Affiliate Marketing: What You Should Know!

One of the easiest ways to start making money on the Internet is to start with affiliate marketing. The most difficult part of affiliate marketing is getting started. 

 

 

You’re always going to need to keep things going to make sure that your business is doing well, but after you get started it will be much easier. You just need to know some tips about how to get your affiliate marketing business set up, and this article can help you.

First, you need to have a good website. When you begin your affiliate marketing business, a lot of the time the person who owns the product gives you a ready-made website to use. However, this is almost useless to you. 

 

Use the site as a template, but you need to make sure that your website is different than all the other affiliates. Your website has to be entertaining, relevant and professional. 

 

More than anything, you need to make sure that your content is related to your target market. That’s why you need to think of your target market before you start your website.

Even though you did not create the product, you need to think about the people the product is best suited for. That is your target market. 

 

The person who owns the product you’re selling may have some information about the target market, but you would be best served by doing your own investigation. When you know who you are selling the products to, you’re marketing plans are a lot easier to make.

Don’t forget to find out about how you will get paid. Find out whether you’ll be getting paid a percentage of the sale, or whether you’ll be getting a flat rate per sale. 

 

This is something you should find out right away. Not only that, what you want to make sure that the person who owns the product is a reputable person.

The internet never goes away, so there are sites that are abandoned–you need to make sure that you aren’t signing up for an affiliate program that is long dead. 

 

To check that out, get in touch with the person who created and owns the product. If you do not have good communication with the person who owns the product, you need to think twice about setting up a business with him.

One of the most important things that you need to do is to drive traffic to your site. Just because you have been given a website and some marketing materials from the person who owns the product, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have any work to do. 

 

You have to use marketing techniques to get people to your site and buy the product. Blogging, article marketing, social media and guest posting are just some of the ways you can get more people to take notice of you and your site.

You should now be ready to jump into affiliate marketing. There is always more to learn, so make sure you keep learning about how to make yourself a success. Use the information here to help you.

http://m-y-a.com/tag/affiliate-marketing/

Pinterest Bans Affiliate Marketing Links!

On February 12, 2015, Pinterest announced that it would “automatically remove all affiliate links, redirects and trackers on Pins.” This is important news because merchants with affiliate marketing programs could see a drop in revenue from that channel, depending on how many affiliates use Pinterest to drive traffic.

…merchants with affiliate marketing programs could see a drop in revenue from that channel, depending on how many affiliates use Pinterest to drive traffic.

Pinterest is a social media platform that enables users to curate collections of most any online content. For example, a fashion blogger can create a collection of links to her favorite denim jeans. These collections are known as “boards,” and each link is called a “pin.”

The fashion blogger has fans that she built up via her blog. Those fans could follow her to various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

And whenever those fans see a product recommendation from her, no matter what platform it’s on, they may be inclined to click through and complete a purchase. Pinterest is simply another way for bloggers to interact with their followers.

So how is this related to affiliate marketing? Say that the fashion blogger monetizes her content through affiliate marketing. She has a blog post on her site that features a review of various denim jeans, and that post contains affiliate links that her followers can click through to purchase the jeans. This is traditional affiliate marketing.

Pinterest vs. Affiliate Marketing

However, with the advent of social media, the blogger can now post those same affiliate links on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social sites. She is simply communicating her product recommendations across multiple channels in the hopes that her followers will click her affiliate link and complete a purchase, thus generating a commission to her.

But now, Pinterest is blocking all those affiliate links. The pins remain, but the links are blocked — the pin still appears on boards, and can be shared, but click-through functionality is removed. 

This is not a surprise to affiliate marketers, as Pinterest has blocked isolated affiliate links in the past. But this is the first time that the website has issued a comprehensive ban on all types of affiliate marketing.

Revenue for Pinterest

The ban comes at a time when four-year-old Pinterest is considering how to generate revenue from its 70 million users. In April 2014, Pinterest launched a test for “Promoted Pins” that enabled brand advertisers to pay for promotion on a cost-per-click basis. 

There is also industry speculation about Pinterest partnering with payments company Stripe to add its own “buy” button to user-generated content within the next three to four months. This move could place Pinterest in the role of the affiliate.

In fact, Pinterest experimented with the affiliate role in 2012, when it partnered up with Skimlinks (an affiliate marketing tool) to auto-convert pins into affiliate links. But the Pinterest abandoned that practice after it came under fire for not disclosing the practice to its users.

By banning affiliate links, Pinterest could be paving the way for another attempt at affiliate marketing, perhaps a transparent attempt at monetization.

Reliance on Pinterest? 

There are still methods for affiliates to benefit from Pinterest. For example, the fashion blogger who curated a board featuring her top denim picks could link each pin to her own blog post, which could link to the retailer’s e-commerce site for affiliate commissions. 

While this approach could work in the interim, affiliates should not depend on Pinterest for that traffic. If Pinterest implements a “buy” button, the blogger’s traffic from Pinterest would likely reduce.

If a retailer wants to benefit from a blogger’s Pinterest following, the retailer would likely need to work directly with the blogger, outside of an affiliate relationship. The retailer could compensate the blogger for curating a board, paying her a fixed amount instead of a commission.

In short, if a retailer’s affiliates use Pinterest as part of their marketing mix, that retailer will likely see a decline in affiliate revenue based on these changes. However, affiliates that depend mainly on Pinterest for their revenue may not be adding any value to your affiliate program anyway. 

These affiliate are building their success off a single site, instead of creating unique value — the heart of true affiliate marketing.

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/81802-Pinterest-Bans-Affiliate-Marketing-Links 

Integrated Marketing: A Better Approach to Building Leads

As long ago as 1989, the American Association of Advertising Agencies defined an integrated marketing campaign as “an approach to achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign through a well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other.

 
A comprehensive communications plan combines the strategic roles of advertising, public relations and sales promotions to provide clarity, consistency, and increased impact.” Basically, integration is the application of consistent brand messaging across both traditional and nontraditional marketing channels.

Inbound Marketing: Making Integrated Marketing Easier
While social media and online marketing channels have provided opportunities to expand the definition of non-traditional marketing, the real breakthrough in effective integration has been the development of computer based, technology driven Inbound Marketing platforms.

Giving new meaning to CRM, these platforms not only make consistent communication across channels easier, but provide critical reporting and measurement features in real-time to exponentially increase the effectiveness of campaigns.

Learn the ABCs of Inbound Marketing
Seems  simple—but developing an Inbound Marketing campaign takes time, resources, and commitment to building lasting, long-term results. Our e-Book The ABC's of Inbound Marketing will help you get started.

http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2014/11/17/integrated-marketing-a-better-approach-to-building-leads/