I think most successful bloggers can be coined as Mavens, when they find something that offers a genuine usefulness, they will share this information with everyone, not for their own gain, but with the hopes that others will enjoy this information as much as they have.

I have come across an awesome (free) twitter tool that I would love to share with everyone who owns a site that is also looking to grow twitter followers, while making additional revenue!

My long time industry friend Mike Tito hit me up a few months back to let me know he was involved with a new start up company called LiveIntent led by Matt Keiser (founder of Datran) that had developed a new very cool technology to help grow twitter followers. I was intrigued….

How it works:

- A free drop down window allows for multiple follows on a single click.

- The user can go through and select or dis-select which social personalities they like.

- Once they hit the “follow” button a pop up will ask them to log into twitter (unless they are not logged in). The user is never taken away from the website.

- Along with the website publisher personalities they could also bring advertisers within the window, to bring extra revenues to the site.

If you are interested in adding this tool to your site, reach out to me and I will queue you up directly with Mike.

For all those who do not know there was a unique diet product that started in the UK called The Pink Patch. The product is a small patch that you stick on your body in an inconspicuous place that is similar to a band aide that suppresses your appetite and gives you energy. This product was marketed so heavily in the UK a few years back that it has developed quite a recognizable brand.

This product has many features that help it sell:

- appetite control
- boost energy levels
- contains 5-HTP, which is a natural mood enhancer
- relieves symptoms of PMS
- contains natural ingredients such as Lecithin and Flaxseed which help break down cholesterol and boost your immune system.

There are even additional tips you can blog to the user about to make it work at its optimum:

- If you drink alcohol, step away from the keg and drink vino, as its better for you - packed with anti-oxidants.
- Drink lots of water: clears your skin, flushes your system, keeps skin supple and less likely to wrinkle prematurely.
- Need energy? Drink Green Tea instead of Coffee.

Who doesn’t want a magic little patch to get them skinny?? This is a unique diet product that stands out amongst the rest that already has a creditable, recognizable brand name .

The Pink Patch product available in France, Spain and Germany. France is showing the best conversions right now and would be the one to try first.

At the most recent 202 Meetup that AKMG co-hosted here in LA, we had Alex Tsatkin speak on the topic of running offers on Facebook. He brought up a good point that I think I should have everyone be aware of, if they are not already. Most networks set up international redirects on their offers, meaning if an offer is being displayed out of the intended geo target, then another offer will be displayed in its place so not to waste the traffic. This means it is best to use the actual url instead of the tracking link during the approval process so you do not risk having an unrelated offer be displayed during the approval process. You should do this for both domestic and international offers- just because Facebook may outsource some of their approval process, so you never know where the person is that is viewing your ad. Once the ads are approved switch to your affiliate link.

Everyone will agree that online gambling is one of the most lucrative online businesses next to the adult industry and is expected to continue to grow. The casino space is mature, saturated and competitive. Bingo is a unique approach to online gaming because it targets a whole different demographic. Historically online gaming targets men, however Bingo appeals to women and silver surfers (over 65ers) with free time - who incidentally spend the most time online, 4 more hours than the most active internet users according to a recent study.

Bingo offers users a social environment that allows players to interact with each other. People not only go there to gamble but they go there to make friends and chat on a daily basis with other regular bingo players. As you can see this is allows affiliates a unique angle to market online gaming.

If you haven’t tried to diversify affiliate campaign portfolio, maybe online Bingo is something to consider. We recently launched 2 very good international bingo offers that pay on a download. Ask our affiliate managers for suggestions on how to market these programs.

In search engine marketing you will hear about two main strategies: long tail and short tail, otherwise known as broad keywords and narrow keywords. Long tail is a coined search term used to describe the targeting less-competitive niche markets rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords.

If you take a look at this graph below you will see there is a direct correlation between search volume and conversion rates.

Many debates have been made against which is the better strategy - going for shear volume, with lower conversions. Or reaching a more targeted small audience that produces higher conversion rates. Or reaching a more targeted small audience that produces higher conversion rates.

Lets think about a case in study: Buying a new TV

I start off searching for “TVs” or “TV reviews” because I am not sure which type, size or brand I wanted and needed to collect more info. The paid search vendors stretch all the way down the side of the page. Since price is a factor I narrowed my selection down to some specific types - so I narrowed my search down to “plasma TVs” or “flat screen TVs”, once I knew what size I wanted I narrowed it even more to “52” plasma TV.”

After further research I decide to go with a “Pioneer 52” Plasma HD TV,” which takes me directly to a paid search link that Best Buy has posted advertising 15% off. Best Buy is only one of 4 paid search listings on the right hand side.

This case study example tells me that long tail search user are closer to purchasing opposed to not just collecting information, essentially driving up your costs with clicks that do not lead to sales. Your long tail keywords might not drive as many viewers as “TVs” does, however if you optimize your page for those specific keywords you will experience a higher conversion rate.

The final days of summer means one thing for kids, that their care free summer is ending and the first day of school is nearing. While many children anticipate this day, parents may become anxious due to the additional expenses of back-to-school shopping. In these tough economic times parents must shell out additional dollars to cover expenses of books, clothes, school supplies and more. According to the National Retail Federation 2009 Back-to-school spending amongst the school aged and college aged consumers will reach $47.5 billion.

