The plugin is called PhotoDropper — and I am loving it!

PhotoDropper has over 62 million free images that blog owners can access and insert right from their WordPress dashboard. They also have a premium tier that offers more professional photos on a pay-by-the-photo basis.

I currently have Clipart accounts for stock photos to use in my posts. While that’s not hard to use, it does require the extra steps involved in downloading the image and then uploading it to my site. There is also the extra time I need to take to leave my post creation screen to go find that image inside my account.

PhotoDropper takes all that extra work out of the equation. In just a few steps, an image can be found, saved, inserted into my post and credited properly.

From the PhotoDropper site:

“With PhotoDropper, you can find, license, and embed over 253 Million Photos all without ever leaving WordPress.

With just a few simple clicks, PhotoDropper allows you to sort through the millions of Creative Commons and Premium photos to find the perfect one for your blog post …“

The best part? The PhotoDropper plugin is free!

You can download the plugin here, or just search for “PhotoDropper” from inside your plugins dashboard like this:

Once installed, PhotoDropper adds a little balloon icon next to the “Add Media” button on your post editor screen:

When you click on the PhotoDropper icon, you will be presented with the option to tick two boxes: one asking if your site is intended to make money (commercial intent) and the other asking to agree to their terms of service.

Tick those, and then you will be able to search through thousands and thousands of free-to-use images, as well as more professional images that are available for sale.

Just enter a phrase into the search bar…

…and an amazing assortment of images will be returned to you!

The free-to-use images are on the left and the premium (paid) images are on the right. You can hold your mouse over any image to see a larger version of it. When you find one you like, just click on the image and “insert into post.”

The image thumbnail will now appear in your media library. From there, you can adjust the title, alt text, alignment and other attributes as needed, then insert the image into your post. Presto! You now have a gorgeous, properly credited image.

PhotoDropper is fast, easy and FREE — and the high-quality images can really make your blog posts pop.

Here’s a quick video overview from PhotoDropper that explains more about using their plugin and their services.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of that, 25 percent is attributed to purchases made online. This represents a steady increase over the years when you consider that in 2011, 21 percent of Mother’s Day purchases were made online.

While most purchases are made during the five days leading up to Mother’s Day, the most successful affiliate marketing plans are set into motion weeks in advance. So, to help you make the most of the upcoming Mother’s Day shopping season, here is a four-week affiliate marketing plan.

Week One: Identify Products, Create Sales Copy

First, meet with your account manager at your affiliate network to brainstorm ideas specific to Mother’s Day. Part of this should include seeing how your products align with the most popular Mother’s Day items. According to the National Retail Federation, consumers tend to shower their moms with:

• Flowers
• Clothing and accessories
• Electronics
• Dinner/brunch
• Gift cards
• Personal services, like a day spa visit

Of course, if you’re promoting products that don’t fall into these categories, you can still drive Mother’s Day sales by working more closely with your account manager and publishers to develop creative campaigns and special incentives.

Next, update your website copy to feature your Mother’s Day offers prominently. Since you may be attracting shoppers outside of your usual target audience, consider creating separate online paths based on the type of Mother’s Day shopper you’re aiming to attract. For example, you could call out a specific route for dads, sons or daughters.

Once you’ve updated your website copy, develop fresh ads so you can provide your publishers with a variety of options that reflect their specific audiences and your special offers.

Week Two: Identify Publishers, Get Feedback On Incentives

Working with your network account manager, identify the most active publishers supporting your products as well as those publishers promoting the most popular Mother’s Day gifts. Be sure that your expanded scope includes publishers that specialize in deals and comparison shopping so that you can maximize your reach.

For example, publisher BradsDeals is known as a top, one-stop resource for the latest coupons and deals from thousands of leading retailers. In fact, BradsDeals has amassed more than 11 million newsletter subscribers.

Since Mother’s Day is their second busiest shopping season, BradsDeals maps out its strategy well in advance. According to Jennifer Goodwin, director of partner relations, “We meet with our advertisers weeks in advance and start to roll out our campaigns in early April. This includes an online Mother’s Day guide, a blog featuring the best deals on the most popular Mother’s Day gifts, and working with merchants to present exclusive offers. Also, we’re tapping into our vast amount of data so that we can offer advertisers an opportunity to send highly-targeted and effective newsletters to attract and convert the right buyer.”

