What is going on with Ian Fernando? He’s really pissing off most of the CPA Networks lately, again. Why? Because he keeps on promoting his program OfferSnitch which basically tells affiliates what is going wrong with all the CPA networks. It is an Affiliate Link Checker which tracks and monitors changes within an offer landing page, as well as changes to your affiliate and destination links. Time and time again, landing pages change and links expire without any warning. Be notified when a change takes place and save money. According to OfferSnitch, as many as a dozen plus huge changes are made each hour that lose affiliates thousands of dollars. I hope Ian has a bodyguard while walking around Affiliate Summit, because some of those networks aren’t going to be happy with them being told on.
Video Blogging the Right Way
Video blogging or vlogging is becoming more and more popular each day. With the rise of video on the Internet, people are embracing the concept of video blogging. They’re being bold enough to showcase their real personality through videos while sharing quality information.
The reason why video blogging works so well is because one, people like watching videos. It’s easy to ‘learn and watch’. And secondly, it allows you to generate targeted traffic that actually converts. So how do you really go about finding success with video blogging? Here are a few useful tips that you can use right away to make the most out of it …
Tip #1: Be Anything but Boring
Let’s face it – there is a ton of video content out there which is not only boring, but also useless. If you want to be a successful vlogger then understand what your viewers want. Give the the right kind of information without having them lose interest.
Make your videos entertaining and fun. Add a bit of humor to them. Bring out the engaging side of your personality. Your viewers will love you for who you are. As long as you’re not afraid to be yourself.
Tip #2: Make Your Audience Feel at Home
One of the plus points of video blogging is that it allows you to instantly connect with your viewers. It gives you the opportunity to interact with them in a lively manner. Don’t let this chance slip by.
With each video, ask questions to your readers, answer their existing questions, talk in a friendly manner, narrate a personal story of yours, ask them to leave feedback etc. The idea is to make your viewers feel at home. They should want to come back to your video blog again and again. Let them know that you are someone they can easily connect with.
Tip #3: Keep it Fresh and Current
The information that you’re giving to your viewers with your videos on your blog has to be fresh and happening. Since you are creating videos, you have to stay away from things that are outdated.
A good way to do this is to try to include content that will be evergreen. Something that applies now and even the future. When you work on keeping your blog real and current, your viewers will feel respected. It will give them a reason to come back for more. It’ll make your vlog sticky.
Tip #4: Learn from Other Successful Video Blogs
There are many vlogs that have thousands of regular viewers. Go out there and watch these video blogs. Research them and try to analyze how they’re doing things. Get an idea on their style and the kind of content they’re serving.
It might take a while before you actually build a loyal audience for your video blog, but nevertheless, it’s something that’s really worth it. Just remember, a video blog is ultimately a blog – it needs regular attention from you and new content to stay alive. Keep feeding it, and it’ll keep growing.
Do you have any ideas to share on video blogging? If yes, then please comment below and let us know!
How to Create Compelling Content from Scratch
Finding new and useful ideas for content on a regular basis can be daunting. Sometimes you have no clue what to write about. And that in turn can be frustrating.
It’s not a problem that is faced only by new writers. Even the experts can hit a roadblock and not know what to do when it comes to creating great content.
So what’s the solution? What do you do when you have to produce content from scratch?
You pull out some of the proven content creation ideas and use them to churn out some of your best work. Stuff that is not only useful but is also loved by your target audience.
Here are a few ideas to help you come up with compelling content:
Idea #1: Curate content
People surfing the Internet today are confused because there’s so much content, it’s hard to figure out what’s right. You can help your audience through content curation, where you link to the best pieces of content and point your readers to the most useful sources.
Internet users are tired of wading through useless content and don’t want to waste their time searching for the good stuff. This is where you come in help them out.
For example, if you’re running a tech blog, you can find and link to the 10 best tech tutorials that your readers will find useful. See to it that you add your own opinion or thoughts to the content to bring in the originality.
Idea #2: Ask your audience
When you’re searching for ideas, the best place to start is your audience. The reason being simple – your audience may have problems or questions that you can answer with your content.
