Associate Programs Newsletter #143
GoTo.com, one of the Net’s top 10 search engines, is under scrutiny this week.
GoTo.com new rules – and special guidelines which I couldn’t find on the GoTo site – have serious implications for affiliates.
Also, in a surprising move, CompuBank is telling affiliates NOT to use GoTo and similar search engines.
CONTENTS:
1. Don’t promote us on GoTo.com, says CompuBank
2. Compubank says it’s protecting its brand
3. Double viral marketing software “works perfectly”
4. GoTo.com has special rules for affiliates
5. SierraCities now pays VERY fast
6. GoTo’s new rules make things tougher for big thinkers
7. Take your hat off to this affiliate
8. Bogus clicks at FindWhat
9. Nexchange creditors come before affiliates
10. Traffic alone isn’t enough to make you money
11. Exclusive affiliate directory submissions
12. AltaVista drops down to 1 cent per click
13. Spam scam puts two in jail
14. Mercata and Send.com to close
15. My heartfelt thanks, everyone
16. Thought for today: A smart investment
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1. Don’t promote us on GoTo.com, says CompuBank
===============================================
To protect its image, CompuBank has warned its affiliates that they must not use pay-per-click search engines such as GoTo.com to promote CompuBank.
If they do, they’ll be dumped from the program.
CompuBank says in a January 4 letter that its program is designed for affiliates who have their own sites.
The letter has angered affiliates such as Randy Hemmel of winacert.com . I reported recently that he was using an automatic redirect to send people directly from GoTo.com to CompuBank.
“So, CompuBank has decided that they will not allow paid ads by their affiliates!” says Randy.
“I read the affiliate ‘marketing’ agreement very carefully, and I can find no place where they warn against this practise,” he says.
“For the life of me, I can’t understand why CompuBank would NOT want their affiliates to be spending ad dollars out of their own pockets, and therefore bringing in business for them – as long as it is done ethically, as I do.
“I kind of thought that was the whole idea of affiliate marketing – let your affiliates market the product/service for you, and bring in customers. Are you aware of any other affiliate programs
which specifically forbid the practice of advertising on the pay-per-clicks? I am not,” he says.
“So I think this will effectively kill CompuBank’s good marketing affiliates, like myself, who will most likely drop their program and look for another. (I brought them 58 new customers last month
alone, and about 50 of them will activate their accounts this month, bringing me 50 x $40 = $2,000.) So I was beginning to do very well with this program, with about 50% of my clicks coming from GoTo.com.”
Randy says that CompuBank has at least four strikes against it now:
Poor tracking/reporting.
Virtually no marketing tools/tips for its affiliates – just “put up a banner on your site and good luck”.
Failure to answer e-mails (from both Randy and his brother, Bill Hemmel, of Aeroprice.com , on several occasions).
Disallowing pay-per-click ads – pulling the rug out from under many affiliates like Randy who rely on the pay-per-click search engines to promote the online bank.
CompuBank also has another point against it – the program is for United States residents only.
“The bottom line is that somebody at CompuBank JUST DOESN’T GET IT!” Randy says.
“This is a classic example of how not to treat your affiliates. My prediction is that CompuBank’s affiliate program will suffer, and one of the other online banks will soon be #1 – at least in affiliate marketing.
“I had a discussion with one of CompuBank’s affiliate managers just four weeks ago regarding my ads on GoTo, and at no time did they say that was against the rules. Go figure.”
[UPDATE: Compubank died. Goto is is now Yahoo! Search Marketing.]===========================================
2. Compubank says it’s protecting its brand
===========================================
CompuBank says it won’t allow affiliates to advertise it on search engines such as GoTo.com because it wants to protect its image.
“CompuBank values our brand, and we take efforts to protect how CompuBank’s brand is presented on the World Wide Web,” says its Director, Marketing Communications, Sunny Kim.
“CompuBank needs to be in exclusive control of how its brand is presented on the Internet, including on search engine results that describe CompuBank.
“Affiliates certainly can, and should market THEIR OWN SITE (that does more than simply promote CompuBank) on search engines, and on other sites on the Internet.
“A critical issue that we were addressing with the e-mail to the affiliates is that some affiliates are inappropriately creating search engine results that describe CompuBank’s online banking
features, and then directly linking such search results to the CompuBank site. Affiliates then insert their affiliate ID number to the click URL, and try to obtain bounty revenue from CompuBank.