Once you’ve identified your target publishers, connect with them to express your interest in participating in their Mother’s Day campaigns. Let them know about the campaigns you have underway, and get their feedback on the types of incentives they find to be the most motivating. From there, you can determine the types of Mother’s Day incentives you’re going to offer based on publisher feedback and performance. If you’re working with a new publisher, consider a sign-on bonus or other type of incentive.

Week Three: Promote Offers, Experiment With Ads & Deals

Promote exclusive affiliate offers. The combination of a great offer for consumers and exclusivity to the affiliate channel drives sales while showing your commitment to publishers. Encourage publishers to experiment with the variety of new Mother’s Day ads and track their effectiveness so you can make adjustments if necessary.

Consider bundling related items as part of a Mother’s Day special to increase the average order value. For example, you may want to present a package that combines flowers with a day spa certificate or presents mom with her new tablet computer over brunch.

You can also create a special incentive for affiliates that specialize in mobile comparison shopping. While we know that a quarter of Mother’s Day shopping is being done online, let’s not lose sight of the fact that many of those shoppers are going to be comparison shopping on their smartphones while they’re in the brick-and-mortar stores.

Week Four: Target Last-Minute Shoppers, Evaluate Progress

Create a contest for publishers to run during the days leading up to Mother’s Day so you can capture the last-minute shoppers (who will likely make up the majority of your target audience). Along with specials such as free shipping and guaranteed overnight delivery, consider other differentiating factors that will make you stand out as the clear choice from the consumer’s point of view.

These can include last-minute specials or discounts on future purchases. As you start to analyze your results, take note of the efforts that drove the most traffic and sales. You’ll want to keep them top-of-mind as you start planning for graduation and Father’s Day.

The key to making the most of any holiday shopping season, especially Mother’s Day, is to plan at least four to six weeks in advance. This way, you can refine your strategy, offer compelling incentives, and make adjustments if necessary without losing traction during such a compressed period of time.

I see many new blog owners become hyper-focused on getting Google to send them masses of traffic through SEO. And, while Google traffic is great and should not be ignored, focusing all your energy on SEO could be a recipe for disaster.

In order to really build up traffic and a blog following, it’s important to get off your blog and get out to places where your target market can find you. I don’t care what the sales pages and “gurus” say — there is no software or “loophole” to easily bring large volumes of genuine traffic to you.

You have to go get it.

I am a big fan of “free” when it comes to affiliate marketing and online exposure, so I’m going to share five of my favorite free ways to get your new blog noticed.

1. Visit Other Sites In Your Niche & Offer A Guest Post

Once you enter your niche, it won’t take you long to figure out who the big players are. They’re the ones you’re trying to beat in Google, right? Instead of trying to beat them with SEO tricks, why not join them?

Owners of really popular blogs all need one thing: great content. If you offer them a piece of 100% unique and very helpful content, they just may feel inclined to share it with their readers.

Rae Hoffman shares some great tips for identifying guest blogging opportunities in her post on CopyBlogger.com.

2. Share Your Content On Social Sites

Sharing your content on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, etc., only takes a moment, but the results can be great if others pick it up and then share it with their following. It’s an easy way to get traffic based on real human recommendations — and that’s the kind of traffic we can never get enough of.

3. Hang Out & Participate Where Your Target Market Hangs Out

Rand Fishkin at SEOMoz shared some excellent tactics last year for getting much-needed traffic to your blog.

“Participate in the Communities Where Your Audience Already Gathers” was tactic #2 on his list. This is a vital strategy for attracting those readers who want to read your content. The best part (aside from traffic) is that these are also the folks who will share your work via social sites. If your target audience loves your content, they will share it with others–and you can’t beat the power of social recommendations from real, live people.

So, take some time each day to get out there and hang out in market-related forums and communities. Don’t spam there — be a real participant. If your community shares and input are good, other forum members will naturally begin to consider you worth paying attention to.

