June 03, 2008

Discounted Passes for SES in San Jose - August 18-21, 2008

The crew from CPA Empire® will again be exhibiting at SES San Jose this upcoming August 18-21, 2008. SES is the leading global conference and expo series that educates attendees on search engine marketing and optimization along with advertising strategies and best practices. Be sure to stop by our booth to say hello if you are making the trip out to San Jose.

Because we love visiting with our Affiliates and Advertisers, CPA Empire® wants to help get you to the show. Save 20% today when you register for either a Conference Passport or a 1-Day Pass. Expo Hall passes are free to anyone who pre-registers for the show.

When registering, enter CPA Empire®'s Priority Code 20CPA on the payment page to gain access to this great discount. Visit www.SearchEngineStrategies.com to register and for a complete listing of speakers, sessions, sponsors and exhibitors.

Posted by Tom at 01:25 AM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2008

Riding the Recession

Whether or not all the experts agree if we are in a recession, it’s safe to say that the U.S. is in the middle of an economic downturn. Home sales and the stock market are down – unemployment and gas prices are up. What can you do to make sure you ride through the current economic climate with your revenue intact?

Remember that consumers will still spend money online – they just may spend it on different products and services. Look for offers that are “recession proof” or that actually perform better when times are tough. With so many consumers facing a credit crisis, debt relief and other financial offers may start performing better than ever. The foreclosure market opens up a tremendous opportunity for investors, so certain real estate offers could also generate plenty of responses. When the economy is bad, many consumers will be looking for low-cost opportunities to boost their spirits, so various entertainment offers (especially on lower ticket items) may also take a jump.

The point is that a sub-par economy doesn’t mean that every offer produces poor results. There are plenty of campaigns that will either be unaffected or actually may become more profitable. The key is to test new offers and watch your metrics very closely.

If you take the time to look for and test the right offers you may find the silver lining in a recession.

Posted by Tom at 02:27 AM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2008

Recapping Three Recent Trade Shows

By Steve Kilberg
Director of Business Development

I had the chance to attend several trade shows recently (first SES NY and more recently LeadsCon and ad:tech San Francisco) and thought it was very interesting (but not at all surprising) to see some common themes come through at each event. The most consistent topic at every show was that the Internet industry is continuing to go through dramatic change. As a matter of fact, the only thing that is constant in this industry is that change is and will continue to be the norm.

Here just a few topics that came through loud and clear at each show:

• Advertisers want quality over quantity. Advertisers are becoming more and more focused on getting the appropriate value out of the leads they generate (or pay others to generate for them). Rather than constantly adjusting their metrics and reducing payouts to compensate for poor lead quality, they are looking to work with companies that can help them generate higher quality (and better converting) leads. They would much rather pay more for leads that turn into customers than ones that simply take up their time and never convert.

• Compliance: This topic is incredibly important and those who ignore it are going to find out very quickly that market forces are going to push them out. Basically any company (or individual) involved in running non-compliant ad campaigns will likely find themselves under an investigation by the FTC or a state regulatory agency. This reality will force some companies out of business and ultimately allow those companies that are doing things the right way to rise to the top.

• Incentive Marketing: This is related directly to the previous two topics. Many advertisers who have found success with incentivized leads in the past are seeing lead quality drop significantly and are dramatically lowering payouts or simply no longer accepting this type of traffic. This is yet another example of the market finding its level. As advertisers see a type of traffic or marketing initiative begin to provide a lower ROI, they will either find ways to adjust their metrics accordingly or stop accepting the traffic.

• Merger, Acquisition, and Investment Capital: Although M&A activity may slow down in 2008 (as many people predict primarily because of the current US economic downturn) the fact that venture capital money continues to enter the space is a positive sign. Anytime you have a large influx of investment money coming into an industry it is likely that other money will follow. Although some of the valuations in previous deals ‘may’ have peaked, the reality is each new deal will be based on its own unique set of circumstances, because there is no single multiple for every transaction.

I would also like to add a special note regarding LeadsCon. I really want to congratulate Jay Weintraub and his team for putting on such an outstanding inaugural event. The session topics were extremely interesting and definitely valuable to everyone in the online lead generation business. I think it is a great addition to the growing list of conferences revolving around online advertising and recommend it highly.

Posted by Tom at 02:44 AM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2008

An early spring tale: how to defrost a cold AdSense channel

In 2004, Google began providing AdSense channels which give webmasters and advertisers the opportunity to view detailed reporting about specific pages or ad units. By assigning a channel to a combination of pages or ad units, it is possible to track their performance separately, providing powerful data for use in optimization and other efforts to improve results.

Initially, the number of channels available to each publisher was fairly limited (16), but in 2005 this number was increased to its current level of 200. With so many channels available, it is possible for publishers to monitor their performance data in a variety of ways.
One of the greatest benefits of this level of monitoring is that it often allows webmasters to identify trouble spots in their AdSense programs. Oftentimes, the first sign of trouble may be an unexpected decrease in overall revenue. To investigate the problem and find a solution, it’s necessary to:

• Analyze each channel’s patterns individually to determine which channels are most responsible for the drop in revenue.
• Study the channels’ behavior in the weeks preceding the revenue drop to see when the problem began.
• Examine the web pages containing the ads most involved in the decrease and view their source code to verify that it is properly formatted.

Oftentimes a decrease in performance may have to do with the source code for certain ads. While Google has made it easy to configure AdSense and to set up channels, each webmaster is still responsible for making sure the underlying code is correct. If any part of the syntax is wrong, the ad won’t generate revenue.

In order to work as intended, an AdSense ad code must include several key elements:

• Comment tags () surrounding the ad attributes (height, width, etc.)
• A semicolon and line break following each attribute of the ad
• A Javascript call whose src attribute points to the file show_ads.js.

Utilizing AdSense channels can be a huge help in keeping a close eye on your ads’ performance and help track down any issues that may keep your program from delivering the best results possible.

Posted by Tom at 01:28 AM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2008

What You Get for $2.7 Million

• A 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath house in Beverly Hills, CA.
• 2 Bugatti Veyron’s (up to $1.7 million each with a little left over for insurance and speeding tickets).
• A 30 second ad spot during last week’s Super Bowl.

For many people, one of the highlights of the NFL’s annual extravaganza is watching all of the commercials, critiquing the ads, and often wondering just what some of these companies were thinking. When you drop $2.7 million in hopes of capturing 30 seconds of viewers’ attention, you better have some deep pockets, a compelling and memorable ad, and hopefully some sort of reasoning that justifies the cost.

It’s all about branding according to many traditional ad agencies. You can’t sell many of your products or services if your customers don’t know you exist – and you won’t find a bigger consumer television audience than during the Super Bowl. Looking back on this year’s lineup, which ads do you think will generate at least $2.7 million in incremental revenue to offset their media buy?

Branding certainly has its place, and some companies have used Super Bowl ads as a springboard to market leadership. But, every year I can’t help but wonder if many of these companies wouldn’t have been better served by spending a couple million dollars on marketing designed to drive response and generate sales. Performance-based marketing may not have quite the sizzle of a Super Bowl ad, but there’s nothing like driving results and adding to the bottom line.

Posted by Tom at 02:38 AM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2008

Taking Advantage of the Season

While the Internet changes at incredible speed, there are some tried and true marketing tactics that continue to be effective. One of those is to take advantage of the season or upcoming holidays to boost traffic and drive revenue. With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, this is certainly a great time to enhance your marketing programs with some offers that leverage the greeting card holiday.

In addition, it always makes sense to see if certain offers perform well during the same season, year after year. With February just getting kicked off, there are still plenty of consumers focusing on their New Year’s resolutions to go back to school, or find that special someone. Try to find ways to get some of these kinds of campaigns into your marketing mix.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on current events, either. You can’t watch the news without hearing about the economy and housing markets. Look for offers that tie into what consumers are hearing and thinking about every day.

Talk to you Affiliate Manager about offers in all of these categories that can really help take your revenue to the next level in 2008.

Posted by Tom at 02:43 AM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2008

Video Content Hits Puberty

You can’t open an industry newsletter or attend a conference on Affiliate Marketing without being told that video content has become a must for your marketing programs. Survey after survey shows that Internet users are watching video in record numbers. As broadband access continues to grow, there is no end in sight to the growing video trend. Online marketers have certainly jumped on the bandwagon and started posting video on their websites and blogs, hoping to capture more visitor interest and drive sales.

Despite any number of articles discussing how online video has matured, it might be a better analogy to say it has reached puberty. While more websites are using video content (with many focused on nothing but video) the majority of this content appears to be made up of rejects from America’s Funniest Home Videos. Even when companies develop “professional” videos with the apparent goal of marketing their business, it is often clear that the video was created mainly because “you need to have video on your site”. It’s not so much that they have a compelling reason for the video; they just keep hearing that they need to have it and put something together. This is not to say there aren’t plenty of companies and online marketers doing an incredible job of using video to drive results – because there certainly are some great examples out there. It’s just that the majority of sites are still finding their way when it comes to leveraging video content effectively.

