Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.
Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of Internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies, and in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.
Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.
Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers.[citation needed] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies
from this site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing
source:
http://blog.affiliatetip.com/
Monday, 16 March 2009
Affiliate Links Paid Links: Google’s Position
It is our opinion that Affiliate Links are NOT Paid Links, and Google’s position on this has been deliberately vague for some very good reasons. The following is a summary of the reasoning behind our belief that Google will not and cannot consider Affiliate Links to be the same thing as a Paid Link and therefore they do not need to be denied their ability to pass Reputation to the target site by the addition of a ‘nofollow’ attribute in the link.
Amazon invents the affiliate
If you recall the history of e-commerce affiliation you will remember that it all began with Amazon. In 1996 Amazon created what we now know of as the affiliate scheme and did so on the back of their own technology development (well they had to, didn’t they, because the third party systems followed later). Amazon’s motivation was simple, let’s encourage our customers to link to the products they love and/or find useful by rewarding them if a visit they refer to us leads to a sale, because by doing so, we’ll get more visitors. This encouragement worked, and there was an explosion of affiliate activity, motivated by, we’d argue, love and usefulness first with money following. While I’m no affiliate expert, I suspect Amazon have now and probably have always had the largest affiliate base (estimated at 2 million in the summer of 2008).
For those of you who were paying attention to Google’s search results at the end of the nineties and in the early noughties you may remember watching Amazon begin to dominate huge tracts of unique product searches, and as our understanding of the importance of Reputation to Google’s algorithm grew, it became clear that their affiliate scheme was behind much of this performance, with thousands of unique links, often with their own unique content, supporting products. We have referred to this phenomenon as Amazon’s Happy Accident; it just so happened that Google’s growing sophistication was taking more and more account of the contextual relationship between linking pages and where the linking page had its own reputation, as well as context, the target URL got a terrific boost in relevance, and this played right into the hands of Amazon’s scheme and, crucially, its implementation method, which was to link to an almost identical URL as the product URL, but with an affiliate parameter on the end. Amazon’s implementation method has had a further advance in recent times where they conditionally 301 redirect Google (not users) to a permanent, keyword-rich, version of the product URL (see Chris Smith’s Natural Search Blog analysis of this. We don’t agree with Chris’ cries of ‘unfair’, we think this is very smart).
Google: Affiliate Links as Paid Links?
So how does Google view affiliate links in the context of their purpose? If we park for a moment the existence of industrial-strength spammy affiliate behaviour and look to what an affiliate is actually telling Google by linking to a retailer/product combination. On the whole we’d argue that this is going to be tantamount to a vote of confidence; an endorsement of both the retailer and the product, and if the linking site has any sort of credibility or authority or Reputation of its own, then Google should be allowing it the influence the Reputation of the retailer/product target. Really, it should. Naturally there is a big ‘if’ in that last sentence, and here we believe is the crux of the matter. Google’s algorithm puts considerable store in a site’s ability to influence the performance of others by its linking, and its assessment of that ‘ability’ is at the core of why its results are better. Google is capable of identifying whether or not an affiliate site should be influencing the performance of its target retailer by analysing its own Reputation. Without any Reputation the affiliate simply will not have any effect on the performance of the target.
When an affiliate produces a site worth visiting, it begins to accrue Reputation. The consequence of this is that the affiliate site then starts to get its own traffic from search and begins to acquire the ability to improve the performance of its retailer through its links (it is a separate issue whether the affiliate would actually welcome this outcome). Google’s view of this, we believe, is that it is as it should be. A site that gains its own Reputation should be able to pass it on, even if it earns a payment as a result of the visitor it passes on buying something. So if this is Google’s view, why is it not saying so?
“An Affiliate Link is Not a Paid Link” unspoken by Google
We believe Google is dancing round this issue because it doesn’t want to invite trouble for itself. The uncertainty and ambiguity in the marketplace at the moment around Google’s determination to stamp out paid linking (for influencing its algorithm) and the ‘terms of service’ policy of nofollowing commercially-motivated links (again, for influencing the algorithm) suits it. Why? Because actually we suspect that Google isn’t doing as good a job as it would like in the detection of paid link behaviour, particularly at the industrial-strenght spammer heights and the last thing it wants to encourage is more affiliate linking (for influencing the algorithm) by giving the green light to it as a way of improving natural search performance. Of course, an affiliate gains very little from improving the performance of its retailer target, but the unethical use of affiliate sites by retailers themselves is a worry Google would have.
