Awhile back Bob Sommers interviewed me for his ‘Recognized Expert' Radio Show in a segment called the “Starting Your Own Affiliate Marketing Business”. Check it out, and while you're there, be sure to sign up for Bob's newsletter to get instant access to over 100 additional shows on topics such as attitude, branding, marketing, public relations as well as writing and speaking skills. Other interviewed guests include Mark Widawer, Tim Knox, Bart Baggett and Joe Vitale. Great free resource!
Clickbank Transaction Analytics Beta
More news on the Clickbank front… Clickbank's transaction analytics beta is a tool that allows both vendors and affiliates to analyze and aggregrate transaction detail by timeframe, tracking code, vendor, affiliate, or product. Results are sortable and can be downloaded in CSV format.
Clickbank Tracking Enhancements (TID)
Clickbank has a new promotion tracking enhancement that allows affiliates to add an 8-character tracking code to the hoplink and order process, which provides the ability to accurately track and manage your campaigns.
Key features of this enhancement are:
- Allows affiliates to add a code to the hoplink process for promotion tracking
- Captures promotion tracking code during the order process
- Displays the promotion tracking code in the transaction report(s)
So, if you sell an ebook by linking directly to the merchant from Google Adwords, on your site and through your newsletters, you can add an individual tid (tracking ID's) to each link.
For example, if you are selling the Super Affiliate Handbook, the link that goes out in your newsletter might look like:
http://yourid.merchantid.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=sahemail
Where as the affiliate link on your site could be:
http://yourid.merchantid.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=site
Happy tracking!
Cheers,
Ros
Working the Web from Nigeria
Here is a question that I received from Samuel in Nigeria:
Greetings Dear Rosalind,
I bought your Super Affiliate Handbook and I really like it. It is highly informative when compared to Googlecash.
Anyway, I am from Nigeria and I love everything about making money on the Internet. I operate a website and have a growing subscriber list which is all about empowering Nigerians through the Internet. Because of my desire to make money on the net and to assist fellow Nigerians who come to my website to subscribe, I have to be properly informed through seminars, information products and most importanly veterans like you.
Now, one of the problems besieging most people in Nigeria is… [Read more…]
Merchants: PLEASE Keep Your Links Updated
Cheese me. I was in the Linkshare interface the other night getting Allzine links for blog posting about on the Roamsters.com site. Thirty magazines were returned in the Travel & Leisure category. I grabbed about ten of them, creating ten draft posts with magazine pictures and titles and planned to write descriptions of them later.
Well, good thing I clicked on some of those links. More than half of them no longer exist in Allzine's product database. Really, when I searched the Travel & Leisure category within Allzines itself, only 9 magazines were returned, meaning that 21 TWENTY-ONE!!!! of the Linkshare links were no good.
Of the nine that WERE good, some of them had broken graphics.
Lesson to affiliates: Check the merchant's site first to see whether or not the product is still offered. It's a hassle, I know, but better than wasting your time putting up product links that don't work and thereby frustrating your visitors.
Suggestion to merchants: Kindly make sure your product links are up to date!
Thanksgiving: Keep the Focus on Giving
For millions of Americans, (Canadians too) the Thanksgiving holidays are a time spent with loved ones around feast-filled tables and expressing gratitude for the past year’s blessings.
It is also a time to remember those around the world who are less fortunate. Although tomorrow is Black Friday – the hottest sales day of the year – today (tomorrow and always) let's keep the focus on giving.
Here are 4 ways you can give more this holiday season:
- While doing your holiday shopping is to look for merchants who donate a portion of their proceeds to charity.
- As an affiliate, do your best to promote those merchants. Look too for charities that sell online, such as Unicef (a Commission Junction merchant).
- Give a portion of your virtual real estate to promote charities such as the Red Cross.
- Last but not least, sign up for one program and designate your favorite charity as the recipient.
I wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday!
Affiliate Takedown: Score One for the Good Guys
I read a report today at PC World that will warm the cockles of all honest, white-hat affiliate hearts… Court Shuts Down Alleged Spyware Operation. The site was shut down for “secretly loading spyware onto millions of computers after promising users free screen savers and video files”.
Gee, sound like anyone we know and that I ranted at length about not too long ago? Seems that despite a $3M fine, bad practices continue at Zango according to Ben Edelman.
The desired result of such news should be that affiliate purveyors of such crapola see the light and go white… ya well, in a perfect world.