In some ways, it reminds me of the early days of the internet when every business put up a website, often without any real purpose other than being able to say that they were “online”. Over time, companies (most of them anyway) learned that a website can be a lot more than just an online version of their printed brochure. Video will likely have a similar evolution, as more and more website owners and developers find ways to utilize video content to actually drive business.

As Affiliate Marketers, we are in a tremendous position to drive the development of video marketing that is truly tied to results, not just branding.

Posted by Tom at 02:43 AM | Comments (1)

December 27, 2007

'Tis the Season for Offline Advertising!

By Jazette Pester, Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

The holidays are an amazing time of year for stores, advertisers and manufacturers alike. From the buying frenzy of Black Friday and early morning sales, to the hype of Cyber Monday and the last minute gift dash on Christmas Eve. . . it's a dream month for marketers.

Because we are in the online space, it's fairly easy to overlook "real world" marketing opportunities. But there are offline opportunities all around us for online campaigns.

Take our Sent by Santa campaign for example. This campaign is gaining exposure everywhere. I’ve seen it in my email inbox and when I Google “Santa Letters.” It appears the keyword bidding wars have begun. This is also a perfect campaign to consider for some offline advertising.

First, you need to find a related domain that is easy for people to type in. Asking the end user to type in an affiliate link usually doesn't go over so well. You can either Iframe the web page, if the advertiser permits it, or simply redirect your domain to your affiliate link.

Then create the advertising. An easy and inexpensive way to get the word out is by making posters. Create attractive flyers with the banners provided, or even a rendition of the landing page. Talk to daycare centers about distributing the fliers to families who use their services. Stick them up at your local grocery store or gas stations. Wherever parents might be visiting, you can put up a poster.

Another option is to buy print space. An inexpensive way to do this is to call your small local newspapers. Most communities have them and the advertising is considerably less expensive than marketing in a larger city or national newspaper. Don't forget college publications as well. Many co-eds have younger siblings or even children of their own and are excellent prospects for this type of offer.

There are so many different ideas and cost effective options for offline advertising this holiday season. Why not give it a try?

Posted by Tom at 04:44 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2007

Holiday Thoughts

By Tyler Hoelting, Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

As the year comes to an end, many of us will gather with family and friends for celebration. A time for parties, surprises, memories and reflection. Whether you will be spending the holiday season with distant relatives in Nantucket or plan on proposing to your (hopefully) future wife on New Year’s Eve in the Big Apple, we can all get into the holiday spirit.

However you plan on commemorating this holiday season I think we all need to celebrate the creativity and determination that resides within each of us. We work in an industry that embraces imagination and vision. We perform at a higher level and return more value than many other industries. We also tend to work longer hours – the Internet is open 24/7, after all.

As a reward for all that hard work, I think we should all take a moment to enjoy the company of our loved ones and also reflect on things this holiday season. Take a break from the PC and watch a DVD. Drink an Eggnog instead of the Redbull. Read a good book instead of a blog. Above all, take a little time and actually relax.

Taking a moment to reflect can often help you see the big picture more clearly and may just give you a new perspective. Remember, we are an industry built on fresh ideas and inspiration. Taking a step away from the everyday can help you come up with something innovative.

Once you get back into the groove, start working on those new ideas. Set goals and plan how you will accomplish them. You just might find that taking a step back will let you jump two steps forward in your business.

My toast to you this holiday season is that I will do the same. I look forward to seeing you at the top in 2008!

Posted by Tom at 03:50 AM | Comments (1)

December 17, 2007

Solving the "www" Mystery

By Laura Nielsen, Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

Many webmasters (particularly new ones) are puzzled about the difference between domain names with “www” at the forefront and those without. These days, if you purchase a domain name, you automatically get a redirect from the “www” address to the “non-www” address site, or vice versa with your purchase. In other words, you won’t have to worry about the competition snagging up one version while you own the other. Buying one effectively buys both. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to worry about.

When you are using your link building campaigns, you need to pick one or the other to work with and focus on that site. All of your links need point to that one domain. Otherwise, you’re dividing your links and destroying your link popularity. For example, if you have 100,000 links, with 50,000 pointing to “www.imbrandnew.com” and the other half of your links pointing to http://imbrandnew.com; consequently, you’ll only have a link popularity of 50,000. Being certain that all of your links point to the exact same domain name can double your link popularity (as compared to splitting the links). This makes a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. Link popularity helps to determine where you appear in search engine rankings, and also affects your overall page ranking.

Lesson learned: Splitting your links between these two website domains could cost you significant business.

Posted by Tom at 02:41 AM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2007

Web Analytics: GPS Navigation for your Internet Business

By Victor Valks, Web Analyst
CPA Empire

Would you begin a holiday road trip without checking the weather forecast, monitoring the roads and the traffic, and adjusting your journey accordingly? Of course you wouldn’t. Awareness of travel conditions can help ensure a smooth voyage.

Developing your business on the information superhighway can be just as challenging to navigate, but the right analytics strategy can help your Internet business succeed.

According to a report published recently by E-Consultancy.com, online marketers regard web analytics as the “single most important method for gathering intelligence in the context of improving engagement with customers.”

Web analytics involves using site data to determine how well an organization’s Internet presence meets its business objectives. Data is collected and measured against key performance indicators, to identify the best ways to optimize the online business.

Two primary methods exist for collecting and manipulating web data: log file analysis and page tagging. Log file analysis uses the log files, in which a web server saves all transactions, to make information available to various analytical tools like WebTrends. Page tagging uses JavaScript to send information about each page to a product like Google Analytics. WebTrends and Google Analytics each use this data to provide reporting on visitor loyalty, geography, and the success of advertisements and marketing campaigns.

Other companies that provide web analytics tools include Omniture, IndexTools, Coremetrics, Snoobi, Unica, and SAS. Each of their products provides a standard set of reports, with information on visitors’ browser and version, regional settings, entrance and exit pages, length of visit, and other key metrics.

The E-Consultancy report advises companies to use a variety of tools and resources to ensure that all reporting needs are being met, noting that any single approach used in isolation has limitations.

Various industries often have very different key performance metrics. For example, some organizations may need to calculate its site’s Committed Visitor Index (CVI) – the average number of page views for long visits. Not all analytics tools can measure this statistic. It’s important to identify these key metrics and make sure that the analytics tools you select will meet your reporting needs.

Although web analytics involves elements of math and computer science, you don’t need to hire a statistician or an engineer to implement a successful web analytics strategy. Most web analytics products are relatively simple to configure and utilize. You will need a solid understanding of Internet technology and fairly strong analytical skills as these skills can help you define the business requirements for web analytics, implement a solution, and monitor its success.

Resources like the Web Analytics Association and Eric Peterson’s Web Analytics Demystified blog can help businesses and professionals get started and share information on the industry.

The key is to recognize the benefits that web analytics can bring to your business, and that you won’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand the results.

Posted by Tom at 03:17 AM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2007

Know Your Affiliate Manager?

Shane Graper, Senior Affiliate Manager
Phone: 303-920-7937
Email: Shane@CPAEmpire.com
AIM: cpaeShane

Posted by Tom at 05:34 AM | Comments (0)

Media Breakaway, LLC President to Moderate Panel on Affiliate Marketing and Social Networks at Affiliate Summit 2008 West

Westminster, CO December 7, 2007 – Media Breakaway, LLC, a pioneer in the performance-based online marketing industry, today announced that Steven Richter (President and General Counsel) will moderate a discussion panel titled “Managing Legal Risks in Affiliate Marketing” at Affiliate Summit 2008 West in Las Vegas, February 24-26, 2008.

The panel will include representatives from the FTC, leading social networks, and several affiliate networks in a discussion focusing on Affiliate Marketing Best Practices for Advertising on Social Networks.

“As social networks have grown in popularity, online marketers have developed a variety of programs to promote products and services to the users of these sites,” said Steven Richter. “The challenge for advertisers, affiliates, and affiliate networks is to find ways to create effective marketing programs that also adhere to the terms and conditions of the social networks.”

Online Social Networks have become arguably the biggest success story of the Web 2.0 world, with new networks appearing almost daily and overall membership into the hundreds of millions with no end in sight. Online marketers have certainly taken note and have often clashed with the social networks in their efforts to advertise on these sites.

“I am very excited to lead this panel, which will address some of the biggest challenges facing affiliate and online marketers,” said Mr. Richter. “By including representatives from all sides of the business on the panel, we should generate some valuable discussion and bring some clarity to the debate.”

Mr. Richter is a recognized expert in online advertising best practices and compliance and has presented at a variety of industry conferences and events.

“At Media Breakaway, we are focused on supporting our affiliates’ efforts to produce high quality traffic for our advertisers, while adhering to all of the appropriate laws and guidelines related to online marketing,” said Mr. Richter.

