Sam Harrelson

I’ve been experimenting with blogs and static websites for a few of the affiliate sites I run and manage.

Within the last 3 moths, the blogs have finally over taken the static web pages in terms of profit. This is utterly crazy to me because I’ve been updating the content on the blogs while the niche sites have been relatively stagnant in terms of content. Plus, it’s much easier/cheaper to build a blog affiliate site rather than a static site because the content should come easy!

Does that mean that content isn’t that important for an affiliate site?

I would argue no, because I’ve seen an increase in repeat IP’s processing repeat purchases. For instance, one of the affiliate sites I manage is a NASCAR themed site (I don’t miss a race), and the repeat buyers are about 79% higher on the blog/content site rather than the static content site.

So, if you’re going to do affiliate marketing, make sure you consider the type of content you are providing to keep the visitors coming. Repeat visitors/customers are invaluable!

Agree? Disagree?

Google Analytics or WordTracker?

I honestly enjoy the WordTracker service. Google Analytics is great for analyzing what sort of traffic is coming to your site as well.

Realizing what sort of traffic is coming to your site based on the keyword is definitely helpful. Here’s a little of my secret sauce… you must make a differentiation between what is considered a “money keyword” and a “traffic keyword.” That’s common knowledge among most of the established affiliates, but if you’re just starting out, that wisdom will save you lots of time.

I like to convert my keywords at a certain percentage, depending on which niche site I’m using. So, you have to decide which keywords are most valuable to you depending on the traffic or “money” keywords.

Keep in mind that the type of offer and the profit margin has a great deal to do with how effective your keyword might/shoudl be.

Play with keywords, check out WordTracker and Google Trends and see what you can do. This is still a relatively new market in the general world of marketing. It’s a lot of fun to experience and try to predict, but you can really break down your keywords into what is profitable and what is not.

Here’s my final tip for figuring out what keywords to include in your efforts:

Look at the backlinks of your competitors!

Let me know if you need help!

1. 2,104 Visitors have added Cost Per News to their Favorites within their browser since the beginning of December. Aww. Thanks! I like you too.

2. It’s easier than a SEO company’s booth babe in Vegas (too harsh?) to advertise here on Cost Per News. Check check check it out at http://ads.costpernews.com or click on the dollar sign to your left <~~~

3. I need your input on a question that has been bugging the hell out of me because I can't get good data on it… Do you prefer to have a new window open when you click on a pic/link here? Or would you rather the window you’re currently viewing CPN in go to the link you click? It doesn’t hurt my feelings either way, so be honest. Just please help me make that decision once and for all.

4. For the 45% of you still viewing this site on Internet Explorer… ugh… you disgust me. Change your ways and repent!

5. Girlshapedlovedrug by Gomez is a fantastic song. Go download it at your favorite non-drm vendor. I suggest emusic.com, but Rhapsody is good for hearing everything and is quickly becoming a favorite for me since I’m always chained to this laptop.

6. ReveNews is picking up the content again. If you haven’t been there in the last few days, go read the interesting debates going on about the nature of business blogging (for free) in the comments. Good stuff.

7. Thanks to Jangro, I’ve been fixing some back end bugs this weekend that I had been avoiding. You won’t notice it (hopefully), but the site will be a little sharper, prettier and load even quicker.

8. I’m thinking about taking down the MyBlogLog widget. I love widgets and I’ve had a good time with MBL, but I’m not getting much out if besides seeing Molander’s pretty face every day. I’ve even been asked by other bloggers why I don’t visit their sites. The truth is, I read about 450 blogs through feeds. I promise that I visit your site, but my avatar doesn’t show up on your MBL widget because I’m reading your feed. I’d prefer people start using RSS, so I feel like I’m encouraging the dis-use of RSS by having the widget up. Eric, get your Yahooligans to help you write a script to allow people reading the feed to count as a “visitor.” You guys have done an incredible job at responding to the community concerns so far, and that’s my biggest concern about using MBL going forward.

9. I’ve grown a beard for Affiliate Summit so that I can look like my hero Dave Winer. Beards look good on me, I think. So, if you’re looking for me at the Summit, I’ll be the bearded dude without a shower. My wife hates the beard, btw.