4. Take Advantage Of Free-To-Use Sites

There are many, many sites out there that allow you to publish content free-of-charge, so take advantage of them to get additional exposure. Places like HubSpot or Squidoo are good places to start if you don’t want to deal with a lot of setup. Tumblr, WordPress and Blogger blogs are free, easy to create and fairly well-optimized for search engines. I call these types of sites “supporting sites,” as they help me get additional exposure in Google and help my target market find my work.

There is absolutely no rule that says you can only have one webpage targeting a certain topic or keyword — just make sure you link to your primary blog for keyword strength.

5. Leverage Market Leaders

Check out this fantastic tip that Lynn Terry shared on her post, 6 Ways to Get Free Targeted Web Traffic:

“…find the top podcasts, magazines, blogs, forums, radio shows, etc., in your market. Find out what content your market is consuming, and where, and leverage that to your benefit. Brainstorm ways to get in front of your market where they are, which is much easier than trying to get them to come where YOU are.”

Yes, this tip requires some creativity, but getting in front of that audience is crucial and very rewarding in the long run. Again, don’t spam or harass your industry leaders — that’s one sure way to have it all blow up in your face.

Building up traffic to a new website or blog takes time. Regardless of what others say, there is no one thing that will miraculously send tons of traffic overnight. It’s a process that requires great content on your site and as well as active efforts off your site to get your content discovered and shared.

For additional ideas, check out Michael Martinez’s tips on ways to drive traffic to your website for free

What free techniques do you use to generate more traffic to your site?  Share with us in the comments section.

Affiliate attribution is one of the hottest and most controversial topics in the performance marketing industry today, and many Internet retailers are trying to figure out the best approach.

Not only is it a consideration for the affiliate channel, but it’s becoming an even bigger factor as more companies move toward omni-channel.

The question remains: how do you fairly compensate affiliates for their involvement with your customer based on the touch-points they’ve had during the purchase path?

How Attribution Works

An attribution model allows Internet retailers to track the different ads or “touch points” that result in a sale or other defined action taken by a consumer, giving credit to each touch point that contributed to that conversion. This can include different marketing channels or programs in-house, as well as affiliates that have interactions with that consumer leading up to the sale. Traditionally in affiliate marketing, the sale is credited to the last click prior to the conversion.

While it’s a hot topic, according to a recent Econsultancy study on marketing attribution, only 54% of businesses carry out any form of attribution; but, of those who do, 89% say attribution had a positive impact on their business, with 29% saying the impact was major.

Mobile is one of the main drivers behind Internet retailers wanting to have a better understanding of the customer journey, as consumers are using mobile devices to read online product reviews and price comparisons in brick-and-mortar stores (showrooming).

What Does This Mean For Affiliates?

Well, it depends on who you ask. Some affiliates like that Internet retailers are moving toward affiliate attribution, as the last-click-wins model is often limiting.

Affiliates involved early on in the sales funnel, such as content marketing or review sites, may be especially interested in this approach. While a blogger or review site may educate and influence the consumer or even change the consumer’s purchase decision entirely — they receive no credit or compensation if the consumer clicks through a subsequent affiliate link or ad with the last-click-wins affiliate attribution model.

Other affiliates are not pleased if they’ve built their entire business around being in the right place at the right time in affiliate marketing. Coupon websites often get miscategorized as right place/right time affiliates; however, I disagree. While there are plenty of websites advertising coupons on the Web, there are well-established coupon sites that have a large following and influence that help bring the customer across the finish line.

Affiliate attribution helps complete the picture so you have a better understanding of the true value affiliates bring to your affiliate program while exposing those that are merely opportunistic marketers.

Figuring Out Affiliate Attribution

Wondering if your organization is ready to roll out an affiliate attribution model? There is not a one-size-fits-all attribution model that works for affiliate marketing; so, it’s important to understand what all is involved. Here are a few things to consider when thinking about affiliate attribution:

1) Understand the technical requirements. The first thing you need to determine is whether or not it is technically feasible to implement an affiliate attribution model. Does your affiliate network have the capability to support affiliate attribution models to payout commission? Do you have the technical resources available to implement?

