2009 Affiliate Marketing Research Study
Just saw my friend Rosalind Gardner shared the AffiliateBenchmarks affiliate marketing survey on her blog. I took a look at it and it’s a very well-constructed survey to determine 2009 affiliate practices. I want to share this with you as well.
All affiliates who participate and complete this survey will receive a free copy.
Here’s the press release:
New York, NY (PRWEB) July 8, 2009 — AffiliateBenchmarks, a research division of outsourced affiliate management agency NETexponent, has released an affiliate marketing survey to be completed by affiliates and website publishers by July 31st 2009. The survey results will gather best practices for several aspects of affiliate marketing, including how best to communicate with affiliates, what advertisers can do to optimize affiliate relationships, what tools and information affiliates crave, and what challenges they face. Results will be analyzed and used to identify marketing trends and projected changes. Affiliates who complete the survey will receive a free copy of the results and others will have the option to buy a copy once released.
We were very proud of last years effort and the industry’s response but knew we had room for improvement This year survey is not only bigger and better but it also has the support of major affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, LinkShare, PepperJam, Shareasale, and Media Trust. Thanks to the support of these major networks we have been able to optimize our study and significantly increase the number of respondents.
AffiliateBenchmarks produced their first study in 2008 and the research report was met with an extremely positive response from the online marketing community. The positive response from last years research report and continued need for industry benchmarks prompted AffiliateBenchmarks to produce the 2009 survey. This year the AffiliateBenchmarks survey has been significantly expanded and improved based on the knowledge and feedback from the industry leaders. The 2009 survey includes a wide range of questions about topics such as affiliates’ experiences with different types of ad performance, site visitor demographics, technology and communication preferences, motivations for joining an affiliate program, experiences with emerging technology, and more.“We were very proud of last years effort and the industry’s response but knew we had room for improvement,” said Peter Figueredo, CEO & Co-Founder of NETexponent. “This year survey is not only bigger and better but it also has the support of major affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, LinkShare, PepperJam, Shareasale, and Media Trust. Thanks to the support of these major networks we have been able to optimize our study and significantly increase the number of respondents.”
If you are an affiliate/publisher and are interested in benchmarking your success by completing this survey, we will send you a copy of the results. Your time and input is greatly appreciated. Be sure to complete the survey before July 31, 2009. Affiliate Benchmarks respects the privacy of affiliates and only aggregate information will be shared.
AffiliateBenchmarks is the affiliate research division of NETexponent. AffiliateBenchmarks designs and executes affiliate marketing research with the purpose of increasing industry education and providing useful data and statistics to the affiliate community. We focus on the benefit of the affiliate marketing industry as a whole, and strive to provide reliable information that is interesting and useful to a wide range of people involved with affiliate marketing. Follow us on Twitter @AffBenchmarks.
NETexponent is an online performance based marketing agency located in New York that specializes in outsourced affiliate and search marketing management, growth, and optimization. Founded in January of 2001, the metrics-driven firm leverages nearly a decade of management experience in structuring win-win, performance based deals with its clients. The agency focuses on efficiently acquiring the most valuable customers for each advertiser they work with, while always delivering the highest level of client service. NETexponent is committed to being the industry’s leading performance online marketing agency, continually evolving to address changing market conditions and client needs. Follow us on Twitter @NETexponent.
To your continual success!
Andy
PPC Classroom Live 3
Hello from Las Vegas Hilton Convention Center where I spent 3 days at PPC Classroom Live 3.
Hats off to Anik Singal as not only a good friend, but someone who really ecellerated my career in Pay Per Click Affiliate Marketing.
I remember the first PPC Classroom Live in Las Vegas, where I made a comittment to come learn from Anik & the rest of the speakers. It only seems like it was yesterday. These guys definiately have come a long way to bring more than 18,000 people into the training, 500 people at this event to network and share their success stories.
The first day begun where the brought up the coaches on stage. At PPC Classroom Live 2, Anik had asked me to come on board and help train the students as a VIP Coach.
