Hit Search Limited liverpool 0845 643 9289

Affiliate Marketing – Case Study

By Andrew Redfern @ 13th January 2011 1:18 pm Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing – Case Study

Affiliate marketing is performance based online marketing. It is one of the most efficient and fastest growing areas of online marketing but still remains low profile and often understated. It delivers a steady stream of results without the hype of social media or impact of a viral campaign. The process requires building a network of third party websites which direct customers to your website to complete the purchase, rather like a virtual sales force. Affiliates come in the form of loyalty, cash back, voucher codes, comparison, true content and email. The affiliate process consists of the affiliate company, the affiliate network and the client company.

The Affiliate Process

The affiliate network acts like a virtual sales force with many sites directing customers to the client company’s website these sites have to be recruited on a weekly basis through SEO, PPC, network, forum and contacting affiliates directly. It also plays a part in the up selling of new products, requires tracking and billing or carefully planned commission. Examples of affiliate networks include www.affiliatewindow.com.

Affiliate sites vary from voucher sites such as www.myvouchercodes.co.uk to comparison sites such as www.ciao.com, content sites reviewing the product and by e-newsletters. These sites are given incentives to achieve goals; relationships must be built in order for the client company’s products to be favoured by the affiliate and remain in a good position. This also requires creativity by the client company in terms of commission and special offers for consumers, the client company should work with the affiliate to spot opportunities for the campaign and suggestions to increase conversion. Payment of commission should be on time to keep a strong relationship with affiliate companies.

The client has to supply guidelines for the campaign in a creative way and nurture its relationship to keep its products in a favoured position. To be successful, it is important to carry out monthly reports pointing out aspects of the campaign which have gone well and parts which haven’t performed as well as expected, also useful for coming up with solutions and opportunities for the campaign ahead. Training is also essential for the campaign to achieve the best results and keeping up to date with affiliate marketing. The client can either go to a website directly and sign up for their affiliate program or join an affiliate network such as affiliate window.

Affiliate Campaigns

To run a successful affiliate campaign, it is important to build a good, strong relationship with affiliates. This will help to build up trust from customers in your brand, speeding up word of mouth and increasing reach so more people will book with you rather than another company.

Being flexible with commission values, depending on the level of sales expected will incentivise traffic, especially at times when sales are slowing down, higher commission will make affiliates work harder for you. Paying commission within the deadline will also help your relationship with the affiliate sites.

Discount codes are important for incentivising customers to buy from your product or service when you want them to rather than shop around, a successful promotion will give them the push to go for it. Exclusive codes will work even better and give maximum exposure on key affiliates. Competitions and giveaways are another way of incentivising customers to attract customers to buy from you; a higher perceived prize value will be more attractive to consumers and therefore give an advantage over competitors. They will bring more opportunities to negotiate for features and coverage. In addition to encouraging larger affiliates who have the ability to drive high volume to win such incentives to go further than what they are already doing.

A lot of research has to be put into the affiliate programme and niche market to be successful. Affiliate campaigns work best when combined with Search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) campaigns and support from email marketing.

How an Affiliate Campaign Can Help You

An example of a client Hit Search has run affiliate campaigns for successfully is Chums, a clothing retailer. Sales revenue increased by 68% in one year through the combined search engine optimisation, pay per click and affiliate campaign. Affiliate marketing was a major part of the campaign bringing in £8000 of revenue in one month.

Affiliate campaigns are well suited for travel, retail, and service industries that have a timely research process or large sales volumes. Affiliates act as free publicity for your website, a network of websites directing customers to purchase from your site is a welcome asset to sales for all businesses.

Why your Business can benefit from a Professional Digital Marketing Agency

By Andrew Redfern @ 18th November 2010 12:11 pm Affiliate Marketing

To understand the benefits of using a professional Digital Marketing Agency you must first look at the nature of how business works online. If you are looking to sell products or market your company online you essentially have three separate avenues which you can explore, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay per Click (PPC) and Affiliate Marketing.

Each of these is a specialist area which will take months, if not years, of dedicated training and research for an individual to become skilled enough to market a business online and each of them individually is potentially a new revenue stream, especially for a company that has never focused on their online business before.

For medium sized businesses this can be very problematic as usually they will look to employ someone in-house to handle the online side of their business. Who do they employ, an SEO specialist, someone with a background in PPC management or an Affiliate marketing specialist? If they are looking for someone with a strong background in all three then they should expect to be paying a very large salary indeed.

If as a business you employ a person with an individual speciality then this is potentially a serious strategic error. Is your SEO specialist able to maximise the revenue from a PPC campaign? If not you may be paying more for every click than if you had a dedicated PPC specialist onboard.

Is your PPC specialist able to effectively optimise your site so you maximize your organic search rankings? Remember 1^st page organic searches account for an estimated 75% of clicks as opposed to 25% for the sponsored listings. How much business could you potentially miss out on?

