search for "Get HTML For Links" in the Help section of the CJ Account Manager™. If you have any further questions, please access the "Ask a Question" feature in your CJ Account Manager or "Get Help" in the BFAST Partner Gateway.

Please accept our apologies for any confusion resulting from NGC Worldwide's email. And we wish you much success in your online performance marketing program with Commission Junction.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Cholawsky
Vice President, Marketing and Product Development
Commission Junction, a ValueClick company

CGI Holding (soon to be called Think Partnership Inc.) has Acquired Kowabunga Software, one of the leading providers of affiliate management tools for companies looking to run their own affiliate programs.

Think Partnership also owns the following companies:

Over the past few weeks I have spent some time talking to some affiliate managers and reading some recent articles which lead me to believe that there is a lack understanding of perspectives between affiliate managers and search arbitrage affiliates, those affiliates that buy pay-per-click advertising and link directly to the merchant's site via their paid search ads.

First, I got dragged into a rather lengthy online discussion with Jeff Molander on his comments regarding my "Top 10 Ways to Repel Super Affiliates from your Program" post. We clearly have two very different perspectives and I believe our online comments back and forth helped us both learn and appreciate the other's point of view.

Second, I met with Beth Kirsch director of online marketing for Audible, columnist for Revenews, and co-teacher at Affiliate Boot camp. Beth and I had a nice chat in New York where I was attending the Search Engine Strategies conference. Beth had recently hired the former affiliate manager of Blue Fly, Jen Weiss, to be the new affiliate manager after Audible gave Beth a well deserved promotion. Jen had indicated to Beth that I used to market for Bluefly and stopped when she asked me not to bid on their trademark term.

Jen mentioned that bidding on the trademark term was "easy money if you can get it." So I decided to do some research on my old Bluefly ads. After about a year of trying to market Bluefly, I had spent $3,985 in ads utilizing well over 20,000 keyword phrases. I had exactly 9 clicks on the Bluefly trademark term, non of which converted into sales. From my marketing efforts Bluefly made $63,631.93 in sales and after backing out an incredibly high 30.67% return rate, I earned a total of $3,990.94 in commissions. This was probably the hardest $5.94 I have ever made in my life. Easy money? No. A lack of two way communications and mutual understanding of each other's perspectives? Absolutely! I don't blame Jen, clearly I am equally or more to blame for not clearly reading their guidelines for trademark bidding and for spending so much time on one program without trying to communicate with the affiliate manager.

Finally, I was reading Mary Wagner's Top Spot Column in Internet Retailer Magazine today where she talks about how marketers are wrestling over trademark use under Google's new ad policy. What stuck out to me was the quote from LinkShare's CEO, Stephen Messer:

"LinkShare doesn't encourage participation from Search Arbitrage affiliates... Our entire message to our partners has been, they have to add value, so they, (the search arbitragers), probably weren't working with us."

The obvious message being that Stephen Messer thinks that search arbitrage affiliates that buy ads and link directly to the merchant's site via affiliate links don't add value.

To be honest I am disappointed by his comments. Being a search arbitrage affiliate isn't as easy as some might think. There seems to be this perception that all that a search arbitrage affiliate does is bid on a company's trademark and make "easy money". This is far from the truth.

Perhaps we all need to spend some more time communicating with each other and sharing our different perspectives, it's the only way that a true partnership can arise and the truly valuable long term win-win relationships can be created.

eComXpo is set to kick off tomorrow, and I had a chance to take a sneak preview today. This online tradeshow promises to be a lively event full of tradeshow booths, presentations, prize giveaways, and virtual networking chat rooms. This is the first year that this has been tried, and it looks like it will be a huge success.

With hundreds of merchants and thousands of affiliates participating, it's bound to be interesting.

Here is a quick screen shot of the main tradeshow exhibit hall:

I received an email from Shoes.com today about the new Google policy. Here’s the first paragraph:

“I am sure many of you are aware that Google AdWords has incorporated a new affiliate advertising policy, which will allow only one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same url. This means Shoes.com affiliates will now need to send AdWords clicks to their own websites, rather than directly to Shoes.com. The good news is that we have some excellent free tools for affiliates that can help create great landing pages.”

Close but no clogs!

Merchants need to remember that it’s possible for an affiliate ad to be served in place of your if they have a higher ad rank determined by a combination of your ad's maximum cost-per-click (price) and clickthrough rate (performance).

Todd

I spoke to Todd Crawford, Vice President of Sales at Commission Junction, earlier this morning about Google’s recent announcement to limit the number of displayed PPC ads from a shared URL to a single listing and it’s likely impact on the affiliate industry.

Crawford is a long-time veteran of affiliate marketing. He was calm, articulate and recounted historical developments during our conversation. Here are a few snippets from our phone conversion:

GoYaMi: What impact do you believe Google’s new affiliate policy is likely to have on CJ’s business?
TC: This is still a wait and see situation. We really don’t know just yet how this is going to play out.

