Caro Consulting

How are affiliate marketing and dating the same?

So, why is affiliate marketing like dating? Because the goal is to create a successful ongoing relationship. How do you do this? Peter Figueredo, Kitt Williams Odukoya, Shmuly Tennenhaus, and Kerri Pollard came together at last night's AiMA event to answer this question and much more. Following are the top 10 take aways...

1. Find the right partner - Whether it is Commission Junction or Linkshare or a smaller affiliate program solution, choose the one that is right for you. Instead of attempting an in-house program, reap the benefit of an already established network.
2. Determine your business objective - branding, acquisition, or loyalty. All three can be achieved through affiliate marketing. Execute according to this objective.
3. Pick up the phone and call. Today inboxes are packed; if you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to do something different.
4. Know what they want. Who are they? What do they do? What motivates them? Every person is different, every company is different. Create incentive programs with this in mind.
5. Surprise and delight. When a first sale is made, don't play hard to get, contact them right away. Express your appreciation.
6. Set clear guidelines. Keyword guidelines: don't end up in a keyword bidding war with one of your very own affiliates...or one of your competitors because of your affiliate. Brand guidelines: ensure it is properly represented throughout your network. Incentive guidelines: make sure the rules are followed.
7. Segment and target. Separate the affiliates into different groups. For example, loyalty sites such as www.ebates.com attract repeat business. Coupon sites are people looking for deals. One focuses on quality leads and the other quantity. Both are valuable and yet should be communicated to and rewarded accordingly.
8. Remain competitive. There are many companies competing for your affiliates affections and you need to stay one step ahead of them. Review their sites, consult the tools offered by your affiliate marketing solutions, and talk to your affiliates.
9. Fraud is out there. Check clicks, sales, average order size, and returns, daily. If something looks odd, pick up the phone and call them. Know what is going on in the industry by consulting www.abestweb.com or other affiliate marketing forums. Keep in touch with the people in the industry.
10. Knowledge is power. Attend conferences like this one. Read publications such as Revenue. The more you know about their needs the better.

Creating a relationship takes time and effort. The biggest recommendation I make to people who ask me about affiliate marketing is dedicate the right amount of resources. Think about your own relationships. What happens when they are neglected? Nothing good I can assure you.

What about you? How have you seen success with your affiliate marketing program?

Search Marketing is No Longer Easy

No kidding, right?

Gone are the days when all it took was a website with a few keywords sprinkled in. Gone are the days when keywords could be purchased for five cents a click and the campaign basically ran itself.

Today, dynamically generated content with long URLs, competitors with endless content development budgets, and eBay keyword buys are just three of the hundreds of thorns in search marketer sides each day. Today, search marketing can no longer be given to the intern in the corner cube—a unified strategy needs to be created, so all marketing programs work together. Today, even your PR team needs to get involved to manage search engine reputation.

Yesterday, the people from Jupiter and Search Engine Watch came to Atlanta for a half day presentation and round table event—Search Engine Watch Forums LIVE!

Key take aways were...

- Dave Williams from 360i. "Watch the trends. There is tremendous growth in the vertical search market – Orbitz, Shopping.com, Froogle, and Shopzilla. Out of search new ad models have emerged – click to call, local search, day parting, demographic search, contextual search etc. Your competitors are becoming savvier with A/B testing & multi-variable optimization. More and more studies show search is a valuable component of a branding campaign."

- Stacy Williams from Prominent Placement. "To overcome search marketing challenges, use all the tools available to you... Optimized blogs & press releases and well placed, high quality links to your site. Make sure your PR team is regularly monitoring the web and is working with the marketing team to address any negative PR that crops up. Take a look at local search – 25% of today's searches."

So, to sum it up, search marketing is hard and yet there is so much opportunity for growth. This post merely scratches the surface. How have you seen success? What creative methods are you using to get found and keep your reputation pristine?

Welcome to Caro Consulting's blog about blogs and other Internet marketing techniques

Many people have asked me about blogs and how they apply to their businesses—why not take the leap and join the blogosphere myself. Isn't doing something yourself the best way to learn?

So, here I am! Welcome to Caro Consulting's blog about blogs and other Internet marketing techniques. Through my postings I plan to share practical information about marketing strategy, SEO, SEM, email marketing, affiliate marketing, web analytics, Internet retailing, lead generation, and yes, blogs.

Of course, I do not know it all—everyone has their own specialty and unique perspective on Internet marketing. Join me in my effort to spread the word about the value and effectiveness of Internet marketing. I look forward to sharing your comments, thoughts, and opinions with my readers.