9 Hot Tips for Linking with other Web Sites
If you have a website the chances are you receive e-mails from Webmasters asking you to make a link exchange with them. But how do you know whether you should link to their website or not? Well here are 9 rules of thumb, to help guide you through...
Affiliate Goals - Successful Goal Setting for Affiliates
When I first started out with Affiliate Marketing a few years ago, my primary goal was a very simple one. I just wanted enough money to pay for my hosting, which at the time was an ungodly $40 per month for a small website. Of course, these days...
Auto-Pilot Link Building Strategy for Content-Sites
OK, this is what I consider a very effective method to get people to link to you without you having to ask them to do so. The best part is that, people will link to you for your most targeted keyword. I happen to discover this method after seeing...
Get Your Own Domain Name Or Die Online
Would you buy from someone with an "@yahoo.com" e-mail address? I wouldn't. And the clients I've had the most trouble with use yahoo addresses or other free addresses. I understand that you don't want your regular e-mail address in ads...
Site Maps: Let Search Engines Find Your Pages
With 40 million websites in existence, and more than 3 billion web pages indexed by Google at the time of this writing (July 2003), it’s no wonder that more and more people are relying on search engines to find their way through the unruly world...
What Do Affiliate Tracking Services Do?
Some affiliate programs design their own internal software to track affiliate referrals, calculate commissions, and process payments. It is far more common, though, for programs to outsource these functions to an affiliate tracking company. Knowing which affiliate tracking company a program uses allows you to quickly assess how many of the aspects of their affiliate program will operate. What follows are some of the aspects of an affiliate program that are largely influenced by the affiliate tracking company used.
Targeted linking
Also known as “deep linking”, targeted linking is the practice of allowing affiliates to direct traffic to whichever page on the affiliate programs site best fits their pre-selling strategy. The alternative to targeted linking is to direct all referred traffic to the home page of the site. Programs that offer targeted linking often, though not always, have much higher conversion rates.
Tiered commissions
Some programs will reward affiliates for bringing new affiliates into the program. While this reward can take many forms, it is usually a small percentage of what the new affiliates earn. In such programs, there are often a handful of affiliates who are very successful recruiting and earn a steady income even though they make few direct sales. Some affiliate tracking companies do not have the capacity to offer tiered commissions, although most do and leave the choice up to the individual program manager.
Tracking return customers
Most purchases on the internet do not occur the first time a visitor comes to a page. Often they will bookmark the page and return to the site hours, weeks, or sometimes months later to purchase. Using a combination of cookies, IP tracking, and domain referral tracking; affiliates can still receive commissions on customers that do not make immediate purchases. While the exact window of customer action may vary from program to program, most affiliate tracking
companies use the same tracking methods (cookies or IP tracking) across all of their programs.
Traffic and Sales Reporting
A practice so common as to be considered standard, affiliate tracking companies allow affiliates to log on and review the traffic and sales that they have generated over certain date periods. Some companies allow affiliates to create campaigns by which they can track the effectiveness of different marketing methods. The type of reporting available tends to be consistent across all affiliate programs a company tracks.
Payment Frequency
The industry standard is to send commission payments on a monthly basis when an affiliate’s earnings reach a certain minimum balance. Some programs send checks more or less frequently. On rare occasions a company will not send checks automatically, instead requiring that affiliates log on and request a payment. This is often a sign of an untrustworthy company trying to avoid paying all commissions due. Anything other than automatic payment is uncommon.
Network of Programs
Some tracking companies cater to affiliates who wish to participate in multiple programs. An affiliate who is part of their network can examine and join other programs they track, pending the approval of each program manager.
Training
Any program that leaves training of affiliates solely in the hands of their tracking company is doing their affiliates a great disservice, but the tracking company can help. Kowabunga, for example, provides affiliates with a database of affiliate marketing articles, FAQs, and a quick start guide. A tracking company can’t provide training for a specific product or service, but they can educate affiliates on the general aspects of the industry.
About the Author
Clay Mabbitt writes articles about online income opportunities. He is the founder of a community of Internet entrepreneurs sharing knowledge and experience at http://www.affiliatescreen.com