GoYaMi: So – are you telling me no one is worried about this turn of events at CJ?
TC: Actually, we’ve run our own internal analysis and, we’re not too alarmed. There will certainly be affiliates that are impacted by this change. Being in the business as long as we have, we feel there will be an evolution in terms of how affiliates market and generate revenue.

GoYaMi: That sounds fine but only one ad will be displayed and it may not be the affiliates. How do you make money?
TC: Again we’re run our own analysis and

GoYaMi: You’ve mentioned before that ValueClick will always have “seat at the table” and is strongly advocating for affiliates. Can you tell me how receptive Google was to CJ’s concerns during meetings and how this change might impact affiliates?
TC: I can’t confirm or deny we were involved in any meetings. However, let me just add Google is going to do whatever it thinks is best for it’s business. Let’s just leave it at that.

GoYaMi: When can we expect an announcement from CJ?
TC: I’m not leading this effort but I don’t believe we’ll be making a public announcement.

GoYaMi: Then what are your plans in terms of communicating with affiliates? What support do you plan to provide?
TC: I’m sure we’ll be taking to individual affiliates, and it’s likely that we’ll produce a best practices guide. I don’t head up the affiliate side of business and focus more on working with advertisers.

GoYaMi: You’ve seen this space move in many different directions, What actions do you beleive should affiliates be taking now?
TC: Wait and see how this affects you and prepare to build out content sites to support revenue generation. If you’re only looking at keyword buys your going to have some serious short term challenges.

GoYaMi: I blogged last year that affiliate data feeds are dead. I believe Google’s announced policy will be applied to organic listing. Do you agree that affiliates can no longer successfully use data feeds to market a merchants products and services?
TC: I think using data feeds to spam search engines is dead. There are a number of affiliates who are successfully using data feeds. AdWords technology and the organic side of Google’s business are two separate technologies and businesses.

GoYaMi: Do you envision many merchants changing program Terms and Conditions so that merchants can prevent affiliates from securing the only display ad against a core search phase?
TC: I think affiliates should be working closely with affiliate managers to come up with solutions that work for both.

In terms of additionally recommendations, I suggest the following:

· Forecast conversions from existing sites generating impressions and clicks to determine a minimum allowable payout by program

· Contact your affiliate managers or better yet the merchants directly to renegotiate your payouts

· Begin development of text-rich content sites to support organic search listing

· Don’t use datafeeds to build out content sites

Good luck – it’s safe to say we’re all going to be rather busy the next few weeks.

Todd

Goyami: “When will this actually take affect? I have heard 1/13, is that correct?”

Google: “This policy change will take effect over the next week or two. As with any large policy change, the roll-out must incorporate many aspects of our business, so time is needed to ensure that everything is set. I'm glad that you received some advance notice to allow you to make any necessary edits to your accounts.”

Goyami: "It says "we'll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL" Does this mean that there will be two allowed ads, 1 for parent AND one for affiliate, or just 1 total?

Google: “We now only display one ad in total for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL.”

Goyami: “Is this per page, so that if there are 2 affiliates 1 would show on page 1 and the other on page 2, or does the lower one just lose out all together? “

Google: “This is per search query, not per page.”

Goyami: “Are there any more details you can share? What are your thoughts on how to keep spending the same amount or more with Google under this new policy change?

Google: “At this time, I do not have any more information. What's important to keep in mind is that Google looks at two factors to decide which ad to show, CTR and MaxCPC. By improving the quality of your ad and/or raising your MaxCPC, you can increase the chances of your ad showing for any particular query.”

Goyami: “What if you have multiple ads in your ad group, and one is your old affiliate ad, and one is a new site that you create. Will adwords automatically pick the one with its own site when there is a duplicate higher ranked advertiser for the old affiliate ad?”

Google: At this time, we are still exploring how the system may react to this type of situation.

Unfortunately with Google's fairly vague announcement, the net is abuzz about what unique url means. I have emailed some questions to my Google rep, but until I get specific answers, it looks like we are back to rumor land. Here is what I have heard:

Single URL?
I have heard that Google will actually be looking at the final domain where the customer lands, including all re-directions and frames. They specifically pointed out that framed urls won't work. I have also heard that XXX.domain.com and www.domain.com will be considered the same url.

How Many Ads?
The announcement from Google was vague on if it was going to show 1 ad or the merchant's ad AND an Affiliate ad. I have heard 1 ad, period.

Per Page?
People have asked if this is one unique url per results page or for all results, I hope that it would be per results page, but at this point I don't have any confirmation.

Matching URLs?
A small "by the way" comment in their announcement reads: "Please note that your Display URL must match the URL of your landing page". Some have speculated that this could mean the display url has to match your link url, which would in affect ban search arbitrage all together since affiliates have to link through redirecting urls. I think however, this mealy means the finally destination where the user ends up has to match the display url.