According to the survey, the economy is having a major impact on back to school spending as 4 out of 5 Americans have made changes in their spending habits. 56.2% will be hunting for sales, 49.6% plan to spend less, 41.7% will be shopping for generic brands, 40% will increase their use of coupons and 22.2% will be looking online for bargains.

Another interesting study done by Compete, a site analytics software concluded that keywords for Staples.com increased by 332% while Walmart.com increased by 23% and target by 61%. This tells us that more and more consumers are shopping online for their back to school needs.

Affiliates should take advantage of this high spending season, and focus this month on running EDU and back-to school related campaigns. We have updated our Ink and Toner offer: Simply Ink, with all new back to school creative along with an additional 10% off coupon for even more savings on top of the already low prices. Contact your affiliate manager for more info.

I feel that in order for one to fully maximize their creative potential it is essential to be organized and manage your work flow in a tamed and controlled environment. Chaos and clutter will only lead to unfinished projects weighing on ones psyche.

One of the most important techniques for staying organized is utilizing the “in-bin”. According to David Allen, who wrote a book called Getting Things Done, emptying the in-bin can be one of the most critical improvements for almost all of the people he has worked with. He outlines the process in detail:

▪ What is it? Is it actionable?

▪ If not, trash it, put it in a tickler file or put it in a reference file.

▪ If so, what’s the next action? The next action is defined as the next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion.

▪ Will next action take less than 2 minutes?

▪ If yes, do it.

▪ If no, delegate it or defer it.

▪ If it will take longer than 2 minutes, consider it a project (defined as requiring more than one action step) and put it in your project plans which will be reviewed for actions.

So whether you still keep a tangible desk top “in bin,” use mobile devices, or some other digital means - this process can be applied to any to-do list. Once you have an organized work
flow in place it is much easier to tackle your projects and have the piece of mind to develop creative new ideas and goals.

Mailer Mailer, an email/newsletter platform recently released their email marketing metrics report for 2009. The report was based off all email sent through the software between July 1st - December 21, 2008.

Here is a summary of the data collected:

75% of opens occur within 24 hrs, 85% within 48 hrs.

Overall open rates stand at 12.52%, a decline from the 1st half of 2008- 13.2%, which is in line with the basic overall trend: 17.2% (2nd half 2006), 16.1 (1st half 2007), 13.98 (2nd half 2007).

As the economy worsens banking/finance and real estate opens are on the decline, while spiritual and general consumer goods continues to rise.


Subject lines 35 characters or less gained more attention and had higher click rate then those that were longer than 35 characters. In general open rates decrease as character lengths increase.

When just the message is personalized was there an improvement in opens and clicks. It actually hurt opens and clicks when only the subject was personalized.

Click rates held steady from the first half of 2008 - .08%. However the over trend does show a decrease in click rates from 3% on average in 2007. This report includes a combination of both text and html creative.

General consumer goods, transportation and non for profit had the highest bounce rates. While banking, finance and manufacturing had the best delivery rates.
 


According to a recent 2009 study done by the ReturnPath, they found the average inbox placement rate for permissioned, commercial email in US and Canada was 79.3%. Of the nearly 21% of email that is not delivered to the inbox just 3.3% is sent to the junk folder, and 17.4% is not delivered at all.
In the US Gmail had the highest non delivery rate of 23%, while cox saw the the most deliverability with only 8% non delivery rate. 
 
Although deliverability, opens and clicks are on the decrease and certain industries are affected more than others during a recession, email marketing is still reported to garner the highest ROI among all direct response methods.  A study done by the direct marketing association shows email marketing’s average ROI to be $45.06 for every dollar spent, which is more than double Internet marketing’s ROI of $19.94 for every dollar spent. 

So yes, email marketing continues to live strong.

Social media sites can help you promote your business and develop a stronger more recognized brand. By starting a Twitter, Facebook account and creating a fan page for your company you will engage your customers and place your branding in the forefront of their mind on a daily basis. Depending on the content you write the social media sites tend to move up a lot quicker in the natural search rankings, giving you first page ranking on topics your customers are searching for. You can use these sites to promote your business by sharing upcoming events, updates and information with readers. Remember, users of these sites will pass your SEO content on to others.

By utilizing social media to distribute your content, you will become more widely recognized in your industry. Regardless of what you are marketing, you can get better exposure, increase your web traffic and develop a stronger brand with the kind of free word-of-mouth advertising found only on social sites.

Today more and more companies are emerging to help companies develop and manage their social media marketing strategy. If you have not implemented a social media strategy to communicate with your customers and improve your brand, then I suggest starting to experiment today with these tactics. And trust that our competition already has.

I just spoke to one of my most talented white hat search publishers who got a lifetime ban from Google last week for running continuity products. Has this happened to you? I heard that this happened to quite a few people over the past week or so. This raises some interesting questions… Are the days of flogs, comparison sites and hidden continuity changes really beginning to come to an end? Or will they find a new home on say a PPV platform where many affiliates have turned to market their Acai’s and Colon Cleanses.

If you are as search publisher who is getting down right fed up with Google and Facebook denying their ads and would like to try a new platform such as PPV, talk to one of the account mangers here for a personal referral into one of these networks.