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Media Breakaway, LLC -- an industry leader in advertising and direct-marketing, delivers full-service, results-oriented solutions. CPA Empire®, a division of Media Breakaway, LLC, is one of the fastest-growing Affiliate Networks in the industry, providing its advertisers and affiliates with unparalleled service and support to help them drive sales and revenue. DataOverdrive, a division of Media Breakaway, LLC, offers List Management Solutions helping clients convert their current lists into a supplemental profit center. Visit www.MediaBreakaway.com, www.CPAEmpire.com or www.DataOverdrive.com.

Posted by Tom at 05:00 AM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2007

Personalization and Comfort in Affiliate Marketing

By Jason Venters, Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

Examples of personalization are all around us. Ringtones, screen savers, websites, and blogs are just a few ways in which we personalize some of the electronic or online things in our life. Part of the reason we personalize these items is to give ourselves a sense of comfort with our environment. As consumers become more and more used to personalizing their own online interactions, it is important for marketers to do everything they can to add a similar sense of personalization to their advertising efforts. Working online doesn’t provide marketers with the luxury of talking to their customers face-to-face, but there are plenty of ways to leverage the online experience to provide a more personal and comfortable experience for the consumer. Here are a few things to keep in mind when putting together your marketing campaigns.

Email:

Use your data and email client to personalize the email. I know this seems like Online Marketing 101, but this is a simple step that many marketers forget to utilize. Putting a first name in the subject line and body of the email will stick out and catch the recipient’s eye. If the first name isn’t available, using the recipient’s email address instead can also be effective. Personalizing your email will improve your recipients comfort level and in turn, improve your response rates.

Search and Websites:

While search and websites can’t be personalized in the same way as email, there are various methods that can increase consumers’ comfort level. User friendly landing pages that are clean, clear and easy to navigate are a key first step toward increasing consumer comfort. The user should know what’s being sold and where they need to provide information. A prominently placed contact page and privacy policy can also help provide consumers with a stronger sense of security.

While communications over the Internet can’t replace true one-on-one personal interaction, looking for ways to utilize personalization in the communication and sales process will only enhance your consumers’ comfort level – which can lead to better response and increased revenue.

Posted by Tom at 02:57 AM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2007

The Importance of the Affiliate - Affiliate Manager Relationship

By Kristin Sanders, Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

As a relatively new Affiliate Manager, I have learned that there is more to being successful in this business than just becoming knowledgeable about the industry. While expertise is a valuable tool, perhaps the biggest key to success is developing strong relationships with your Affiliates – built on trust and open communication.

A good relationship between an Affiliate and an Affiliate Manager enables both to work together closely and exchange ideas freely. To be a successful Affiliate Manager, you need feedback from your Affiliates on what they are running, which offers are working and which aren’t, how they are marketing, and what their goals are. This information is vital to ensuring that you are providing the best recommendations on which offers to run. This kind of feedback also helps identify new offers that Affiliates are looking for that can be brought into the network.

As an Affiliate, you will always know your business better than any Affiliate Manager you work with, no matter how experienced they are – because it is your business. Your objective should be to educate your Affiliate Manager about your business and your goals. The more they know, the better job they will do in recommending new campaigns and other initiatives that can help you increase response and drive more revenue.

Posted by Tom at 02:21 AM | Comments (1)

November 19, 2007

"Fill in the Blank" is Dead

By Brandon Perry, Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

How many times have we heard these dire words said in connection to some aspect of the internet? When the first dotcom bubble burst back in 2001, people actually said “the internet is dead.” Since then, we have heard that email, banners, paid content, and a host of other industry practices were dead. But, do things really die in this industry, or do they change and evolve in new ways that we can’t always predict? We can certainly debate this idea about many activities that have been declared DOA. However, we can safely say that one marketing initiative once declared dead by many in the industry is very much alive. A few years ago email marketing was certainly seen as being on its last legs. Many marketers were so discouraged by their results that they decided to abandon the medium entirely.

As we all know today, email marketing is thriving, with marketers finding tremendous success with this medium. Where many people saw only insurmountable challenges, others saw opportunity and found ways to get their emails delivered, opened, and responded to.

It wasn’t long ago that the search marketing industry was turned on its ear by algorithm changes made by various search engines. Sites that came up on the first page in search results one day seemed to disappear the next. Similarly to email, there were those who decided that the new environment was to difficult to navigate so they moved on to other marketing methods, rather than try to learn how to work within the new search landscape. While others took the changes as a wake-up call to get their web pages more organized, cleaner, and more content oriented, realizing that they are providing information to the internet and not just buying traffic for their campaigns. A few months after the new algorithms went into effect I, noticed search campaigns being geared more towards the pre-sale of an offer and web pages being more informative on the products they marketed.

Lately, I have been hearing that one field entries, including zip and email submit offers may be the next practice that is declared dead. These types of campaigns have been around for some time, going through their own cycles of being saturated at some points, and fresh at others. They have performed well for both search and email marketers, but have generated the most response in the incentive industry. Today, we may be seeing some saturation with these campaigns, but that’s not to say that they are dead.

As with some of the other marketing practices that have been declared dead, innovation is the key to keeping these kinds of offers effective. In looking at the number of affiliates who are marketing these offers effectively, I notice that many of them are not using incentivized sites or email. Instead, they are thinking outside the traditional box and finding new ways to market these offers successfully.

The next time you hear that some marketing tactic is dead or dying, look at it as a potential opportunity. When many marketers start walking away from a medium, those who persevere and find ways to overcome the challenges may just find even more success in the new environment

“Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.” King Whitney Jr.

Posted by Tom at 02:20 AM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2007

Sleigh bells ring. Are you listening?

By Shane Graper, Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

While my singing voice is definitely smooth and velvety, I won’t be giving you the gift of a song this holiday season. What I will do however, is tune you into some good news as we face the indecision surrounding this year’s holiday retail forecast.

If you follow the news every day as I do, there seems to be a sort of yin and yang affect regarding the reporting of this year’s holiday retail outlook. Economists and retailers alike are reporting mixed sales forecasts. According to a CNNMoney.com headline, Hasbro’s CEO tells analysts that toy sales have “felt some of the weakness” this year as consumers are spending more cautiously. With the anticipation that the economy or consumer spending could take a nosedive, companies everywhere are preparing themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal Online, Wal-Mart’s CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. stated, "Our low-cost model should in fact on a relative basis give us the advantage that we've historically had if things get difficult.".

The best news for Affiliates in regards to all of this press is that online sales are expected to rise. According to the 2007 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey conducted by the National Retail Federation, while overall consumer holiday shopping budgets will not see much growth compared to 2006, the online sector will continue to receive a larger portion of shoppers’ wallets. One-third of online shoppers (34.7%) plan to do more of their holiday shopping online than a year ago. Also according to the survey, nearly two-thirds of retailers (63.0%) will offer online-only sales this year. That number is up from 49% just two years ago.

While the holiday outlook might seem a bit dim at times for retail sales this year, your online marketing efforts can pay off for you. I leave you with this passage from Dr. Suess’s - How the Grinch Stole Christmas:

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Posted by Tom at 02:21 AM | Comments (0)

November 05, 2007

Judging a Book by its Cover

By Brittany Bankston, Pending Affiliate Analyst
CPA Empire

In today’s society, more and more people are saying that looks aren’t all that matter. Well, in the case of website design, that may not be so true. A misconception that too many people have is that if they simply create and host a web page, people will visit, stick around, and also come back again. Unfortunately that is rarely the case. While we could talk all day about getting visitors to your site, I want to focus on getting them to stick around once they get there – and potentially come back for return visits.

Content plays a key role in driving a person to a specific web site and is definitely important in keeping them there. Most consumers go online looking for some particular information, product or activity, and making YOUR site the one they visit is the goal.

· Always keep your target audience in mind. If your site is focused on movies, don’t get too far off track by including content about music or some other unrelated topic. You can always create other sites about these topics and link them all together.

· Provide useful information that is unique, easy to understand, and that educates the visitor.

· It’s nice to have visitors and keep them entertained, but you probably want your site to generate some revenue, as well. So you want to make sure you include offers on your site that are relevant to the content and to your visitors.

· Also, it is important to keep the content updated. People tend to be attracted to what’s new, so if the site has too much old information posted, they are likely to move on to another page that is more up-to-date.

Adding images to the site also compliments the content. Images help to engage users something more than just text. However, there are some guidelines.

· Remember not to overload the site with meaningless graphics just to fill up space.

· White space – or negative space – is essential for guiding your readers’ eyes from one point to another.

· Make sure the color scheme is easy on the eyes. (i.e. don’t have a red background with lime green text.)

· Adding keywords to the image tags can also help to improve your organic search engine rankings. The spiders will take note if the images are titled properly and including the keywords can help lower your bid amounts.