This will not only help you come up with useful ideas for content but it’ll also make sure that you’re creating content that will be liked, read and shared by your readers. Regardless of how you do it, reaching out to your audience makes a lot of sense.
Idea #3: Tell your success/failure story
It doesn’t matter what niche you’re targeting, you must have experiences that you can share with your readers. Have you succeeded at something in the past that makes a good story? Or have you faced failure that your readers can learn from?
You can create original and useful content by simply tapping into your own experiences and giving your readers stories that they will be find interesting. Just make sure you keep it simple and to the point, removing any fluff or irrelevant details.
Idea #4: Look at what’s trending
Using Twitter you can look into the hot trending topics and find content ideas that are in demand. This doesn’t mean that you have to choose something not relevant to your audience because relevance is important.
What you’re basically looking for are topics that are currently trending so that you know what people are discussing. Once you identify these ideas, you can connect them a relevant topic of your own and create completely unique and interesting content.
How do you go about creating compelling content? Please share your experience below in the comments section.
Huge Facebook Advertising Fails
It’s easy to think that since Facebook is a giant social network with millions of Facebookers, placing ads there will bring you lots of quality traffic. But when things don’t work out as planned, advertisers and business owners are stumped as to why their Facebook ads aren’t working. Well, there are a few reasons why this could be happening. See below for common Facebook advertising mistakes that convert to “fails”.
No Call to Action
When writing an ad, it is helpful to have a call to action. If not, then your ad is simply a piece of information, come call this branding. You need to make customers take action after seeing your ad, whether it’s to call, visit or sign-up. On Facebook, you’re only given limited number of characters to create your ad, so many marketers leave out important details. Don’t make the same mistake; make every word of your ad count!
Customers See no Value
When potential customers view your ad, by the time they finish reading; do they know how what you’re offering can benefit them? If not, then you have failed to add value to your ad. A lot of Facebook ads fail at adding value. Simply asking someone to like your page, click your link or buy your eBook isn’t going to cut it. Try to express why they should – for instance to “lose weight”, “make money”, “learn how to retire young” or “start your own business”. Simple phrases like this tell customers what they can expect by clicking on your ad and cause an emotional reaction.
Not Testing Ad Campaigns
Simply placing ads without keeping an eye on the results is a sure way to fail in Internet advertising. The same goes for Facebook ads. Make sure that your ads are getting clicked on and conversions are being made. If you’re not getting more page likes, product buys or Web traffic, then your ad isn’t doing its job. Run an A/B campaign on Facebook to see which ads perform better.
Ads Lead Customers Away from Facebook
When people are browsing through Facebook, they don’t want to be taken away from the site once they click on an ad. This usually turns people off and they leave right away. Some advertisers see a lot of drop-off rates because of this. Instead of transferring them over to an external web site, take them to a Facebook page for your product, service or business. There is a way that you can create a special landing page on Facebook, so learn about that, so that you can try to get conversions and calls to action without customers having to leave Facebook.
Facebook can be a very profitable way to get more followers and increase conversion. Don’t make these above common mistakes and maybe you will see better success with Facebook advertising and won’t be a part of my next Facebook Fail post.
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Topsy Releases a New Way to Measure Twitter Performance
Twitter gives marketers the opportunity to utilize a constant stream of social media content to plan out a successful marketing strategy to put in place on the network. Now, with the amount of Tweets that are constantly flowing through the stream of Twitter, it can be quite difficult to track progress and performance on advertisements that are placed on the network. That is why companies like Topsy, a relatively well known search engine, are creating better ways to analyze Tweets, knowing the importance of results that marketers receive from them. Topsy has now released what they call Pro Analytics, allowing marketers to analyze Tweets in the billions that were published over several years’ time.
Topsy released a basic analytics system in 2011, but their newest offering differs from the old in many ways. The company has acquired certain licenses that allow it to analyze any and all Tweets on Twitter, as opposed to certain tracked keywords and phrases. There are a few options for marketers to break down Twitter data by way of entering in a query, and they include the dashboard, activity, discovery, top results, geolocation, exposure, and sentiment, all of which are needed for marketers to get proper performance results on their Twitter campaigns.