2) Understand your existing data. Most companies have the data, but lack the analysts to make sense of it all. Data is virtually worthless unless you can analyze and understand what it is saying about your affiliate program. Have you done a deep-dive into your analytics and weblogs? Do you understand how your customers are finding you?

3) Get all stakeholders involved. Redefining or implementing a new affiliate attribution model can quickly turn into a land-grab, or worse, a political battle, if the context and expectations are not-well defined and communicated. Be sure to get all stakeholders involved early. Having their buy-in will set the tone that this is a cross-functional business discussion that requires input from everyone that has revenue responsibilities in marketing.

Implementing An Affiliate Attribution Model

Implementing a new affiliate attribution model can be a significant change within a marketing organization and for those affiliate partners working hard to promote and advertise your brand. It is important to understand the implications and have clear communication, both internally and externally, with those that may be impacted.

Affiliate attribution should not be a strategy to pay less commission to your affiliates; it should be a means to pay affiliates that have more influence with consumers a higher margin for delivering more value within your affiliate program.

Big data is making it easier for marketers to understand each interaction a consumer has with your brand leading up to the sale. With Internet retailers needing to better understand their customer to justify marketing spend and increase their return on ad spend, 2013 could be the year of affiliate attribution.

According to the latest reports, users who install this version of Firefox will no longer see targeted advertising unless they change their settings to accept third-party cookies. A user will see ads, but these ads won’t necessarily be based on their browser or shopping history.

Is this new? For Mozilla, yes, in terms of it being a default setting. Apple’s Safari browser has had this default setting in place for quite some time.

Meanwhile, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer currently allow third-party cookies by default. Actually, for quite some time every browser has offered users the option of going in and changing their settings.

Privacy Advocates

However, privacy advocates maintain that most users don’t know how or why to change these settings and therefore they should not be followed on the Web when it comes to shopping unless they expressly allow for it.

So, why all the hullabaloo? In many ways, this news is resurrecting some of the age-old debates about online advertising. In one corner, you have supporters saying it’s about time to stop the third-party cookies. In the other corner, there are a good many folks, marketers being at the top of that list, who are saying that blocking third-party cookies is bad for e-commerce and will stifle technology innovation in advertising.

Blocking Third-Party Cookies

Now, I’m not going to tell you that blocking third-party cookies is all good or all bad. That’s like saying all advertising is completely evil or it’s entirely beneficial. Though, here’s what you should know.

• Third-party cookies can improve the user experience because they let website owners know how visitors are using their site and what content they deem valuable, including what brands they visit and which products they’re shopping for.

• Cookies make sure the site visitor isn’t inundated with the same ads. This is because cookies help create targeted ads, which support a significant amount of the production and development costs of creating that valuable content.

• Cookies manage the frequency at which the visitor is shown ads so as not to bother shoppers.

• Cookies also do other things like alert site owners if and when a site is broken.

• For affiliate marketing, cookies track the transaction so the publisher can get credit for referring the sale within a particular time frame.

If we take an all-or-nothing approach to allowing third party cookies, here’s what we could be dealing with:

• An increase in the frequency and display of random ads.

• Less opportunities for small publishers to thrive since Internet behemoths like Google and Facebook already have the lion’s share of established first-party relationships.

• A decrease in the amount of relevant content specific to an audience.

Both sides, including privacy advocates and the online advertising industry, present compelling arguments and the fact is you’ll never please everybody. Along with this is the reality that a few rogues have diminished the online experience for many and are collecting personal information to the detriment of the entire industry.

There is no doubt, however, that this move by Mozilla could be devastating for many display and retargeting companies as well as the affiliate channel.  And this comes at a time when retailers are seeing these solutions drive huge sales.

It might be time for retailers and consumers to go on record about why these solutions are valuable – at least when it comes to online shopping.

What Cookie Blocking Means For Affiliate Marketers

So, what does this default browser setting mean for affiliate marketing?  Well, the answer depends a lot on the network.  Reliable affiliate marketing solutions don’t set or rely on third-party data to find users. Instead, the cookie isn’t set until after the user clicks on the ad. Then it becomes a first-party cookie.