Following these basic guidelines will help you to get the most out of your web pages.

Posted by Tom at 02:44 AM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2007

The International Opportunity

By Jason Jugert, Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

International Traffic.

Up until recently, international traffic held very little value to most U.S. based Affiliate Networks, Advertisers or Affiliates within the CPA marketing industry. Very few offers even accepted international traffic, so when an international click came in, most of the time it was redirected to one single non-targeted offer that performed terribly. It was almost unheard of to actually promote an international offer. In the last few months the tables have turned and the international arena has become one of the hottest markets in the Affiliate marketing space.

Finally, these offers and data are starting to become highly sought after commodities. This is very evident when you log into many networks and see special sections dedicated to international offers. Suddenly a common question from Affiliate Managers to new Affiliates is, “do you have any international traffic?” I think that this trend will continue to grow, and as time goes on international CPA advertising will become as large as the U.S. CPA marketing industry. Affiliates, Advertisers and Networks need to learn how to market to this traffic in order to take advantage of this great opportunity. The key is to get into the international market early, in order to be ahead of the curve.

In a short time the amount of international offers available to Affiliates has multiplied ten fold. New Advertisers are emerging and many Affiliates are starting to pay more attention to this area. The United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Australia are just a few countries that have become very popular with U.S. marketers. This list will only continue to grow as opportunities arise to tap into other large, untapped markets. There are already a few offers for China, Brazil and Italy, and more demand is starting to emerge. The opportunity to market CPA offers to these countries is seemingly endless with many of them having even larger populations than the U.S. Some of these countries are also ahead of the U.S. in adopting certain new technologies (like mobile) and are setting trends in fashion, music, and retail space that have yet to make it to the U.S. These countries offer a huge opportunity for internet marketers. The consumers are educated, well aware of the latest trends, technologically savvy, and they will only continue to grow in these areas as time goes on.

It is vital as an Affiliate, Advertiser or Network to include the emerging international markets as a part of their current and future business plans. In order to do this, it is necessary to study and learn the attitudes, styles, likes and dislikes of the foreign consumer to properly market to them. Affiliate Marketers must also pay attention to the variation in laws and marketing practices of these international countries. Networks have to be looking for Advertisers with international offers and tracking ability, and Affiliates must find international traffic sources and data to be successful.

As we have seen over the past few months, the international arena is exploding and will only continue growing. As a CPA marketer, this is a huge opportunity to take advantage of a new market and a must for anyone looking to grow their business.

Posted by Tom at 06:19 AM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2007

Are You on AIM?

By Tyler Hoelting
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

Every day AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and other IM services allow millions of users to send messages and hold conversations via the internet with other people, and CPA Empire’s Affiliates are no exception! Affiliates and Affiliate Managers are plugged into this outlet for real-time instant messaging. For many of you that are familiar with AIM, it probably has become a large part of your daily communication. For those of you who are not accustomed to AIM, you might consider this free downloadable service, not only to communicate with friends but to utilize for business purposes.

AIM was born in the late 1990s and became a revolutionary program that allowed friends to communicate with each other without having to leave the house, write letters or even pick up the phone. The program allowed users to chat in real time, sending and receiving messages in "text boxes" which, like any program, would occupy a designated space on the computer screen. It began innocently enough, appealing to people from all walks of life. But unlike other electronic fads of the day, AIM has outlasted its novelty status and become a permanent and lasting trend in communication.

There are benefits to using AIM that should not be overlooked. It is a convenient way to stay in touch with friends, family, and business partners. It’s extremely fast and easy to use and the program is free to download. Despite these advantages there are some clear shortcomings of communicating in this manner.

Multitasking can be overwhelming, especially when several AIM conversations are open all at once. Above all, habitual chit-chat can make it hard to focus or accomplish any work that you may be trying to get done. With these interruptions and distractions, you can miss deadlines and push back personal goals. After comparing the pros and cons of using AIM, it may be worth evaluating the extent at which you use this service.

As Affiliate Managers we regularly communicate with many of our Affiliates via AIM. However, we also know that strong business relationships are built over the phone when they cannot be done in person. So if you have become too reliant on AIM, you might want to consider doing things the old fashioned way. Pick up the phone and add a personal touch the next time you contact a business partner. I’ll bet they will appreciate hearing your voice and you will be delighted with the outcome.

Posted by Tom at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2007

Taking a Bite out of the Big Apple

We will be heading off to New York for ad:tech next month and we hope to see you there! The show runs from November 5-8 at the New York Hilton and we will be sending many of the usual suspects, so be sure to stop by booth #617 to say hello. This is one of the biggest shows of the year for the online advertising industry and provides you with the opportunity to network with some of the biggest and most successful marketers on the Internet.

Posted by Tom at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2007

10 Ways to Increase Your AdWords Quality Score

By Jazette Pester
Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

1) Split Keywords into Smaller, More Targeted Ad Groups
Use the keyword grouper tool in AdWords editor to group keywords into 15 groups of 20 related keywords.

2) Create Relevant Ad Copy for Each Group
Create an ad creative for each keyword group using the common grouping denominator.

3) Optimize Creatives
Run split test on all ads. After a week, choose the best performing creative and delete the others. Try to increase the CTR (Click-Through-Rate) by working on variations of that creative.

4) Experiment with Matching Options
Add exact match and phrase match keywords to each ad group and chose which of the three has a better quality score and lower minimum CPC (Cost-Per-Click) and delete the other two matching options.

5) Meta Tags
Add the best performing keywords to the meta tags on each of your pages. Also, use the EXACT ad text from the best performing creative in the meta description. Use the BEST PERFORMING and MOST DESCRIPTIVE keyword as the title tag.

6) Make Sure Google Thinks You Are Relevant
Use the Site-Related Keywords tool to make sure that Google views the landing page as being related to the keywords that are targeted.

7) Implement Keywords
For each page, implement most of the keywords into the copy.

8) Split Test Landing Page
Set up a multi-variant test to split test the landing pages and test conversion rates. Google Analytics has an excellent write up on the major elements that can effect conversions. Multi-variant testing is very important.

9) Essential Site Pages
Add the privacy policy as well as creating and adding an informative “about us” page, a “terms and conditions” page, a “newsletter” page, and a new “contact us” page.

10) Link Building And SEO
Run a manual deep link building campaign using the highest performing keywords (Volume AND Conversion Rate). Not only does this help quality score but also helps with the organic SEO campaign in the coming months. Also submit a Google sitemap.

Posted by Tom at 01:51 AM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2007

The Google™ Game

By Tyler Hoelting
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

Many of us have played the Google™ PPC game and unfortunately the odds are not in our favor. You are not alone in your quest to beat the odds and find success with Google™ PPC, so it is imperative that you have an advantage before investing your hard earned cash on Boardwalk.

To better understand our chances in the Google world, we must first know the rules of the game. Google has a unique system in place that can allow a PPC advertiser to obtain the top ranking while actually paying less per click than the competition.

• Click prices depend on your Click-Through Rate (CTR). The Click-Through Rate is the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown (impressions). Your ad and keywords each have their own CTRs, unique to your own campaign performance. Weak or irrelevant content pages cost more to be displayed in the sponsored listings.
• Quality Score measures a variety of factors regarding your website, including the length a browsing consumer stays on your site once they have clicked your ad. In general, a higher Quality Score will allow you to bid less on keywords and still achieve high rankings in search results.
• The amount of capital your competition possesses is also a factor that needs to be addressed. Although Google does not use this as a rating for advertisers, it can price you out of the market. Many experienced marketers can identify new competition and in some cases drive up the cost-per-click for a particular keyword, to drive away competitors – even if it means taking a loss for a short period of time.

Now that we understand the variables that identify your overall score it is important to understand how your price per keyword is calculated. I recommend viewing the Google Learning Center and watching a 3 minute audio clip about Ad Ranking. http://services.google.com/awp/en_us/breeze/5310/index.html

In my years as an Affiliate Manager with CPA Empire, I have come across a few tips that will assist you in the Google game. By testing your various ad campaigns and spending the bulk of your monthly ad budget in the early stages, you can improve your chances of success considerably.

Testing:
Many Affiliates try only one ad campaign or bid on a limited number of keywords. Google’s foundation is built on testing and retesting, and they allow PPC marketers to do the same. Don’t get discouraged if the words you thought were big hitters don’t convert for you. Take something from multiple campaign groups and this will allow you to combine all the keywords that actually work for you into one which may be your winning ticket. Google allows you to tweak headlines, ads, domains, and content. Experts understand that even switching one word can influence the outcome of an ad campaign negatively or positively. As your CTR improves you can lower your cost per click and maintain the same ad position.

Go In Big:
A mistake that many affiliates make when they first start with Google is having a limited budget and starting off slow. You are not alone in thinking that increasing your ad budget as dollars come in is the correct thing to do, but this the wrong way to start. Go in big and push your way into the top to improve your CTR. If you are new to AdWords, this technique will actually improve your chance of getting first page assignment. There are two reasons for this.