10. I’m doing a few interviews with networks, affiliates and merchats at the Summit for CPN. I’m particularly excited about meeting the executives at Zanox and picking their brains on and off the record about the industry and international issues. If you’d like to setup a meeting, interview, presentation, steak/lobster dinner or just buy me a beer or three, send me an email (sam@costpernews.com). I’m flying in on Friday and flying out on Monday night on the red eye.

11. Blogging is hard.

12. Affiliate Marketing is hard. If you think you know what you’re doing, you probably don’t.

Constructing a site and finding affiliate programs to promote for your site is becoming easier and easier. However, one entry level barrier for new affiliates is how to transfer certain data files to their affiliate managers or merchants. I think we need to lower the entry threshold for new affiliates, so I was excited to discover something new this week.

On Wednesday a merchant that I work with on one of my affiliate sites recently asked me if I’d like to use a new service called BoxClouds to transfer some non-crucial files that normally would be shared via FTP.
I’ve since played with the BoxClouds service for a few days and am happily surprised with the ease of use.

From the BoxClouds site:

BoxCloud’s “drag and share” functionality makes sharing files a snap through a small application you install on your desktop. You decide what to share simply by dragging files from your desktop over your buddy list. Your files and folders are hosted directly and instantly from your computer without any uploading. Once shared, your contacts can then access your files over a regular browser — they don’t need to download or configure anything.

While I wouldn’t suggest using this for sensitive documents or data files, I do think applications such as this or box.net are making file transfers so easy that eventually how we work together in the affiliate marketing world could figure out a way to innovate secure and safe file transfer system.

FTP is nice but not every affiliate or affiliate manager knows how to use it. Email is certainly not safe, and not always certain to land in the inbox of the recepient. IM transfer is difficult-to-sketchy at best due to different platforms and security settings.

What do you use to transfer files with your partnering merchants, affiliates or affiliate managers? Could a service such as BoxClouds (with more security) further the entry barrier to affiliate marketing?

This is the greatest thing I’ve read in a long while (and not just because I’m trying to figure out a way to make a living out of blogging… ok… maybe it is just because of that)…

3. Blogging is an art, same as any other method of self-expression. Some people are better at it than others.

6. Blogging is a great way to make things happen indirectly. I say that all the time, and will KEEP saying it till people finally get it [I’m not holding my breath].

20. Blogging will never be a mainstream activity so long as being able to write well and often remains the main barrier to entry.

30. Yes, the blogosphere is a great place to get laid. No, I’m not telling you how I found this out.

37. Z-Listers are every bit as selfish, self-important and psychologically flawed as A-Listers. Except the former don’t have large armies of people with real and/or imagined economic & social incentives for tripping them up. (Amen… Wayne, are you reading this??)

Whether you’re a blogger or not, pay attention. This applies to your program as well.

Thanks, Hugh.

I’m committing the ultimate immortal (yet most unoriginal) sin.

I’m starting a tag virus. Apologies.

But unlike the “5 things you didn’t know about me and won’t ever really remember” meme, this one is valuable… it’s about business cards.

Here is my business card…

Well, that’s not really true. I don’t have business cards. I think they are somewhat silly.

I carry around about 250 blank cards at shows and make the cards up on the spot depending on how well I like the person or how goofy they are to me (taken from one of my online heroes, Hugh McLeod). So, if you receive a flattering card from me at Affiliate Summit or in the mail, that’s good. If you receive some ironic poetry with a caustic tale, that’s probably a reflection of how I feel about your strategy or program.

For instance, here’s one I might give to Carsten Cumbrowski…

I respect him.

So, I’m going to tag 3 of you to show your business card on your blog. You know the deal after that… you have to tag 3 others and so on.

So, I tag the following to get this going:

–Loxly aka Deborah

–Jim Kukral

–Shawn Collins

Make it work, because it can be a pretty cool experience for all of us…

I’m a big fan of stats, so I get giddy around this time every year when Shawn Collins releases the annual AffStat report.