We believe that Google says to itself that an affiliate link is not a paid link, because it has the power to improve results for Google’s users and that is a good thing. And in particularly competitive markets, such as hotels and finance, good affiliates can really help Google sort the chaff from the wheat.
The Search Johnston Advice on Affiliate Links
In the past, we have championed affiliation as a smart way of building contextual links into sites to improve their natural search performance. More recently we have interpreted Google’s intentions around paid links to include affiliate link behaviour, so have discouraged our clients to look at them as a strategic option. As a result of our view on Google’s current position, we are moving back to including affiliate schemes as a potential weapon in our clients’ SEO armoury - providing the links actually point at the site in question and not a third party affiliate engine, which is a complete waste of time. When and how to deploy such a weapon is a subject for another post entirely.
Subjects: 301 Redirects, Affiliates, Amazon, Google, Paid Links, Reputation, Spamming, Terms of Service
Filed in Blog, October 21st, 2008. Leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Follow comments via RSS
source:
http://www.searchjohnston.co.uk/2008/10/affiliate-links-paid-links-google/
Amazon invents the affiliate
If you recall the history of e-commerce affiliation you will remember that it all began with Amazon. In 1996 Amazon created what we now know of as the affiliate scheme and did so on the back of their own technology development (well they had to, didn’t they, because the third party systems followed later). Amazon’s motivation was simple, let’s encourage our customers to link to the products they love and/or find useful by rewarding them if a visit they refer to us leads to a sale, because by doing so, we’ll get more visitors. This encouragement worked, and there was an explosion of affiliate activity, motivated by, we’d argue, love and usefulness first with money following. While I’m no affiliate expert, I suspect Amazon have now and probably have always had the largest affiliate base (estimated at 2 million in the summer of 2008).
For those of you who were paying attention to Google’s search results at the end of the nineties and in the early noughties you may remember watching Amazon begin to dominate huge tracts of unique product searches, and as our understanding of the importance of Reputation to Google’s algorithm grew, it became clear that their affiliate scheme was behind much of this performance, with thousands of unique links, often with their own unique content, supporting products. We have referred to this phenomenon as Amazon’s Happy Accident; it just so happened that Google’s growing sophistication was taking more and more account of the contextual relationship between linking pages and where the linking page had its own reputation, as well as context, the target URL got a terrific boost in relevance, and this played right into the hands of Amazon’s scheme and, crucially, its implementation method, which was to link to an almost identical URL as the product URL, but with an affiliate parameter on the end. Amazon’s implementation method has had a further advance in recent times where they conditionally 301 redirect Google (not users) to a permanent, keyword-rich, version of the product URL (see Chris Smith’s Natural Search Blog analysis of this. We don’t agree with Chris’ cries of ‘unfair’, we think this is very smart).
Google: Affiliate Links as Paid Links?
So how does Google view affiliate links in the context of their purpose? If we park for a moment the existence of industrial-strength spammy affiliate behaviour and look to what an affiliate is actually telling Google by linking to a retailer/product combination. On the whole we’d argue that this is going to be tantamount to a vote of confidence; an endorsement of both the retailer and the product, and if the linking site has any sort of credibility or authority or Reputation of its own, then Google should be allowing it the influence the Reputation of the retailer/product target. Really, it should. Naturally there is a big ‘if’ in that last sentence, and here we believe is the crux of the matter. Google’s algorithm puts considerable store in a site’s ability to influence the performance of others by its linking, and its assessment of that ‘ability’ is at the core of why its results are better. Google is capable of identifying whether or not an affiliate site should be influencing the performance of its target retailer by analysing its own Reputation. Without any Reputation the affiliate simply will not have any effect on the performance of the target.
When an affiliate produces a site worth visiting, it begins to accrue Reputation. The consequence of this is that the affiliate site then starts to get its own traffic from search and begins to acquire the ability to improve the performance of its retailer through its links (it is a separate issue whether the affiliate would actually welcome this outcome). Google’s view of this, we believe, is that it is as it should be. A site that gains its own Reputation should be able to pass it on, even if it earns a payment as a result of the visitor it passes on buying something. So if this is Google’s view, why is it not saying so?
“An Affiliate Link is Not a Paid Link” unspoken by Google
We believe Google is dancing round this issue because it doesn’t want to invite trouble for itself. The uncertainty and ambiguity in the marketplace at the moment around Google’s determination to stamp out paid linking (for influencing its algorithm) and the ‘terms of service’ policy of nofollowing commercially-motivated links (again, for influencing the algorithm) suits it. Why? Because actually we suspect that Google isn’t doing as good a job as it would like in the detection of paid link behaviour, particularly at the industrial-strenght spammer heights and the last thing it wants to encourage is more affiliate linking (for influencing the algorithm) by giving the green light to it as a way of improving natural search performance. Of course, an affiliate gains very little from improving the performance of its retailer target, but the unethical use of affiliate sites by retailers themselves is a worry Google would have.