“This type of activity is a misuse of the affiliate program, and in violation of the Affiliate Marketing Agreement. Such misuse of the affiliate program subverts CompuBank’s independent efforts to gain prominence on search engines. Additionally, some of the statements regarding CompuBank that are created by some of these affiliates are also incorrect.
“I understand that there might be some misunderstanding with some affiliates regarding the use of search engines to promote the affiliate sites and the affiliate’s own independent content outside of CompuBank banners. We certainly respect, and encourage such activity,” Sunny says.
Compubank’s Marketing Affiliate Agreement makes it plain that affiliates face firm restrictions on what they are allowed to do:
“Section 2. Display of Bank’s Link: “You expressly agree that
the bank’s name, trademark, logo or any other identifying
material will appear on your web page (or any other web page
under your control) only in the form supplied by the Bank . . .
“Section 14. Relationship of Parties: “You and the Bank are
independent contractors for all purposes. Nothing in this
Agreement will create any partnership, joint venture, agency,
franchise, sales representative or employment relationship
between the parties. You have no authority to act on the Bank’s
behalf. Your display of the Bank’s logo and/or trademark as well
as all other content on your web site, or any direct contact you
have with any customer or customer account applicant must not
contradict this fact.”
I understand CompuBank’s desire to protect its image on the Net. Some affiliate program managers must at times be terribly embarrassed by outlandish tactics used by a few irresponsible
affiliates.
The bank has every right to run its program exactly as it chooses. However, I prefer affiliate programs which show a bit more trust in their affiliates and allow them much more latitude.
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3. Double viral marketing software “works perfectly”
===================================================
My recent review of Wes Blaylock’s “double viral marketing” software which allows you create an e-book in which your visitors can add THEIR links and messages has delighted Eduardo Queiroz of https://www.praia.com/ebooks/.
“This is just to thank you for your tip about ‘double viral marketing’, Eduardo writes. “I bought the software and it works perfectly! You can find my first ebook using EbookPaper at https://www.praia.com/ebooks/netwriting.zip (I zipped the ebook with a Readme.txt file explaining how to personalize it).
“Since I announced at https://www.praia.com/ebooks/ that people can personalize the free ebooks with their own name, web page and ad copy I noticed a HUGE increase in the downloads!” Eduardo says.
The “double viral marketing” message gives people a powerful incentive to pass on your ebook.
With the software, Wes provides a tutorial e-book outlining step by step how to use the software to its full potential.
[UPDATE: No longer available.]============================================
4. GoTo.com has special rules for affiliates
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Pay-per-click search engine GoTo.com has special rules for affiliates.
If you’re submitting listings to GoTo, make sure you read this before you start. If you’re creating a mini-site which you plan to advertise on GoTo, you’ll also need to know this stuff.
These special rules aren’t mentioned in GoTo’s “Advertiser’s Guide to Listing with GoTo”
GoTo may adjust your description and perhaps the title to ensure they abide by these rules.
I recently submitted several hundred keywords to GoTo for a new mini-site – HowToAutomateYourBusiness.com.
[UPDATE: This experimental site is no longer online.](I chose Marlon Sanders’ company for the mini-site because he has great products, he knows how to sell, and he pays high commissions.)
GoTo noticed that I’m an affiliate of Marlon’s company and added “Amazingformula.com affiliate” to all my descriptions.
From GoTo’s point of view, the addition makes the listing more accurate. However, I think it weakens the selling impact of the descriptions. It also adds an URL which people might read and
type into a browser, in some cases bypassing the affiliate.
Here’s part of the letter I received from Mark Smith of GoTo, setting out GoTo’s affiliate guidelines:
GOTO’S AFFILIATE GUIDELINES
“It appears that your Web site operates in affiliation with another site (what we call an affiliate grantor). If this is the case, the links that you submit to GoTo must go to your own
unique page, not to a page that is identical to the affiliate grantor’s,” Mark says.
“However, you may link to a page provided by the grantor if the page is individualized specifically for you in a fashion that CLEARLY identifies you as the affiliate. By doing so, you
differentiate your page from the affiliate grantor’s page. It is our hope that by asking affiliates that link directly to a grantor’s page to identify themselves, we can help our users understand the site they are dealing with, and the relationship that exists between the affiliate and the affiliate grantor.