Start Date? Google's announcement didn't commit to an implementation date, saying only sometime in January. Google has told their larger merchants that this will take affect on the January 12th.

Drop the Aff?
Google has also announced with this change that affiliates will no longer need to designate themselves as affiliates in their ads. I am not sure why they would make this move, seem counter productive to the user experience. Perhaps their research showed that nobody knew what aff meant anyway. It could be a sly attempt to get affiliates to modify their ads, thereby costing them their built up CTR rates and advantaging the original owner's sites who don't modify their ads.

Sounds like an opportunity for the super affiliates to re-define themselves. If I am no longer an AFF, what am I? Guess I would rather be a wise-aff than a dumb-aff, only time will tell...

ClizkZ's article on the subject has an interesting quote from Salar Kamanger, director of product management at Google. She says, "The new policy, which will be implemented over the coming weeks, is intended to create a cleaner interface for users, increase the diversity of merchants represented in the links, and reduce duplicate ads, all while recognizing the important benefits affiliate marketers bring to the table"

What are you thoughts? Do you think affiliates feel “important” to Google? Have you heard anything different?

Here is the information from Google Adwords:

Google AdWords™ Announcement:

Affiliate Policy Change

Hello from the Google AdWords Team:

In January 2005, Google will incorporate a new affiliate advertising policy that is designed to provide a better user and advertiser experience.

What is changing:

With this new affiliate policy, we'll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL. This way, users will have a more diverse sampling of advertisements to choose from. As always, your ad will be displayed based on its Ad Rank for given searches, which is determined by a combination of your ad's maximum cost-per-click (price) and clickthrough rate (performance).

For instance, if a user searches for books on Google.com or anywhere on the Google search and content networks, Google will take an inventory of ads running for the keyword books. If we find that two or more ads compete under the same URL, we'll display the ad with the highest Ad Rank.

How this will affect you:

If you're an affiliate, this means that you no longer need to identify yourself as an affiliate in your ad text. However, your current ad text will continue to display your affiliate status until you change it.

Affiliates or advertisers using unique URLs in their ads will not be affected by this change. Please note that your Display URL must match the URL of your landing page, and you may not simply frame another site.

What you should do:

We recommend that you continue to monitor your ads' performance and optimize your ads as needed to ensure they're bringing you the best results. Please visit our Optimization Tips page for more information.

By improving our ad relevancy, we believe that users will have a better search experience, which will help you reach more potential clients in the future. We'll continue to make improvements to AdWords over time to further improve the user experience and help increase the performance of your ads.

We look forward to continue providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

Multiple sources outside of Google have confirmed that the company plans to announce a new policy today that will limit the number of sponsored listings that resolve to the same site per page of search engine results. Google plans to announce their new policy today and it will take effect on January 12th, 2005.

This new policy is an effort by Google to improve the customer experience by displaying more choices to the customer when they conduct any given search.

This new policy should have a large impact on merchant companies who have been relying on a large base of paid search engine marketers to drive traffic to their sites, including sites like eBay, Amazon, Overstock, and BizRate. Also affected are merchant companies that have relied on affiliates to help protect their brand names by having affiliates bid on these terms so that competitors won't be displayed when their brand is searched for on Google.

Of course the paid search affiliate marketer who relies solely on directing traffic directly through affiliate links to their merchant partners will also be greatly affected by this change. All indications are that Google will look at the final destination domain and or IP address to determine duplication of ads, so simple redirects will no longer work. These affiliate marketers will need to build out more individual content sites to survive.

Ironically, this move by Google will force these affiliates, myself included, to take steps that have prevented them from marketing on Overture's service, Google's main competitor.

Google's new policy could deal a major blow to the affiliate marketing community.

Has Google gone back on their policy to do no Evil?

A recent study of the consumer electronics business from comScore reveals some interesting facts about online purchase behavior.

One fact I found most interesting is that only 15% of the searches in their study resulted in online purchases following a search session, 85% occurred in a subsequent browser session, and nearly 40% of all purchases occurred 5 to 12 weeks after the initial search session.

Additionally, they found that an estimated 92% of the purchases were made offline.

I encourage you to read the full press release for more facts and details.

This brings into question two important questions for merchants. 1. What is your cookie duration and how was the duration determined? and 2. Do you track offline sales?

Merchants with very short or no cookie durations and no offline sales tracking are taking more than their fair share of affiliate generated sales.

The Blogvine strikes again. I posted an article a few weeks ago about a post on one of the message boards indicating that someone in the UK had spoken to someone from Google at an event, and that Google was considering banning search arbitrage and forcing advertisers to link to their own website instead of redirecting clickers through the standard affiliate redirect links. I thought I needed to further clarify what I have heard, because some of my merchants have started to contact me about making changes for the “impending Google policy change”. When I asked where they heard this was a done deal, they pointed me to a blog, that referenced another blog’s article, whose article referenced my original article. (The Blogvine…)

I called my Google rep, and she said this was the first she had heard anything like that. She said that if Google would ever make that kind of change they would announce it well in advance to give their advertisers time to adjust.