In an article by MarketingLand writer Greg Finn, he reports the functionality and improvements made to Topsy’s analytics feature. Each of the aforementioned options have significant benefits for marketers. Finn describes the dashboard as an option that, “allows users to see the big picture on search terms including mentions, top posts, top links and top media.” It brings together all of the results that the analytics system picks up and puts them in one place. As for the Activity screen, it allows marketers to analyze results on any keyphrase query and further break down results upon clicking certain criteria. The discover screen allows for marketing professionals to analyze the trends and popularity of certain keywords, bringing up the top related Tweets upon entering a search keyword.
The top trends tab is one that most marketers will find particular interest in. This is the screen that really allows users to see the most popular trends on Twitter and get a sense of what people are talking about. It gives good insight into what has been getting peoples’ attention, allowing you to track trends back to over two years in the past. Marketers can see what’s being shared most, mentioned most, or simply talked about most, broken down into links, posts, photos, and videos.
While the Geography tab only covers the 1% of people on Twitter that share location, the Exposure tab allows marketers to see how many people are viewing certain Tweets, essentially allowing for the measurement of performance on Tweet ads. The Sentiment tab is one that will help marketers measure just that, sentiment. It measure positive versus negative mentions, giving marketers indirect consumer feedback.
From Topsy,
Instantly access realtime and multi-year social web data. Detect and follow breaking news. Analyze your own or your competitors’ campaigns and web-sites. Correlate social web activity with real-world data to accurately predict outcomes.
Topsy’s Pro Analytics can do more in the line of Twitter analyzation than most other softwares available can, allowing marketers to measure Twitter results more accurately than they ever could. Topsy details their new system in their overview of Pro Analytics, for marketers to better understand how to get started using it.
Mobile Conversions Are Up As Well
For a long time now, InMobi has proven to be a great source for anything new in the way of mobile advertising and the performance of mobile advertising. With no surprise to me, the mobile marketing research company has now released some more information that is great insight for any digital marketing professional. Their new study found that media consumption has become more popular on mobile than any other platform. Now, I wrote about this study about a week ago, but there were a few points that strike an entirely different topic, and that is how many mobile media consumer actually end up converting in the end.
We know that media consumption is very important to marketing, and that mobile platforms have been leading the way so far in 2012. The results of the study show that conversions on mobile devices are up quite significantly as well. In a study based on 1,000 mobile users in the United States, 59% of those studied made a mobile commerce transaction within a period of six months. When compared to the result of 38% in the six months prior, it seems that mobile commerce rates are rapidly increasing.
Anne Frisbie, the VP of InMobi in the United States said,
I’m struck at just how rapidly consumers are becoming comfortable making direct purchases on mobile devices. Think back to the late ’90s—it took forever to get the majority of consumers comfortable buying on the Internet. In six months we saw more than a 40% change.
Of the purchases made on mobile devices, 46% were in the category of mobile content such as apps and music, described in my article from days ago. However, in addition to mobile content’s boost, over 25% of mobile users were willing to buy products upwards of 50 dollars on mobile platforms. People have started trusting mobile devices so much with their daily activities that they are now willing to buy actual physical, expensive goods by way of a device they hold in their hands. This boost in mobile commerce should give mobile marketers a sense of excitement, now knowing that people have started really buying goods on mobile devices, the place where they see the ads in the first place. As mobile marketing increases in popularity, so has the popularity of acting upon advertisements directly when they are seen on mobile devices.
This boost in mobile commerce relates directly to the boost in mobile content sales. Mobile marketers most often advertise within mobile content apps, and from those advertisements, mobile users are upping conversion rates. InMobi will continue to fill us in on how mobile platforms are growing further and further in the world of digital marketing, and marketers should continue to look out for numbers that show them they are making the right decision by going mobile.
Sexy Dancers At Affiliate Summit Will Perform at Your Bar Mitzvah
In perhaps the best interview we’ve ever had at Performance Marketing Insider TV, Murray Newlands interviews Alexis Gonzales, the Executive Director of Sublime Star Entertainment — the very half-naked girls who danced at the Xposure Party during Affiliate Summit. She’s all about marketing, and if you ever want her and her ladies to come do dance for you, they will be happy to provide entertainment for any club, lounge or even…umm… a bar mitzvah or umm..yeah…a sweet 16.
