Associate Programs Newsletter #41
CONTENTS:
1. ClickTrade's new competitor
2. UTalk for ICQ two-edged sword
3. Some companies try to help
4. It's true. Banners AREN'T best
5. Getting those Amazon.com links right
6. Anyone collect collectibles?
7. Bottom Dollar Network adds content
8. Snippets
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1. ClickTrade's new competitor
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ClickXchange is a new option for webmasters wanting to build their own pay-per-click, pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale associate program.
The network appears to be similar to ClickTrade and promises tough anti-fraud measures.
I imagine there will be quite a few disgruntled companies prepared to give clickXchange a quick trial.
ClickTrade upsets people in various ways. For example, a few shonky advertisers sign up with ClickTrade and offer unusually high pay-per-click deals. When webmasters have signed up, the companies quickly switch to a very low rate.
Another bad trick: companies sign up lots of webmasters and then have insufficient funds in their account to pay them.
Webmasters with devious, sick minds dream up ways of defrauding companies using the pay-per-click option.
Bill Mansfield of clickXchange faces a mammoth challenge if he aims to offer a service without those faults.
Bill says clickXchange.com is a CA Web Designs company, based in Huntington Beach, California. CA Web Designs has been in business since January, 1997. Its first site was myED.com – Everything Directory, with an online web site builder.
If you want an alternative to ClickTrade, clickXchange.com looks worth a cautious trial. All advertiser accounts include a custom affiliate sign-up process to merge with the advertiser's site. The sign-up process is painless.
If clickXchange.com turns out to be any good, you can earn a $10 fee referring it other webmasters. Bill gave me permission to post my special URL in this newsletter.
https://www.associateprograms.com/clickx
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2. UTalk for ICQ two-edged sword
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If you're a smooth talker, UTalk for ICQ could be a wonderful asset. It allows you to talk live, without paying long-distance charges. The UTalk program attaches itself alongside your ICQ list and tells you which of your friends or potential customers are online. Also, you can quickly send an ICQ message to arrange a call.
UTalk, available only for Windows 95/98/NT, costs $US24.95, a once-only charge which covers all future upgrades.
It has a two-tier revenue sharing program paying $2.50 and $5.
Sounds wonderful? It scares me.
As I write this, I'm a few thousand miles from home – and a few thousand miles from my telephone, which is just about the right distance, I reckon. So far, the people who used to call me trying to persuade me that I really ought to spend “just a few minutes” listening to their sales spiel haven't tracked me down.
Really and truly, Bud, I'm NOT interested in your network marketing scheme.
I've made a lot of wonderful friends on the Net. Sometimes, it seems almost as though I've made too many. Some days I spend all day and half the night answering e-mail, especially the day after my newsletter goes out. I'm not really complaining. It's far better than working for a living.
However, running a little business on the Net is a balancing act. You have to decide who is in control – you or all your new friends and potential customers, or people who want YOU to be a customer.
I'm beginning to understand why a certain high-profile guy on the Net presents such a crabby image. I reckon it's a deliberate ploy to scare away would-be new friends so that he'll have a few hours in every 24 for sleep.
Here's one way UTalk is being promoted: “Chat Your Way to Making Money . . .”
Not with me, you won't. No, I won't be getting UTalk for ICQ. Call me old-fashioned, but I won't even get ICQ. I'd never be able to get my site updated.
I acknowledge that millions will probably love UTalk. It should be easy to sell. Have fun selling it. Just don't try to sell it to me, thanks.
These three people were the first to tell me about it:
Rick Beneteau
interferenza.net/utalk/al/affiliates.cgi?17
Jarno Laine
interferenza.net/utalk/al/affiliates.cgi?21
Rick Bier
interferenza.net/utalk/al/affiliates.cgi?39
And please don't tell me about Net2Phone and the other wonderful options. I don't want to know.