Are you even the right person to decide which avenue would be the most effective way to market your company online?

The growth of specialist Digital Marketing Agencies is because many companies, from the smallest start-ups to the largest corporations in the country, can see that these strategic decisions and the effective implementation of online campaigns is crucial to future business growth.

Employing an agency that has in-house SEO, PPC and Affiliate specialists means that you don’t miss out on maximising the potential for your company online and most importantly you have an online campaign that is based on sound strategic decisions.

Affiliate Marketing Drives ‘Sweet’ Success This Valentine’s Day

By Andrew Redfern @ 16th February 2009 10:23 am Affiliate Marketing

LinkShare today announced that it has developed a set of marketing best practices — derived from previous years’ data and the company’s ongoing consumer research — to prepare its network of retailers and affiliates for the upcoming romantic holiday.

These tips are delivered to clients following a very successful online holiday shopping season within LinkShare’s performance-based marketing network, which saw a 27 percent increase in “Black Friday” same store sales this past November, versus the 1% reported for overall online sales.*

LinkShare’s retailers rely on the network’s affiliates to promote their brands and products to online consumers. To help its merchants overcome the current economic challenges, LinkShare distributed a series of e-newsletters to its members which included past shopping trend data as well as industry “best practices” on how to maximize online sales.

Network retailers and affiliates are urged to offer special Valentine’s Day values to entice increasingly reticent online shoppers.

Past data shows a significant spike in clicks, orders and sales within the categories of flowers, gifts and jewelry the three weeks prior to the February 14th holiday. In addition, a recent study commissioned by LinkShare revealed that retailers offering value pricing, promotional incentives and leveraging a wide variety of partners to engage online shoppers will experience increased success as the economy forces consumers to become more aggressive when looking for deals.

“Valentine’s Day represents a great opportunity for online retailers,” said Yaz Iida, co-president, LinkShare. “Today more than ever, merchants need to start thinking differently about how they approach today’s increasingly cautious consumer. We are finding that incremental, strategic changes in the way retailers reach out to shoppers can make a big difference. Brand loyalty is under assault — merchants that give consumers a reason to be engaged are going to come out winners.”

Within the LinkShare network, retailers in the jewelry category saw a sales increase of 76 percent during last year’s Valentine’s Day period. This year, in an effort to grab the attention of online shoppers, network jewelry merchants are offering special promotions — and have started advertising early.

“As an online jewelry store, Valentine’s Day represents a significant source of our annual revenue,” said Paresh Vadavia, Affiliate Program Manager, Ice.com. “And, with consumers tightening their wallets, it’s more important than ever for us to be part of a network that helps promote our brand as well as helps keep us current with consumer buying behavior.

This information is critical in keeping our loyal consumer base engaged with both our company and our products.”

In addition to the jewelry industry, flower retailers typically see a tremendous increase in orders around Valentine’s Day. In 2008, LinkShare’s network of floral retailers saw a 149 percent spike in orders in late January and the days leading up to February 14th.

“We are aware that the economic climate means consumers are changing their shopping patterns,” said Chris McCann, President of 1-800-Flowers.com. “Through the LinkShare network, we recognize there are two kinds of shoppers — the early planners and the procrastinators. Armed with this knowledge, we have been able to target each of these groups in a way that engages their individual shopping personalities. The ability to identify and connect with our online customers is so important in establishing brand loyalty.”

In addition to the standard Valentine’s Day gift categories of flowers, jewelry, gifts, and food & beverage, LinkShare predicts an increase in “gifts of experience” this year, as the romantic holiday falls on a Saturday. This means retailers specializing in travel should benefit from weekend getaways; these merchants should capitalize on this opportunity by offering online shoppers special promotions as incentives.

Posted By Andrew Redfern

Follow our Micro Blogging Twitter Feed on http://twitter.com/hitsearch

Would you like to know about Internet Marketing? If so, contact Hit Search, Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click & Social Space Marketing specialists, on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

Thomas Cook Use TradeDoubler for Affiliate Marketing

By Andrew Redfern @ 17th December 2008 5:03 pm Affiliate Marketing

TradeDoubler, the global digital marketing company, today announces that it has been appointed by Thomas Cook UK & Ireland to exclusively manage its affiliate marketing programme in the UK. The account covers core brands including Thomas Cook, MyTravel, Direct Holidays, Going Places, Cresta and Neilson.

Thomas Cook UK & Ireland previously managed its brands across two network providers and this has now been consolidated into one integrated approach with TradeDoubler.

The new affiliate programme will focus on driving incremental revenues and maximising sales across all booking seasons and ultimately help sustain growth in online sales.

Russell Gould, Director of e-Commerce at the Thomas Cook UK & Ireland, said: “It was necessary to consolidate our position to a single affiliate network partner.

Following on from a comprehensive tender and review process, TradeDoubler demonstrated a thorough understanding of our core brands and future plans, and we were attracted to their innovative approach from a marketing and technological perspective. This new consolidated approach will ensure we are able to drive increased levels of performance from our programme.”