“In addition, by asking the affiliate to personalize their page, we feel we maintain our commitment to providing a variety of listings for our users to choose from. Individualizing your site could be as simple as adding a line to the top of the page stating ‘Brought to you by ‘, which clearly identifies you as an affiliate.
“However, only the content within your personalized page qualifies for search terms, not the entirety of the grantor site, unless each page within the site carries your prominent affiliate
identification. You could also submit a bridge page or add a frame to the affiliate grantor’s site. Keep in mind that our editorial guidelines limit the search terms you can use with your personalized page, bridge pages or frames to the content in the bridge page/frame.
“We also require that affiliates clearly identify their relationship with the affiliate grantor in all listings (titles and descriptions). Here is an example of what an affiliate site’s description might look like:
“‘Get the greatest books on American freeway signs at Joe’s Freeway Sign Bookstore, an Amazon.com affiliate.’
“Your titles and descriptions have been adjusted accordingly,” Mark says.
It seems odd to me that GoTo told me all this only AFTER I’d made the submissions – and also ignored my e-mail a few weeks ago when I asked about its policy on affiliate links. Very odd.
[UPDATE: GoTo is now Yahoo! Search Marketing.]==================================
5. SierraCities now pays VERY fast
==================================
SierraCities now pays affiliates within 48 hours. That’s a huge improvement. It had been paying commissions only every three months.
As SierraCities says, this immediate flow of income should motivate affiliates.
SierraCities describes itself as the leader in online banking and financing. “We’ve automated the funding process to offer quick and convenient access to loans, leases, and a full range of comprehensive banking services. Since 1994, SierraCities.com has funded over $2.5 billion in small business loans.”
It pays 2% on commissions generated, and says $600 commissions are “well within reach”.
You can join the program here:
[UPDATE: This program has closed.]========================================================
6. GoTo’s new rules make things tougher for big thinkers
========================================================
If you were planning to create hundreds of affiliate mini-sites and submit hundreds of thousands of search terms to GoTo, think again.
GoTo’s new guidelines will cramp your style.
Because GoTo.com has become so all-pervasive on the Net, many web site owners have figured out that a useful strategy is to submit hundreds or thousands of less popular search terms to the search engine. The keywords won’t be searched for very often, but if you have enough of them, you can receive useful, cheap traffic.
This strategy makes sense because GoTo’s associations with many other search engines such as AltaVista greatly increase the chance that your listings will be seen.
However, GoTo’s new rules make things tougher for advertisers.
All search terms that have not received 10 searches in 3 months will no longer qualify for listing in GoTo.
There is a new 25,000-term limit per advertiser, which includes multiple accounts.
A maximum of three large spreadsheets will be accepted each month per advertiser, even if you have multiple accounts.
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7. Take your hat off to this affiliate
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If you’re looking for a way to promote an affiliate product free, take a tip from Richard Igoe of TheWebsEYE.com.
He received wonderful free publicity by writing an article on pay-per-click search engines, niche markets and keywords. It was published by InternetDay, which is read by about 150,000 people.
Here’s Richard’s article:
“Why Pay Per Click?” internetday.com/archives/010401.html
[UPDATE: Internet Day was bought by internet.com and scrapped.]He didn’t only attract free publicity for his site.
In the following paragraph, see how Richard neatly blends an affiliate link into the article, promoting SiteSell’s latest product, Site Build It!
He says:
“One of the most revolutionary tools to come out of the Internet
marketing gurus this year is going to be Site Build It! This
tool automatically optimizes your meta tags, keyword densities,
etc. and leaves you to concentrate on writing valuable content
for your web pages.”
That’s a good summary of a great tool.
With smart marketing like that, no wonder Site Build It! is
selling strongly.
SiteSell President Ken Evoy says that many affiliates saw their
monthly check soar to more than double their usual monthly amount
because of Site Build It!
For some affiliates, those lifetime-customer commissions are
really kicking in gear now.
Site Build It! – the essential tool for affiliates:
https://www.associateprograms.com/buildit
===========================
8. Bogus clicks at FindWhat
===========================
More than three weeks ago I notified pay-per-click search engine FindWhat that I had received nearly 5,000 obviously bogus clicks in only a few days.
The clicks were on the usually unpopular search term “earn”.
This is DOUBLE the number of searches (not clicks) made for “earn” at GoTo.com last month – by EVERYONE using GoTo, a much more popular search engine.
