RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

How NOT to Post Testimonials: DVDDropShip Example

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Anthony Hamerton of S & H Promotions was kind enough to drop me a line and point me to the following:

Carla James

Hmm… you might recognize that picture from the Super Affiliate Handbook homepage. It's me in front of my computer.

According to DVDDropship however, my name is Carla James and I'm married to Ian.

Wow! I don't even know Ian!

Too, I apparently like DVDDropship enough to have written the merchant a testimonial.

Duh.

Actually, I'm still Ros and I've never heard of DVDDropship before getting Anthony's note.

I could have contacted the site to have it removed, but I thought you'd appreciate actually seeing what you've always known — not all online marketers operate with integrity.

Too, I'd like to help potential buyers of this product by highlighting the fact that DVDDropShip acts in a fraudulent manner, and is therefore not to be trusted.

I do that by naming them in our blog (DVDDropShip) and then hope that our blog entry comes high in the search results for their name.

Let's hope, shall we? 🙂

Posting testimonials on your site – whether it is a product site or an affiliate site – is a good thing. Just make sure that they are REAL.

Cheers,
Ros

How NOT to Do a JV

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If you're not familiar with the term ‘JV', it stands for ‘joint venture', and basically it's affiliate marketing on steroids.

Joint ventures always have a personal component, ie. the merchant contacts a potential affiliate with a ‘beefed up' commission offer, or the affiliate contacts the merchant with a proposal to market their product in a ‘special way' … also for an improved commission rate.

I receive JV proposals each and every day.

Somebody somewhere told someone else that I know ‘something' about affiliate marketing. 🙂

Fair enough.

But how those JV offers are presented is almost as important as the JV itself, and in many cases the presentation will make or break the deal.

For example, I recently received a snail mail letter that went something like this:

Dear Rosalind,

My friend, So-and-So, doesn't believe that affiliate marketing works.

I told him that I know a Super Affiliate (you) and that you would prove to him that it works.

Anyway, my friend wrote the ‘Blah-Blah' book (which had nothing to do with any category in which I presently work) and I told him that you could sell it on the Internet for him.

If you're interested in seeing a copy of the ‘Blah-Blah' book, please contact me at the following (snail mail) address.

Signed,
Not-a-Clue about Joint Venture Marketing

(OK, so I made her name up.)

Egads.

If you have a product and want to do a joint venture with top-level marketers, please don't send a letter that looks anything like the one above.

Here are 6 basic points to learn about joint venturing from Not-a-Clue's letter above:

  1. Don't insult their business model, not even by proxy.
  2. Don't assume anything – ‘you would prove to him that it works'.
  3. Make sure that the product is relevant to your potential joint venture partner's business.
  4. Send them a copy of the material you want them to review.
  5. Include affiliate signup details.
  6. Provide e-contact details, not snail mail addresses.

Follow the guidelines above to create your own successful joint ventures.

Cheers,
Ros

Clickbank Merchants: How to Protect Your Affiliates’ Links

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In response to one of my posts, David Lovelace sent me the following note:

Dear Rosalind, Do you have 2 minutes to confirm something for me? I just looked over your post and saw something that I had never heard or thought about before. I use (a specific product) to make sure my affiliates' links are cloaked throughout the process. But I've been thinking of opening a CB account without the script. So when you said:

1. He should do the quick fix to prevent his affiliates' ID's from showing in the address bar which consists of creating a page that redirects to ‘http://www.wahumorway.com/index.html'. 2. That redirect page gets listed as his sales page in the Clickbank interface.

… a light came on. Great tip for those not using a 3rd party affiliate script. I would never thought to do it that way. Let me run this by you to make sure I understand this. Could you confirm if this is correct? I use re-directs all the time when promoting affiliate products, so I understand that (and the code used). I have used both .php and .html code to do this.

In your experience, does one cloak better than the other? Which do you use? If I'm translating your tip correctly..

  • I'll create a re-direct page (ie, www.myproduct.com/sales.html) making sure that it directs to www.myproduct.com
  • Then put www.myproduct.com/sales.html as the home page inside the CB admin.
  • Then when anyone clicks on a CB generated link, the re-direct process will cloak the affiliate ID so that only www.myproduct.com only appears in the browser?

    • I appreciate your time in confirming this.
    Dave Lovelace

    Hey Dave!