This is an industry that is constantly changing, morphing and requires a yearly update in a statistical fashion.

From the AffStat site…

Below are the questions being asked for the AffStat 2007 Report:

How does your program determine commissions? Does your program have dedicated management (no other duties for affiliate manager)? How many affiliates do you have? How many new affiliates do you acquire per month? How many click-throughs do your affiliates generate per month? What is the conversion rate for your affiliate program? What percent of your affiliates are active (defined as having generated at least one click last month)? What percent of your affiliates earned commission last month? What percent of the total transactions on your site are generated through affiliates? Do you approve affiliates automatically or manually? Which network(s), solution provider(s), or software program(s) do you use to track your affiliate program(s)? Do you have a blog for your affiliate program? What was the largest commission you paid to an individual affiliate in one month? Do you permit your affiliates to bid on your trademark name(s) in pay per click search engines? What types of rewards and/or incentives do you offer to your affiliates? What is the biggest challenge in affiliate marketing? What’s your most effective method for recruiting affiliates? Which type(s) of data feeds do you provide to affiliates? Do you provide individual affiliates with exclusive coupons (i.e. coupons in name of affiliate site)? Do you allow affiliates to promote coupon codes that were not made available through the affiliate program? Do you manage the affiliate program in-house or are you an outsourced program manager? What is your annual salary (including incentives and bonsues)? [in-house employees] Does your salary include incentives and bonuses? [in-house employees] What is your total monthly compensation for the affiliate program you manage (including percent of transactions if applicable)? [outsourced program managers] Does your compensation include performance incentives? [outsourced program managers] Questions 2-21 are broken out by affiliate program type: pay per lead and pay per sale.

2007 is a watershed year of change for affiliate marketing, so if you’re in the dark about any of those topics, I’d recommend checking out the report. We definitely need more (good) analytics in this industry, and you need hard numbers to help make things tangible in your own site, network or affiliate program.

Now if Shawn would only update his book evey once in a while…

I know Alexa is seriously flawed, but every month or so I like to check the ratings for CostPerNews to see what sort of general trends have developed in relation to other blogs in this niche.

Alexaholic is a great tool for this, of course.

In this comparison, I used the self described “community blog” ReveNews, Linda’s 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blog, Shawn’s AffiliateTip, and Scott’s Jangro.com along with CostPerNews.

Lots of jagged lines and pretty colors, but there were a few interesting trends that we should take note of. For instance, here’s the two year reach graph…

The general trend had been upwards for 5Star, AffiliateTip and ReveNews over 2005 and into 2006, with June/July of 2006 being a nice peak for everyone, especially ReveNews. However, since then there has seemed to be a steady plateau for those blogs.

Jangro’s blog (along with Jeff Molander’s ThoughtShapers.com which I didn’t include) and CPN have also found a steady position of increase since July and are approaching the big 3 listed above. Then there are the newsletters such as my old stomping ground, the Digital Moses Confidential (Hagai has definitely figured out how to get the networks to advertise!).

CostPerNews officially launched on November 1, so I’ve been happy with the growth of the community, comments and maturity of my thought processing (blogging 4-5 times a day about online and affiliate marketing ain’t that easy, folks) in just a couple of months.

However, what do all these stats mean? Can you really quantify a blog’s impact on a community based on numbers? Is CostPerNews comparable to ReveNews? No… and to use a silly metric such as reach, rank or page view to try to compare any of these blogs with each other is just silly.

That’s easy to say, but when I’m trying to justify the time and energy put into this blog, saying page views and impressions don’t matter still doesn’t pay the bills (which looks like a rumbling Mt. Vesuvius on the kitchen counter).

So, when I’m meeting with potential sponsors or on the phone with merchants interested in possibly figuring out an advertising deal, how should I respond to the page view question? Normally, my response to such a question is:

“Well, if you have to ask that question, you probably don’t want to advertise on CostPerNews.”

Then we trade niceties and hang up.