However, advertisers should check with their affiliate marketing network or service provider to better understand how they set cookies. This way, they can avoid a potential uprising from the publisher community this summer if they see a sudden drop in commissions. Publishers should also be proactive and check in with their affiliate marketing networks to learn how their specific processes work and if the new release of Firefox will impact them.

Another piece of this puzzle is tag container solutions. Advertisers working with these solutions for management of all their cookies, and for attribution, should make sure to talk to their solution provider to understand and estimate the impact that this default setting for Firefox will have on their advertising channels.

Just like it faced so many other sea changes in consumer behavior and technology, the affiliate marketing industry is likely to adapt to this browser setting. So regardless of a consumer’s browser of choice, I would predict that publishers will ultimately get their commissions for referring traffic to retailers.

But, it’s a strong call to the affiliate industry to step up efforts with retailers and technology providers to tout the value of online advertising solutions while at the same time being diligent about following opt-in and opt-out standards for consumers.

Stock image via Shutterstock.com. 

Heck, those pages say it’s so easy a two-year-old can do it, don’t they?

So, with that in mind, why do so many claim that affiliate marketing is hard? What makes it so difficult?

If we take the over-hyped sales pages out of the equation and bring this back to reality, most of us know that starting any new business requires much more than just showing up for a few hours and doing a couple tasks to be successful.

On the other hand, when we work for someone else to help build their business, many times just showing up is enough to get that weekly check.

Adopting The Business-Owner Mindset

There isn’t a risk when you work for someone else. Well, wait, there is one risk — the risk of losing that job. But, the overall success of that business is not on the shoulders of the employees, is it?

With affiliate marketing, our bank balance depends on the results of our actions each day. Just showing up is not enough — it is all on our shoulders.

I talk a lot about mindset. Not really from a “think it and you will achieve it” mindset, but more from an employee-mindset vs. a business-owner mindset.

So many of us are raised to get a good job and enjoy the security from someone else deciding what we’re worth each week via the number on our paycheck.

That feels safe and easy in a way, doesn’t it? Show up, get paid. Do well, get a raise.

Overcoming The Employee Mentality We Were Brought Up To Expect

But, how many of us were raised to get out there, start a business, and be 100% accountable for the bottom line?

I can tell you that I sure wasn’t raised that way. The idea of doing something so risky… so crazy… was not even a consideration.

That is why I personally found affiliate marketing to be difficult – the mindset shift. Getting things straight in my mind was very challenging for me, especially when I first started out.

Well-meaning friends and family would ask things like, “You’ve been doing this online thing for a weeks now, so why can’t you pay your bills with it yet?”

Ugh!

When you are stuck in employee-mindset mode, those types of questions are horrible and defeating… and it’s hard to handle that. Those questions lead to feelings of (dare I say it)  failure and are very de-motivational. In fact, I know plenty of people who have quit affiliate marketing because they were not living up to the expectations of those around them who spoke from an employee-mindset.

Once I started reading and learning from those that lived outside the employee-mindset, things got tremendously easier for me. Sure, the learning curve is challenging and the changes online fly at me each day at an amazing rate, but that is not the hard part.

The hard part, for me, was learning to change my mindset to accept that this is what it’s like to be a business owner. That change in mindset was freeing… empowering even… and things suddenly became much easier.

What do you find to be the most difficult thing about affiliate marketing? What changes did you make to overcome it? Share in the comments below.

Yes, and here’s why. For affiliates, once they’re approved for a program, there’s a lot of information they need to curate in order to set up a new merchant on their website. And, depending on the type of affiliate, there can be quite a bit of work involved. That said, many merchants have still been slow to make necessary marketing materials and other resources available to affiliate partners.

Some merchants are concerned about having resources publicly available to affiliates on the website, which is understandable given the risk of savvy competitors being able to access certain product information. However, there are ways to ensure only authorized affiliate partners are accessing the information by hosting the assets behind a secure login, either on your website’s affiliate portal, or making resources available through the affiliate network.

