Whether you are an advertiser, blogger or small business owner there are several things to consider when purchasing a domain.

Keyword Research:
Best to brainstorm 5 keyword terms that most people would search for that best describe your domain. Then once you have those you can add prefixes an suffixes to find an good domain. So if you are looking for Flowers for one might consider the words: Flowers, Bouquet, Gift, Arrangement, Delivery..etc

Top Domain Level:
If you are at all concerned with obtaining “type-in” traffic, branding, or name recognition then it is best to use a .com domain versus .net, .biz, .info. Most people type-in .com so if you have a .net people will visit the .com version first. It is also a good idea to buy up all the other versions of your domain so that others cannot benefit from your traffic or branding - so if you choose MyBouquet.com it is smart to buy up MyBouquet.net, Mybouquet.biz…etc. Also the general rule of thumb - use .org when you want your site to be associated with non for profit.

Make it Easy:
You want your domain to be easy to remember and easy to type. If you want to get clever with play on words and creative spellings just remember people will type it as they heard it and will make it difficult for word of mouth to work. Best to avoid hyphens and numbers for this reason. For example getflowers4someone.com is long, difficult to remember and some people will type in getflowersforsomeone.com.

Use of Intuitive Names:
Domains that tell the user exactly where they are going tend to get more clicks than ones that are creative or ambiguious. For example these domains tell the user exactly what type of content to expect: AutoTrader.com, CareerBuilder.com, WebMD, Cheaptickets.com. Domains such as Monster.com, Amazon.com, Orbitz.com are all very successful examples of non-intuitive domain names, however they more reliant upon their branding.

We all see some fairly clever ads or ad campaigns on a day to day basis.  I actually just saw a new Burger King ad the other day that was definitely not appropriate to even discuss here on my blog, but yet it was still funny. (Google ‘BK Super Seven Incher’).  Anyways, burgers aside - I was reading an article about Vodafone.  Vodafone is going to begin a campaign called “The Taxi Grand Prix”.  This very creative ad campaign ties along with Vodafone’s sponsorship of the 2009 McClaren F1 team.  Basically, this campaign will use Vodafone’s GPS and location based services to monitor and follow 10 specific United Kingdom cabbies in real time as they participate in the same number of miles that the F1 car would would do in a single race.

Contestants would pick a team of two Vodafone sponsored taxis from the total of 10 taxis scattered throughout the five major cities in the U.K.  The team that can finish the race distance first over the course of their working week will win.  And the users can track their team cabbies using the live GPS through the ‘Taxi Grand Prix’ site.

Vodafone really wants to have some stake in the location based realm of advertising and more recently, they have announced they would be testing a lot of location-aware ad products this summer.  Vodafone will probably have a lot of followers with this campaign because of the involvement with F1 racing, which has a large number of followers.  Not only will consumers be aware of Vodafone’s campaign, but also aware of their leeway into the location based technologies world.

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The Graphical Version of the MD5 Algorithm

If you’re an affiliate marketer, specifically an email publisher, you may have noticed a large move in the encryption of suppression lists, specifically MD5-hash encryption.  If you are unfamiliar, here’s an overview of how MD5 suppression works and why they’re becoming a larger part of the email compliance world.

Basically, MD5 calculates a hash for each record (in this case, for each email address) and ouputs a “hash”, which is a unique hex number containing alphanumeric values (numbers and alphabetical characters). Here is an example of what an MD5-hashed value would look like:
4a9d970a38b63f32496638e519ff34b3

Usubcentral, one of the largest providers of suppression utilities and management for email marketers, is one of the primary introducers of this process into the marketing realm, so I will use their process as a specific example.

How MD5 hashing/encryption works in regard to email marketing:
- An advertiser has their suppression list(s) uploaded into the Unsubcentral system.  It is then encrypted into MD5 hash.
- The emailer uploads their encrypted ’send’ list across a secure channel.
- The list is automatically encrypted.
- The system scrubs the send list against matching MD5 values, so if you had:
4a9d970a38b63f32496638e519ff34b3 in you list, and the suppression list had the same value, the record would be scrubbed.
- The list is decrypted and sent back to the emailer in readable, unhashed format.

Why is this a good idea?  Simply put, the advertiser, emailer, and unsubcentral never ‘handle’ or ’see’ any of the readable email addresses.  This prevents a slew of issues from happening, specifically suppression abuse, in which suppression lists are stolen and ’sent to’ as if they were normal opt-in data.

We find that many advertisers have made the move to do this, while many have not.  What are your thoughts on MD5 encrypted suppression processes?  Let me know!

1. Performance Marketing. At my old agency, we had a mantra of “Keep the best, discard the rest.” Problem was, we couldn’t always tell what was actually working and what wasn’t, and the client ended up loosing quite a bit of money trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Not to mention, the client essentially had to pay to play regardless of whether or not the campaign actually worked. That may have flied last year, but in today’s tight economy, advertisers need to show results to prove they are spending marketing budget wisely. Hence today’s ad agency layoff frenzy. What a fabulous time to be in the CPA world, i.e. one in which clients to only pay for new sales or leads generated. Don’t get me wrong, I heart branding and creativity and advertising award shows along with the best of them, but Cost-per-action is money better spent, pure and simple.

