72 Kilowatts Internet Marketing

Flight 3407

Wasn’t sure I was going to comment on this here, but I suppose I’d regret it down the road if I didn’t.

Just wanted to say that I’m still a little stunned by last night’s crash, and feeling pretty sad about it.  Not sure I could say it any better than the Sabres below in this video.  A lot of them live in that neighborhood, and were very close by.

God bless everyone touched by this incident.

Who’s Reading your forum? Does the Internet Affect a Player’s Trade Value in Professional Sports?

Since hockey has been deemed the official sport of affiliate marketing by a semi-reliable source, and with the NHL’s trade deadline rapidly approaching, I started thinking about the things a lot of internet marketers think about on a daily basis.

Just who’s reading what I write?

With the proliferation of commenting systems on national sports publications, and the incredible volume of fan blogs, forums, and rumor sites, I started wondering if the people in the know at NHL clubs ever go out and read what local fans think of players they might be interested in.

As an example, take a thread that might appear at Sabresfans.com.  Granted, threads on big stars (or potential big stars) might not carry that much weight in a teams trade making decisions.  So we all know Tim Connolly is hurt a lot.  And we all know that Jason Pominville is having a dreadful season statistically.  But they bring with them a lot of upside.

However, what about 3rd and 4th line players that get thrown into trades, or that might be the target of a team looking to round out their roster for a deep playoff run.  Could a post indicating that a perfectly servicable checking line right wing, written by a fan, and then agreed with by many others, indicating that the player in question takes “too many nights off”, or is “soft on the road” be read by a prospective suitor?  Might it influence that players UFA market value, or trade value?

At this point, I think probably not.  But it does beg the question of who is reading these fan debates.

It also points to another question:  If GM’s aren’t reading these boards, should they be?

Fans post with their hearts, most often, and occassionally just to make a name (albeit a screen name) for themselves.  But I also wonder how much they should criticize a guy that they’d like to see traded.  They may be inadvertantly insuring that he isn’t….

Toolbars, Shoppers, and Affiliates. Isn’t your website good enough?

Let’s make no mistake about it.  Cookie over writing due to cause marketing, cash back marketing, and other forms of loyalty marketing is either more prevalent now or as prevalent as it always was.  And it costs affiliates like myself every single day.  And one one level, perhaps the simplest level, it’s bad for the affiliate marketing industry.

I’ve argued for these elements to have a separate channel in the past, but some wise affiliate marketers pointed out that it’s too easy for a merchant to then manually kill the affiliate commission on the back end, similar to the way merchants that operate on two separate networks do already.  In other words, the merchant still picks the winner.

Of late, with Shareasale’s announcement that they are looking into dealing with the issue, perhaps through monitored inclusion, the age old question of a network’s responsibility has reached a critical point again.  Some solid arguments have been made indicating that SAS is already allowing applications into the fold that violate their current TOS.  And that may well be true, but equally as true is that the TOS needs to be modified to keep up with the way the Internet works, and more importantly, how shoppers are using the Internet to make buying decisions.  A full discussion from the affiliate perspective can be found at Abestweb.

As an example, Youtube has surpassed Yahoo for searches, and we can conclude (as well as seeing some definite data) that purchasing research is being done at Youtube.  And since Google owns Youtube, and has a shopping network… well, you draw your own dotted line.

Microsoft Live has a cashback toolbar that rewards shoppers for using it.  Where is that going to fit into the affiliate click stream as it becomes more popular?

What about popular applications, such as MIRO,  that have added Firefox extensions that remind users that cash back or charitable donations might be available by “clicking here”?

Lastly, what if, and this is a critical element for me, but not necessarily shared by some affiliates… but WHAT IF the consumer actually wants to use the toolbar?  Drive by installs are far less frequent, so we can say with a certain amount of confidence that the shopper is in many ways influencing the way networks and merchants need to consider the issue.

My opinion on this whole issue is modified daily, as additional info comes out on how, why and how often our commissions are being interfered with.

Currently, I would say this:

1.)  A toolbar, extension, or any other software/coding related element should NEVER interfere with the content of my pages.

2.)  These elements must also not influence a potential shopper on my site in any way that defeats the overall purpose of affiliate marketing, which by the way is not simply to pay commissions. As Haiko has pointed out, it’s to SELL.  An affiliates job is to SELL.

3.)  We must be mindful as to the wishes of our page visitors. If they want cash back, and they have installed an application in order to support that, we need to think about how to deal with that as an industry.*  That asterisk is a big footnote, btw.  See below.

4.)  We must remember that ultimately, a merchant says what flies in their programs. If SAS decided they want to allow door to door salespeople in the network, each merchant can still decline those salespeople.  An argument has been made that certain networks made it easier for merchants to run on auto pilot, and accept more affiliates under the often mistaken pretense that those affiliates were clean.  I say the merchants have due dilligence to perform regardless of their network choice.