[UPDATE: Utalk has disappeared.]=============================
3. Some companies try to help
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It's fascinating watching the way companies running revenue sharing programs behave. Some ignore their associates. Some bombard them with an endless stream of advertising – yuk! Some offer rewards for signing up new associates.
Some give useful marketing advice.
A good example is PulseTV.com. In her latest newsletter, Mary Kolacki of PulseTV offered the company's 1200 associates a free consultation from a marketing consultant from Webster Group International. All the PulseTV.com associates have to do is fill out a form at wgi.com/pennmedia.com and they will be contacted with free advice on how to make their site more successful. Maybe if you sign up with PulseTV.com straight away you'll still be able to get the free marketing consultation.
[UPDATE: The PulseTV affiliate program has been discontinued.]Another useful example I saw this week is The Good Orient Company – GoodOrient.com – which gives people the URL of one of its successful associates, Chinavista, which has a customised boutique at Chinavista.com/experience/goodorient.html . So right from the start new associates are shown what works.
Outpost.com doesn't exactly give marketing advice in its latest newsletter, but it lets you examine the sites of successful webmasters. These sites generated more than $US15,000 in Outpost sales between February 12 and February 28.
atom-bomb.com
powerbookcentral.com
absolutemac.com
dijo.com
bookmarc.hypermart.net
mugcup.com
thememorysource.com
As a network of revenue sharing programs, Commission Junction is in a good position to know what works and what doesn't for merchants and associates. Janelle Kopp describes Commission Junction's findings:
revenews.com/advice/casestudies/cjunction.html
I've noticed that quite a few companies running revenue sharing programs bombard their mailing list with advice to buy Corey Rudl's marketing course. If it's true that lots of people sign up for programs and don't achieve any sales, perhaps they need a more all-round introduction to marketing on the Net. The best one I know of is Jim Daniels' Insider Internet Marketing. Newly updated for 1999, it still costs only $23.95 – excellent value.
https://www.bizweb2000.com/d2080.htm
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4. It's true. Banners AREN'T best
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LinkShare, which hosts more than 100 merchants, which have more than 65,000 associates, recently began a survey of the effectiveness of different types of links used by affiliates.
The findings: Links other than banners can be more effective. “In fact, we have found that storefronts and links to individual products have the best conversion to sales ratios,” this week's newsletter said. “Textual links within content also perform well. Banners are the most used type of link but least performing. Conversely, storefront links are the least used but most effective.”
Here are LinkShare's findings:
Conversion rate (orders/click-throughs): Text links (1.54%), storefront links (1.27%), email links (1.26%), product links (0.97%), banner links (0.81%), and search box links (0.59%).
LinkShare says it hopes to discourage affiliates from simply putting up a page filled with just banners. “Select the merchant programs that would interest the type of visitor that comes to your site, and consider placing the links contextually within your site.”
Now LinkShare faces the challenge of persuading more merchants to provide links to individual items.
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5. Getting those Amazon.com links right
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A few people had trouble last week creating a special link to the Amazon.com Hot 100 Bestsellers. Yes, it DOES work. I've re-tested it and pasted a Hot 100 link at the top of AssociatePrograms.com/search/books.shtml
[UPDATE: This old link no longer works.]
Robert Holtz of FineItems.Com says associates will find useful the “Advanced Linking Methods”
amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/partners/associates/advanced-linking.html
He says best repeat visits are achieved by creating a unique “front end” which pertains more to the unique interests of your particular site. “That's the key to getting people to punch up YOUR web address instead of the company you link to when customers want to make a repeat purchases. This is EXTRA important with such a prominent URL as Amazon.com.”
Robert says the folks at Amazon.com are really easy to work with. “They are one of my favorite associate relationships because they constantly strive to add value, features, and benefits to working with them. It's my personal opinion that they surpass Barnes & Noble in terms of the business experience several times over.”