Here are a few points to consider:

1. Google is making a lot of money from search affiliates. As a public company, Google isn’t going to want to do anything that is going to hurt there existing revenue streams. The current policy gives Google a clear competitive advantage over their major rival, Overture.

2. Unlike Overture, who has this policy in place already, Google doesn’t allow you to bid for exact position. Google’s advertising system will automatically drop off non-performing ads, so the argument that these ads are hurting the search experience is not valid. If customers were not interested in the ads, they would not click, and they would disappear automatically.

3. Making this change would not only hurt affiliates, but would hurt the merchants that the affiliates are advertising. These merchants are often Google’s top paying advertisers. If affiliates were forced out, then these merchants would quickly see their competitors taking up the open slots. Google has already stated it’s policy of not blocking competitors for bidding on trademark terms, this policy has been recently solidified by their victory in their legal case with Geico. (See Geico vs. Google – Google Wins!)

So I believe that rumors that this change will happen shortly after the new year, are over exaggerated at this point, and I highly doubt we will see Google making this drastic of a change any time soon.

That being said, it can never hurt to expand your horizons and start building some websites and landing pages for your merchants. Overture has a lot of traffic to offer if you start making these pages now. Don’t hesitate to ask your merchants for co-branded or personalized landing pages, many of them would be more than happy to help you out.

Tell me what you think? Do you see this Google policy change happening?

Happy Holidays!

Adam

Looks like there is a new sheriff in town affiliates using spyware and cookie stuffing. His name is Ben Edleman. Ben is a student at Harvard University and Harvard Law School and his current research agenda includes analyzing methods and effects of spyware and uncovering affiliate commission fraud.

Ben has posted an interesting explanation of Cookie Stuffing where he outlines who benefits and why networks, who profit from the practice indirectly, may be less than financially motivated to put an end to it. Ben has also "called out" some affiliates by listing their sites, and showing exactly how they are performing the cookie stuffing.

When you look at how some of these affiliates are attempting to hide the practice, you can't help but think, wow some of these guys are really smart. I was especially impressed with asmartcoupon.com's method of referencing an affiliate link as a 1x1 image call.

Let me start by saying that I am no saint. I toyed around with some iframes in my early days. I don't do it anymore, but let me explain why I went down that road in the first place, it certainly wasn’t in an attempt to “cheat” anyone. My feeling was that I put a lot of time into building a site, and was paying on a per-click basis to have the person come see and learn about the specific merchant, if I did an effective job pre-selling the customer, I should be paid for the duration of the cookie period, regardless if the customer clicked through at that very moment or logged off and then went directly back to the merchant's site and bought the next day.

Merchants benefit from affiliate sales activity without paying the affiliates all the time. In the travel industry they say that the number of transactions that start online and get completed via the telephone is 5 times the number that start online and complete online. Typically merchants don't have the technology to track back phone sales to affiliates, so affiliates lose out on sales they had a direct part of creating.

At Network Solutions, they extended the affiliate cookie period from 1 day to 7 days for affiliates, and quickly dropped it down to 3 days because they felt they were paying out too much for the sales. At the same time they track their own PPC activities out to 30 days and beyond for internal reporting purposes. As an affiliate I was happy to be getting 3 instead of 1, but know that the merchant continued to benefit from my sales activities long after they stop compensating me.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about not making enough money from my partners. I think it only works when you are able to create win-win partnerships. And when it comes to issues like “cookie-stuffing” today, or other issues that come up in the future, it is important to look at the issues from all angles.

Perhaps affiliates should be compensated for pre-selling a customer who comes back and buys later. Isn't that the whole point of the cookie time period? Maybe setting a cookie when the initial ad is displayed form the network should be an option that merchants can enable or disable in their program?

What are your thoughts?

Paid Search Affiliate Marketing Representative Wanted

Large well known Company seeks 100% commission only affiliate marketing expert to promote company’s products and services online and via Google Adwords, Overture, and other pay-per-click search engines.

Selected affiliate marketing representatives must fund their own pay-per-click advertising efforts. If the potential customer sent to our site does in fact buy online the affiliate marketing representative will be paid a small percentage of the transaction. Commissions will only be paid for online sales, any sales that take place offline in our stores or via the phone will not be counted. Please note, that some affiliate marketing representatives can and do lose money. The company will not be responsible for any loses incurred by the affiliate marketer.

Affiliates will market the company’s products and services, but must not use the company’s brand name or any of our product’s names or any possible miss-spellings of our brand names in any of their search engine marketing efforts.

Affiliate Marketing Representatives will not officially be an employee of the company, and will not be entitled to any company benefits.

Our policies for our affiliate program can and will change often. Any deviations from the current rules or changes that we will make going forward will result in commissions being withheld and immediate expulsion from our affiliate program.

Sign-up today, we are looking forward to you joining our affiliate program!

