NB: This is a guest article by Lee Brignell-Cash, co-founder and COO at FusePump.

Travel brands who market products and services online via affiliates are seeking the most efficient ways to drive traffic, conversion rates and profitability as the channel continues to grow and diversify.

That’s a reasonable simple statement to make.

So maybe we should examine how innovation in technology can make marketing products online easier and more profitable for merchants and affiliates in the ultra-competitive travel sector.

Affiliate marketing remains one of the fastest growing and most efficient means of online advertising. It accounts for 30% of bookings made through online travel websites and demands high brand visibility given the countless number of companies vying for the same carefully considered purchases.

Consumers need to trust the brand and clearly understand the advantages of booking with one provider over another.

Travel brands therefore need to be able to communicate their prices and USP clearly to consumers. Working with affiliate partners can add legitimacy to a travel brand, expedite word-of-mouth referrals and greatly increase reach. It can also strengthen a brand’s long-term positioning in an extremely cost-effective way.

However, the complexity of the relationships and resource needed to optimise the affiliate channel can frequently lead to badly run and poorly-performing campaigns.

The affiliate or performance marketing channel has undergone immense change since its inception in the mid-1990s. It has branched into new areas including comparison and group buying sites as well as making footsteps into social media and mobile.

It has become more professional, with affiliate networks and super affiliates investing in technology platforms and it has diversified with the emergence of micro-affiliates catering for the longer tail specialised search terms of the web.

The proliferation of streams within the affiliate channel makes it much harder for travel brands to work successfully across them all. This is why development of rich product level data feeds and innovative tools for their creation, distribution and management are so important.

High-quality data feeds allow travel brands to create a single platform of distribution under which brand consistency and product visibility is maximised, while affiliates can more easily tailor rich product information (i.e. promotional text) into higher-converting consumer-facing content.

Consumer engagement drives channel diversity

The internet remains a key focus for consumer holiday spend and is the biggest growth area within the travel industry.

According to the European travel index report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, 54% of all internet users in Europe research and book travel-related services online. Meanwhile, recent research by Affilinet confirmed travel as the leading advertiser sector within the affiliate channel.

The evolution in the way in which consumers engage with brands online is driving diversity throughout the affiliate channel. Consumers are using a much wider selection of applications to help them choose holiday packages, including search engines, online comparison websites, group buying websites and comparison shopping engines.

They are also engaging more with voucher codes and discount offers, which means travel brands must ensure their products appear on sites offering value for money. Discount codes can make a big difference to a high-value considered purchase and can be a powerful way to boost sales with price-savvy customers at key times.

Recommendation engines such as Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet are also becoming increasingly important for travel companies. A recent survey by Havas Media Social and Lightspeed Research found that 53% of consumers were more likely to look up a brand if a friend had recommended it.

This boom in user-generated content and the power of recommendations has led to the emergence of micro-affiliates – i.e. the sites that form the web’s ‘long-tail’ of niche search product categories.

Historically, the micro-affiliate stream (including bloggers) was perceived as uneconomical in terms of the administrative burden in managing a huge number of tiny commissions. The tide is turning though as brands begin to appreciate their ‘collective’ influence in driving click-through activity.

Indeed, long-tail search terms are now recognised as a huge opportunity to drive traffic back to their sites, generate buzz and spread messages virally

For example, an affiliate focused on long-tail search terms – e.g. “holiday” + “destination” + “accommodation type” + “price” – will most likely see lower traffic volumes but a higher rate of conversion. Whereas those bidding on generic search terms – eg. “Spanish holidays” – will drive higher traffic volumes but have a lower rate of conversion.

Affiliate opportunities

For affiliates, the change in consumers’ online behaviour means they have more ways in which to drive and monetise traffic. Organic or ‘natural search’ traffic via SEO remains one of their preferred methods, while Pay Per Click (PPC) is also popular.

Other widely-adopted models include loyalty and reward schemes, email marketing (affiliates that build their own data lists to target a travel brand’s potential customers with newsletters or dedicated email campaigns), co-registration, voucher-code and group-buying affiliates. Notable brands in the UK, for example, include Travelsupermarket, Lastminute.com and TripAdvisor.

