Some years ago, Keyen Farrell authored a guide to incentive promoting titled Mastering Incentive Websites. In it, Keyen Farrell shared his observations of the trade and detailed the steps he took to create Topaz Financial, a network of Incentive Websites that ultimately drove more than 100,000 advertiser actions. Topaz Financial was conjointly chronicled within the Spring 2006 Issue of Colby Magazine. As we have a tendency to head into a brand new decade, Keyen Farrell desires to share two items of advice that he hopes people who currently are in or aspire to be in incentive marketing, might find useful.
Free Trials are The New Leads
Several years ago there was no shortage of advertisers desperate to partner with incentive marketers on a pay-per-lead basis. It’s readily apparent that the pay-per-lead has gone the way of the dodo. The few pay-per lead programs that stay grant payouts well below what is required to actively promote them. Pay-per-lead offers have invariably been the incentive marketer’s Holy Grail since they permit conversion rates that are several times those of pay-per-sale affiliate programs. Furthermore, pay-per-lead programs offer a lot of consistency than pay-per-sale programs since the payouts are fastened rather than a share of a final sale. Fixed payouts are forever a lot of enticing to users and convert at a considerably higher rate.
It should come back as no surprise that in the Incentive marketing space, what matters at the top of the day is conversion rate. Every component of an Incentive Website, from the visitor funnel to the individual offers should be tuned to drive the very best conversion rate and ultimately the highest revenue per visitor. In 2005 we experienced conversion rates as high as 20% on certain pay-per-lead offers.
As true pay-per-lead opportunities (suppose lead generation) have evaporated, a connected model remains a viable source of conversions: free trials. Most clearly, free trials involve no immediate cash outlay from users, lifting conversion rates. Secondly, the acquisition funnel is way shorter and more direct than nearly all pay-per sale funnels. Free trials are an supply kind where the merchant’s goals are directly aligned with yours. The difficulty with pay-per-sale affiliate programs is that the acquisition funnel is long and will be downright confusing to the user. Several pay-per-sale affiliate links will direct users to a landing page that is either irrelevant or too high in the purchase funnel. This can be often an intentional merchant tactic since not all sales or actions could be needed to come up with affiliate payouts. You must perpetually browse the fine print in the terms of every pay-per-sale affiliate agreement. Free trials are a key strategy to stay your incentive marketing competitive this decade, and as models of digital media distribution still evolve, the opportunities will solely grow.
Don’t Go In-House
If the volume of actions you drive becomes vital, it’s more than probably that the merchant will seek to bring your relationship in-house. Removing the affiliate network from the equation ends up in deep and immediate value savings for your merchant partner – since affiliate networks charge merchants as a lot of as 30% of each completed action, merchants will happily bump up your payout as an incentive to lure you in-house. My recommendation is easy: Don’t do it. Whereas the prospect of higher payouts may seem alluring, in-house relationships will be fraught with bother even among the foremost reputable merchant sets.
Affiliate networks offer a valuable service to you by acting as a robust intermediary. If you’ve gone in-house and a merchant decides to bilk you, there is no recourse. The merchant is solely risking your relationship. In fact, if you’ve got a blowout month in which you are owed a giant commission check, an unscrupulous merchant might merely decide that the chance of losing your referrals is price stiffing you on the check. In an affiliate network, this merchant’s actions would jeopardize their relationship with that network’s entire affiliate base. Smart networks can de-activate deadbeat merchants and fight for you if you have been wronged. Some merchants can reverse or cancel a lot of transactions than they must, and also the network could be a valuable arbiter of such disputes. You may probably realize that your network is raring to lend their ear when you have got issues. They recognize that the integrity of the network rests on a high quality publisher and merchant base. You cannot have a top quality network without both. And don’t forget, the network gets paid when you do! So when the phone rings from your top payer’s affiliate manager, say yes to the free schwag, but say no to going in-house!
Related Blogs
- ASME Nominations – 2010 Announcement – Magazine Awards | Mediaite
- Keyen Farrell Offers Helpful Tips For Incentive Marketing …
- Chris Anderson Discusses iPad – Magazine Publishers Rejoice | Mediaite
- Armchair General and the Colby Symposium in 2010 » Armchair General
- 5 Magazine Dec/Jan Cover | Colby Jamar | The Fashionisto
- Report: Magazine's Websites Don't Have Same Copy Standards As …
- Survivor: Heroes Vs Villains — Tom Not Too Fond Of James, Rupert …
- How Tracking Conversion Rates Can Help You Meet Your Sales Goals
- Track Conversion Rates and Meet Your Sales Goals
- Stable Way Of Increasing The Conversion Rates | Earning Online …
- How To Structure Your Sales Copy Effectively To Boost Your …
- Automatically Increase Conversion Rates : Creative Article
- Is Now The Optimum Time To Exchange Your Euro Currency?
- Pay Per Click Optimization Tactics | MLM Online Training Resource
- Tamara's Blog » Blog Archive » Automatically Increase Conversion Rates
- The History Of Euros Currency
- Automated Forex Trading
- Somebody Who Desires To Give Up Smoking Tobacco | Making Money …
- How should we weigh the desires of the non-existent? « Modeled …
- IGS-Practice 3: Finding Guidance in Your Desires
You must log in to post a comment.