Revenue Magazine reported that network-driven affiliate marketing will reach $1 billion in 2004 in the UK. Twice as lucrative as the previous year. Tradedoubler, one of the UK's largest affiliate networks, reported 54% growth just from February to March with sales up 328% over the same point in 2004. This makes Tradedoubler one of the fastest-growing affiliate networks. The magazine goes on to report that affiliate marketing will account for up to 3.5% of Brittish e-commerce this year and up to 20% for some merchants.

Just though everyone might love a great example of the types of emails affiliates get. Here is one from CollectiblesToday, we don't even market them at this time...

++++++++++++++++
Hello!

Just a quick reiteration on our search engine policy. Please do not bid on our trademark name, Collectibles Today, or any variation thereof. We have just implemented a strict policing policy and offenders will be deactivated immediately.

Please also refrain from outbidding or bid jamming us on our sub-brands. These terms include Ashton Drake, Ardleigh Elliott, Bradford Exchange, etc. and any variations thereof.

Other keywords are fair game. If it's in the OED, it's viable! In fact, we have a weekly text email that goes out with suggesed keywords. If you would like to be on this private distribution list, or if you have any questions please email me at okrylov@collectiblestoday.com.

Best regards,
Oleg Krylov
++++++++++++++++

Today, if you do a search for "Collectibles Today" with the help of their affiliates, they pretty much own the space. In a few weeks, as their partners are forced out, their competitors will own their brand. Shop.com is already on the first page, there are two other competitors bidding on their brand that don't make the first page today but will soon.

Brilliant Strategy!

I'm open to getting feedback, however, I received an anonymous email today on affiliate marketing that appears more like the beginnings of a manifesto rather than brief comments on a previous post. The subject is Why Affiliate Marketing Sucks. The message is unedited.

Keep them coming -- whoever you are...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Why Affiliate Marketing Sucks

By Mr. Nobody (who is really somebody)

Affiliate marketing sucks. First of all, you can't trust anyone.
Other affiliates are all out to steal your ideas and one up you at
every opportunity. If they can't beat you fair and square they steal
your source code, copy your site and get indexed higher than you in
search engines (with your damn content!). Even worse they develop
technology that they then pepper the Internet with that highjacks your
traffic and claims credit for your commissions. OK, who else can't
you trust? One word, M-E-R-C-H-A-N-T-S! These corporations are
really out for themselves and could care less about some punk ass
affiliate building web pages in his (more like her) basement to earn
measly commissions. They have huge marketing budgets and all they
want is more customers at the lowest possible costs. In their opinion
affiliates are getting in the way of their customers going straight to
their site to do some e-commerce. Hey and how about those trusted
third-parties called networks. They couldn't track a commission if
their business depended on it much less serve an ad that gets past the
firewall police. They are just as greedy as everyone else, so don't
expect any sympathy (much less support) from them. So where does that
leave us (and who the hell is us anyway)? Hell if I know but if you
ask my opinion (and you don't have to cuz this is the Internet and I
can say whatever I want and you're gonna think I am an expert),
affiliate marketing is the worst thing to come along since the damn
Internet. I wish someone would come along and do away with them both
– good riddance, I say.

Today was the final day of Commission Junction University. My morning started with an 8am focus group. CJ asked some of their top pay-per-click search engine marketers to sit down with their product management group to discuss what CJ could do to help us drive more revenues.

The general consensus was that CJ could do a better job educating their merchant partners on how PPC marketers could help their programs, and how the basics of search engine advertising works. I proposed that CJ offer affiliates the ability to put in their adwords and overture conversion tracking code information so CJ could dynamically serve these codes on the merchants’ conversion pages. This would enable us to get conversion data for each keyword without having to use unique urls with sid codes on each keyword. This idea was well received by CJ’s product management team, but several other affiliates expressed concerns about how much data CJ and Google had about their campaigns.

Later in the day, I attended James Martell’s session about earning a living via affiliate marketing. See Todd's posting for a good run down. It left me thinking that I should be working on some more content sites.

We continued to make great contacts, and I enjoyed talking with other top PPC search "publishers" about their businesses.

Another great day, and great event. Thanks CJ!

James Martell is the poster-boy of affiliate marketing success, and his presentation was part Tony Robbins-like motivation tips loaded with real world insight and road rules for becoming a successful affiliate and business owner. He’s a rock star at CJU. Trust me on this one: the audience was silly with joy as James spoke about his affiliate success. And, James is successful with a new personal goal of generating $100,000 per month in net income including some conspicuous purchases that include a custom-build 1967 Shelby Cobra that have recently been realized.

James is the author of Affiliate Marketers Handbook that was first published in 2002. He started with three sites approximately five years ago and now manages 90 websites including http://www.1st-in-cell-phones.com. James relies exclusively on natural search to drive revenues.