1. You will find out early if your ad campaign will or will not work for you. It’s better to spend your money early rather than to drag out your promotion.

2. As opposed to starting out with a bang, you’ll find out that by going in slowly with a lower cost per click, your advertisement will be placed further down than your competition. If you go in slow, it may take you weeks before you can build up your CTR, lower your cost for keywords, and be in the same game as your competitors.

With these tips you should be able to maximize your AdWords outcome. See you on the Monopoly board.

Posted by Tom at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)

October 08, 2007

Is This the End of Incentivized Traffic?

By Jason Jugert
Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

“Can this offer be incentivized?” This question comes up with both affiliates and affiliate managers virtually every time a new offer goes live within a network. While there may be a straightforward answer to the question for each individual offer, the overall question of incentivized offers brings about mixed reactions and opinions from advertisers, publishers, networks and online users all across the internet marketing industry.

It seems that most people take one of two completely polarized positions on this topic - you either love it and believe it can be a valuable source of advertiser traffic, or you hate it would prefer to have it removed from the market. In recent months the incentivized industry has been shaken up with a variety of changes and reshuffling taking place.

Some networks are no longer accepting any incentivized traffic. Some incentivized offers have disappeared completely, while others have been revised in hopes of becoming profitable within the revised landscape. These changes have made many affiliates, advertisers and networks wonder, “Is this the end of incentivized traffic?” Personally I think that there is a place for incentivized traffic and offers and they will always be a part of the affiliate marketing industry.

With the appropriate changes and a conscious effort from both advertisers and affiliates, the incentivized industry can return to prosperity – although in a somewhat different form. For an incentivized offer to work for an advertiser it needs to meet their metrics and cancellations need to be kept to a minimum. In order to achieve this, I believe you will see offers being redesigned with better fraud protection, to eliminate duplicate leads and multiple sign-ups. You will also most likely see an increased effort to verify leads before credit is given to the affiliate, which means offers formerly reporting in real time will become two to three day imports. I would also expect to see offer payouts drop significantly to more accurately reflect the performance of this traffic source.

Affiliates promoting these offers will also need to make changes. For example, they will need to develop a stricter and more controlled approval process for new members on their sites and have the ability to block and prevent multiple sign-ups from the same IP address on individual offers. The value of a reward given to members for completing an offer needs to decrease to help deter fraud, and new features need to be added that remove an offer once it is completed by a specific member. Affiliates driving incentivized traffic also need to strictly follow network and advertiser rules and only run offers that allow incentivized traffic to assure profitability for the advertisers.

Many other efforts will likely need to be taken to breathe new life into this market, but these alone could help immensely. With positive changes and a conscious effort from advertisers, affiliates, and networks, I believe that the incentivized industry will continue to have a place in affiliate marketing.

Posted by Tom at 01:38 AM | Comments (3)

October 03, 2007

Why Running Offers When they Are Fresh, is Best

By Mike Fawcett
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

Just like bread and french fries (mmm french fry sandwich) CPA offers are best served fresh and piping hot. Usually, we as Affiliate Managers can tell when an offer comes out whether it is going to be a hot one. Either the offer has already been tested by the company providing it, or it was tested by CPA Empire. Did I mention that we know the characteristics of a great offer? So when we say something is hot, usually that means that statistically the early adopters are going to make money for at least the next few weeks.

If you get around to promoting the offer three or four weeks later, the conversion may have substantially lowered. The result – you have missed out on the big money.

Some of the reasons that offers slow down include:

1. The offer is brand new and no one has seen anything like. Therefore, the offer converts well for its novelty, but as the public begins to see it more and more they are not clicking on it as much.

2. For emailers, the suppression files begin to grow from the day the campaign begins as people opt out of receiving the offer.

3. As more people sign up for the offer, fewer potential customers are available.

4. On PPC, bidding on keywords for the campaign is likely to increase, with the ensuing bidding wars driving up the prices and making profit margins shrink.

5. In the first couple weeks, the offer is working it’s way through the other affiliate networks so it is getting even more exposure and saturation to potential customers.

I have seen it time and time again, that the early marketer does indeed get the worm in this business. If you know how to look out for the signs of high performing offers and you know your market, you can get on the money train with a great seat. Your quickness to act can mean the difference of about 10% on your conversion rates within the first few weeks. The moral of the story: fresh offers, like fresh food, are going to be the best.

Posted by Tom at 06:30 AM | Comments (0)

October 01, 2007

Recalls…Recession...Reality

By Shane Graper
Network Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

You may remember the three Rs from elementary school: reading, writing and arithmetic, but I have three new Rs for you. They are recalls, recession and reality. In the news lately we’ve all heard about the various recalls from Chinese manufacturers, as well as the threat of an impending recession. These recent headlines will almost certainly have a huge impact on the way consumers spend their hard earned dollars over the rest of this year. However, these headlines don’t have to have a negative impact on your online marketing.

Mortgage offers are continuing to decrease in popularity with advertisers, and fears are growing about the lead quality on offers for toys that may potential be recalled. Based on these recent developments affiliate marketers need to look for new opportunities that these issues are creating.

For example, the seller of a home lead testing kit has seen a significant increase in sales. That product will hopefully be available to the affiliate world in the near future. A personal prediction of mine is that the American consumer will be searching for American manufactured toys during this year’s holiday season, in an effort to avoid the Chinese toy recalls. Affiliate marketers can take advantage of this by promoting more American made toys and making sure to mention their origin in marketing messages.

After doing some reading about what experts believe is in store for the mortgage industry, I am drawn to another potential market – credit unions. These companies are enjoying the positive spotlight, as of late. While they may not offer as many services as your current bank offers, there may be benefits that outweigh some of these negatives. With that in mind, credit union offers may become strong performers in the months ahead.

Remember that as market changes negatively affect one industry or type of product, they almost always open the door to allow others to grow. As a marketer, the key is to stay ahead of the curve and look for those offers that have a chance to develop under the new market conditions. If you do that, you will find opportunities, where other marketers find dead ends.

Posted by Tom at 03:02 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2007

CPA vs. CPM

By Jamie Stephenson
Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

There is a seemingly never ending debate to determine which is better - CPA vs. CPM. Which will generate the best revenue per click?

At the end of the day, there is no absolute answer to that question. Performance hinges on so many variables – offer, marketing medium, payouts, etc. – that what works best in one situation may not be the right choice in another. Instead of trying to find that elusive consistent answer, I would suggest trying to figure out which model is best for you and each of the offers you run as an Affiliate?

You will likely find that the answer varies, depending on your time, traffic, offers, placement and the payout of a specific offer. With this being the case, it is important to stay flexible and be able to adjust and select the right payout model that suits each situation.

In my experience as an Affiliate Manager over the past few years, I have seen a lot of companies in this industry take a “CPM only” attitude after not always experiencing optimum returns on some CPA offers. While not every offer will perform best in a CPA environment, there are many that do. Making a decision to limit yourself to only CPMs will limit your ability to generate the highest returns on all of your campaigns.

Over the last 6 months I’ve had several large CPM sites work with me to test CPAs. Because of the increased conversions, they are now using CPA offers on a regular basis. Does this guarantee you will see the same results with your CPM site? No. Could you see better results? Absolutely.

The key is to keep testing different offers and placements. You might not have luck with 9 out of 10 offers but that 10th one could hit big.

In the constantly evolving Internet marketplace, I don’t believe either the CPA or CPM model will take over completely anytime soon, so use what works best for the time and place, but make sure to keep your options open – and keep testing!

Posted by Tom at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2007

Is the Internet ready for "Prime Time"?

By Laura Nielsen
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

During my visit to the 2007 Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose, CA I met with HackerSafe®, a sponsor of the anxiously awaited first Web reality show "The Next Internet Millionaire". Filming at the base of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, "The Next Internet Millionaire" is the world's first competitive Internet reality show. It debuted on Aug. 17, 2007, providing hungry reality audiences with the opportunity to view the show on the Internet.

After watching a short clip of Episode One to see what all the hype was about, I found that the show seems to be a combination of “The Apprentice” and YouTube™. But this one won’t be on television and the executive producer, Joel Comm (himself an Internet millionaire and NY Times Best selling author of "The Adsense Code") takes over as the “Donald Trump” of the show. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about Internet marketing experts branching into reality television. But, after watching Episode 1, I have to say that it was pretty good! The first episode is 51 minutes long with a few short commercial interruptions towards the end. The script is intriguing – plus, drama and back-stabbing between the contestants always peeks my interest! The initial reviews are in & bloggers all over the world are applauding this groundbreaking online entertainment; thus "proving that the Internet is indeed ready for "prime time"." (PRNewswire, August 27, 2007)

The Twelve contestants are made up of 6 men and 6 women from the US, Canada, the UK & Costa Rica. They all have varying levels of online and offline marketing experience. The contestants learn from the experts and compete in a variety of individual and team challenges designed to test their leadership ability, persuasion skills, sales, creativity, and general business skills.