“There’s obviously something very wrong,” I told FindWhat.
The search engine promised to investigate. I’m still waiting to
hear back.
The reason for the delay could be that FindWhat has many fraud allegations to investigate.
Silicon Alley Daily reported this week that FindWhat has been hit with accusations of questionable traffic from clients who blame its partnership with online-ad broker Advertising.com.
The Daily reported that FindWhat.com and Advertising.com entered into an affiliate relationship in November. “Advertising.com CTO John Ferber said the companies split revenues roughly down the middle for any traffic generated for FindWhat.com by Advertising.com.”
If you’re advertising on any pay-per-click search engine, monitor your traffic carefully and report any highly unusual activity and apparent abuse.
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9. Nexchange creditors come before affiliates
==============================================
Craig Whitley of Go2eMall.com is one of the many affiliates hit badly by the Nexchange mess.
“I’ve done quite well in recent months with my Go2eMall.com, which has over 50 vStores and Nexchange stores in it,” Craig says.
“But guess what? I’m not going to be getting a dime of what Nexchange has owed me because their creditors will get first shot at whatever cash they may have.”
Nexchange has given its affiliates the bad news:
“Dear Valued Nexchange Host Website, “As you already have been notified, Nexchange has discontinued Syndicated E-commerce services. The company is currently in the process of winding down operations. Prior to paying Host commissions, Nexchange first must pay over $4.5 million to creditors that have a secured interest in the Nexchange assets. As a result, Nexchange simply does not have the ability to make any outstanding commission payments to you. We are deeply sorry for any difficulty this may cause you.”
================================================
10. Traffic alone isn’t enough to make you money
================================================
If you want to get rich from your web site, don’t follow David Akerley’s business model. He says he gets 80,000 visitors a month but makes only about $100 a month.
Fortunately, he does it for fun, not profit.
ohio.com/tech/news/docs/014622.htm
=============================================
11. Exclusive affiliate directory submissions
=============================================
A number of affiliate directories have decided to accept new program submissions only via Neil Durrant’s affiliate submission service, Affiliate Announce.
“I understand they have opted to do this mainly to reduce their workload as they know my submissions will be processed in the correct manner and save their time filtering incorrect or non-
qualifying submissions,” Neil says.
Neil does a wonderful job of submitting programs to affiliate directories. He takes the time to learn the requirements of each directory and he gets the details right.
If you have an affiliate program and want it listed in dozens of affiliate directories, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and hassle by using Neil’s service. It’s very good.
https://www.associateprograms.com/announce
[UPDATE: Neil sold this business.]============================================
12. AltaVista drops down to 1 cent per click
============================================
AltaVista has told affiliates that “in response to industry and market conditions”, it has reduced its standard commission from 2 cents to 1 cent per click.
“We would like to reiterate that the AltaVista Affiliate Program is an important element in our search offering, and hope that you will choose to remain as a member of our program.”
At 1 cent per click? Not likely.
==============================
13. Spam scam puts two in jail
==============================
I was delighted to see that two convicted spammers were sentenced to two years in prison for clogging ISPs and defrauding recipients of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Spamming affiliates, take note.
idg.net/ic_342808_4394_1-1681.html
=================================
14. Mercata and Send.com to close
=================================
Mercata, financed by billionaire Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, will shut down at the end of January after a two-year run which gobbled up $89 million.
zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2670749,00.html
Online gifts site Send.com, which advertised extensively on radio and TV, is also closing, with the loss of 82 jobs. It couldn’traise the funds needed to continue.
boston.internet.com/news/
=================================
15. My heartfelt thanks, everyone
=================================
Thanks to all of you who have sent me good wishes and advice about my wonky heart. Joanna and I really appreciate all your expressions of goodwill and concern for me – it’s nice to know
you care! We also very much appreciate the time and effort put in by those of you who have taken the trouble to put together helpful advice about diet, exercise, alternative therapies etc.,
also those who have said they are praying for me.
We’ve already put some of your suggestions into practice and are hoping for astounding results! I am regarding this as a wake up call and I really will organize a holiday soon. I promise.
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16. Thought for today: A smart investment
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“Has your butt and brain turned to mush from way too many hours staring at a monitor? Could the truly smartest play be investing in a membership at the health club?” – Phil Tanny.
All the best,
Allan Gardyne
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