Each affiliate stream results in a different quality and quantity of leads, which impacts on the incoming revenue they can generate.

What remains constant however is the affiliate’s aim to drive performance by bringing travel brands closer to their visitors, and ensure the incremental revenue generated as a result is greater than the amount invested initially to build and promote the site.

Based on this premise, selecting the merchant to partner with becomes a question of scale, efficiency and lowest cost for the affiliate.

In the second part of this series we will look at product feeds, tools and partner benefits.

NB: This is a guest article by Lee Brignell-Cash, co-founder and COO at FusePump.

Article source: http://www.tnooz.com/2011/07/21/how-to/rough-guide-to-enhancing-travel-affiliate-marketing-part-one-of-two/

Ordinarily, if a large corporation has a physical presence in a state, then that state can charge sales tax on transactions. California, in a desperate attempt to raise more money, has decreed that Internet transactions are now taxable even if the company has no physical presence in California and the goods were shipped from, say, Nevada to Missouri.

Yes, the great minds of the California legislature have decided that if you or a charity or a little mom-and-pop business use affiliate marketing to sell goods and are in California, then sales tax must be paid. Amazon has said no way and has cancelled affiliate marketing for anyone based in California (and Connecticut too, for the same reasons).

Affiliate marketing is when a website or blog has an ad linking to another site to buy something. If a sale is made, the affiliate gets a small percentage. Amazon is perhaps the best known of the affiliates. Many websites have an Amazon store listing goods for sale, or they put a special code in their link to an Amazon book, in hopes of getting income if purchases are made (My personal blog made a whopping $3 last month from Amazon, but no more. Amazon has closed affiliates for Californians. I’ll have to finance that mocha latte some other way).

There are many other large affiliate programs that generate money for Californians. They will either have to start charging sales tax for any transaction from a California affiliate, which means additional expenses to reprogram how their system works and for tracking and sending the money to the State of California, or, what’s more likely, and what is already happening, is that affiliates marketing companies will simply drop anyone in California.

This seemingly ill-thought-out money grab by California is expected to raise $200 million. CalWatchDog says it could cost California more than that in lost revenue as small businesses, nonprofits, and charities take a hit on their income. The OC Register lists several California businesses that are now losing major revenue because their affiliate marketing was cancelled. Some of them may go out of business. In addition, many California charities use affiliate marketing to raise money, but can no longer do so.

The irony of all this is that Amazon, for example, is not based in California, and does not benefit from California services. So why should sales tax have to be paid in California because Amazon got an order from an affiliate here when the book was shipped from Amazon in Seattle to someone not in California?

Amazon is fighting this tax in court and supports a ballot initiative, which could be on the ballot as early as next year, to reverse the law.  Amazon alone has cancelled contracts with thousands of affiliates in California.  Other affiliate marketing companies have done the same. We are talking a large amount of lost revenue for Californians.

As usual, the California legislature appears to have shot itself in the foot with an attempt at a short-term money grab with no concern for long-term consequences.

Article source: http://caivn.org/article/2011/07/19/california-%E2%80%98amazon-tax%E2%80%99-looks-money-grab

Las Vegas, NV-AZ (1888PressRelease) July 18, 2011- Goliath Marketing Advertising Agency has launched its new e-commerce website. The new website allows fortune 500 and small businesses to select on-line marketing services they want and buy them on-line. With the redesign of their new site, which they are calling “Goliath 2.0″, they have added competitive pricing, no contracts, and a host of new services. The new option to purchase marketing services for your business on-line includes services for small businesses and fortune 500 companies.

The stand out feature of the new website is the “No Contracts” option. Businesses can now get stellar marketing and advertising services without the hassle of being locked into a contract. Traditional marketing agencies prefer to lock their clients into contracts, which may include a year or more of service. The “No Contract” option is a sign Goliath truly gets what businesses desire most when searching for a marketing company to handle their marketing and advertising efforts, they do not want to be locked into contracts and they want the option to build trust with their marketing agency.