*  Here’s the footnote, and I believe it’s an important one.  If a website is doing an effective job of selling, they have no need for a toolbar.

A consumer who wants cashback through a service should have incentive enough to begin their shopping session with that service. As such, the need for a toolbar is minimized.

So in conclusion, I’d ask this of affiliates that seem to think they need a toolbar to be successful:  What have you done to ensure consumers generate a “good cookie” when they go shopping?  Shouldn’t your website stand on it’s own?

Is your permission reminder getting you blocked?

I had posted another great link to the MailChimp blog a few weeks ago regarding writing effective permission reminders that will help reduce the amount of times you get reported for spamming (assuming you’re not spamming, of course).

This week, Ben added another invaluable resource via a blog post that really gave me pause for thought.  He indirectly asked if your permission reminder might be getting you hung up in spam filters because of its language:

“You registered with a partner” - If the body of your email contains that phrase, chances are very good that your email list is not permission-based. This actually sets off a few red flags in MailChimp’s list setup process,  (we get alerted when people enter that into their permission reminder), and I was pleasantly surprised to see that spam filters look for it too.

Note that the spam filters are specifically searching for the word partner in this case.  I have often used the word partner for one set of newsletters I send out a few times a month to an opted in list.  In the case of these newsletters, they really do target partners, so I add that into the permission reminder.

The open rates are pretty good, especially considering the industry (which I know thanks to MailChimp’s awesome performance evaluation tools).  But I also know that our list is very nicely targeted, so I’m hoping for better.

Curiously, and also due to the nature of the industry I’m targeting, we have a lot of ISP based email addresses… AOL.com, xxxxx.rr.com, etc.  Upon reading this blog post, I’m going to be doing some A/B testing to determine whether or not having Partner in the permission reminder is really effecting the open rate, presumably because the email is being directed into a Spam filter, regardless of how carefully I am wording the subject lines and email bodies.

Not sure MailChimp has “in house” tools to modify Permission Reminders in a true A/B test, so I might have the segment the list on my own, and do 2 separate campaigns.

A little deeper thought on this:

The filter is triggering because of the fear that the list is based off of email addresses that “registered with a partner”.  In other words, it’s a shared list with what would potentially be a completely unrelated vertical, and therefore making it either true spam, or at the very least, a very un-targeted list.  So I can’t blame the ISP for upping the SPAM score.

Makes you wonder though if you are over thinking your permission reminder.  It is a place where you want to build trust and confidence, but in some cases, perhaps at your own peril.

Affiliate Marketing on Ice

In response to Mr. Jangro’s assertion that hockey is the official sport of affiliate marketing, I’ve decided to elaborate as to not only why he’s right, but further as to why affiliate marketing is EXACTLY LIKE the NHL.

These days, the affiliate marketing industry seems to be even more maligned than usual.  It’s disparate, fractured, and some days, down right ornery.  We can draw a rather nice comparison with the NHL here.  I’m picking 7 teams, and telling you where they fit in the affiliate marketing world.  And then reading this, hopefully you can add in where your favorite team or element of affiliate marketing fits into the grid.

New York Rangers:  Cookie stuffing, free agent grabbing backstabbers.  Like any BHO, the Rangers are witnessed by many, and hated by all.  And the best part?  Over the years, they’ve had only limited success.  Goes to show that there’s a validation to being righteous.  See also:  Philadelphia Flyers.

Detroit Red Wings:  The Wings, to me, are one of the uber cash back sites that obey network T&C’s.  There’s no way I can compete with them, but it’s mostly  home grown talent.  Franchises like this are rare, and deserve most of the respect and income, as well as the Championships, that they get.

Montreal Canadians:  These are the affiliate sites that used to do well with CDNow and selling Bonsai trees.  But their reluctance to change with the times, and not work with anyone but French Canadians for many years has set them back almost too far to be taken seriously anymore.

Buffalo Sabres:    Wordpress affiliates.  Always have some good ideas and a bunch of talent, but they are on Wp-o-Matic…. errrrm, auto pilot half of the time.

Phoenix Coyotes:  Shall we compare them to SAS and Avantlink?  Tons of talent running the show, and in the trenches, but not enough people pay attention to them.

New York Islanders:   Pathetic.  Just pathetic.  Please see any of my old affiliate sites.

Boston Bruins:  Who cares?

So there’s my take on affiliate marketing and hockey.  I’m sure we can add many more similes over time.  Maybe even some metaphors.  Like the PMA and the NHLPA for example?

Nah.  Let’s not go there.

Google SEM Retraction

Having spoken to Google, it turns out they haven’t added a 4th top slot.  The Google Analytics data shows info from the Google Search Partner network, some of whom have a fourth slot on top of the SERPs.

So what the data does show, since we don’t get many clicks there by comparison, is that either the Google Search partner network is weak, or the 4th slot is weak.