2. Time is money. In my previous life working on direct mail and radio and TV, analyzing results took months post facto. With campaigns always over budget and projections always overly optimistic, we rarely had the resources to implement our learnings! It was a tragic, yet common story. The beauty of affiliate marketing and online media is  real time tracking. You can make tweaks and instantaneously see improvements - for minimal costs! Moreover, we don’t have to wonder if it was the testing we did in the TV campaign or different efforts of the client’s thousand other agencies effecting our campaigns. My clients’ return-on-investment is as clear as day.

3. Put in more effort than your competitors and you will be handsomely rewarded. You want to go the extra mile researching your competition? You want to spend more time split testing and carefully gauging results to optimize your page? You will be smiled upon by the revenue gods. In the agency world, you have to pay your dues to get ahead. At networks you earn your keep and get rewarded accordingly. So while my offline peers are waiting for their annual review to get a pat on the back for the work they did months ago, I’ll raise a glass and toast to getting out what you put in…

4. Politics. I <3 Obama (and as a Chitown Chica, I voted for him to be Senator before I voted for him to be President!). I love debating current events over wine and laughing at the Daily Show. But I don’t love office politics. And in the rapid-fire pace of the affiliate marketing world, there simply is no time and no need for office formalities. I take pride in the fact that I work for such a forward-thinking company with a genuine open-door policy. I don’t have to submit a proposal, pitch it to my boss to pitch to her boss without telling so-and-so to avoid hurt feelings and hope I get a meeting by next quarter. I can simply send an email, or dare I say it, walk into the President or CEOs office and state my case. Done and done.

5. The fountain of youth. We work in a young, hip industry. Age ain’t nothing but a number, but ambition is timeless. We work hard and play hard. And you gotta love the dress code. The last day I wore a collared button up to work was…my interview?

Comments? Fan mail? Death threats? Send em my way! eleah@akmg.com

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Wordpress to wescue!  As of this month, if you’re a Wordpress blogger or bloggette, you can now use the SocialVibe-WorldPress widget to  support your charities of choice. This widget enables bloggers to donate money generated from brand advertisers that the bloggers choose to be the sponsor from the list of 30  or so given. Donations are earned every time readers engage with the widget.  Bloggers can switch their cause and sponsor as often as their big, giving heart desires, and they receive regular updates from their charity about goal progress and impact.

So far so good. SocialVibe has raised close to half a million dollars for charities this year.  For the brands involved, this platform provides a golden opportunity to get unique endorsements in a highly engaging manner within social media. And the bloggers can sleep soundly knowing that finally, their blog is actually making a difference in the world. For more information about the SocialVibe-WordPress widget, check out http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/socialvibe/.

Saving the world one widget at a time,

E

If you’re an affiliate marketer,  or any breed of internet marketer, you are quite familiar with the benefits (and flaws) of cookie-based tracking.  Cookies are 100% dependent on the end-user’s browser settings and other machine-level rules.  What if a consumer has javascript disabled?  Will you still get credited for your conversions?

While, here at AKMG, we implement tracking so that a conversion will be tracked regardless of a user’s machine having javascript / cookies enabled, many do not, and a large number of conversions dissipate into outer-space, all at the loss of the publisher.

Many newer, Web 2.0-esque programming languages function in such a way that a page / page with a form does NOT have to be refreshed to send/receive more data and perform further functions.  This is completely new to visitors of older sites / users of older web applications who have become accustomed to the linear and visually tangible process of: “Enter Information –> Submit Information –> Receive New Information,”  all occurring in separate page phases in redirection.  Web 2.0 languages like AJAX allow all of this to occur on the ’same page’, so that a user never has to ‘move on’ to another page.  This can pose a problem for tracking mechanisms that rely largely on the URL redirection process (which usually involve  processes similar to GET or POST(ing) form data.

We will be switching over to the new version of our system next month which will allow merchants who plan to have future products/services with AJAX front-ends.  On top of pixel tracking (script / noscript), we’ll have clickURL tracking which will track cookie and image pixel free.  This is done simply by activating a URL which triggers the same process of a ‘pixel fire’ on the back-end.

Have any more questions about tracking technologies and those that are under development?  Let me know!

I just made it back from Denver for the debut of the first inaugural Affiliate Convention. First off let me give props to Brandy Shapiro-Babin and her team at Webmaster Radio for organizing this show, I know it wasn’t an easy task and came off very organized with a great line-up of familiar speakers including Tim Ash, Heather Paulson, Evan Weber and Kris Jones touching on interesting topics such as Landing Page Optimization, Social Media Negotiation Tactics, Industry Trends and Mobile Marketing.