Here’s James Martell’s 10 Rules for affiliate marketing success:

Rule 1: Think pages not sites.
Rule 2: Create a keyword list
Rule 3: Build a single page around every keyword
Rule 4: Follow a keyword density formula
Rule 5: Publish excellent content
Rule 6: Organize internal links strategically
Rule 7: Use my PAD technique (think of this as an alternative to manually building inbound links)
Rule 8: Develop a few product only pages for each site
Rule 9: Plan a great site map
Rule 10: Set a financial goal for your site before you build it

I just spoke to James about getting his presentation so that we can post it here. I’ll post it ASAP.

Todd

Now that Commission Junction (CJ) has won the affiliate wars it’s clear the performance-marketing leader is planning to flex it’s market muscle through a number of growth strategies that will be lead by CJ’s General Manager Jeff Pullen.

I interviewed Mr. Pullen yesterday following his opening remarks at CJU.

Pullen outlined his plan to realize CJ’s vision of becoming the leading provider of online marketing solutions by continuing to strengthen merchant and publisher relationships, industry consolidation, maturing a growing marketplace, international expansion, value-based pricing as well as squashing rumors that BeFree is not scheduled for what Pullen termed “end-of-life in Q1” of 2005. He added, “these rumors are not true.”

Mr. Pullen’s commitment to BeFree was somewhat surprising since CJ, a ValueClick division, was selected as the brand name leader following the formal merger of the two affiliate giants earlier this year and “the loin share of new advertisers,” Pullen noted, are signing up for CJ rather than BeFree including many new advertisers like HomeDepot as well as retailers who have recently launched CJ programs in preparation for eventually phasing out BeFree-side activities. Internally within the organization employees privately call the technology platform demolition of BeFree’s platform Central City. It seems apparent that IT and other operational resources will be diverted from BeFree as CJ takes the stage as the preferred solution bundle.

Other road signs for growth pointed toward further international expansion including updated news on the official opening of a German office next month, and a slide with the map of Europe that Pullen shared unintentionally with the country of France shaded CJ green telegraphing future plans to expand European operations. When questioned about the slip, Pullen brushed aside questions about operations in France by noting no specific target date for formalizing Paris operations was scheduled.

Other subtle messages shared in Pullen presentation included the use of the word client that was strategically repeated during Mr. Pullen’s presentation leaving audience members with the perception that CJ’s short-term strategy will focus more attention on nurturing merchant relationships in light of increasing advertiser demands related to data access, recruitment, expanding reach and program performance. In part, Pullen was playing to audience. Approximately 60% of attendees to CJU are sophisticated advertisers including well-known brand like eBay, Real Networks, Sony, Countrywide Home Loans, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Home Shopping Network among others.

Pullen noted in his opening remarks that CJ managed 1,500 advertiser relationships and specifically reference the value of ISP advertisers have provided to CJ and hinted that additional revenue growth is likely to come from the financial services category when asked about other valuable advertiser categories.

CJ’s dominance of the affiliate arena had relied on relationship and process leadership with publishers as a trusted third-party that allowed advertisers to leverage the power of a commissioned network paired with proprietary technology solutions to achieve specific business objectives.

As CJ looks toward the future, focusing more energy on client-development activities and sharing merchant learning with new advertisers that are testing the affiliate waters for the first time may achieve Pullen’s realization of his company vision. Regardless of this apparent shift, CJ is a savvy, well-run business that is unlikely to ignore how they won the affiliate war: reaching out to entrepreneurial affiliates. Expect to see further innovation around affiliate management to expand CJ’s revenue growth.

Now that Commission Junction (CJ) has won the affiliate wars it’s clear the performance-marketing leader is planning to flex it’s market muscle through a number of growth strategies that will be lead by CJ’s General Manager Jeff Pullen.

I interviewed Mr. Pullen yesterday following his opening remarks at CJU.

Pullen outlined his plan to realize CJ’s vision of becoming the leading provider of online marketing solutions by continuing to strengthen merchant and publisher relationships, industry consolidation, maturing a growing marketplace, international expansion, value-based pricing as well as squashing rumors that BeFree is not scheduled for what Pullen termed “end-of-life in Q1” of 2005. He added, “these rumors are not true.”

Mr. Pullen’s commitment to BeFree was somewhat surprising since CJ, a ValueClick division, was selected as the brand name leader following the formal merger of the two affiliate giants earlier this year and “the loin share of new advertisers,” Pullen noted, are signing up for CJ rather than BeFree including many new advertisers like HomeDepot as well as retailers who have recently launched CJ programs in preparation for eventually phasing out BeFree-side activities. Internally within the organization employees privately call the technology platform demolition of BeFree’s platform Central City. It seems apparent that IT and other operational resources will be diverted from BeFree as CJ takes the stage as the preferred solution bundle.

Other road signs for growth pointed toward further international expansion including updated news on the official opening of a German office next month, and a slide with the map of Europe that Pullen shared unintentionally with the country of France shaded CJ green telegraphing future plans to expand European operations. When questioned about the slip, Pullen brushed aside questions about operations in France by noting no specific target date for formalizing Paris operations was scheduled.