Goliath Marketing Advertising has kept true to its word of continued growth and expansion of services. Currently, they offer SEO Services, Search Engine Marketing, Affiliate Program Management Services, Social Media Marketing, Data Feed, Shopping Comparison, Creative Services, Email Marketing, Web design, Direct Mail, Small Business Website Marketing, Corporate Marketing Services, and Free Website Analysis. Their ever-growing list of services will in the near future include Talent and Sports Marketing in addition to a few patented platforms for e-commerce fortune 500 businesses that Goliath hopes will change the way e-commerce companies do business with their consumers.

Goliath recently opened its Small Business division and name C. Jones as its Small Business Division – Director of Operations. With this new division of the Agency, small business owners will be able to get some of the same marketing services at a price they can afford. Goliath Marketing Advertising found a way to appeal to the needs of small business owners by offering services needed to start and maintain any small business in terms of marketing and advertising. They are currently working on a Talent Division, which has named Shaleka Jones as the Talent Division – Director of Operations. The Talent Division of Goliath Marketing Advertising will allow businesses to get their marketing advertising needs met all in one place. Businesses will no longer have the need to search for a modeling/talent agency to book talent for their marketing campaigns they will be able to find what they need at Goliath. Businesses will be able to search a catalog, which will feature photos, resumes, price, and talent type (Model, Actor, Voice -Over, Singers, and Spokes-Model. Businesses will be able to purchase all their talent needs on-line via the Goliath website.

“After evaluating feedback from business owners, I thought it would be beneficial to create a small business division that focuses on the needs of that demographic. We understand that the small business owners’ budget is a primary factor when considering what marketing strategy to use. That being said, small businesses are the meat of our economic recovery and deserve to have the same marketing opportunities as fortune 500 businesses. The new division does not sacrifice quality but offers lower prices that fit the small business budget, which will allow them to utilize our marketing services and experience the benefits of having a professional marketing strategy. We understand that small businesses have different needs then a fortune 500. With that in mind, we will continue to expand our marketing services to fortune 500 companies in addition to placing a strong emphasis on our commitment to helping small businesses become big businesses.

While making an effort to be visionary and not so much quixotic in regards to our new “No Contract” option, we felt it would be wise to offer marketing services to businesses without the hassle of locking them into contracts, thus the “No Contract” option was developed. We thought about what businesses need and want and the number one thing was trust and great service. We felt confident about the quality of our service that we could offer “No Contracts” to our clients and know that we can build a great business relationship with them and they will continue to use our services without locking them into anything. We want to make our customers happy and we recognize that no one is happy when they are forced to commit to something, so we decided to make our customers happy and give them what they want.

We want to force the envelope a little bit when it comes to traditional marketing agencies and their approach to client services and customer services. With my marketing background and having worked for Zappos when they were a start-up to when they became a successful company, I learned how important customer service really is, no matter what type of business you have. That is precisely why we will continue to expand our services, which will include some patented platforms for e-commerce companies, hotels, sports, and a talent division. I am particularly excited about the Talent Division because of my background with modeling/talent agencies. We are excited for all the changes that will be coming to our website in the near future, anyone who visits the site will see continuous changes due to the new services being offered and new-patented technology being added, so there are more website redesigns in the works, as we add more services our website will continue to evolve.” Says Qiana Jones, CEO of Goliath Marketing Advertising.

If you would like more information about Goliath Marketing Advertising or to schedule an interview with the chief executive officer Qiana Jones, you may visit their website at http://www.goliath-marketing.com

or please call 702-238-5221 or email pr ( @ ) goliath-marketing dot com

###

Article source: http://www.1888pressrelease.com/former-zappos-com-affiliate-marketing-manager-launches-new-w-pr-319362.html

Posted 28 July 2011 09:11am
by Lee Brignell-Cash

Affiliate marketing is seeing increasing levels of competition, investment and evolving technologies. At the same time, changes in the way consumers engage with brands online present new challenges and opportunities for merchants and marketers alike.

The affiliate channel has undergone immense change since its inception in the mid-1990s. It has become more professional, with networks and super affiliates making significant investments in technology platforms.

It has also diversified, with the emergence of micro affiliates catering for the sites that form the web’s ‘long-tail’ of niche search product categories. Affiliates are also branching into new areas such as group buying and comparison shopping engines, and are taking their first tentative steps into the domains of social media and mobile.