We believe that Google says to itself that an affiliate link is not a paid link, because it has the power to improve results for Google’s users and that is a good thing. And in particularly competitive markets, such as hotels and finance, good affiliates can really help Google sort the chaff from the wheat.
The Search Johnston Advice on Affiliate Links
In the past, we have championed affiliation as a smart way of building contextual links into sites to improve their natural search performance. More recently we have interpreted Google’s intentions around paid links to include affiliate link behaviour, so have discouraged our clients to look at them as a strategic option. As a result of our view on Google’s current position, we are moving back to including affiliate schemes as a potential weapon in our clients’ SEO armoury - providing the links actually point at the site in question and not a third party affiliate engine, which is a complete waste of time. When and how to deploy such a weapon is a subject for another post entirely.
Subjects: 301 Redirects, Affiliates, Amazon, Google, Paid Links, Reputation, Spamming, Terms of Service
Filed in Blog, October 21st, 2008. Leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Follow comments via RSS
source:
http://www.searchjohnston.co.uk/2008/10/affiliate-links-paid-links-google/
Google rebrands Performics Ad Network as Google Affiliate Network
Google has reached another milestone in integrating all the business units from its DoubleClick Acquisition with the launch of the Google Affiliate Network, a re-branded version of the Performics Ad Network.
From Google’s site:
As an advertiser using Google Affiliate Network, you’ll discover pre-screened publishers who can refer consumer traffic to you. As a publisher, you can market your site to advertisers in the network; if selected to participate in an advertiser’s program, you’ll earn a percent of sales or a referral bounty.
Sounds like any other affiliate network to me. I have yet to log in and check it out but we’ll be doing a thorough review this week to let everyone know how it ranks against the other big players in affiliate networking in the coming days.
source:
http://www.doneseo.com/blog/google-rebrands-performics-ad-network-as-google-affiliate-network/
From Google’s site:
As an advertiser using Google Affiliate Network, you’ll discover pre-screened publishers who can refer consumer traffic to you. As a publisher, you can market your site to advertisers in the network; if selected to participate in an advertiser’s program, you’ll earn a percent of sales or a referral bounty.
Sounds like any other affiliate network to me. I have yet to log in and check it out but we’ll be doing a thorough review this week to let everyone know how it ranks against the other big players in affiliate networking in the coming days.
source:
http://www.doneseo.com/blog/google-rebrands-performics-ad-network-as-google-affiliate-network/
What's a Google Affiliate Network Account?
A Google Affiliate Network account is the username and password you currently use to sign in to Google Affiliate Network. If you're still using a Google Affiliate Network account, you'll be prompted to update to a Google Account.
(Generally speaking, the term 'Google Affiliate Network account' can also refer to your overall access and use of Google Affiliate Network to manage your affiliate marketing program activities.)
source:
http://www.google.com/support/affiliatenetwork/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138720
(Generally speaking, the term 'Google Affiliate Network account' can also refer to your overall access and use of Google Affiliate Network to manage your affiliate marketing program activities.)
source:
http://www.google.com/support/affiliatenetwork/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138720
Supplement Sales With Google Affiliate Marketing
Like many affiliate programs, the Google Affiliate Network connects merchants with a network of website publishers to provide an effective, performance-based advertising channel with good conversion rates and a propensity to boosts sales. Affiliate publishers place text or banner advertising on their site, and if a would-be customer clicks on one of these ads, visits the merchant's site, and makes a purchase, the merchant pays the affiliate a percentage of the sale. No money changes hands unless the merchant closes the sale. So, most merchants can easily afford to be part of an ongoing affiliate program
This episode is filed under The eCommerce Minute and has the following keyword tags: ecommerce, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, google affiliate network.
source:
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/podcasts/episode/841-Supplement-Sales-With-Google-Affiliate-Marketing
This episode is filed under The eCommerce Minute and has the following keyword tags: ecommerce, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, google affiliate network.
source:
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/podcasts/episode/841-Supplement-Sales-With-Google-Affiliate-Marketing
Affiliate Week Profile: Google AdSense
By Sean Michael KernerMarch 9, 2009
There's a good reason why Google text ads are a common sight on more than a fair share of various Web pages across the Internet. Simply put: they work, for both advertisers and publishers (as well as Google's bottom line) driving revenues for all involved. Getting in on the game and making money with Google is easily done and with a few basic guidelines is almost a sure bet to help your site generate incremental revenue.
Getting StartedFor advertisers they are called AdWords, on the publisher side it's called AdSense. But don't be confused. They are fundamentally two sides of the same coin. Getting started with AdSense is a simple pain free process, though there are a few "tricks of the trade" to make sure that you fully maximize your earning potential.
Assuming you already have a Website on which you will be able to include the AdSense links, the first step is to hit http://www.google.com/adsense and sign up. When AdSense first started it used to take up to a few days to get approval, but now it seems to be incredibly rapid. The "critical" screen in the application process is the third one in which you list your contact information as well as the site on which you'll serve the ads.
Even if you plan on showing ads on more than one site, you only get to choose to place 1 URL on the application form. Don't be too concerned, though. It's really just a formality as you can still put ads (once approved) on your other sites easily as well, so long as they don't contravene the Google terms of service.
Google also gives the choice of showing Adsense "content" ads as well as the opportunity to earn income from offering Google search, it makes good sense to check off both options. It doesn't cost you anything, so why not do it?
The other item to check is the box enabling Google to send you survey's periodically. Normally, I don't tend to like agreeing to companies sending me that kind of stuff. But in Google's case you should make an exception because Google makes it worth your while. In any Google survey (driven through AdSense) that I've received they've always offered a plum in some form of AdWords credit (anywhere in the $25-$50 range), which is not bad for 10 minutes of my time.
Optimize Your ContentIn my experience I've noticed that Google seems to approve just about any type of site (that doesn't contradict its terms of service of course), regardless of quality of content. That said, though, AdWords ads are served based on the content of your site to achieve relevance. The theory is that relevant keywords will be clicked more often and thereby drive more revenue to the site publisher affiliate. Considering the success that Google has enjoyed, I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that their theory is correct.
So, for AdSense publishers, it's critically important to make sure that you've optimized your site content if you want to get the right ads that will generate more clicks. That means you should make use of the same basic methodology that you'd use to optimize your site's content for search engine indexing. Use text for all your content and make sure that images have tags with text descriptors. tags are also helpful to further identify the content that you're serving on your site. Any site that Google's spider can't crawl is also a site that AdSense won't be able to determine proper relevant links for either.
Use AdWords to LearnSeeing as AdSense is the other side of the AdWords program for advertisers, you'd be well served to sign up for that program as well. Understanding how AdWords work is fundamental to understanding what ads may potentially show up on your site as what as what potential revenue you may drive. Create an AdWords campaign for the site that you want to have the AdSense ads show up on and figure out which keywords are likely to apply. Google's keyword cost per click estimator, as well as recommended daily budget calculators, will help give you an idea of what advertisers are being told to spend (and what keyword costs are) for a site like the one you're trying to promote.
source:
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3493501
There's a good reason why Google text ads are a common sight on more than a fair share of various Web pages across the Internet. Simply put: they work, for both advertisers and publishers (as well as Google's bottom line) driving revenues for all involved. Getting in on the game and making money with Google is easily done and with a few basic guidelines is almost a sure bet to help your site generate incremental revenue.
Getting StartedFor advertisers they are called AdWords, on the publisher side it's called AdSense. But don't be confused. They are fundamentally two sides of the same coin. Getting started with AdSense is a simple pain free process, though there are a few "tricks of the trade" to make sure that you fully maximize your earning potential.
Assuming you already have a Website on which you will be able to include the AdSense links, the first step is to hit http://www.google.com/adsense and sign up. When AdSense first started it used to take up to a few days to get approval, but now it seems to be incredibly rapid. The "critical" screen in the application process is the third one in which you list your contact information as well as the site on which you'll serve the ads.
Even if you plan on showing ads on more than one site, you only get to choose to place 1 URL on the application form. Don't be too concerned, though. It's really just a formality as you can still put ads (once approved) on your other sites easily as well, so long as they don't contravene the Google terms of service.
Google also gives the choice of showing Adsense "content" ads as well as the opportunity to earn income from offering Google search, it makes good sense to check off both options. It doesn't cost you anything, so why not do it?
The other item to check is the box enabling Google to send you survey's periodically. Normally, I don't tend to like agreeing to companies sending me that kind of stuff. But in Google's case you should make an exception because Google makes it worth your while. In any Google survey (driven through AdSense) that I've received they've always offered a plum in some form of AdWords credit (anywhere in the $25-$50 range), which is not bad for 10 minutes of my time.
Optimize Your ContentIn my experience I've noticed that Google seems to approve just about any type of site (that doesn't contradict its terms of service of course), regardless of quality of content. That said, though, AdWords ads are served based on the content of your site to achieve relevance. The theory is that relevant keywords will be clicked more often and thereby drive more revenue to the site publisher affiliate. Considering the success that Google has enjoyed, I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that their theory is correct.
So, for AdSense publishers, it's critically important to make sure that you've optimized your site content if you want to get the right ads that will generate more clicks. That means you should make use of the same basic methodology that you'd use to optimize your site's content for search engine indexing. Use text for all your content and make sure that images have
Use AdWords to LearnSeeing as AdSense is the other side of the AdWords program for advertisers, you'd be well served to sign up for that program as well. Understanding how AdWords work is fundamental to understanding what ads may potentially show up on your site as what as what potential revenue you may drive. Create an AdWords campaign for the site that you want to have the AdSense ads show up on and figure out which keywords are likely to apply. Google's keyword cost per click estimator, as well as recommended daily budget calculators, will help give you an idea of what advertisers are being told to spend (and what keyword costs are) for a site like the one you're trying to promote.
source:
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3493501
Google plays musical chairs with affiliate ad networks
By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author
Posted in Financial News, 1st July 2008 19:16 GMT
Whitepaper download - Eight CRM essentials
Google has bagged one affiliate network in favor of another.
At the end of August, the world's largest ad broker will discontinue its AdSense Referrals program, the affiliate network it launched back in March 2007. Now that Larry and Serg own ad behemoth DoubleClick, they'll do the affiliate thing through DoubleClick's Performics network. Except it's no longer called Performics. Yesterday, it was renamed the Google Affiliate Network.
RegAd('mpu1', 'reg.business.4159/financialnews', 'pos=top;sz=336x280', VCs);
Still with us?
Both networks work in much the same way. Third-party web sites (the affiliates) drive traffic to advertiser sites, and if this results in a sale - or some other action - the affiliate gets a cut. So Google has decided to eliminate a little redundancy.
The AdSense Referrals program dovetails with - you guessed it - Google's overarching AdSense advertiser network. But DoubleClick Performics - sorry, the Google Affiliate Network - will remain a completely separate operation.
Yesterday, members of the AdSense Referrals program received emails announcing the program's imminent death, and yes, they were urged to join the new Google Affiliate Network. But the messages also point out that AdSense users can replace their referral ads with standard cost-per-clicks ads.
"We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers," the emails say. "Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term."
In other words, the AdSense Referrals program never came close to matching with other big-name affiliate networks, including Performics.
Performics began life in 1998 as an independent operation, and in 2004, DoubleClick snapped it up for $58m. Then Google swallowed the swallower, forking over $3.1bn for DoubleClick while sidestepping regulators in both the US and the EU.
Google has posted the meat of its email to AdSense Referrals users here. AdSense Referrals code posted to affiliate sites will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. ®
source:
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3493501
Posted in Financial News, 1st July 2008 19:16 GMT
Whitepaper download - Eight CRM essentials
Google has bagged one affiliate network in favor of another.
At the end of August, the world's largest ad broker will discontinue its AdSense Referrals program, the affiliate network it launched back in March 2007. Now that Larry and Serg own ad behemoth DoubleClick, they'll do the affiliate thing through DoubleClick's Performics network. Except it's no longer called Performics. Yesterday, it was renamed the Google Affiliate Network.
RegAd('mpu1', 'reg.business.4159/financialnews', 'pos=top;sz=336x280', VCs);
Still with us?
Both networks work in much the same way. Third-party web sites (the affiliates) drive traffic to advertiser sites, and if this results in a sale - or some other action - the affiliate gets a cut. So Google has decided to eliminate a little redundancy.
The AdSense Referrals program dovetails with - you guessed it - Google's overarching AdSense advertiser network. But DoubleClick Performics - sorry, the Google Affiliate Network - will remain a completely separate operation.
Yesterday, members of the AdSense Referrals program received emails announcing the program's imminent death, and yes, they were urged to join the new Google Affiliate Network. But the messages also point out that AdSense users can replace their referral ads with standard cost-per-clicks ads.
"We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers," the emails say. "Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term."
In other words, the AdSense Referrals program never came close to matching with other big-name affiliate networks, including Performics.
Performics began life in 1998 as an independent operation, and in 2004, DoubleClick snapped it up for $58m. Then Google swallowed the swallower, forking over $3.1bn for DoubleClick while sidestepping regulators in both the US and the EU.
Google has posted the meat of its email to AdSense Referrals users here. AdSense Referrals code posted to affiliate sites will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. ®
source:
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/affiliate/article.php/3493501
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