I really love the venue and location of the show, Denver is a great great city and a nice central location for east and west coasters to meet. The Convention Center itself is conveniently located right downtown with tons of great bars and restaurants perfect for after show dinners and mixers.

Both the parties and presentations were great places to network, the only area lacking was the trade room floor as it was 2 rows of booths occupied by the usual affiliate networks. Being that this is the first year I am sure the showroom floor will grow with exhibitors, but lets face it most affiliates go for education, networking and parties so I am confident to say that most people would classify this show as a success!

Let me start by giving a definition to this term ‘HoloCam Marketing’.  HoloCam Marketing could be defined as the process of using a webcam and a clever piece of programming to create the appearance of a three dimensional hologram that you can interact with.  I know it sounds a little weird that this technology is a form of marketing, but it true.  I am not sure if any of you have seen the new technology that XBox recently released, called Natal that allows you to interact in this exact way when you play video games.  You can scan your skateboard into the system and then ride in your favorite skateboarding game.  All with the use of no remotes, only a webcam.  (Trust me, google XBox Natal-it will blow you away).  And earlier this week the United States Postal Service created a new feature on their site called the “Virtual Box Simulator”.  Through the use of the webcam, this service recognizes a piece of paper that you hold, and makes an image of a box appear in your hands and you can movie it around in any direction as if it were real, and in your own hands.  This is nothing more than a toy but let me tell you that this form of technology does creep into the world of marketing, and it works really well!

There is one thing for sure, when you experience this technology for yourself, you will be talking about it. A lot.  You won’t be able to help but tell everyone you know.  The fact that there is an interaction with this technology makes it all more interesting and fun.  Also, there is no need for you to go buy any more hardware or software to be able to access this technology.  There is no real wall between this technology and the general public means that it will reach a lot bigger audience.   Even if it something that may seem a little ‘too much’ for a lot of people, there will always be that lingering curiosity as to how it actually works and may bring a lot of traffic to your site, regardless if it is of interest to someone.  This new method of technology will help marketers greatly for all of the reasons I previously stated.  I personally think it is pretty cool and I will definitely be checking and following how this marketing trend folds out!

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What a lot of people are beginning to talk about is the tax issue that could be in place for affiliate marketers.  The root of this tax issue is simply physical location -or nexus (nerdage alert).  Each state is attempting to make virtual storefronts taxable.  If you own a small business in Chicago, you must collect sales tax on all purchases.  The consumer is the one that owes the tax to the state, but merchants simplify this and collect the tax and give it back to the state.  Merchants don’t “pay” the tax, they just ‘collect’ it.

Now when you bring this model to the online world it get a little bit more tricky.  There are no physical store locations, so you would only collect taxes from consumers who live in the same state as you.  If your company is based in Chicago, and a shopper from Chicago buys something, you must collect the tax from them.  You are not required to have to collect tax from any other consumer from anywhere else on the planet.

Since you are based in Illinois, you have a physical presence there.  If you have an office in California, and a warehouse in Maine, then you have a physical presence in those two states as well.  Tax would be collected from consumers from all three states.

We all know (especially here in California) that every state needs money, and now they want to collect sales tax from their residents who shop online who technically owe sales tax on the purchases they make anyways.  The thing is, to get  this tax payment - it would have to come from the merchant.  Either way, this tax is not something the consumer or the merchant want to have to deal with.  With our current economy, consumers don’t want to pay more when they shop online.

As a merchant, you want to be prepared for something like this.  You need to be able to collect this tax from residents of more state than you may have previously planned for.  This is something you don’t want to let blindside you.

Currently, the anti-affiliate legislation bill would have to pass on a per state basis.  So far, according to the PMA, it has passed in Minnesota and Rhode Island.  To do your part to campaign against this tax bill, you can send in letters to your state representatives and help to make a difference. You can also post warnings about the legislation on your blog or send e-mails to your fellow affiliates in the state warning them.  You want to do whatever you can to spread the word.

The affiliate community, and some other anti-tax groups opposed to this and have been keeping up a good fight.  As affiliate marketers, you want to make sure that you keep a watchful eye on legislation and make sure that this doesn’t make its way into the affiliate marketing community.

For updates on your state on anti-affiliate legislation, click here 

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Have you noticed if you post up a profile on Facebook or LinkedIn and do a natural search for yourself you come up first page rankings same day? That is because social media fits in perfectly with Google’s current algorithm that wants to see “authoritative names,” “original content,” “high page rank.” Having a profile on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. gives you exactly that. Creating a profile on any/all of these sites gives automatic authority and credibility on the internet.

One can spend a tens of thousands of dollars on an SEO strategy, to allow customers to find you. Your site may rank #1 but what happens if a competitor or one unhappy customer launches bad reviews about your product/service on a blog site or shopping site that allows for customer reviews that shows up #2. Nowadays more and more people are turning to social media as their resource for information to make purchasing decisions.

You can see why it is important to integrate social media as an integral part of your marketing and SEO strategy, not only for ranking and exposure but plays a key part in one’s reputation management.