The thing I liked is that, unlike with standard TV reality shows, you can actually learn something from watching this show. It features a combination of valuable instruction that anyone can benefit from in building their online presence. Then of course, there is the entertainment value that results from watching the twelve contestants compete for a $25,000 cash prize and an opportunity to participate in a large-scale joint venture with Comm's company.

Debuting just 2 weeks ago, "The Next Millionaire, is mentioned on over 65,000 web pages (according to Google), with bloggers around the world sharing their thoughts. The website shot up the charts on Alexa.com and was rated as the 1626th most popular site on the web on August 18th, beating American Idol.com, CBS.com & NBC.com that day" (Yahoo! News, Aug. 20th, 2007).

Lastly, the show is really about the cast members and their drive to win. Reality TV is big business because it provides the audience with real characters that most of us can identify with. I think viewers are going to enjoy watching the contestants learn and compete for the ultimate prize. After all, there is $25,000 and a dream joint venture on the line.

So who will it be? Power up your computers, tune in, and find out!

Go to http://www.nextinternetmillionaire.com/watch.php - to watch Episodes 1-3

Posted by Tom at 03:57 AM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2007

Going Beyond Expectations

By Brittany Bankston
Pending Affiliate Analyst
CPA Empire

Many companies try to differentiate themselves from their competition by having high expectations of their customer service representatives. The fact of the matter is, if a customer is not happy with the service they are provided, they will take their business somewhere else. In today’s market, there are many companies providing the same type of product/service that will attempt to serve their customers better and beat out the competition. While plenty of companies will attempt to differentiate themselves through customer support, few actually carry through on it effectively. Timely, consistent feedback and regular follow-up are only a couple of ways to begin to capture a customer’s loyalty. Adding a personal touch and truly building relationships with your customers will virtually always help you achieve a stronger bond than an automated response. Overall, customer service comes down to the basic golden rule, treat people as you would want to be treated.

In the world of CPA Empire affiliate pendings, customer service is our top priority. If a potential affiliate is willing to take time out of their busy day to fill out an application, we want to make sure we exceed their expectations of how and when we will respond. The key is for us to build channels of communication with the people who are interested in becoming our affiliates. We do our best to find out about their businesses, how they plan to market affiliate offers, what they expect from their Affiliate Manager and how we can help them improve on what they are already doing. By focusing on our affiliate application process, we make sure that new affiliates are ready to hit the ground running as soon as they are approved. By beginning to build a relationship this early in the process makes it that much easier for our Affiliate Managers to begin recommending the right offers for each affiliate.

Our goal is to show our Affiliates that we will go the extra mile to suit their needs and help them become even more successful. This is what really puts CPA Empire above all others in the affiliate marketing industry.

Posted by Tom at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2007

Google vs. Minor League Search Engines

By Brandon Perry
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

There has been much discussion about how to stretch and maintain a good ROI while utilizing some of the smaller players in the search engine field. Not too long ago, search engines were thought to be very promising and people were seeking significant additional sources of revenue. With all of the intense high bidding wars on the main search engines including Google, Yahoo, and MSN, the lovely group at Marketing Experiments has taken a look at the smaller search engines to see if they are able to stack up to the ‘Big Boys’.

The results were a little surprising. Against seven search engines with four campaigns they found there was very little traffic compared to the monsters like Google. The conversion rate of the best performing engine was more than 50% higher than that of the second best, and almost four times than that of the third best. However, the conversion rate for the best search engine was a shocking 3.16%. That’s right, of the whopping 410 clicks generated on that search engine, there were only 13 leads generated. Overall Marketing Experiments spent $584.76 for ads placed on that specific search engine with earnings of $292.38 in a CPA (cost-per-action) model.

These results are disappointing to say the least, and show that the CPA earned from one of the smaller engines was 43.4% lower than that for Google over the same time period. They were also 59.2% lower than Overture (Yahoo!). Traffic may have a big play in these results as well, but this just goes to show you that there are precautions to be taken while getting your campaigns off the ground. If you are contemplating using a smaller search engine, some of the precautions to look for include:

-Approach smaller PPC engines with caution.

-Test everything on a few different search engines to determine which will be the most profitable for you.

-If an ad you are running on a specific search engine comes close to profitability, test different ads and see if you can increase your click-through rate.

-If you do isolate one or more search engines that can deliver a positive ROI, make sure those engines have sufficient reach. If you are achieving only a handful of sales each month, the profits earned may not make up for the cost of setting up, testing and managing that specific campaign.

Posted by Tom at 03:30 AM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2007

Search Engine Marketing- Automatic directory submission

By Jazette Pester
Senior Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

Why submit to directories?
Spend a little time researching Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on the Internet and you will soon realize that directory submission is a great way to gain incoming links to your website and increase link popularity. Changes to Google’s algorithms made earlier this year mean that reciprocal links no longer bear as much weight/importance as they used to. This means that gaining one way inbound links is now the emphasis when increasing link popularity. Submitting a website to directories to be included in the listings is a great way to achieve one way inbound links.

Automatic submission:
Search engines use inbound links within their algorithms as a way to determine the importance of a website. Google’s Page Rank formula is based on the authority of websites, the idea being that the more inbound links a website has the more authority it holds. However, search engines do not like efforts made by website owners to artificially increase the link popularity of a website. This is why automatic submission or software generated submissions are not likely to produce positive results. Submitting your website to thousands of directories in a short amount of time will actually have a detrimental effect on your website’s position in the search engine ranking pages (SERPs).

When embarking on a link building campaign keep the following in mind:

* The process must be done manually.
* Do not dramatically increase the number of inbound links in a short period of time.
* Remember to use keywords in the anchor text (link title).

Posted by Tom at 03:34 AM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2007

Not Your Typical Loan Officer

By Josh Krogh
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

A new kind of loan officer has hit the market and they are not affiliated with any bank. Rather, a growing number of individuals are lending out anywhere from a few hundred to more than $100,000 through companies like Prosper®, a 15-month-old venture that combines social networking with online auctions in an attempt to create a lucrative new marketplace for loans.

This new breed of lender is taking the place of banks and other traditional lending institutions and providing lending options to thousands of people around the world. While many of these companies focus on lending in developing nations, Prosper is targeted toward the U.S. market. Borrowers are looking for money for many different types of reasons, ranging from consolidating credit-card debt to expanding an existing small business.

“Prosper's marketplace is a blend of eBay-like bidding auctions and social networking, and is conceptually related to the emerging world of microcredit,” says Chaddus Bruce, of Wired.com

Wannabe borrowers give Prosper permission to verify their identity and allow the company to access their financial data as collected by Experian® (one of the major credit-scoring companies and also and advertiser with CPA Empire). Prosper then works to match the borrower’s loan request with lenders. Lenders will offer to provide all or part of the funds to the borrower at interest rates they set. Then the borrower selects from the loan offers, choosing one or more to meet their loan request.

Why are consumers attracted to Prosper? The possibility of lower fixed rates, quickly funded loans, and a potentially easier way for innovative businesses to obtain loans.

"It is the first time this large market has been opened up to the average investor," says CEO Chris Larsen, who sold his previous online lending business, E-Loan®, for $300 million in 2005.

To keep bad loans from poisoning the well, Prosper blocks borrowers who have defaulted on previous loans. Over half the company's engineers work on anti-fraud measures, according to John Witchel one of the company’s co-founders. Prosper also insures lenders against the possibility of money lost due to identity theft.

At the end of the day, as with all new markets, there is a learning curve for early adopters. "They key thing for us is not stepping in and saying what people should do, otherwise it is just what banks are doing at the end of the day," says Chris Larsen, co-founder.

Posted by Tom at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2007

CPA Empire® Breakaway Conference 2007

The 2007 CPA Empire Breakaway Conference wrapped up last Friday, bringing two exciting days of networking and conference sessions to a close.

“The Breakaway was a huge success,” said George Avery, Director of CPA Empire and Team Chaos Head Coach. “Over 100 of our most successful affiliates and 10 of our top advertisers joined us in Denver for two amazing days.”

In only its second year, the Breakaway Conference grew by over 50% from the inaugural event in 2006. Attendees to this year’s event took part in networking activities and informational sessions, including perhaps the first true roundtable discussion in the industry’s history.

“One of our goals for the Breakaway is to bring affiliates together in an environment where they feel comfortable sharing information and helping each other become more successful. This year, we held roundtable discussion sessions covering Email, Search, and Testing & Optimization strategies. The lively participation was overwhelming, as many of the most successful affiliates in the industry sat down and discussed ways to grow their businesses. We had to call a time out for all three sessions in order to keep the event on schedule, and still the sessions continued in the hallways” said Steven Richter, President of Media Breakaway, LLC.