I’ll let you figure that all out.

Google playing with a 4th AdWords spot above the SERPs?

I have a call into my Googler to confirm, but I’m showing some interesting results in my Analytics account recently as it relates to my Google AdWords performance.

It appears as though Google MAY BE, and I stress MAY BE, playing with a 4th AdWords spot on top of the SERPs.

I haven’t been able to reproduce it outside of simply seeing it in Analytics, but it certainly would make sense that Google would squeeze the cash box during the holidays, as well as while facing the same economic uncertainty the rest of us are.

And I’m only seeing this reported on really hyper competitive keywords.  Our long tail isn’t recording any 4th slot impressions.

So between 4 AdWords ads, and potentially 3 Google Base listings, SEO is looking to be pushed on down the list of valuable marketing activities for hyper competitive key terms.  As though it was any fun to begin with.

Hot Charity, or why your favorite coupon site is losing money.

[Source of this info, and a great read for anyone who understands how the mechanics of visitor tracking works:  Abestweb on LinkShare, Rakuten, and OneCause.]

Apart from being a great Rocket from the Crypt offering, Hot Charity seems to be par for the course at Rakuten these days.  Rakuten, for anyone that ambles by here and doesn’t know, is the the parent company of LinkShare, a major affiliate marketing network.

At issue here is the means by which charitable funds are collected, and not the charities they are delivered to.  We all know that charity is a good thing, when administered properly, so in no way should this post be viewed as a sign that I don’t support the idea of charity, or the charities that this Rakuten subsidiary represents.

At issue more specifically is OneCause.  OneCause offers a toolbar for you, the consumer, to download and install on your PC.  The toolbar sits up near the top of your screen when you have Firefox or Internet Explorer open, and then reminds you when you are shopping that the merchant is willing to donate to a charity if you make a purchase.  You then click a little button, you go back to OneCause’s home page, and then you are re-directed back to the merchant to complete your purchase.

On some levels, this isn’t really an issue, and you might think that it doesn’t affect you at the end of the day, as a consumer.

It get’s complicated when you consider the means by which this collection takes place.  OneCause uses a marketing channel known as the affiliate marketing channel to track these purchases (the tracking is actually done by LinkShare, another Rakuten company).  The original idea behind this channel was to allow pay for performance advertising for merchants and affiliated sites.  An example of an affiliate would be some of those coupon sites, or product review sites, you all like to visit.  In order for those coupon sites to stay profitable, they count on commissions paid to them as affiliates by the merchants they refer you to, or give you a coupon for.

However, if you’re then clicking on that toolbar from OneCause in order to make your donation, guess where that commission goes?  You guessed it:  OneCause, who then give a percentage to charity.

So the coupon site, or product review site, or your favorite blogger, or WHOEVER loses out.

So what’s the solution?

Simple:  Get the charity based companies out of the affiliate channel and into their own channel.

Until this happens, small valuable websites will be run under by these toolbar monsters, and larger sites that you use everyday will be a bit more cash strapped as well.

And it does affect you, the consumer.  While OneCause at least donates a percentage to charity, there are other toolbar monsters out there that keep it all for themselves.  Imagine!  So by charging the merchant a commission to make a purchase you were going to make anyways, they are adding a layer of cost that YOU will end up paying for.

Great E-Mail Marketing Permission Reminder post by Ben at MailChimp

I make no secrets about being in love with MailChimp.  I believe they are a step above their competition

Opted in Bananas

when it comes to technology and ethics.

That said, Ben at MailChimp put together this EXCELLENT piece on writing your permission reminders for your email subscribers.

Instead of writing, “You’re receiving this email because you’re a customer” try something more like, “You’re receiving this email because you’re a customer who opted-in for emails when you purchased something from our online store.” Or, “You’re receiving this email because you signed up for email specials while making a purchase at one of our stores.”

I have to admit I haven’t always written the best permission reminders, but with the coaching in Ben’s piece, I suspect I will get better at it.  And since I’m a firm believer that sending emails to people that don’t want them is a bad business practice, not to mention a waste of time and resources, it’s clear that your permission reminder should in fact be personal, communicative, and specific.

They wanted your email, right?  (Right???  I sure hope so.)  So feel free to engage them in all parts of your email.  Not just the sales copy…  The permission reminder is just another way to do that, as well as covering your… you know.

Converting PMS Color to HTML Ready Colors

I was pulling my hair out trying to match PMS or Pantone colors to Hex or RGB (HTML Notation) until I found this excellent web page:

Zeald.Com Resources:  Convert Pantone Colours to RGB

That got bookmarked right quick.  Thanks Zeald for providing that great resource for web designers.

(As a side note, I know Photoshop can accomplish this, but I use Gimp and haven’t figured it out there yet.  I also know that this form of color matching is not an exact science, so to speak.)