Amit Metha, David Ford, Stephanie Houstan, Vikas Bhatia, Andy Huang, Adrienne Devita
After working with the student for over 6 months, it is a great honor to finally meet some of them in person. So we started the 1st day by introducing the VIP coaches on stage so students can come to us during the event to help answer any questions they might have.
What I really enjoy is to really spend some face time with students to help review their current strategies as well as share what tactics I applied for my own business.
It was great to be part of the panel to help answer questions in the VIP session. I actually had caught a flu last week in Texas. I was glad I was able to make it through the event that day.
Day 2 was great when I was up on stage presenting with my business partner Simon Leung. We went into more detail in terms of the strategies we deploy as an agency as well as training materials we used to train our team in China.
Sharing our actual results of a success campaign. $1.2 Million in gross sales revenue with less than $9,000 adspent.
It was a great to be able to spent sometimes not only with the students, but the support staff of Lurn who are behind PPC Classroom that is teaching the 10s of 1000s of entrepreneurs worldwide.
David & Andy Huang
Andy Huang & Mark Roth my mentor of CPA network ( Offervalut.com)
We had a surpised guest from Beverly Hills to see Simon & I. Blake Mallen, CMO and Co-founder of ViSalus.
Blake Mallen, Andy Huang and Carol Yang
After the 3 Days of intensive work Anik treated all the coaches and staff to a nice steak dinner at TJ Steak house inside of Las Vegas Hilton
Andy Huang, Anik Singal, Carol Yang
David DiNucci & Andy Huang
Of course, with every success event, there is the after party. We were invited by Blake Mallen to join his crew at the Wynn hotel.
Inside shot of Tryst at Wynn Hotel
Carol Yang, Andy Huang, David
Look forward to the next PPC Classroom Live 4, and hope to see you there.
To your continual success!
Andy Huag
Finally a System That Works – Students Are Earning $4,234,789/Year!
In the world of internet marketing, there’s a new product that is launched every week (maybe even every day). I know you know about it because you get the e-mails. I’m not saying that all or even any of these products are bad.
Most are probably great in their own light. But, here’s one thing that really bothers me about ALL these products.
So, the goal of the product is to teach “US” how to make money, right? Yet, they sell the products based on how much that “GURU” is earning?
Again, I’m not saying that the guru doesn’t make that much money, I’m sure he/she does. However, how does that help “me?”
Just because someone is good at making money does NOT mean they’re good at TEACHING us how to do it. I’m always shocked at how none of them talk about what their “students”make.
Crappy Testimonials…
To top it off, a lot of testimonials are general and just say “Oh yea, this course is great…” and most of time the testimonials are just from their “buddies” – I think
these hardly carry any value!
How about sharing the “exact” amount that the students are now making 100% thanks to the course that they’re trying to sell us?
Anyways, that was my rant. The reason I thought about it was because, yes, there is yet another course being “re” launched soon. Trust me, if you haven’t heard about it you will.
But I can honestly say, it’s refreshing to see that THIS one is different.
I was REALLY impressed with what I’m seeing so far. They’re ACTUALLY proving to us that this course works!
The course is called
PPC Classroom
and it’s being released by Anik Singal and Amit Mehta (Amit is the author). They released
this course back in October of 2008 and it was a blockbuster.
Rumor has it that they had over 7,000 students come into the system and I’ve never (even once) seen a bad review ANYWHERE (even on Warrior forum) about the course.
Well, it turns out that this course actually works! Just in the last 3 months…
- Students have quit their day jobs…
- A student actually saved himself from getting EVICTED
- Students went from making $30 a day to $3,000 a DAY…
All in all, the students now earn, $4,234,789/Year. Very impressive.
I have gotton Anik and Amit well enough , as well as working with the many of the top student knowing their results..
FINALLY, actual proof.
Well, I know they’re getting ready to re-open the classroom on February 24th
But, they keep saying there is a BIG surprise coming out on the 23rd (not sure what that is).
Anyways, I just finished reading an excellent report they have released for free, definitely worth reading – it really proves that they know what they’re doing.
Click here to download the report…
See you when inside when the course re-open.
To your continual success.