Feedback from Breakaway attendees suggests that the conference lived up to its goal.

“The roundtable discussions were simply amazing. We have been attending industry conferences and trade shows for years and we have never seen anything like it before. It was the most valuable session we have ever experienced. We just hope it can be expanded and made even longer next year.” – CPA Empire Affiliate

“We learned more during one roundtable discussion than we have ever learned at any other conference we have attended.” – CPA Empire Affiliate

“I learned more in the first thirty minutes of the legal presentation than I did in the last four conferences I attended.” – CPA Empire Affiliate

“The debate between Scott and Steve regarding the future of the industry was as good as it gets.” – CPA Empire Affiliate

“I was really impressed by the content of the conference. We knew the parties would be great and there would be plenty of networking opportunities, but actually getting interesting and valuable session content was a great surprise.” – CPA Empire Affiliate

The conference was also highlighted by a keynote address from industry leader Declan Dunn and a leadership panel that discussed various issues and opportunities facing the affiliate marketing industry today.

“We are trying to make the Breakaway Conference a unique event in our industry. We are already taking what we learned during this year’s event and working on ideas to make the 2008 Breakaway Conference even more valuable to our attendees,” said Tom Wozniak, Director of Marketing for Media Breakaway, LLC.

Thanks to all of our affiliate attendees and advertiser sponsors for participating in this year’s Breakaway Conference. We hope you enjoyed the event as much as we did and were able to take away some valuable information. If you weren’t able to join us this year, we hope to see you in Denver next summer!

Posted by Tom at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2007

CPA Empire Breakaway Conference Pictures

Posted by Tom at 03:35 AM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2007

CPA Empire Breakaway Conference Pictures - After Parties

Posted by Tom at 03:51 AM | Comments (0)

August 07, 2007

Affiliate Summit East Miami – Was it as Hot as the Weather or Not?

By Lou Difulvio
Network Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

At every Affiliate Summit we look forward to meeting new advertisers and publishers, as well as reconnecting with current business partners. With the conference a few weeks behind us, I am asking the same question you ask yourself after every conference you attend. Was the conference worth it?

To me, every Affiliate Summit is a new experience which I always look forward to. Being able to walk the floor, attend the various types of presentations available, and – believe it or not – working at our booth.

Well this Summit we decided to switch things up and not have a booth. I thought this was an awesome idea. There were more opportunities to interact with other attendees while walking the floor. Not being tied to the booth, I was able to check out all of the exhibits, and I really got to spend more time catching up with the new buzz in the industry. One of the best conference experiences occurs when your company is able to generate a lot of positive buzz during the event. As you meet attendees who don’t currently work with you, they get excited about your business and are anxious to find ways to do business together – sometimes even before you get back to the office.

Working with CPA Empire, the one question that I always hear is “What makes your network better then others?”. Publishers who don’t currently do business with us may not realize that our main focus is customer service and how personable and knowledgeable our Affiliate Managers really are. When we meet with publishers who already work with us, it’s all about building stronger relationships. This is one of the things I always look forward to during the events we attend – the meetings in which we enhance our partnerships. Meeting with various people during lunches and dinners is always a great way to build these relationships as well. Not only do you get an awesome meal, but you get to know your partners on a more personal level. I strongly suggest that everyone set up meetings and dinners when you have the opportunity to help with your goals in this industry.

The best session I attended at Affiliate Summit East was “What Super Affiliates Want”. The panel during this presentation included several Super Affiliates: Rosalind Garder, Scott Jangro and Jeremy Palmer. They broke their presentation down into 4 key points: Recruitment, Merchant Site, Affiliate Program, and Relationships. It’s gratifying to see Relationships come up on this list, as it is such a focus for everyone at CPA Empire.

If there was one thing I wish I had more of during Affiliate Summit, it would be time to attend more of the presentations. Because I try to spend as much time as possible with my partners, it can be difficult to make it to every valuable session.

Overall, I feel my time at the Affiliate Summit East conference was well spent. Not only was the weather hot but the show was too.

Posted by Tom at 03:44 AM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2007

Phone's Impact on Mobile Marketing

By Mike Fawcett
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

Ah the iPhone, a $500 gadget that in the hands of the average technophile will expand his or her ability to log onto the Internet for work or play on the go. Users will have full Internet access whenever the urge strikes them. There have already been hundreds of articles written about the best features, worst features, and what to expect functionally from the iPhone, but I don’t want to talk about all that. What I want to discuss is the effect that the ability to log onto the Internet wherever you are, will have on mobile marketing in the United States.

Are these new phones going to be a revolution or just a reason to own a bigger, newer phone? Does it signify the next chapter in the big book of marketing, or will the numerous functionalities lie dormant?

What the iPhone will do is give Americans the ability to catch up with the rest of the world on the mobile capability front and finally help us start seeing the cell phone as a mobile computer, rather than simply a way to make calls away from home.

So how will all this be good for marketing on the affiliate front? Will it be harder to see banner ads on the smaller screen? Are redirects going to work smoothly? Will users be able to see PPC text ads at all? Is geocentric marketing (ads designed to change with the users position) going to create technical challenges for web developers? Do these types of devices fall under the laws of mobile phone use, or under the laws of the Internet? As users leave the comfort of the 19 inch computer screen and start using more compact smart devices with information collected more frequently, what role will advertising play? Finally, and most importantly, is there revenue out there to be earned?

This article is a beginning point, not an end. The nature of advertising is determined by the images we convey, and ultimately the effectiveness of the tools we use. In a world where we are moving from consumers sitting down at a computer for two hours a night and surfing the Internet, to having the ability to get online 24/7, how do marketers best utilize those sources to increase revenue? Where on that tiny screen is there room for the ads we love and rely on so much? I post these questions without knowing all of the answers, but as they say in the film Jurassic Park, “life always finds a way”. So does advertising.

Posted by Tom at 04:19 AM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2007

Information is Power

Information is Power
By Doug Davis
Affiliate Manager
CPA Empire

In today’s information age, people want to be informed about the products they are purchasing, rather than simply sold on them. The Internet is the perfect medium to provide consumers with valuable information to help them make a decision to buy, along with the opportunity to complete that purchase. Affiliates are in a unique position to take advantage of this communication dynamic. Many Affiliates have seen the benefits of providing honest appraisals or reviews of advertisers’ products and then allow consumers to respond to those offers that best meet their needs.

As an Affiliate, you have the opportunity to work with a variety of different advertisers to promote their products. You aren’t restricted by loyalty or business relationship to any one specific product or service. This places you in a great position to provide reviews and other information about the products & services you promote to help consumers make educated decisions on the offers they respond to and the products they buy. There are a variety of ways you can provide this kind of pre-sell information.

Here’s a list of helpful hints to help you develop effective pre-sell copy:

· Build your credibility and create trust with your prospective customer through relevant content. This can be done by including testimonials from previous customers or giving reviews of the products with both positive and negative feedback.

· Get creative when explaining how and why the product or service will benefit the prospective costumer. Take a genuine interest in the offers you are promoting and your engagement will come through to the consumer.

· Present the information about the product or service you’re promoting in a clear and concise manor.

· Include links to the offer throughout your write-up of the product or service.

· Give the prospective customer several choices, instead of pushing just one product. Compare the different products or services you’re promoting and let the consumer decide which one best meets their needs.

· Avoid taking too much of a hard-sell approach in your copy. If you push too hard, the consumer may see the information you are providing as pure sales copy

Posted by Tom at 03:20 AM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2007

Ads in Unlikely Places

One of the greatest challengers marketers face is simply getting their messages through to consumers. Advertisers are competing against each other for consumers’ attention in an ever more marketing saturated media environment. Simply standing out from the immense crowd of marketers is extremely difficult, in and of itself.

Making matters even more challenging is the fact that new technology has given consumers more control over the advertisements they see. Digital video recorders let people skip over TV commercials. Spam filters catch many marketing emails and put them in a junk folder that are often deleted without so much as a glance at the subject line. Pop-up blockers keep many online ads from ever appearing on the screen.

While the environment may be challenging, marketers are constantly working on new ways to communicate with their potential customers. One place where creative marketing approaches are taking shape is in the video game industry.

Take a look at some of the newer games people are playing and you will find an increasing marketing presence. In an older video game, when characters walked down the street they might pass some generic looking vending machines. Now, those machines look realistic and include detailed graphics of actual beverage companies. When you are selecting a car in a driving simulation game, you just might be able to choose the latest model sports car from a real auto manufacturer. If the game has an online component, you may be able to view actual auto specs and visit a website to download photos, other cars to drive in the game and learn more about actually buying the car in the real world.