I saw in LinkExchange Digest the other day an excellent idea for a new web site – one that gives examples of the different methods of linking to Amazon.com and statistics on which methods work best. Let's hope someone uses the idea.
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6. Anyone collect collectibles?
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People keep wanting me to have a look at amateurish sites containing lists of links or pages of banners. Forgive me for repeating myself, but why would anyone want to return to a site like that? Of course they wouldn't.
It makes more sense to become passionately interested in a topic – collectibles for example – and provide links to collectibles sites such as Myron & Marilee Miller's MMSeekers.com – World Of Collectibles.
MMSeekers.com not only pays 10% commission, it continues to pay 10% to you every time the customer returns and buys more products. “This service runs forever just as long as the customer comes back and purchases within 365 days,” Myron says.
[UPDATE: The MMSeekers affiliate program has been discontinued.]=====================================
7. Bottom Dollar Network adds content
=====================================
Jeffery Wong, webmaster of Anime Genesis, an online guide to Japanese animation and comics, says the price comparison tool, Bottom Dollar Network (BDN), adds value to his site and boosts traffic.
Anime Genesis attracts 2000 visitors a day from anime fans around the globe. “As you've pointed out, a lot of traffic is needed to make substantial income from BDN,” Jeffery says. “However… adding BDN's search engine is like adding content to your site and you're being paid too.
“The weekly email stats are quite detailed though a bit confusing to navigate initially before you get the hang of it… Email support has been irregular, sometimes getting a response within a few days and sometimes a few weeks. This is quite hard especially for sites that constantly review their design every 3 to 6 months,” Jeffery says.
“Payment is prompt and I've yet to miss any of the payments since November last year.”
Jeffery says he earned $US29 in January and $59 in February from BDN, “which is not bad for an entertainment site that attracts mostly college and high school students”.
He gets 2000 visitors a day and is happy earning only $59 a month from BDN? Seems far too low to me. On the other hand, I couldn't even find BDN on Jeffery's site, so if it's well hidden and still making money, I guess he's doing all right.
Anime Genesis is a neatly designed site. It's worth a look.
anime-genesis.com
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8. Snippets
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CyberThrill warning
Carl (Mango) of digibel.org/~wmzone/money.htm says: “Some months ago you sent me a reply mail, mentioning CyberThrill Casino. I think you were right about them… they already owe me more than $500 now, but I haven't seen one cent in about a year.” Carl suggested I remove CyberThrill from the AssociatePrograms.com directory. No, I won't do that. I'll just leave the old “Not recommended” warning in place.
TeknoSurf bonus
John Ferber says TeknoSurf, the pay-per-click network which pays out in four different ways, has decided to allot $US500 every month to the top 10 referring webmasters to share, relative to how many members they referred during the month.
[UPDATE: TeknoSurf is now Advertising.com.]
National Card Systems bonus
Bruce Keiffer says National Card Systems pays bonuses varying from $US15 a month when you have referred 50 partners to $250 when you have 500 partners. Now that could be worth chasing! The company provides online credit card merchant facilities and a has a two-tier program paying $50 and $20.
natlcardsys.com/partner.cfm?sp=ANAAU32114836
Your free ebook
Jim Daniels has produced a surprising ebook “for people interested in starting a business online but don't know where to start”. He's offering it completely free to anyone and everyone. What is surprising is that Jim doesn't mention himself in it. If you like, you can give it away as a special bonus.
[UPDATE: This product is no longer available.
Message board
To stop the Associate Programs Message Board from crashing from overload, it must be trimmed occasionally. All the old messages are archived in sets of HTML pages readable with a browser.
[UPDATE: I've moved on from that old site.]
One million associates
Amazon.com has 200,000 associates, and more than a million people have joined associate programs, according to a ZDNet story.
zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2C4586%2C2219815%2C00.html
If that's true, there's an enormous market for Declan Dunn's new book, “Winning the Affiliate Game”.
Declan's fairly old product is no longer available.]
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