Andy
PPC Classroom Live 2008 Garden Grove, CA
Hello from the Hyatt Regency in Orange County as my good friend Anik Singal & Amit Mehta kicked off a 3 day of intensive PPC Classroom Live with a full line up of great search marketing experts for the students of PPC Classroom live.
Since the venue was so close to home, I attended to support Anik & Amit as well as some of the VIP students from PPC Classroom.
Amit Mehta & Anik Singal
I am really suprised on how organized and structured this event has been, probably one of the most professional event I have been to this year. The team brought in several corporate sponsors such as revenuewire.com, markethealth.com as well as other affiliate networks to provide the student personal face time to interact and discuss their needs with the affiliate manager of each program platform.
Here is a picture of sponsor area before the event opened
Anik & Amit Opening the event
The speaker lined up for this event was truly amazing. A lot of great PPC expert came and shared their search marketing expertised with the PPC Classroom students.
Here are some of the speaker profiles:
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Vinny Lingham of SynthaSite.com
Vinny is one of the most brilliant marketers we have ever met. He has one COUNTLESS awards around the world and has made MILLIONS from PPC (while running the business from South Africa)!
Today, Vinny runs a company that is worth over $50 MILLION, based in San Francisco. He uses PPC to drive in over 2,000 users a day to his new service.
Kirt Christensen (The Ad Thief!)
For the first time in my life, I was BOO’d last year at my OWN event when I had to kick Kirt off the stage for being 20 minutes over his time! Kirt is definitely back by popular demand…
Kirt will share his best “PPC tools” – these are the tools that he literally uses to SPY and steal from his top competition without them ever knowing what hit them…
Kirt is one of the most well respected marketers in the world and one our top advisors.
Dr. Mike (The Lead Gangsta!)
Dr. Mike is one crazy guy, but when it comes to getting leads, he can throw anyone under the bus. Dr. Mike is the first person all the top marketers in the world go to when they need to generate leads using CPC.
Making money without ever selling a darn thing…
How does that sound? Just get someone to fill in their ZIP code and Dr. Mike will show you how to get paid up to $5 for the ZIP Code!
Gauher Chaudhry (Coming To A Cell Phone Near Your…)
The author of what’s still considered the BEST course on CPA PPC marketing ever written – years after it has been taken off the market.
Gauher is onto his next earth-shattering strategy that he has NEVER spoken about publicly…
PPC Classroom LIVE 2008 is the first time he has discuss this strategy in DETAIL.
Mike Reining (PPC Whiz Flying In From Malaysia!)
Mike is the co-founder of MindValley, arguably the most respected PPC tool developer in existence.
Mike started his business with just $500 and today runs a Multi-Million dollar company in multiple niches.
Mike shared the BEST keyword strategies he has – things he used to create his “Word Butler” software – these tips have NEVER been shared before!
Of course, with all successful internet marketing event, a cocktail networking party is required.
Raffle drawing at Revenue Wired Sponsored cocktail
Lucky Apple TV Winner showing off
Of course, after 3 days of intensive workshop, we headed to downtown disney with several of the speakers and VIP for a special dinner reception to celebrate the success of PPC Classroom Live 2008.
Carol, Andy, Amit, Anik at VIP Dinner
I look forward being a part of Anik & Amit’s big success in 2009 as PPC Classroom relaunch again on Feb 17th. So look for my announcement before the door close again.
Till next time, to your continual success!
Andy
The SMART Seminar 2008 In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Hello from Rm 2203 of the Boulevard Hotel at first ever The SMART Seminar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!
The SMART Seminar 2008 in Malaysia is one of two back-to-back weekend events hosted by Stuart Tan and my business partner Simon Leung, and we’re scheduled to continue with The SMART Seminar in Singapore next week.
This past weekend in Malaysia, we kicked off The SMART Seminar with some of the most talented speakers from all around the world that I’m proud to call my friends, partners and mentors…
The SMART Seminar Malaysia Speakers
In front of a packed room full of information-hungry attendees, we were blown away by the valuable information presented by Anik Singal, Ewen Chia, Lee Collins, Robin Collins, Donna Fox, Mike Morgan, Mark Widawer ,Robert Puddy, and myself.
