Three separate times during the first CJU podcast describing the upcoming network changes, the hosts said that they realize how much work it will be for search publishers to comply with the new Link Management Initiative. Here is my response: It isn’t that we’re lazy, we honestly think this is a bad idea.

Sure, you’re giving publishers plenty of time to make the switch, but it isn’t about the time required. With my database-driven sites and product feeds, I can make the change faster than most; I won’t have to search-and-replace anything. The fact is that I will choose NOT to make this switch. It will be easier for me and better for my sites and the user experience if I look to other merchants and other networks that will still provide links in the proper format of the web (1.0 and 2.0) — and that is HTML. I listened to the entire podcast waiting to hear one benefit to me or my users… these are the best reasons they gave as to why they are making the switch and the benefits I, as an affiliate, might gain from it:

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While not as talked about as the big players, niche comparison engines create a significant amount of price-driven traffic and sales. Sites like www.findcontactlenses.com and www.healthpricer.com offer a more focused shopping experience than the large malls but they do not have the same ability to negotiate independent affiliate relationships as the major sites. Often these smaller companies rely on affiliate networks to provide them with datafeeds and to track their sales.

The 800-lb. Gorilla of the affiliate network arena, Commission Junction, sent out an email to all of it’s affiliates on Wednesday evening, and the policy updates outlined therein may have a chilling impact on smaller comparison engines that rely on the network to monetize their traffic. In the email, CJ alerted affiliates that in the upcoming year, all websites displaying the network’s links will have to do so using javascript to call the link remotely from CJ’s servers. What does this mean for the vertical comparison engines? (more…)

Congratulations to Commission Junction* for reaching a massive milestone in affiliate marketing. Somewhere between 3 and 5 AM PST on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006, Commission Junction logged it’s 500,000,000th transaction. Half a billion affiliate sales is quite an amazing task; if more than half were credited to the right affiliate, we’ll consider it a gift.

If you do some quick calculations on your own transaction IDs you can see that the volume they do is rather impressive. Over the average of the month (9 million in April), it appears to be about 200 transactions per minute. I’ve seen rates as high as 1000 transactions per minute on a Monday morning. (more…)

Three easy words: type of traffic

Are your visitors browsers or buyers? With Adsense and other programs that pay you per impression or per click, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to care what your visitor does after clicking the ad. Do they buy the product or not? It doesn’t matter– you’ll get paid either way.

With affiliate programs the obvious difference is that it matters what happens after the visitor clicks on the ad. It isn’t enough to have a high clickthrough rate (CTR) you must also have sales conversions after the clicks. Does the visitor purchase the product or not? Your income depends on that purchase. So what can you to do make sure the visitor does buy from the advertising merchant? Two things:

1) Pre-sell: since you are marketing a certain product or retailer with your affiliate links, you already know what products will appear in the ads. That is a huge advantage over Adsense and other “blind” ad servers that try and pick out what works best on your site. As an affiliate marketer, you choose the products to sell. With that advantage, you can pre-sell the visitor on the products. Make it natural! Nothing is worse for conversions than obvious over-the-top sales copy. You’ll have much better results with a mild, friendly sell pushed lightly on your visitors. Become their friend and tell them that you’ve had trouble with other products in the past, but this one is excellent…. [insert affiliate link here]

2) Change your type of traffic: target buyers and not browsers. With Adsense, and ole web surfer will do– the less savvy the better. However with affiliate marketing you need traffic that is ready to buy. They should have a credit card (this makes age important) and be one step from using it. How do you get buyers? Target buying keyphrases…

buy [productname]

discount [productname]

[productname] reviews

cheap [productname]

[productname] free shipping

Combinations like that indicate that the visitor is ready to buy. Perfect for an affiliate marketer.