Other subtle messages shared in Pullen presentation included the use of the word client that was strategically repeated during Mr. Pullen’s presentation leaving audience members with the perception that CJ’s short-term strategy will focus more attention on nurturing merchant relationships in light of increasing advertiser demands related to data access, recruitment, expanding reach and program performance. In part, Pullen was playing to audience. Approximately 60% of attendees to CJU are sophisticated advertisers including well-known brand like eBay, Real Networks, Sony, Countrywide Home Loans, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Home Shopping Network among others.

Pullen noted in his opening remarks that CJ managed 1,500 advertiser relationships and specifically reference the value of ISP advertisers have provided to CJ and hinted that additional revenue growth is likely to come from the financial services category when asked about other valuable advertiser categories.

CJ’s dominance of the affiliate arena had relied on relationship and process leadership with publishers as a trusted third-party that allowed advertisers to leverage the power of a commissioned network paired with proprietary technology solutions to achieve specific business objectives.

As CJ looks toward the future, focusing more energy on client-development activities and sharing merchant learning with new advertisers that are testing the affiliate waters for the first time may achieve Pullen’s realization of his company vision. Regardless of this apparent shift, CJ is a savvy, well-run business that is unlikely to ignore how they won the affiliate war: reaching out to entrepreneurial affiliates. Expect to see further innovation around affiliate management to expand CJ’s revenue growth.

Day two at Commission Junction University was interesting.

Jeff Pullen, CJ's General Manager, gave a good opening overview of where the industry has gone over the past year and what CJ's plans for the future are. He made special note to let people know that CJ is committed to maintaining and enhancing the BFAST technology that BeFree is based on.

In the keynote address, Tim Smith, President, Tvtalk, Inc. presented "Karate vs. Judo: Marketing in the Age of Consumer Control". Although he focused a lot on broadcast media, he laid very thought provoking concepts about the progression of advertising as consumers become publishers. Basically, his theory is that advertising is being turned on it's head as consumers take more control of the content. Ultimately consumers become the broadcasters of content and therefore affiliate / performance marketing may become the key element on how these new broadcasters cash in on their content. I also think this theory also puts products like Adsense in a great position and should make us all think more about how to best leverage content match advertising.

The funniest part of the keynote, was when Tim shared some of his "consumers creating content" examples. The audience loved the Bush and Blair's 'Endless Love' Video. If you haven't seen this, it's great!

My favorite part of the day was the Networking Match session in the afternoon. The conference attendees were placed into NetworkingMatch.com's database and setup with seating arrangements at various tables. In a series of six 8-minute meetings, you got a chance to connect and network with other conference attendees and explore how you might be able to work together. I made some very interesting contacts which may turn into longer marketing partnerships.

In the evening, CJ hosted a Dinner and Awards presentation. The presented Horizon Awards to outstanding Advertisers and Publishers. (Merchants & Affiliates). I am not sure if I can remember them all, but will post a link when CJ publishes them. On the merchant side I recall awards going to eHealthInsurance, BackCountry.com, and ShopNBC. One the Affiliate site I recall awards for FatWallet, UPromise, and Clicks2Customers.com. I think they said there were 7 awards, so I must be missing one.

Day 2 was very productive.

I'm blogging this session in near-live time since I have over 20 pages of notes from earlier keynotes and panels this morning.

This first wave of afternoon sessions is one of three sessions going on simultaneously and people are slowly returning to the rooms following our outdoor lunch. So perhaps I’ve give you a quick overview of the sessions and topic.

Today's afternoon session speakers for Launching Successful Search Marketing Campaigns includes the author of the best selling book Search Engine Advertising Catherine Seda, CEO of Seda Communications and Neal Karasic, a Senior Product Manager working primarily on product development for search-based technology solutions at Commission Junction. The session is being moderator is Don Muse, Product Manager of Commission Junction.

The speakers are taking their seats now, and surprisingly the room is only half-full with attendees. Surprising because I keep hearing many merchant programs are relying on PPC affiliates to drive sales/leads. In fact, I was recently managing a major ISP program that relied almost solely on pay-per-click (PPC) affiliates.

Here comes the moderator… it’s show time.

Don: We're going to give you the low down – people actually say that -- on natural and paid search marketing.

M: Requests a quick show of hands -- How many advertisers -- 75% of audience -- and how many publishers -- about 35% of attendees raises hands.

Catherine is starting with a 10,000 foot view of search marketing by showing a Google search result page. Catherine notes search can be broken down into three components:

content, links, and pay-per-click.

Search engine Optimization Overview:
**Establishing Keyword themes is critical for optimal page ranking
**Link popularity can’t be overlooked

Establish a particular theme for the site to enhance SEO. NOTE: Important to have 4 to 6 keywords optimized per page. [There isn’t a wrong answer here but my informal conversations with other SEO leaders usually talk about one keyword, one-page or one keyword phrase.]