This video is sponsored by Ndemand Affiliates.
Smartphone Users More Likely to Buy Paid Content
The Online Publishers Association released some interesting new insight into the performance of smartphones, mobile ads, and the attitudes of smartphone users toward mobile advertising. We all know that mobile advertising has been doing quite well lately for marketers, but OPA thought it was important to find out exactly how smartphone users felt about the ads that they have been constantly clicking through day by day. Up against internet ads on desktop platforms, OPA compared the way mobile device users feel about the two, noting which they prefer. It has always been said that mobile would continue to grow in popularity with both marketers and mobile users, and the evidence to support this prediction continues to show up.
So, according to the study performed by OPA, only 38% of smartphone content buyers thought ads on mobile devices were the same as ads on the internet. 42% said that smartphone ads were difficult to ignore. When it came to researching items seen in ads further, 25% said that mobile ads made them look deeper into advertised items while only 14% said otherwise.
What is really important, however, is that 79% of paid-content buyers said that they took action after viewing an ad on a mobile device, while on 39% of non-content buyers said that they took action. Even though content buyers (21%) brought in higher clickthrough rates than those who are non-content buyers (15%), both well exceeded the clickthrough rates of internet advertisements on desktop displays. This illustrates the preferences of smartphone content buyers when it comes to advertisements, especially since only 27% of those who viewed a mobile advertisement went on to make a purchase on a PC, and only 24% actually went to a store after seeing an ad online.
To make the results more general, a total of 24% of mobile users bought content on their smartphones throughout the year. 14% of the apps downloaded on smartphones were reported as being paid apps.
The president of OPA, Pam Horan, states:
Over the past few years, there has been an undeniable shift in the way consumers access content and information as well as stay informed and entertained. Consumers now expect the world at their fingertips anytime, anywhere, and publishers have worked vigorously to optimize their mobile sites and create apps that cater to this demand and behavioral shift.
For content buyers on smartphones and other mobile devices, the preferred form of advertising in the past year has been mobile. Smartphone users tend to see an ad on a mobile device and act upon that ad directly on the device in their hands. This information should greatly interest the marketing community, as keeping the consumer happy is key. Now that 44% (still growing) of the entire internet population owns a smartphone in the United States, mobile marketing takes much more careful consideration to create a successful campaign.
OPA’s study was performed in collaboration with Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. in order to get some insight into the advertising preferences of smartphone content buyers as well as non-content buyers.
Email Marketers Must Optimize for Mobile
Despite the countless forms of digital marketing that have arisen constantly over the years, email still stands strong as an internet marketing veteran. Clickthrough rates for email advertisements have never been so low that email would ever be completely forgotten by the advertising industry, though they have been slowly slipping lately. Still, though, email has rooted a high relevancy in digital marketing. The recent problem with email marketing, however, has been the way people use email on mobile devices. Mobile has now taken the top spot in digital marketing, allowing for social, email, and search to work side-by-side with it. Search and social platforms have optimized well for mobile devices, but email has not kept up to speed with mobile with the same success.
In one of their articles revealing data from their report, “Email Marketing Benchmarks: Key Data, Trends and Metrics,” eMarketer writes,
Email open rates in North America have risen in recent quarters, even as clickthrough rates (CTR) have been slipping. Data from Epsilon and Email Experience Council for the last two years showed clickthroughs fell below 5% for the first time in the first quarter of 2012. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that email is still highly relevant to consumers in the US.
They continue to reveal how relevant email actually is by stating their estimation that nine out of ten adults in the United States use email at least once each month for the rest of this year. They forecast that by 2016, this gigantic audience will have continuously grown for four straight years. With an audience that comprises over a third of the country’s population already, email will stay a relevant source for internet marketing for many years to come.