    You got it exactly right, and thanks for spelling it out! 🙂

    I created a redirect to the home page from the URL superaffiliatehandbook.com/cb/and placed it in my .htaccess file.

    Then that URL is listed as the “Hoplink target URL” in my Clickbank account.

    The same thing happens when someone clicks on one of my affiliate's CB links for the Super Affiliate Handbook. The visitor doesn't see the affiliate ID, but the cookie is preserved… which makes everyone happy! See how easy that is?

    As a Clickbank affiliate, I thank all CB merchants who take the time to hide our affiliate links.

    Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

    Cheers,

    Ros

    Baaaad Mr. Merchant!

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    Here's a note I received from a friend and affiliate industry ‘insider'.

    Ros,

    I just HAD to tell you about this.

    This is yet another technique “Baaaaad Mr. Merchant” deploys for gaining link popularity with the search engines.

    Send affiliates ad copy with their link code at the bottom.

    Within the ad copy itself he adds another link with black fonts so it isn't obvious that it's a hyperlink.

    That link isn't an affiliate link but goes directly back to his site.

    Not only is this sneaky but if a visitor actually clicks the link the affiliate loses their commission.

    Here's an example of the code:

    <a href=”http://baaaad-mr-merchant.com/” style=”text-decoration:
    none”>
    <font color=”#000000″>working from home on your
    computer</font></a>

    I was completely aghast.

    I've never seen any merchant with whom I've done business engage in what amounts to affiliate commission theft by the merchant himself!

    (This guy needs his knuckles rapped, and HOW!)

    What can I say but CHECK YOUR AFFILIATE LINKS!!!

    Not-so-cheery,
    Ros

    Dear Ms. Merchant

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    Dear Ms. BlahBlah.com Merchant,

    I have a huge list of established customers with a demonstrated need for your company's products. I therefore applied to your program through the Linkshare affiliate network on November 28th, 2005 while readying my sites for Christmas.

    I could hardly contain my excitement therefore, when today, on January 17th, 2006, I saw in my Inbox :

    “Subject: BlahBlah.com BlahBlah.com Application Approved”

    WooHOO!

    It was very heartening to learn that:

    “BlahBlah's commitment to providing premium quality BlahBlahproducts at or below published wholesale cost has made us one of Inc Magazine's Top 500 fastest growing companies – 3 years in a row!”

    The BlahBlah.com Affiliate Partner Program provides:
    ** BlahBlah.com is a Preferred Merchant of the LinkShare Affiliate Network – that ensures regular monthly payments, accurate tracking, and convenient reporting

    Thanks especially for sending the following instructions along:

    To get started, just follow the directions below:

    1. Go to http://www.linkshare.com) to log on to your account with your Username and Password.
    2. Click on “Create Links” on your main control panel
    3. Click on “BlahBlah.com”
    4. Select from the link types available to you from BlahBlah.com in the left frame tool bar
    5. Copy and paste the appropriate code into your Web site. Please allow up to 1 hour for the links to function accurately.

    Actually, the following instructions would have been more helpful:

    1. Go to http://www.linkshare.com) to log on to your account with your Username and Password.
    2. Click on “Your Account” in the top navigation bar.
    3. Select BlahBlah.com in the Program Controls Merchant drop-down box.
    4. Click the “Delete this Merchant from my account” at the bottom of the page.

    But no worries, I found what I was looking for – no problem.

    Regarding “We're sure you'll find your partnership with BlahBlah.com most rewarding. Thank you for your particpation in our program.”

    Well, you know where I went with that.

    Actually, if you'd started with “I'm SO sorry! There's absolutely no excuse for making you wait almost 2 months to have your application approved. On bended knee, I beg your forgiveness and am willing to offer you a 10% commission increase to promote BlahBlah.com's products on your excellent sites”, I might have considered putting a BlahBlah.com link up in a dark corner of my site.

    But as it stands, BlahBlah.com, you're blacklisted. Consider yourselves lucky that I won't publish BlahBlah.com's real name on my blog.

    Sincerely,
    Rosalind Gardner

    Affiliate Manager? Like to Write?

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    Revenue Magazine's senior editor, Maria Sample, is looking for affiliate managers to contribute to their ‘Manager's Corner' column.