This diversity is being driven by the dramatic change in the way consumers are searching for and engaging with brands and products online. For consumers, the internet has become a primary research tool, with many using search engines, information websites, CSE’s and online retail websites to research a product before making a purchase.

The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index revealed shoppers in the UK spent a total of £5.2bn online in April 2011, 19% more than in April 2010 and equivalent to £84 per person. E-commerce sales in Western Europe are predicted to keep growing at an 11% compound annual growth rate through 2014.

There has also been a longer-term shift towards online discounting, with consumers increasingly engaging with vouchers and discount offers. This has meant marketers need to ensure their products appear on sites that offer discounts and value for money.

Recommendation sites are also becoming increasingly important. A recent survey by Havas Media Social and Lightspeed Research concluded that 53% of consumers were more likely to look up a brand if a friend had recommended it.

Affiliate opportunities

For affiliates, the change in consumers’ online behaviour means they have more ways in which to drive and monetise traffic. Organic or ‘natural search’ traffic via SEO remains one of their preferred methods, while Pay per click (PPC) is also popular.

Yet the boom in user-generated content and the power of recommendations has made micro-affiliates more attractive to merchants as they begin to appreciate their ‘collective’ influence in driving click-through activity.

Merchants now recognise long-tail search terms as a huge opportunity to drive traffic back to their sites, generate buzz and spread messages virally.

For example, an affiliate focused on long-tail search terms – e.g. ‘digital camera’ + ‘brand’ + ‘colour’ + ‘key features’ – will most likely see lower traffic volumes but a higher rate of conversion. Whereas those bidding on generic search terms – e.g. ‘digital cameras’ – will drive higher traffic volumes but have a lower rate of conversion.

Other widely-adopted affiliate models include loyalty and reward schemes, email marketing (affiliates that build their own data lists to target a merchant’s potential customers with newsletters or dedicated email campaigns), co-registration, voucher-code and group-buying affiliates. Notable examples are Nectar (loyalty and reward schemes), Groupon, Livingsocial and Dealster.

Each affiliate stream results in a different quality and quantity of leads, which impacts on the incoming revenue they can generate. What remains constant however is the affiliate’s aim to drive performance by bringing merchants closer to their visitors, and ensure the incremental revenue generated as a result is greater than the amount invested initially to build and promote the site.

Based on this premise, selecting the merchant to partner with becomes a question of scale, efficiency and lowest cost for the affiliate.

For merchants, the proliferation of streams within the affiliate channel makes it much harder for them to work successfully across them all. This is why development of rich product level data feeds and innovative tools for their creation, distribution and management are so important.

High-quality product data feeds allow merchants to create a single platform of distribution under which brand consistency and product visibility is maximised, while affiliates can more easily tailor rich product information (i.e. promotional text) into higher-converting consumer-facing content.

The sooner affiliates and merchants get to grips with how product feed technology can enable them to optimise their performance channel marketing efforts, the more profitable they will become.

Learn more…

Econsultancy’s Global Affiliate Marketing Statistics document is one of 11 individual downloads that make up our Global Internet Statistics Compendium, a comprehensive compilation of worldwide statistics and online market research with data, facts, charts and figures that are essential to understanding the marketplace as a whole.

We run a one-day affiliate marketing training course in London, UK which can also be customised to suit your team’s requirements and delivered in-house worldwide.

Lee Brignell-Cash is Co-Founder at FusePump Limited and a guest blogger on Econsultancy.

Article source: http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7803-why-product-data-feed-technology-is-essential-for-performance-marketing

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This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille talk about Affiliate Summit East 2011 heading for a sell out, going to the Dell headquarters, Google+ stuff.

Also discussed were buy.at reducing the payment cycle for affiliates, July affiliate marketing meetups, how to get a free pass to Affiliate Summit, and Shiner beer.

Show Links

• Sell Out for Affiliate Summit East 2011
• Dell Customer Advisory Panel Days Reunion
• buy.at Reduces Payment Cycle for Affiliates
• All About the Cookies
• Interactive Schedule Tool Available for Affiliate Summit East 2011
• Announce Your Affiliate Summit East 2011 Party
• Affiliate Marketing Meetups for July 2011
• Shiner Beers
• Lone Star Beer

Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.

More Info: Click here

Article source: http://feedfront.com/archives/article004348