Affiliate Marketing 201 By Missy Ward Missy Ward

Affiliate Marketing 201 By Missy Ward @Missy. Ward

Free (and Nearly Free)! Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Independent Plugins • Pretty Link Lite - Takes long affiliate links and automatically shortens and masks them into links containing your domain which can be easily redirected. [http: //www. missyward. com/prettylinklite] • Broken Link Checker – monitors your blog looking for broken links and lets you know if any are found so that you can redirect them and not lose any commissions. [http: //www. missyward. com/BLC] • SEO Smart Link – Automatically appends a specific URL any time you mention a specific word in your blog posts. [http: //www. missyward. com/seo -smart-links] • Simple Ads Manager – Manage ad placements with very flexible logic and tracking system [http: //www. missyward. com/simple-ads-mgr] Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources Forums: • a. Best. Web. com • Wickedfire (if you can look past the crudeness of some members) • Digital. Point • Warriorforum Top 25 Affiliate Marketing Blogs of 2012: • Get the list here: http: //www. missyward. com/top 25 blogs (2013 is about to be released) Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources Magazines • Feed. Front Magazine [All affiliate marketing – all of the time, written by the folks that actually do it. ] • Website Magazine [Caters exclusively to the business of running a website] • Internet Retailer [Online retailing strategies, marketing practices, technologies, etc. ] Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources Podcasts • Geekcast. fm Podcast Network [offers dozens of free internet marketing podcasts, many which are targeted to affiliate marketers] • Affiliate Buzz by James Martell [Podcasting since 2003 http: //jamesmartell. com/category/affiliate-buzz/ Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources Webinars & Videos • Affiliate Summit Youtube Channel – offers over 600 videos from Affiliate Summit sessions covering just about every affiliate marketing topic there is. [http: //www. youtube. com/affiliatesummit/] • Share. ASale Webinars: Live webinars with content targeted at Share. ASale affiliates [http: //www. missyward. com/sasweb] Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources Marketing Tools: • Watch. Count. com – Let’s you see the most watched items and what’s hot on e. Bay • Google Trends – displays “hot searches” of the day and lets you explore the search volume for keywords. • Ripplefire. com and One. Load. com – allows you to publish your videos across video and social hubs uploading it only once. Also provides tracking. • Viewbix – Customizable skin that allows you to embed your affiliate link in the video, newsletter signup, QR codes and more along with provides detailed analytics. [Tutorial at http: //www. missyward. com/viewbix] Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources Marketing Tools (Continued): • Luminate: Enables your images to be interactive [annotations, sharing, products in picture]. They share commissions based on product purchases (derived by image tags) attributed to the picture [Think Adsense for pictures] • Share. ASale’s Make a Page- Enables you to find products related to your audience and quickly create shopping pages with your Share. ASale affiliate links already embedded. • Google Analytics Content Experiments - Tool that can be used to create A/B tests to boost your website conversions. Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Favorite Free (and Nearly Free) Affiliate Marketing Tools & Resources Books • Extra Money Answer: by Shawn Collins – step by step instruction on how to build a blog, get traffic and monetize it. $2. 99 [http: //www. missyward. com/extra-money-answer] Meetups • Monthly Free Affiliate Summit Local Meetups in cities across the U. S. and Canada: [http: //www. affiliatesummit. com/meetups] Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List Why should you incorporate list building and marketing into your web strategy? • Engage and interact with your audience • Pre-sell, up-sell and cross-sell • Increase loyalty (turns first-time customers to repeat customers) • Push vs. Pull (prevents RSS forgetfulness) • In-depth tracking Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List Good email marketing vs. Spam • CAN-Spam (http: //www. missyward. com/canspam) • Opt-in and confirmed • Can unsubscribe quickly and easily • Trusted connection • Targeted and provides value Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List Free Services: • Feedburner (I’d get off of this. Google shut down Google Reader, why would they keep Feedburner long term? ) Paid Services: • Aweber, Vertical Response, Feedblitz, My. Newsletter. Bulder (Spencer) i. Contact, Constant Contact & more. • Prices based on size of list, number of sends, etc. • Features to look for: • Send personalized newsletters (templates, RSS by email) • Create signup forms for your website or blog • Create autoresponders • Deliverability • Statistics Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List People just don’t give up their email address without a good reason. How to get folks to sign up to your list • Define fields to capture • Convey trust • Preferential placement on your home page • Define benefits • Provide an incentive Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s Tips for Building Your Email List Tactics to grow your list • • • • Subscription form on every page “Forward to a friend” Optimize current and archived newsletters for Search Engines Consider PPC Subscription during checkout Co-registration Newsletter reciprocity Display on all printed materials Add to signature line in all correspondence Customer surveys, invoices, packing slips Include in press releases Tradeshows Blog comments Call center Post cards Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s 6 Bonus Nuggets Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward

Missy’s 6 Bonus Nuggets: The Stuff No One Tells You 1. Beware of URL Shorteners [Blacklisting, transfer of assets, interstitial, adding their affiliate link] 2. You CAN ask for higher commissions and custom creatives 3. You CAN ask to for first right of refusal on new products 4. You CAN deep link to any page instead of sending traffic to a home page [most merchants] 5. You MAY be able to run an affiliate link in a post that a PR company has paid you for. Ask! 6. Optimizing images great for traffic [height/width, file name, alt tag, caption] Missy. Ward. com @Missy. Ward