Page configuration: header, keyword tags. Content is king to search engines also consider
link to copy ratio

Look at 10 ten sites and develop an average of the keywords being used by your competitors. Why? Don’t be a bully. It’s all about finding the medium range to get higher rankings. [Sounds a lot like playing both sides against the middle. ;)]

Inbound links can establish your site as an expert link. Very important to build.

Link Popularity: Create a specific page for links so create a resource area.

Page Inclusion: How it works: Rankings determined by page keyword relevance, listings generated based on page content, fees per URL, cost-per-click or both.

SEO Tools - traditional offerings including www.blueclay.com (SEO ToolSet)

Pay-for-Placement: Important to be in top 1 to 5 listings and the top 3 listing to show up on distribution partner sites.

Bidding Strategies: using various types of search-based solutions so that you generate inventory clicks against undesirable keywords/keyword phrases.

Catherine's Tips:
Overture's new broad-match default is something to be watching out for over the next few weeks. Why?? You may be paying for clicks you didn't want against search inventory that isn’t relevant.

Increasing Qualified Clicks: Recommendations for Google and Overture

50% increase in CTR performance by using keyword in headline and description ad copy.

Ad Copy to Attract Buyers, NOT Browsers
1. Appeal to your target market
2. State a benefit or solution
3. Offer an incentive
4. Create a sense of urgency

Landing Pages that Convert Visitors to Buyers: Tips for Success

1. Pick the right page to show a visitor (provide a direct page)
2. Message positioned above fold on page (complete message to build trust)
3. Reduce navigation choices or number of elements that can be clicked on (design page layout to invite the sale)
4. Brand names convert really well on search engines -- USE BRAND NAMES

PPC Management and Tracking
Bottom line -- pay attention to numbers

Neal Karasic is now taking the mic:

Neal is about to review a mini-case study of Brooks Brothers. Here’s what he is going to cover:
*publishers and search
*paid placement
*paid inclusion

[Side Bar: A former Brooks Brother employee notes that the case study was an act of desparation due to the lost of LOOKSMART. Eventually, two or three affiliates made up the loss. HA]

Here’s the formal presentation:

Challenge: Rapdily increasing reach through search but need to balance ROI
Goals: Brand control and increase search results
Results: Develop comprehensive search strategy ensures maximum reach

Here's an overview of how Brooks Brothers was successful:

Benefits of using publishers/affiliates:
**extended reach/coverage
**pay publishers only for sales
**Hedge against competitors (especially against competitor trademarks)

Excution & what Brooks Brothers did:
1. communicate with publishers to have a shared understanding of the objectives.
2. Trademark bidding allowed for trusted group of affiliates only

Paid Placment (PPC)
Bottomline: granular control and flexibility
Imporant excution notes: you must track performance to ROI or CPA. Additional comments:
**Coordinate PPC buys with marketing calendar
**incorporate search into your business processes
**cross-pollinate data from affiliate program and other search programs.
**Use product data to enhance your paid placement campaign

Paid Inclusion Execution Notes:
**You'll have more control of messaging
**Control which products/pages appear in feed
**Increased update frequency
**Immediate fix while performing Natural Search Optimization
**Optimize copy to increase ranking for your keywords
**Remove underperforming pages from your feed
**Cooridnate new product launches

Audience Questions:
Q/What happens when you fall out of natural listings on Google?
A/CS
First, wait to a few weeks to see what happens before you make changes to your site. You don't want Google to drop you from those search results forever.

When testing keyword what's the conversion rate average?
Answer: No general benchmark, however, we'll look at trademark terms. Numbers can vary. Look at product terms which don't have a much traffic because they are so specific. Start with you site conversion rate as a benchmark if you don't have past experience.

Brand and Trademark terms (convert) through the roof.

Question: What are you thoughts on Google's restrictions on online gaming.
Answer: Google owns a huge percentage of the market and can do whatever they want.

Question
SID field in CJ tracking
PPC placement

Page Optimization Techniques
Use alt text to increase keyword density

Q/Can you explain more about click flaud?
A/.(person answered his own question) Process of competitors clicking on your listings to destroy your ROI. Using Google contextual AdWords program is foolish. Tools you can use who’s clicking who?

Q/ Tip from audience
We – our agency -- saved $50,000 on click fraud by supplying log files showing a range of IP addresses and other unique identifiers to an engine (he won’t say which one).

Greetings from beautiful Santa Barbara, California!

Adam & I are attending CJU 2004 the sixth event hosted by CJ, a ValueClick company, that brings top advertisers and affiliates with industry experts to share insight, strategies and success stories.

Here's a link to the schedule of events over the next two days: http://www.cj.com/about/cju.jsp

Last night's Welcome Reception at CJ headquarters kicked off the event and was packed full of deal making, boasting, and booze. The patio was an excellent spot