We are very excited to be attending and sponsoring the 1st Affilicon international affiliate marketing summit. The first summit is being held in Shefayim Israel.

The Affilicon Conference & Exhibition will be held in Shefayim Conference Center in Israel from November 24-25, 2008 for two packed days of learning and discussion. Explore new trends in internet marketing, strategies, tactics and the most advanced and up-to-date Internet marketing issues.

We are very impressed with how fast and large this first conference has grown. This means our performance marketing vertical is expanding and becoming a global industry that is growing and becoming more and more internationally linked together. Itay and Shay the founders of Affilicon are big believers in the future of our international markets and supporters in raising awareness, creating standards, ethics and integrity in the affiliate marketing industry.

The summit has a very impressive roster of panelists from all over the world. We know its quite a trip to get there, but this show will be very worthwhile and promises to become a new and important industry gathering. You can also connect with Affilicon thru their blog and facebook group (which has exploded overnight).

Our very own Jivan Manhas and Glenn Pagan will be representing us at the summit. You can connect with them at :: jmanhasATmediatrustDOTcom and gpaganATmediatrustDOTcom and set up meetings. Jivan will be speaking on a panel at the show!

We are honored to be a part of the first show and send a big CONGRATULATIONS out to Itay and Shay for helping our industry expand through their Affilicon efforts. We look forward to being a partner in the future of Affilicon. See you there!

Technorati Profile

From the crowded halls at the Manhattan Hilton to the spacious grounds of the San Francisco Moscone Center, ad:tech is one of the leading national digital marketing conferences. Whether you exhibited or took a guerilla marketing approach and plowed your way through the multiple floors, you got first-hand experience in the value of human interaction. In a world of multiple communications tools, it is more imperative than ever to place a face with the voice on the other end of the line. But in reality, it is a combination your polished soft skills and a diligent follow up that will turn all those handshakes into dollars and cents. 

Proactive Preparation:  Know Your Audience

1. Review your inactive Rolodex and scrub it against the exhibitor list. There is no better time to revisit all those contacts whose ventures never made it to fusion.

2. Assess the speaker list and proactively arrange to meet with potential individuals/firms. The majority of speakers are the decision makers of an organization so take advantage of the potential opportunity to open up a dialogue.

Qualifying New Leads: Listen Twice as Much as You Speak

1. Always initiate an introduction with an open-ended question:

-Passionate individuals enjoy speaking about their business (and themselves). Encourage it and you will quickly note whether there is a potential for a lucrative partnership.

2. Receive a pitch before proceeding with yours:

-You have a window of forty-five seconds to certify if the individual(s) before you are a fit for your business model. 

-Time is of the essence thus give the curtsey of listening to a thirty second elevator pitch and follow up with a validating question.

- This tactic will ensure you are fully capitalizing on your time (during the conference), proactively qualifying your prospects (shorten your follow up time) and may present innovative business ideas which you may not have otherwise incorporated. 

Capitalizing During Primetime: Hustle While You Wait

1. Schedule new prospect “meet & greets” during breakout sessions.

-Save thirty minutes plus meetings for individuals whom you have an active pipeline of business with.

-New prospects/projects only require two to five minutes (tops) to qualify any potential business and further action steps should be ironed out in the follow up call.

2. Spend any down time in a public gathering area (i.e. hotel lobby).

-Public spaces receive the highest enter and exit traffic therefore there is a 90% probability you will reconnect with an old associate or potential prospect.

Follow Up: Three Day Window to Close the Sale

1. Jot footnotes on the back of all business cards exchanged (in real-time). 

-This will ensure you can pick up right where you left off and secure the next course of action.

2. Swift and immediate follow up will ensure your correspondence is received first and most likely addressed first.

-You truly have a two to three day window to effectively follow up and make certain that your message is conveyed most efficiently.

-As correspondence begins to flood your prospect , and playing the game of catch up absorbs their next week , a swift turnover will guarantee that you/your firm are kept top of mind.

Happy networking!

Chantelle S.  White

MediaTrust

Business Development & Partnerships 

 

 

 

Our own Jivan Manhas, President of Advaliant, was recently featured on a panel in New York at the Affiliate Summit Social Media Conference. Moderator, Jim Kukral, did a great job of keeping the panelists on task and making sure they gave concrete examples of success. Could you be using some of these tips in your own affiliate marketing efforts?

Before starting any SEO project, I always recommend being perfectly clear on the overall goals you are trying to achieve. Are you looking for more leads, more sales, more traffic, branding — or do you simply want to show off high rankings for keyword X? Each site is a different, and I want to show you how to measure success depending on your own SEO goals.

Let’s say your primary goal is branding…

Perhaps you only care about the amount of traffic to the site because your blog makes ad dollars from page views. In this case, you need to fix your attention on simple metrics that you can gain from your analytics package: a) the amount of search traffic; b) the bounce rate of the search traffic; c) and the direct traffic.