What Affiliates Want But May Not Be Asking You For

Creating a repository of marketing materials and relevant resources for affiliates can be a means of creating sustainable growth in your affiliate program. These should include:

• Content: Approved copy to be used in merchant and product descriptions
• Brand Guide: Guidelines that clearly defines how affiliates can advertise your brand and products on their website, logo usage, brand colors, fonts, etc.
• Marketing Collateral: Sell sheets or marketing collateral for top selling products or categories, with competitive differentiators
• Creative: Optimized banners, email templates, and other assets that are approved for affiliate use
• Program Updates: Ensure affiliates can easily find information around current promotions, contests, and other relevant information program information
• Automation Tools: Widgets, APIs or data feeds that will help affiliates ensure they’re advertising the latest products and offers on their website

Making these resources available to new affiliates can make it easier for them to add you to their website — and, in some instances, give you priority as a new merchant. For your existing affiliate partners, having access to resources will ensure they’re always promoting the current offers and products.

The Business Case: A Means To Drive Sustained Growth In Your Affiliate Program

Because each affiliate program is uniquely different, it’s always a good idea to start a dialogue with different affiliate partners to figure out what they find most valuable. Try to get feedback from different types of affiliates you’re working with.

While input from your active affiliates is important, also take into consideration affiliates that are not active. Maybe there’s something they need from you to start promoting your program, but haven’t had an opportunity contact you about it. You never know, you could find yourself with an opportunity to activate a new affiliate partner in your program.

When I asked the team at Offers.com about the resources they find most valuable, Paul Snyder shared: “Information about top selling products or categories and top converting offers are all very helpful. If there are a limited number of products or they are fairly complicated, a one-pager explaining the features and benefits helps our editorial team when they are preparing content.”

So. when setting up a program that makes sense. But, is there any value in having these resources available to existing affiliates that are already in the program? According to the team at Offers.com, the answer is yes: “While the main time we need that information is during setup, we like to make a pass every quarter or so when looking for optimization opportunities with merchants we’re working with.”

Empowering Your Affiliates Is A Good Thing

While I try to avoid clichés, when it comes to affiliate marketing, “knowledge is power.” Making resources available to affiliate partners so they can more effectively advertise your products and offerings makes sense. If you don’t, you may see some traction with affiliates, but it will be more difficult to sustain growth and incremental revenue in your program.

While there may be concerns about making too much information available, if your affiliate program is well managed, you can minimize the risk of product materials or other information ending up in the hands of snooping competitors. Making these resources available to partners shows affiliates you are committed to them being more successful and providing them the tools to make more money, making the reward much greater than any perceived risk.

Given the rise of bloggers and the anticipated growth of the affiliate industry, it stands to reason that more bloggers would get on board. However, it’s not that simple.

Monetization Doesn’t Mean Giving Up Control

For many bloggers — driven by either passion or paycheck – monetization is the goal. This is why many bloggers turn to options such as Google AdSense. Yet, a fair amount of feedback suggests this option leaves them disappointed partly because the blogger has no control over which ads appear on their site.

To the blogging community at large, take note: you can grow your readership and monetize without compromising the vision and mission of your blog using affiliate marketing.

While much of your success still depends on your ability to drive traffic to your blog, here are five non-negotiable criteria that bloggers should require before jumping into affiliate marketing.

1. Maintain Control Over Advertising

Be sure you have complete control over the ads that appear on your blog and that those ads align with the content on the page.

Along with the type of ads that appear, the blogger should also have complete control over the size and type of text, banners, video, and the like that appear in the ads. This way, the ads will complement the blog and not overshadow the content.

2. Brand Alignment

 Make sure the brands you promote are aligned with your voice and your editorial content. Going beyond control over the ads, brand alignment elevates a blogger’s presence among the leading brands in his or her industry. This, in turn, helps drive additional traffic to the site and, more importantly, drives conversions, therefore expanding the blogger’s reach and the potential to be credited for the transactions resulting from that traffic.

