Why I love my Periplaneta americanas
Sep 26, 2007 PPC Programs
Those of you in the online marketing world that wear a few different hats will undoubtedly have some experience in the affiliate marketing game. Commission Junction is a popular affiliate marketing site, and in a recent CJU conference keynote speaker Greg Smith, CEO of Neo@Ogilvy made mention that affiliates are a lot like cockroaches. Sure, he covered his behind by talking about “resilience” but he is merely echoing the opinion of most business owners. Check that, most uneducated business owners.
Sure, a poorly contrived affiliate marketing program can be a cockroach infested orgy of spam, but that isn’t the fault of the affiliate marketer, it’s the fault of the advertiser. There is a warm place close to my heart for good affiliate marketers because I know what makes a successful affiliate marketing program work well. It takes equal amounts of rigor and reward on both sides of the equation. Here’s why I love affiliate marketers:
- Affiliate marketers that know what they are doing can have conversion rates that PPC marketers could only dream about. For instance, a well written site with affiliate links can convert more than 10% of referred traffic on the first click. That’s nothing to scoff at.
- A well written affiliate marketing program can generate up to 50-70% of new business revenue, how much revenue did your PPC campaign generate last year, last month? If that’s the work of cockroaches, I’d like to hire a few.
- Good affiliate sites can lend serious credibility to your own site, and to your pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Do you consider your customers cockroaches? Many customers are unofficial affiliates or potential affiliates whether you want to believe it or not.
- Affiliates want money, and that’s all they really want. Motivating affiliates is relatively easy, if you can calculate the true value per lead or conversion of any one customer to your site. Don’t forget to factor in lifetime value of a new client. Cockroaches live a long time, they might be more valuable than new customers.
- Affiliate marketers move quicker when responding to market trends, they have to. Apple found that out the hard way when they dropped the price on the iPhone. Nokia affiliates countered with PPC ad campaigns targeting sore early adopters, while Apple affiliates advertised the price drop to new potential search users. Yep, those roaches are quicker than your marketing efforts, I assure you.
- Affiliate marketing can also be considered as the first social networking program, it really boils down to relationship marketing. The better relationship you have with your affiliates, the better your marketing campaigns. Can it be that cockroaches pioneered social networking, too?
Well, I’m not sure about you, but I love my affiliates. You can call them whatever you like, the fact is if you’re not playing the affiliate marketing game you’re sorely losing out on serious revenue.
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