Look for keywords that result in the highest number of visits and the lowest number of bounce rates. Despite what you may think, traffic with a 100% bounce rate is not even good for branding purposes. You need visitors that spend at least a few minutes and demonstrate a minimal level of interest in your content/offer. Also check to see if you are ranking on the first page for these keywords, and preferably above the fold (the first section of the page that does not require scrolling down). The difference in traffic generated between a #1 ranking and a #2 is usually tremendous.

A good way to measure the progress of your branding campaigns is to chart the increase in your direct traffic (people who type your URL into the address bar or arrive from a bookmark). Another important metric is the number of people that come to your site via brand searches (people who typed your company or site name into Google hoping to find you). Traffic coming from brand searches is usually the best converting traffic there is because these are visitors who have already expressed interest in your company or product. If you’re a merchant, don’t make the mistake of bidding in AdWords for brand searches. You should end up with the traffic anyways through organic SEO and it is not smart business to pay twice for the same visitor. However, if you’re an affiliate marketer, the situation is just the opposite. Some merchants don’t understand the process and still allow affiliates bid on brand terms. Some might even encourage it, and that allows you to make a lot of money. Take advantage of those few merchants while you still can!

Now, let’s say your primary goal is sales…

This has to be the goal of most affiliates and small business owners. When your primary goal is sales/conversions/actions, your first order of business is to set up conversion tracking properly. As an affiliate this can be tricky because the “thank you” page is under the merchant’s control. But in cooperation with your affiliate manager you might be able to get your tracking bugs installed on the merchant thank you page. Another alternative is to use your ad network tracking software, which often includes the capability of specifying your tracking bug on the affiliate backend. (I already suggested this feature to the team at Advaliant and I’m sure they will make it available in the next major update.) There is a more advanced technique that I sometimes use involving tracking IDs that I will explain in more detail in a future post.

Tracking conversions essentially means identifying the best keywords and the best sources of traffic so that you can adjust and improve your future traffic generation efforts. I like to set up PPC campaigns not just to drive traffic but also to use “broad match” to find lots of new keywords that I did not consider during my initial keyword research. Focus on the best-converting keywords and try to reach the top spots for them. Remember, the difference in traffic generated between a #1 ranking and a #2 is usually significant and worth your effort.

Final thoughts

Small things can produce big results, but in SEO it’s just as important to step back and look at the big picture. Tiny little tweaks like adding ALT descriptions to images is useful and necessary, but how many new visitors will you gain this way in comparison to the amount of visitors you would have gained by refocusing your keywords to ones with higher traffic and conversions?

Looking at the current state of our economy right now, there seems to be no end to the reports that things are steadily going to worsen. Not since the Great Depression has the US Federal Government had to buy stock in American banks to raise cash (in direct relation to the $700 billion economic rescue bill). Stock prices also suffered heavy losses in Europe, Asia and in most major international markets.

As an affiliate, you may ask yourself how can I profit, no one seems to be spending right? Wrong! Money is still exchanging hands; it’s just in times like these consumers are looking for things that suit their needs, not necessarily their wants. Affiliates need to become “liquid” in order to adapt (the analogy is to flow with the rough water and not sink in it). Affiliates should look to either change and/or enhance what type of campaigns they promote and do so in conjunction with socio-economic trends. By being flexible and adjusting to market changers, you may be able to profit handsomely in these times.

Here is a list of offers that I recommend affiliates promote:

#1735 Data Entry Studio - Home-Business Opportunity

Landing page: http://www.valtrk.com/URL/track.aspx?AdID=1735&AffID=77

Payout: $28.00 

#1793 Lazy Wealth Guide

Landing Page: http://www.valtrk.com/URL/track.aspx?AdID=1793&AffID=77

Payout: $16.00

Easy Converting downloadable eBook on how to earn income at home.

 #1795 Cash For Gold USA - 1 Page Short Form

Landing Page: http://www.valtrk.com/URL/track.aspx?AdID=1795&AffID=77

Payout: $10.50

 #1890 **Advaliant EXCLUSIVE** - Mydebtworkshop.com  : Simple 4 Field Conversion

Landing Page: http://www.valtrk.com/URL/track.aspx?AdID=1920&AffID=77

Payout: $4.50

 #1920 Credit Report America - Free Credit Report Offer

Landing Page: http://www.valtrk.com/URL/track.aspx?AdID=1920&AffID=77

Payout: $35.00

 #1923 EZ Grant Source -When Wall Street Crashes, stay protected! Get your government grant today!

Landing Page: http://www.valtrk.com/URL/track.aspx?AdID=1924&AffID=77

Payout: $24.50

While some affiliates have seen a drop in revenue on their campaigns, others are thriving and experiencing solid returns. By adapting to changing economic trends, affiliates can make the most out of downturns and still generate steady ROI (return on investment).