For example, I recently participated in a panel at the Independent Fashion Blogger’s conference, where several hundred bloggers gathered to learn how to improve and monetize their blogs. One of the most common questions asked at the event was how to break into the inner circles of the top brands without appearing like a sell-out.

In response, I emphasized that it’s about creating a win-win situation. Bloggers and advertisers that are aligned from a branding perspective will find it easy to work together.

Affiliate marketing enables bloggers to monetize at the brand and product level while offering complete control over which products they feature in their blog. Remember, as long as the brands and products reflect the blogger’s editorial direction, readers won’t be distracted or turned off by the monetization elements.

3. Making Introductions And Partnership Support

 While working independently is at the top of the list of perks of being a blogger, there’s also something to be said about having the support of the network to act as an independent third-party resource.

This is when the value of the network becomes either make-or-break to the blogger in terms of vetting qualified advertisers, facilitating introductions to those advertisers, and acting at the intermediary in lobbying for fair commissions.

4. Global Reach

Many bloggers today have readers from all over the world.  Affiliate marketing networks with a global reach will allow bloggers to partner with local advertisers.

For example, lets say you are a blogger in the U.S. with a significant amount of traffic from the UK.  An affiliate marketing network operating in the UK will enable you to partner with leading and emerging UK brands. Ads from these advertisers will be much more relevant to your UK audience and will be more likely to convert compared to ads from US advertisers.

5. Tools That Make It Easy  

A fair concern among bloggers new to affiliate marketing is whether it will create more work for them. After all, keeping a steady stream of interesting and relevant content flowing is already time consuming. For affiliate marketing to appeal to new bloggers it must be fun, unobtrusive, and easy.

To ensure this, the network needs to provide easy access to reports that show relevant information such as sales and commission trends, without requiring extensive training. Many networks also now have tools that make finding, getting and publishing links easier than ever, including tools for Facebook and Twitter.

If you know bloggers that are still on the fence about affiliate marketing, why not share this post and/or encourage them to take a trial run?

I think it helps keep me sharp and in touch with all those little beginner details and skills that we come to take for granted after we’ve worked online for a while.

However, I am also a “learn-a-holic” — I am always learning new things, and I choose things to learn outside the affiliate marketing arena. I truly believe this helps me be a better affiliate marketer.

How Can Learning New Things Outside Affiliate Marketing Help Me Be A Better Affiliate Marketer?

Let’s talk about that, and I’ll show you some examples.

Seeing The Big Picture

This past week, I spent a day or so learning about the Amazon FBA program. FBA stands for “Fulfillment by Amazon,” and it’s a nifty program for those that want to sell products on Amazon. Not as an affiliate, but as an actual product seller.

In a nutshell, you (as a seller) would find products in your area and then ship them to an Amazon warehouse. You then can list those products for sale on Amazon, and Amazon handles all the order taking, shipping, and customer service.

It’s a pretty lucrative program if you have a knack for buying in-demand products at low prices to sell on Amazon. Buy low, sell high, right? That absolutely applies with Amazon FBA.

Now, I wasn’t necessarily learning all that to learn how to sell on Amazon (though it is interesting to me and I’ll keep that idea in my back pocket in case I want to explore it someday). I was looking at it all from the angle of being an affiliate marketer.

I am an Amazon Associate and do a lot of affiliate promotions for their products. While I understand how the site works as an affiliate and as a customer, I never really knew how it worked from the selling side.

Where do all those products come from? Does Amazon literally sell ALL of them? Which ones are eligible for commission to Amazon Associates? What stats in an Amazon product listing are relevant and telling for those that are thinking of promoting that product?

By taking the time to learn all those things, I am now able to make better choices in products I recommend and promote because I have a better understanding of the site as a whole.

I can now see the big picture — not just the little bits and pieces we are taught when learning to promote Amazon products.

Really helpful!

Another Example: Text Message Marketing

Last summer, I spent a lot of time learning about text message marketing for local businesses.

That doesn’t have a thing to do with affiliate marketing, but I sure learned a lot that helps me be a better affiliate marketer by learning it.