This is just one way that marketers are thinking outside the box and trying to connect with consumers in new ways. While you may not be able to get an ad placed in a major video game, look for ways you can be creative in promoting offers to your audience

Posted by Tom at 02:58 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2007

Oh No! The Dreaded “Slow Months” are Here

Oh No! The Dreaded “Slow Months” are Here
By Shane Graper
House Account Manager
CPA Empire

That’s right; the buzz around this time every year, is that we are heading into the dismal slow summer months. It seems that these months have an impact on many types of businesses, including affiliate marketing.

As the first day of summer and the longest day of the year pass us by, remember that you don’t have to settle for a slow down in your business. The fact of the matter is that different types of products experience ups and downs in their sales cycles over the course of the year. That means that while some product sales may slow down, there are also products that experience sales growth during the summer months. This is great news if you are a CPA Empire® Affiliate. With over 1,500 campaigns in our network, you can be sure to find a campaign or category that includes a product heading for, or already experiencing a growth period. For example, over the Memorial Day weekend gas prices were at an all time high. Did you capitalize on travel or gas offers?

There are plenty of popular activities during the summer months that you can take advantage of in your affiliate marketing programs. Summer treats such as ice cream or other frozen delights are usually very popular in the summertime. This is also the season for family barbeques and, if you are like me, you are working around the house a lot and make frequent trips to home improvement stores. Other categories that generally see an increase in the summer month are:

• Travel/Vacation
• Toys
• Outdoor activities – biking, hiking, camping, boating.

Capitalize on offers that promote these types of activities to sustain your current revenue. If you need additional ideas or offers, be sure to contact your affiliate manager.

Posted by Tom at 02:56 AM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2007

Managing Your Time

It seems that the one thing none of us ever have enough of is time. This is definitely a challenge shared by everyone in the unrelentingly, fast-paced internet industry. Each day brings about new challenges as we all try to prepare for and take advantage of the next big development. With so many tasks to complete and a limited amount of time in which to get everything done, effectively managing your daily schedule can be the key to getting ahead or falling behind.

There are plenty of books, programs, seminars, and other material, all promising to help you become more productive and successful in managing your time. While some are undoubtedly better than others, most of them will offer you at least a few tactics that can help you take better charge of your day.

From the effective use of ‘to do’ lists, prioritized filing systems, and workspace design recommendations, each time management system provides a variety of practices that are all focused on letting you find more time in each day. While certain practices and strategies may have fairly universal appeal, each of us has a different work style and what proves to be an effective solution for one person may not work at all for another.

So, how do you go about finding a way to manage your time more effectively? First, do your homework. Some simple online research will provide information on a wide variety of time management systems. Some will be from names you may recognize (Stephen Covey, Dale Carnegie, David Allen) and others will be smaller, lesser known companies and individuals. No single approach will be the ultimate solution for everyone, so read a little about each system and find one that seems the most relevant to how you work and the challenges you face. Keep in mind that you can learn to utilize some time management systems by buying a book, but others may expect you to attend seminars or sign up for one-on-one training sessions.

Whichever system you choose to follow, the key to success is consistency. If you are trying out a new way to handle your ‘to do’ list, don’t give up if it doesn’t seem to be working after a few days. Breaking old habits and creating new ones doesn’t happen overnight. But, if you put in the effort, it’s likely you will appreciate the return on your investment.

Posted by Tom at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2006

Team Chaos - Lucky Number 7!

In his first game as head coach, George Avery led team Chaos to a 7-3 win over team Biohazard (whose play reflected on their name). The usually reserved Avery, not known for his affinity for the limelight, took to this position of leadership naturally, quickly commanding the attention of his team and the officials. Avery's coaching strategy, much like his playing style, seemed to be geared towards offense and scoring with little attention to the defensive side of the game. Defenseman Scott Richter was given a new nickname by Coach Avery, titled "Ghostrider" as he left his wingman, Steve Richter ("Maverick") defending the blue line while Scott tried several times to put the puck through the goalie. The strategy was clearly successful as the team, taking a cue from forward Jamie Stephenson and defenseman Jason Venters, turned on the scoring power.

Once again, forward Daniel Dye had several opportunities to bury the puck in the net, but chose to hit every inch of the posts instead of accepting the glory of the goal. The Chaos now look forward to their first Sunday night game on October 1, 2006 at 8:45.

Visit www.hockeyskate.net for game recaps, schedules, and photos of Team Chaos in action!

Posted by Missy at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2006

Email is the New Black

Shawn Collins, Co-Founder of Affiliate Summit has a new article out in DM News entitled "Email is the New Black for Affiliates", which talks about how "The once again mighty channel of e-mail marketing by affiliates is expriencing a Renaissance."

Our own Steven Richter, President and General Counsel of Media Breakaway, LLC is quoted in the article as saying, "Subsequent to the passage of CAN-SPAM, and as we predicted, the response to our email campaigns has received a better return on investment for our Affiliates and Advertisers,” commented Steven Richter, President and General Counsel of Media Breakaway, LLC.

“CAN-SPAM set a standard that allowed both e-mailers and IPS's to work together in improving the quality of the mailing being sent," continued Richter.

Read the full story here: http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/e-mail-marketing/38225.html

Posted by Missy at 05:26 AM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2006

The Rise of CPA Networks

The Rise of CPA Networks
March 15, 2006 by: Hollis Thomases

This article by Hollis originally appeared in ClickZ on September 3rd, 2005.

Online advertising is on the rise. With big-brand dollars fueling the marketplace and inventory on top Web sites being gobbled up, you'd think CPA ad opportunities would be declining. Why then are more CPA ad networks cropping up, with the top producer reaping $10-20 million per month in revenues? Networks such as DirectLeads, Affiliate Fuel, CPA Empire, and PrimaryAds. What is it we don't know or we're not willing to give credence to? And what are our advertisers potentially missing?

First, let's establish what a CPA ad network is. After all, isn't that what an affiliate network is? Yes and no. Like affiliate networks, CPA ad networks rely on publishers who are willing to promote their advertisers' offers, and both networks call these publishers "affiliates."

Read more here

Posted by Missy at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

4 Key Email Marketing Alerts for 2006

Anne Holland of Marketing Sherpa announced that she would be releasing the following report during her keynote session at Affiliate Summit this week. Here it is.

Interesting reading for sure.

Posted by Missy at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2005

Deciphering the New Michigan and Utah 'Child Protection Registry' Laws

Deciphering the New Michigan and Utah 'Child Protection Registry' Laws by Steven Richter, Esq.

As many of you already know, effective July 1, 2005, Utah enacted House Bill 165 which creates a "Child Protection Registry." Michigan enacted a similar bill (SB 1025) which also took effect July 1, 2005.
In short, both laws state that minors cannot consent to receive advertisements that may be harmful to them. The laws also allow a person to register email, instant messenger addresses, telephone and fax numbers (called "contact points") that are accessible by minors. (Michigan: https://www.protectmichild.com/, Utah: https://www.utahkidsregistry.com/)

Once an e-mail address has been registered, senders of e-mail messages that advertise or link to prohibited products or services are required to remove the address from their mailing lists within 30 days. These registries are free for consumers, but would require advertisers/affiliates to pay a fee, that is not inconsequential, to have their list "scrubbed" against those registered with the respective states.

As a side note, many other states are considering adopting statutes similar to Michigan and Utah, which should set the stage for the industry to demand a law similar to the Can Spam Act of 2003 so that compliance can be accomplished by one- stop shopping. It should also be noted that many of us in the legal community believe that both the Utah and Michigan statutes are constitutionally flawed, and believe there is a strong chance that they may be voided if challenged in a court of law.

If you are sending advertisements that contain these products or services, you MUST utilize these registries to scrub your lists immediately (Michigan: effective August 1, 2005, Utah: effective August 15, 2005) and every 30 days thereafter. It is important to note that even if your lists contain confirmed opt-in emails, you still must scrub the registered names from your lists.
These new laws have left affiliates as well as advertisers somewhat confused as to what is considered a prohibited item. In a nutshell, you can not send any material to minors containing products or services that they are prohibited by law from purchasing, participating in or viewing (such as pornography, tobacco, liquor and gambling). The laws also ban any messages containing any sexual material that has no artistic, literary, political or scientific value for minors.

The associated consequences for non-compliance may result in criminal penalties and civil fines up to $1,000 per message. It is important to note that individuals may also file suit to enforce these laws.
If you have any doubt whether the product that you are representing falls under the guidelines of these new laws, it is crucial that you seek legal advice from an attorney licensed in your state.

These materials have been prepared for informational purposes only and are not legal advice. Transmission of the information is not intended to create, and receipt does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. Internet subscribers and online readers should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. The information contained is provided only as general information which may or may not reflect the most current legal developments. This information is not provided in the course of an attorney-client relationship and is not intended to constitute legal advice or to substitute for obtaining legal advice from an attorney licensed in your state.

Steven Richter is a partner at the law firm of Goodman & Richter, LLP, which concentrates on Internet law, civil and criminal tax controversy, employment law and business litigation.

Posted by Missy at 06:37 AM | Comments (0)