Richard Okolo
Affiliate Manager, Advaliant
phone: 647-288-1643
email: rokolo@advaliant.com

The fourth quarter is nationally renowned as the gravy quarter, so it is only fitting that we capitalize on that. There are many factors that influence success, so it is vital as an affiliate marketer to plan your end of year strategically and thoroughly. Previous quarterly marketing tactics will not necessarily triumph in Q4, so here are some tips to incorporate in your gravy quarter planning!

Identify With and Become the Brand

Take the time to assess the active marketing initiatives of the brand you are looking to promote:

- What mediums is the brand actively using to market its product? (online, radio, etc)

- Current SEM promotion: is the brand marketing on all tier 1-3 search engines?

- Note the verbiage and graphics used in all of the promotions (is the message clear and marketable?)

- What is the value proposition to the user and is there a sense of urgency (seasonality/limited time offer)?

Determine the core demographic of the brand and identify who the online target audience is:

- Is there a similarity (brand demo and online target audience)?

- If so, draw the parallels and note the similarities. This will assist you with marketing to the most  conversion-prone audience.

- If not, be sure to target both audiences, as there may be an opportunity to capitalize on a new (unsaturated) market share.

Competitive Landscape Analysis

Conduct an extensive search to determine who the brands’ offline/online competitors are:

- Analyze each competitor’s campaigns by taking note of the features/benefits of the product and the value proposition to the user. Note the distribution channels that your competition is using to promote their campaigns (IE: SEM and social media, etc).

- Diversifying distribution channels allows for extensive reach, building brand awareness, and increasing your conversion rates. (e.g. SEM targets real-time purchasers while social media provides brand engagement/awareness).

- Do not simply mirror the competition but trump it through creative and savvy innovation!

- Identify what is marketable about the competitor’s campaign and finesse it, i.e. the value proposition to the customer must be unique and enticing.

Distribution Channel: En Route to Conversions

- Establish a marketing budget, which is flexible for the emerging media landscapes: SEM distribution: Be clear with what your ceiling and floor spends are but ensure you have the ability to inflate/deflate daily. Make sure you manage your spend as these costs inflate quickly.

- Institute a monthly test budget: If you’re monthly marketing budget is $1000 (SEM distribution), allocate $200 of that to test distribution via an alternative channel.

- Marketing your campaign through more than one distribution channel will assist with stabilizing your revenue streams and building your portfolio. Just like your investments in equities, diversification is critical to long-term success in online marketing.

Happy Marketing!

Chantelle S. White
MediaTrust – Business Development & Partnerships

Advaliant President, Jivan Manhas, will be on a panel tomorrow at Affiliate Summit Social Media. He’ll be talking about how Affiliate Marketers can better use the medium to drive targeted traffic and convert offers into sales. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are changing the game and how we think about the industry. If you’re in New York, we hope to see you at Jivan’s panel. Whether you attend or not, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments on your experience using social networks to drive revenue.

Meet up with the New York City Advaliant Affiliate Team on Friday, October 3rd from 5-7 PM at Rodeo Bar. You bring the good conversation and enthusiasm and we’ll buy the drinks and some appetizers. Not an Affiliate yet? Sign up now, then come chat with us over a cocktail.

Rodeo Bar is located at 375 Third Ave. @ 27th St. in Midtown.

RSVP@advaliant.com to insure a seat upstairs on the 2nd floor.

The new MySpace Ad Platform has opened up and it looks like we have a great new social media marketing platform. Facebook has been a very effective channel for our offers and affiliate partners. This now opens a new, large and significant social media channel for affiliates to market.

There is a great review done on Nicky Cakes blog called “MySpace Ads Beta: First Impressions”. I believe this is a “must read” for all social media affiliates. We have many offers that will perform well here and are in the process of bring on more for you to monetize. Please also speak with your Advaliant Affiliate Manager and let them know what offers are working and what new ones we can create for you.

We ask this question all the time in our industry, but does anyone really listen? At Advaliant, we like to think that we do. Recently Bryn Youngblut had some questions about our network and we listened:

“I was first contacted by Peter Bordes, the CEO of MediaTrust. Advaliant is the online performance marketing division of MediaTrust. Peter is a very welcoming and friendly guy, especially since I haven’t done much using Advaliant he took the time to contact me and answer some questions I had about the network. Most companies will forward your e-mail off to their support people. It’s nice to see that people as important and busy as the CEO of a company still take the time to personally contact you.”

We like to think this isn’t an isolated example. We genuinely want to hear what our affiliates think - feedback is critical to our success.

Thanks for being a customer of Advaliant, Bryn and thanks for taking the time post about us!