    To keep things spicey over there at Revenue, they're looking for input from a different affiliate manager for every issue… so it's not a long-term commitment.

    So, if you're an affiliate manager with an opinion and who likes to write, check out Maria's entry on Revenue's Blog. You'll see her email address posted at the bottom of the entry.

    Online Merchants: Are You Leaving Money on the Table?

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    As an affiliate marketer, it's astonishing to see how many online merchants don't have an affiliate programs in place to market their goods.

    That's just crazy!

    Basically, they're LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE… and lots of it.

    Who knows? Maybe they're afraid of ‘sharing' their profits and ‘losing out' somehow?

    Again, that's Crazy!

    Having hundreds and thousands of affiliates promote your products INCREASES net profits – it doesn't cut into existing income.

    Here are the 3 more EXCELLENT reasons for having your own affiliate program:

    1. Get Free Promotion – As a merchant, finding suitable websites on which to run your ad campaigns is a time consuming and expensive process. Putting an affiliate program in place requires a much smaller investment. A successful affiliate program can easily become an online merchant's largest traffic generator.
    2. Increase Search Engine Ranking – Search engines, Google in particular, calculate link popularity as one of the main factors in how they list and rank sites. As such, links into your site from affiliate sites certainly help to improve your rankings.
    3. Improve Brand Popularity – How did strictly online brands like Amazon and Match.com become so popular? Because of their affiliate programs! When you have tens, or even hundreds of thousands, of affiliates all promoting your site, you gain phenomenal exposure. Better yet, all that exposure is free but for the cost of the affiliate program set up and the commissions you share with your affiliates when they make a sale.

    I know from personal experience that my affiliates are responsible for the lion's share – around 75% – of sales of my Super Affiliate Handbook.

    Letter from a VERY Happy Merchant who started his own affiliate progam.

    For still better evidence of the effectiveness of affiliate marketing, here is a letter I received from Tim Knox, a client with whom I first spoke in October 2003:

    Hi Rosalind,

    It's been awhile since we spoke on the phone and I wanted to give you an update on how much my business has grown in a very short time, due in no small part to the advice I received from you about starting my own affiliate program.If you recall, we initially spoke in October, 2003. I had just purchased your Super Affiliate Handbook and had a thousand questions about affiliate programs.  I invested in an hour of telephone consultation with you and it turned out to be the best investment I could have made in my business because that call sparked my desire to build my own affiliate program.

    To refresh your memory, I already had a very successful web site called DropshipWholesale.net which sells my own copyrighted line of informational products focusing on selling dropship and wholesale merchandise online.  My customers consisted of people looking for dropship information and products to sell on eBay and those looking to start their own online sales business.

    The primary reason for my call to you was to get your advice on how to better market DropshipWholesale.net and the related line of products.

    Your advice on marketing was excellent, but it was your suggestion that I start my own affiliate program that really sparked the fire.

    I launched the DropshipWholesale.net Affiliate program a few weeks later and to say the least, the results have been nothing short of phenomenal.

    I now have over 500 affiliates around the world who market my products from websites that I provide to them.  The affiliates are paid 50% commission on everything sold.  I know 50% is a high commission to payaffiliates, but as you pointed out it is my affiliates who are helping me build the business, so the thousands of dollars I pay out each week to affiliates truly is money well spent.

    I am on track to do over $500,000 in revenue this year with over $200,000 paid out to well-deserving affiliates.

    My affiliates and I thank you for you contribution to our success.

    Sincerely,

    Tim Knox

    Just last month, Tim wrote to tell me:

    “I did $750K last year and am on track to do $1M this year, all online.”

    WOW! and Woohoo!

    Now, if that doesn't convince you that you need to start your own affiliate program – I don't know what will.

    Perhaps it's the prospect of going through all the rigamarole of searching for, and finding, the perfect affiliate program solution, stops some merchants from setting up their own programs.

    Well, I dislike ‘rigamarole' as much as, (probably more than), the next person, so let me allay those fears.

    Setting up an affiliate program is just not that big a deal.

    All those merchants with affiliate programs now in place can't possibly be Internet Einstein's, so don't expect starting an affiliate program to tax your gray matter any more than anything else you've done in your online business.

    OK, I hear ya, but there's always out-sourcing. And remember, the more you outsource, the more time you have for playing golf or with your kids.

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