Ben Wood, UK Managing Director at TradeDoubler, commented: “Thomas Cook is a leading brand and another significant travel sector win for TradeDoubler.

The strength of our publisher relationships and our understanding of their influence in the customer journey to sale helped us to stand out from all the other networks. This, coupled with our premium client service, should stand us in good stead to deliver above and beyond the ambitions of the programme and help to firmly establish the online presence of all Thomas Cook’s key brands.”

Thomas Cook is the latest addition to a growing list of new business wins in the travel sector this year for TradeDoubler. Other notable account wins include, Cathay Pacific, Hotel Club, Rates To Go, Hotel Connect, Travelsphere, Page & May, British Airways, Just For You and Jet2Holidays.

Would you like to know more about Affiliate Marketing? If so, contact Hit Search on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

LinkShare Drives Retail Sales Up 17% on Black Friday and 21% on Cyber Monday

By Andrew Redfern @ 17th December 2008 11:45 am Affiliate Marketing

LinkShare today announced that retailers within its network significantly out-performed other online retailers in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, reporting double digit increases in same store revenue year-over-year.

While the retail world has been bracing for a holiday shopping season with lower-than-usual revenue due to a tough economy, retailers in LinkShare’s affiliate network were able to dramatically outpace comScore’s reported 1 percent growth for this annual shopping day.

LinkShare’s retailers rely on the network’s affiliates to promote their brand and products to online consumers. In light of the bad economy, LinkShare distributed a series of e-newsletters to its advertisers which included past shopping trend data as well as industry “best practices” on how to maximize online sales — both pre- and- post holiday. Network retailers and affiliates offered special “Black Friday” promotions, coupons, and deals to online shoppers who made purchases that day.

“We were pleased to see such a big increase in revenue for our partners,” said Yasuhisa “Yaz” Iida, co-president, LinkShare. “Our network is made up of advertisers and publishers that work closely together to bring online shoppers quality brands and products.

These members have been working especially hard this season in order to keep revenue up while offering shoppers the best deals possible. These results reflect, despite a tough economic climate, consumers’ desire to continue the tradition of holiday shopping, while paying particular attention to brand and product promotions.”

Retailers within the LinkShare network also saw a large and unexpected increase in this year’s “Cyber Monday” sales. According to comScore, online retailers, on average, experienced a 15 percent increase in sales on this popular “cyber” shopping day over last year, while LinkShare’s merchants saw a 21 percent increase year over year on a same store basis.

Within LinkShare’s network, the categories that brought in the highest revenue were department stores, toys/games, apparel, and high-end luxury brands.

The weeks leading up to “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” saw increased click-through activity within the network, reflecting the US shopper’s commitment to finding the best deals this shopping season. These “clicks” became purchases as consumers went back to take advantage of online retailers’ product promotions.

Would you like to know more about Affiliate Marketing? If so, contact Hit Search on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

Affiliate Marketing – TradeDoubler extends Dell relationship to 2011

By Andrew Redfern @ 18th November 2008 11:05 am Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Netwirk TradeDoubler has announced that it has extended its supplier status across 13 European countries with longstanding client, Dell.

The deal builds upon a six-year relationship between the two companies and will see TradeDoubler continue to work across both the consumer and business-to-business divisions until 2011 providing campaigns and affiliate network support as well as pay-per-call tracking.

The pan-European partnership spans several major territories including the UK, Germany, France and the Nordics and further cements Dell’s long term commitment to online marketing activity. Since coming on board as a keystone client in 2002, TradeDoubler has helped Dell to become an early adopter of affiliate marketing, developing a dedicated Online Demand Generation team and various exclusive offers and incentives to promote sales from its site.

A 25-person strong TradeDoubler team supports Dell’s business and marketing strategy, not just driving online conversions, but enabling Dell to introduce new products to market and break into previously untouched markets. This latest contract reaffirms TradeDoubler’s strength across Europe, further supported by Comscore’s September 2008 figures which show a 73.4% European Internet audience reach for TradeDoubler.

Andreas Iversen, Senior EMEA General Procurement Manager at Dell, commented: “We were early to recognise the value of affiliate marketing and have worked closely with TradeDoubler to maximise and refine our online presence over several years.

Thanks to the impressive results we’ve generated to date, we were keen to continue our affiliate drive across Europe and TradeDoubler was the natural partner to choose. We look forward to continuing both the relationship, and its success, in the years to come.”

Will Cooper, CEO TradeDoubler adds: “We’ve been proud to play a part in the success story of Dell’s online marketing. Our two businesses have grown together over the last six years, with mutually beneficial results, and we are confident we can help maintain Dell’s enviable market position across Europe going forward.”

Would you like to know more about Affiliate Marketing? If so, contact Hit Search on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

Other Related Stories That May Be Of Interest: