Affiliate Marketing: 10 Tips from Pubcon 2006

At WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Boston this year I decided to mix it up a little and attended more of the affiliate marketing and advertising sessions instead of the pure SEO track that I’ve stuck to in the past. I did this because of the direction my own career path seems to be taking, as well as the fact that I wanted to see some new faces and experience another side of these search conferences. I learned some new things about affiliate marketing and picked up a number of tips and suggestions that can be applied to affiliate sites, corporate sites, PPC landing pages and more. Here are 10 of those that stood out when going through my notes. I’ve also included the name of the presenter if I had it in my notes…

1. Write landing pages to your best prospect. Don’t try to be everything to everybody; you’ll abandon your best prospects. Write to the top of the curve and you’ll capture the largest qualified audience. – Ted Ulle
2. Write about the reader, not the product. To do this you must also know your target audience. Make sure you do. – Ted Ulle
3. When exploring new affiliate opportunities, look for emerging markets. Pay close attention to tech research, demographic studies and market evolution. – Jeff Liebert
4. When buying keywords (PPC), target your keywords to customers who are actively looking to buy. Do this with words like “buy” or “send.” Target for seasonal trends (holidays, tax season, etc.) – when people need to buy – or specific model numbers or price points. – Adam Jewell
5. Maximize any coupons, discounts, etc. that you can pass to your users from your merchant. – Adam Jewell
6. Informational, comparison and product review sites are hot and a great opportunity for affiliates. It’s a lot of work though, the site has to be valuable are REAL!
7. Understand your customer’s lifetime value and look for opportunities with cross and up-selling possibilities. ? Ziv Dascalu
8. Always talk to the merchant’s affiliate manager directly and close special deals. Look for something more than the standard deal. ? Ziv Dascalu
9. Look for unique ways to promote expensive products with very specific keywords. Big commissions coupled with low cost PPC is a winning strategy. – Adam Jewell
10. Use emotions to appeal to your target customer. Tie those emotions directly to your product. This can be done with images and words that paint a picture for the reader.