However, none of this is really news to anyone. What is news, though, is that more and more of the country’s email users are starting to access their emails on mobile devices, mainly because marketers are using mobile email conquer the challenge of, cutting through the breadth of messages flooding inboxes.” eMarketer reported that 36% of emails around the world are now being opened on mobile devices and that most marketers still haven’t optimized their emails for mobile devices. In the article, eMarketer reported findings by StrongMail, saying that only 22% of marketers have started using mobile-optimized templates for email marketing. For the amount of email marketing that takes place today, this is a significantly low percentage.
Optimizing for mobile is a big part of many marketing platforms, and being that email marketing is such a largely used platform, it is surprising that so little marketers have started using optimization tactics. In their report, eMarketer explains the ways in which those who have optimized have successfully done so. They include things like using mobile optimized landing pages, capturing mobile numbers upon email sign-ups, using mobile-optimized templates, and cross-channel email or SMS campaigns. They explain some other methods in their article, stating that,
Marketers that are diving into mobile email optimization have different goals and, as a result, their efforts represent different levels of ambition and complexity.
Affiliate Window Launches Skype Affiliate Program
Murray Newlands quickly interviews and seems to entertain Adam Ross the COO of Affiliate Window (formerly Buy.at), the largest UK-based affiliate company. Adam reveals that they have just signed up Skype as a client, which can now be promoted via performance marketing. Affiliate Window is a global affiliate marketing network, ranked no.1 in the UK. Close to two thousand advertisers work with them to secure online sales through their extensive publisher base. They develop market-leading technology to assist the performance of their clients. Their award-winning platform features social-style dashboards and a comprehensive partner directory, allowing users to search and connect with each other in a seamless manner.
Bad News for Banner Advertising
Even though we have seen a burst in new advertising opportunities on Facebook and social networks in general, the majority of the advertising we see on these networks is still composed mostly of the ever famous standard banner ads. In a survey by Harris Interactive on behalf of MediaBrix, a social network branding company, banner ads just are not pulling in the results that they used to. It seems that people are now starting to prefer the more interactive, fun ads over the simple square blocks of text that have been so reliable over the years. I suppose it is just getting harder to hold the attention of the everyday social media user.
The results of the survey said that only 28% of Facebook app users were gans of standard banner ads in Facebook applications, while 72% preferred the new, more interactive advertisements. Also, 40% of respondents with smartphones stated that they prefer banner ads in mobile apps. To counter that, the other 60% of smartphone owners said they still prefer the interactive and immersive ads in mobile social apps.
According to the press release:
Given that standard banner advertising comprises a significant amount of advertising running across social and mobile apps, the survey findings indicate that there are inadequacies in the way that social and mobile developers are monetizing. Additionally, the survey findings reveal that the digital advertising industry needs new creative advertising formats for social and mobile platforms to keep with consumer preferences.
Putting the subject of banner ads aside, the survey also took note on the preferences of Facebook users regarding video advertisements. The results showed that 37% of respondents that were Facebook app users liked the pre-roll video ads that play prior to access to the app. The majority, 63%, preferred the video ads that they could choose to play or the ones that are shown during natural breaks such as loading screens and turn changes in games.
A bit of good news, however, is that 87% of respondents preferred the free apps that are supported by ads over apps they have to pay for. People do not mind an ad popping up here and there if it means they can play or use an app for free. It’s beneficial to advertisers in that people actually choose to see the advertisements, instead of being forced to see them. Free, ad-supported apps receive the most use over those that require payment.
So, banner ads are going down in popularity. It was bound to happen eventually, with all the newer ad formats that exist now. Banner ads will still be effective for quite a while, but this survey shows that they are bound to become essentially useless someday. Until then, they can still bring in sufficient conversions for advertisers, but other formats may bring more. Judging by the consumer preferences shown in the survey, video ads are what are grabbing attention today, but where to place them is an important consideration.
Affiliate Summit Failures
It’s true, tradeshows are one of the best ways to network and get more clients for your business, but if you’re not careful, your investment in exhibiting could end up a disaster. It never ceases to amaze me how much some companies spend on getting booths, displays, hire talent (wink wink) but totally miss the point.
