Transcript Missy`s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate

Affiliate Marketing 201
By Missy Ward
@MissyWard
Free (and Nearly Free)!
MissyWard.com
@MissyWard
Independent Plugins
• Pretty Link Lite - Takes long affiliate links and automatically shortens and
masks them into links containing your domain which can be easily
redirected. [http://www.missyward.com/prettylinklite]
• Broken Link Checker – monitors your blog looking for broken links and lets
you know if any are found so that you can redirect them and not lose any
commissions. [http://www.missyward.com/BLC]
• SEO Smart Link – Automatically appends a specific URL any time you
mention a specific word in your blog posts.
[http://www.missyward.com/seo-smart-links]
• Simple Ads Manager – Manage ad placements with very flexible logic and
tracking system [http://www.missyward.com/simple-ads-mgr]
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Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources
Forums:
• aBestWeb.com
• Wickedfire (if you can look past the crudeness of some members)
• DigitalPoint
• Warriorforum
Top 25 Affiliate Marketing Blogs of 2012:
• Get the list here: http://www.missyward.com/top25blogs (2013 is about to be
released)
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Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources
Magazines
• FeedFront Magazine [All affiliate marketing – all of the time, written by the
folks that actually do it.]
• Website Magazine [Caters exclusively to the business of running a website]
• Internet Retailer [Online retailing strategies, marketing practices, technologies,
etc.]
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Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources
Podcasts
• Geekcast.fm Podcast Network [offers dozens of free internet marketing
podcasts, many which are targeted to affiliate marketers]
• Affiliate Buzz by James Martell [Podcasting since 2003 http://jamesmartell.com/category/affiliate-buzz/
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Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources
Webinars & Videos
• Affiliate Summit Youtube Channel – offers over 600 videos from Affiliate
Summit sessions covering just about every affiliate marketing topic there is.
[http://www.youtube.com/affiliatesummit/]
• ShareASale Webinars: Live webinars with content targeted at ShareASale
affiliates [http://www.missyward.com/sasweb]
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Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources
Marketing Tools:
• WatchCount.com – Let’s you see the most watched items and what’s hot on
eBay
• Google Trends – displays “hot searches” of the day and lets you explore the
search volume for keywords.
• Ripplefire.com and OneLoad.com – allows you to publish your videos across
video and social hubs uploading it only once. Also provides tracking.
• Viewbix – Customizable skin that allows you to embed your affiliate link in the
video, newsletter signup, QR codes and more along with provides detailed
analytics. [Tutorial at http://www.missyward.com/viewbix]
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Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources
Marketing Tools (Continued):
• Luminate: Enables your images to be interactive [annotations, sharing, products
in picture]. They share commissions based on product purchases (derived by
image tags) attributed to the picture [Think Adsense for pictures]
• ShareASale’s Make a Page- Enables you to find products related to your
audience and quickly create shopping pages with your ShareASale affiliate links
already embedded.
• Google Analytics Content Experiments - Tool that can be used to create A/B
tests to boost your website conversions.
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Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources
Books
• Extra Money Answer: by Shawn Collins – step by step instruction on how to
build a blog, get traffic and monetize it. $2.99
[http://www.missyward.com/extra-money-answer]
Meetups
• Monthly Free Affiliate Summit Local Meetups in cities across the U.S. and
Canada: [http://www.affiliatesummit.com/meetups]
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Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List
Why should you incorporate list building and marketing into your web
strategy?
• Engage and interact with your audience
• Pre-sell, sell, up-sell and cross-sell
• Increase loyalty (turns first-time customers to repeat customers)
• Push vs. Pull (prevents RSS forgetfulness)
• In-depth tracking
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Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List
Good email marketing vs. Spam
• CAN-Spam (http://www.missyward.com/canspam)
• Opt-in and confirmed
• Can unsubscribe quickly and easily
• Trusted connection
• Targeted and provides value
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Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List
Free Services:
• Feedburner (I’d get off of this. Google shut down Google Reader, why
would they keep Feedburner long term?)
Paid Services:
• Aweber, Vertical Response, Feedblitz, MyNewsletterBulder (Spencer)
iContact, Constant Contact & more.
• Prices based on size of list, number of sends, etc.
• Features to look for:
• Send personalized newsletters (templates, RSS by email)
• Create signup forms for your website or blog
• Create autoresponders
• Deliverability
• Statistics
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Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List
People just don’t give up their email address without a good reason.
How to get folks to sign up to your list
• Define fields to capture
• Convey trust
• Preferential placement on your home page
• Define benefits
• Provide an incentive
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Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List
Tactics to grow your list
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Subscription form on every page
“Forward to a friend”
Optimize current and archived newsletters for Search Engines
Consider PPC
Subscription during checkout
Co-registration
Newsletter reciprocity
Display on all printed materials
Add to signature line in all correspondence
Customer surveys, invoices, packing slips
Include in press releases
Tradeshows
Blog comments
Call center
Post cards
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Missy’s 6 Bonus Nuggets
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Missy’s 6 Bonus Nuggets: The Stuff No One Tells You
1. Beware of URL Shorteners [Blacklisting, transfer of assets, interstitial, adding
their affiliate link]
2. You CAN ask for higher commissions and custom creatives
3. You CAN ask to for first right of refusal on new products
4. You CAN deep link to any page instead of sending traffic to a home page
[most merchants]
5. You MAY be able to run an affiliate link in a post that a PR company has paid
you for. Ask!
6. Optimizing images great for traffic [height/width, file name, alt tag, caption]
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