These are also the same potential advertisers who ask questions such as:

• “So, what kind of stuff do you cover on the blog?”
• “Do you cover CPA Networks?”
• “Are you going to Vegas, dude?”
• “Can you do a post about our new programs if we sponsor you?”
• “Could you put a few affiliate links in the posts?”
• “So what’s the difference between your blog and advertising in Revenue Magazine?”
• “Can we preview your posts before you put them up so that our legal can approve them?”
• “Can we do a pay per post arrangement?”
• “What do you think is the future of affiliate marketing?”

Those are actual questions I’ve gotten in the last few weeks from potential advertisers who have contacted me. I keep a notebook for the good ones.

So, my point is that you can’t measure blogs with things such as page views or ranks. Especially in a niche industry. Read the Long Tail people… it’s a good quick read. If you are thinking about advertising here, please please please at least read the blog (or at least a few posts) before contacting me. This is not a splog and I don’t care to dilute the content just to get a few dollars from people who don’t take the time to either click around here or at least google my name.

Take the time to get to know your audiences and take the time to get to know the places where you might be placing your brand.

Interesting times, my friends.

The Affiliate Blog List has morphed into BUMPzee! (complete with exclamation point). This all came out of a blog post a few months back.

Scott Jangro, the brains behind the project and nominee for Best Blogger (I can’t wait to see who wins in all of the areas…pretty stacked competition in every category) at this month’s Affiliate Summit in Vegas, writes:

What’s with that name? I decided to go broader than affiliate marketing in the name, though that’s all there is on the site right now. Personally, I belong to a few other communities and I can see the same sort of thing developing, but they wouldn’t mix with the affiliate stuff very well. So, with future growth in mind, I went with a silly web 2.0 type name.

So, affiliate marketers, this is your website. Create an account, spiff up your profile, keep up with industry news, and create your own. Pretty soon, I’m hoping this will be a place to connect with other affiliate marketers all over the world. Personally, in a very short time it’s been responsible for my own meeting of several new people. And that’s pretty cool.

That is pretty cool, Scott.

This is exactly the type of tool our industry needs to use since we’re not adapting to the notion of RSS on a mass level. Instead, BUMPzee! offers a chance to aggregrate the content from lots of sites, see what others are finding relevant, and communicate in a social atmposphere.

The idea is that there are lots of affiliate marketing blogs to go through. We all have our feed readers, but may miss a really good entry. If you find a blog entry that you like, come here an give it a bump.

Say what you want about web2.0, but this is going to connect people, help people be discovered, allow the cream to rise to the top, and elevate the nature of discourse in the industry.

Great job, Scott. Keep it coming.

That’s a “we” in the sense of all of us and a “you” in the sense of someone doing something without much help or expectation of help/community from others.

Take the new open source alternative to the iPhone.

Completely open Linux base and you can customize to your hearts delight. No contract, no proprietary code to keep you out (except for the GPS but that’s hackable… and the iPhone doesn’t even have GPS as Scoble has pointed out).

Here’s a chart comparing the iPhone with the OpenMoko…

http://www.linuxtogo.org/gowiki/OpenMoko/iPhone

Interesting stuff.

So it has far less memory and no camera. You can add an SD card for up to 2 gigs and the camera… well… yeah, that’s a bummer. But, I’d rather have my soul than a camera on my phone.

I’m buying one, and you should too. Tell Jobs and AT&T where to stick their DRM. Stand up for your right to own what’s yours.

Who wants to help me build an open source CPA network?

I’m starting tomorrow. Let me know if you’re interested.

Yes, I’m dead serious!

Other networks, affiliates, merchants, tech guys, Firefox programmers, Linux programmers, consultants, Partner Makers, Affiliate Things, speakers of Porter-ese, guys with guylights and even SEO’ers are welcome to join the construction crew. Completely open source code and transparency from top to bottom. You can even take the code and start our own flavor of network.

It’s going to change the world (or at least what we’ve thought of as “affiliate marketing“) … why wouldn’t you want to help? Life’s too short not to dream big and work for good. This is the ultimate form of that good for our industry.

Open it up, distrubute the tools, encourage the debate and the mashing of teeth and watch the spirit of human ingenuity do the rest. Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. So are you!