Having a Booth that’s Too Big or Too Small
It seemed to me that many of the usual suspects did not exhibit so naturally some folks felt the need to oversize their tradeshow booths – maybe because they felt the need to overcompensate for whatever it is they were lacking. On the other hand, there were others who had a booth that was too tiny for passersby to notice. Deciding the right size of your tradeshow booth is very important. It should be an ideal size to where it can be seen, but isn’t overbearing. It should also be able to do what it’s there to do, display your products and services. Don’t even get me started on pointless backdrops and people manning the booth who haven’t the faintest idea what it is their company does.
Not Knowing Your Customer and Having No Objectives
It is obvious and evident that not everyone at the tradeshow will be a potential customer. Knowing the profile of your intended customer is ideal, so that you can know who to target with your sales pitches. It may have helped many exhibitors if they brought along a questionnaire perhaps that they could have asked people to see if they would indeed benefit from the service or product that you have to offer. If not, don’t be afraid to let them go.
Having preset objectives is imperative if you want to get your point across. Are you there to promote the launch of a new service or product, or are you there to do a bit of trend research? Tradeshows are the perfect opportunity to see your competitors and potential customers all in one place, so take advantage! Now there will those who are there just to socialize and party (you know who you are) and hey – if that is your objective, by all means go for it. But don’t do it on the company’s dime.
Giveaways without Purpose
A lot of booths at tradeshows give out products to every person who passes without even considering whether they are a good prospect or not. Then the giveaway item should actually be something that will act as a marketing piece. Handing out cupcakes or bottles of soda will make you a favorite, but it won’t make people remember you. What’s more ideal is handing out usable or memorable products with your company name or logo, hopefully one that contains information for your company.
Poorly Trained Staff
This has to be my favorite and a personal pet peeve. At a tradeshow, please have staff members who are well-trained to sell and to interact with the people at the tradeshow. Having shy or overly-aggressive people that don’t know what they’re doing will quickly make your booth the one to avoid. If your staff doesn’t have full details about the product or service and the company they represent, then you’re going to lose more prospects than you gain. There’s nothing worse than talking to a representative that has no more of a clue than you do. Don’t get me wrong – I am all for eye candy but at the end of the day do you want me conducting business with her or your company. I am sorry – what do you do again?
In Conclusion
This Affiliate Summit East was definitely an eye opener in many, many ways: A lot of the usual big players are now has beens; Many of the once smaller players are no becoming a force to reckon with; A little respect goes a long way; Some organizations think way too much of themselves while others who should be, well go on doing business they way it should be – honestly and with a clear focus.
Some shout outs to companies I was definitely impressed with (mainly because I got a chance to spend quality time with them): PeerFly, CPA Way, Dedicated Media, Offer Web and Rextopia. Don’t get me wrong – there were many others but for now I will limit it to these.
Companies I was definitely not impressed with – well this is a longer list so feel free to contact me directly to discuss as I do not want to piss them off.
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Cake Marketing Says Mobile Optimization is Huge
Murray Newlands chased down Jeff McCollum of Cake Marketing at affiliate summit this year, and wanted to know what trend he was seeing that is making a difference in revenue. Jeff revealed that he’s showing that 10% of all revenue is now coming from mobile and thus mobile optimization is perhaps one of the best things that can be offered by any network. Cake Marketing is a hosted software solution that provides real time analytics and tracking for online marketing campaigns. Our software enables advertisers, publishers and lead generators a scalable and accurate platform developed with a combination of innovative technology and an imaginative approach to doing business online.
Brian McLevis: Credit Card Fraud on Rise
Murray Newlands caught up with Brian McLevis of ScrubKit at Affiliate Summit East this past week, and asked him on the spot what was going on in the industry. He reveals that credit card fraud is on the rise in the industry, and even though traffic looks clean it turns out that the fraudsters are just getting trickier. Scrubkit is an automated and powerful analytical system that assists with the detection of affiliate fraud. Many known advertising networks are currently using it to effectively reduce their exposure.
Data, Dance, and Daring Campaigns: Erin Levzow’s Approach to Building Loyalty
Streaming’s Big Lie: The Future of TV Is Already Broke
How to Narrow the Scope of Information Sought by an FTC Civil Investigative Demand (CID)
Did Your Company Receive a Letter From the FTC? FTC Warning Letters and Notices of Penalty Offense