Think about it, how good do you have to be to get people to take action just from one short little text message? I found a lot of good insight and tips from learning about this topic that has nothing to do with affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is just one tiny piece of the big picture that makes up making money online. The more you learn about all the pieces, the more you’re able to take your affiliate marketing efforts to a whole new level.

Do you agree? Have you spent time learning something that has nothing to do with your main goal of affiliate marketing? Do you think it helped or hurt you?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Without searching too hard, you can find hundreds of different affiliate networks on the Web with new ones popping up daily. CPA (cost-per-acquisition), CPL (cost-per-lead), CPS (cost-per-sale), CPC (cost-per-click), CPM (cost-per-1k impressions) — it all can become very confusing quite quickly. 

At the end of the day, you just want to know:

1.  What affiliate network is best for my business?

2.  What types of affiliates are most successful in the affiliate network?

3.  Which affiliate network will help me acquire the most new customers?

Figuring out answers to these questions isn’t as daunting as searching through the ~16,100,000 results Google returns for Affiliate Networks.

Having helped customers evaluate and choose new affiliate networks, I thought it would be helpful to highlight a few simple questions that will help you better evaluate and find the best affiliate network for your business.

Questions That Will Help You Choose

Below are five questions that should help you determine the best affiliate solution for your business.

1.  What types of merchants find the most value in your affiliate network?

Ask for a list of merchants similar to yours and why they are successful in the network. While you may not want to run on the same affiliate network as your biggest competitors, there is value in knowing what categories of merchants perform best in the network. If you’re a technology company, you may want to think about how well your program will perform in a network specializing in health & beauty.

2.  What affiliate models are most prominent in your affiliate network?

Ask about the types of offers that resonate best with affiliates in the network. This question will help you figure out the pay-for-performance model that gets affiliates excited in that network. If you’re looking for an affiliate network that will serve as a platform to grow e-commerce sales, be absolutely certain that the network is e-commerce centric with affiliates that like rev-share splits on a Cost Per Sale basis.

3.  What types of affiliates are most successful in your affiliate network?

Identifying what types of affiliates are most successful in the affiliate network and their marketing methods is very important. If you do not allow affiliates to do pay-per-click (PPC) or promote your products using coupon codes, a network with heavy hitting coupon and search marketing affiliates is probably not worth much of your time.

The affiliate network should be able to provide you a breakdown of split percentages of the different affiliate types in the network. If they can provide you this information, be sure to clarify whether or not this is “active” affiliates or a measure of their overall affiliate base.

4.  What measures does the affiliate network take to minimize fraud?

Unfortunately, affiliate fraud is something that continues to be at the forefront of the performance marketing industry. While larger brands tend to be the target for fraudsters, small and medium-sized merchants can quickly find themselves in the cross-hairs of the “bad guys.” Ask how the affiliate network monitors fraud as well as their policy and process for dealing with fraudsters in the network.

5.  What type of support should I expect working with your affiliate network?

Once the ink dries on the contract, what sort of customer experience are you in for with that affiliate network? Ask for a list of merchants that you can speak with that are similar to your business in terms of affiliate revenue or projected affiliate revenue.

Most important is that you speak with merchants that have the same service level agreement (SLA) with the network as you’re considering or lower. If you have an affiliate management agency or are signing up for a lower-tier SLA to manage your program in-house, speaking with a merchant that has a network-managed or top-tier SLA may not be relevant or as helpful.

Choosing A Network & Moving Forward

Creating a matrix to evaluate different affiliate networks is probably most effective. Your matrix should information around the questions above as well as other factors that will influence your decision, such as: upfront cost, contract term, monthly network fees, etc.

Quantifying each of the items in your matrix with a weighted value will make the selection process more efficient by making sure everyone involved in the decision process is on the same page.

Once you’ve selected an affiliate network to handle the tracking, reporting, and commission payment of your affiliates — it’s time to think about who’s going to be managing your affiliate program.

As previously mentioned, affiliate networks sometimes offer managed services for an additional fee. Some merchants find that retaining an affiliate management agency is a better option. At the end of the day, you need to find the best affiliate network and affiliate management solution that fits the needs of your business.