I’ve seen every one of these powerful speakers present before, but never have I witnessed such a tremendous flood of solid content that was delivered and shared among them than at The SMART Seminar.
It was my first event in Singapore, and a great opportunity to share stage with the top internet marketer as well as meet and share strategies that has worked for me to assist the students in the round table session.
The SMART Seminar Malaysia Breakout Sessions
Both the speakers and the attendees agree that these breakout sessions added a ton of addition value to The SMART Seminar experience because not only did it help the speakers build trust and relationship with the attendees, but it also gave the attendees the chance to ask each speaker questions personally in small group settings.
And even though we were truly in the presence of greatness, Stuart Tan and I were also proud to have in attendance some of Malaysia’s well-known Internet Marketers as well, including Patric Chan, Gobala Krishnan and Vince Tan.
As always, no Internet Marketing conference is complete without a speaker VIP dinner, and of course, The SMART Seminar is no exception.
On our final evening in Malaysia, the awesome folks at MindValley sponsored our evening of fun at the Kuala Lumpur Marriott, where we were joined by our good friend, the legendary Mark Joyner, who was also in town for another event.
The SMART Seminar Malaysia VIP Dinner
Overall, the event turn out to be a huge success even with a few last minute replacement speakers for those who couldnt make it to the great event.
I look forward to updating you about The SMART Seminar 2008 in Singapore shortly, but in the meantime, here are several more fun memories of The SMART Seminar 2008 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:
VIP Gathering At The Marriott
Fun Dinner At Local Restaurant/Lounge
Hanging Out With Drinks
Affiliate Marketing – The Art and Marketing
Line art is any one-color line drawing for affiliate affiliate marketing like a pen and ink sketch. Line illustrations can be very effective on your mailing pieces and there are several sources for them. If you have the talent, you can draw illustrations yourself, or have an artistic friend draw them. This way your drawings will be original and distinctive. Another source is your printer. He frequently will have numerous pieces of clip art, or small line drawings, for you to choose from. Clip art is also provided in books which you can buy and use without being concerned with copyright since the price of these books includes royalties and fees. These books can be found at art supply stores.
Yet another source of illustrations and ornaments are sheets of transfer art, available at art supply stores. The ornaments can be positioned and rubbed in place on the mechanical with a burnisher or with a ballpoint pen or spoon handle.
Photographs are quite costly to have printed in your affiliate affiliate marketing advertising. They should be avoided if a line drawing can be used with equal effect.
Using a photograph requires making an extra negative and stripping it into the line negative. It also necessitates that a photographic print be made if you make any modifications on the photograph itself. Since this is frequently necessary, your costs will increase in proportion. If you are incapable of making the necessary modifications on the face of a photograph, you will have to pay for the services of an illustrator or graphic retouch artist. For these reasons photographs should be avoided if it is possible to do without them. Later when your business grows sufficiently the additional costs can be painless absorbed.
If a photograph is required, have the picture taken by an affiliate affiliate marketing professional industrial photographer, he should be experienced in photographing items similar to the one you are selling. If possible, the photographer should do his own developing, enlarging, and printing rather than sending this work out to a commercial laboratory.
When you’re working on your art, you need to make sure it fits with your overall message of your ad. Consider art carefully. It’s not used like it used to be. You want to choose a piece of art that will enhance your marketing plan and actually sell the product or service. If you choose to use art, you want to show exactly what your product looks like or you want to show someone performing the service that you’re offering. This will greatly enhance your chances of making sales and improving your overall bottom line. It also necessitates that a photographic print be made if you make any modifications on the photograph itself. Since this is frequently necessary, your costs will increase in proportion. If you are incapable of making the necessary modifications on the face of a photograph, you will have to pay for the services of an illustrator or graphic retouch artist. Art is an important aspect of an ad, and if you maximize your efforts you’ll be maximizing your profits from the ad.
Andy Huang
3 easy step to Automate your SFI business
Today I will be sharing my strategies to grow and automate my SFI business to help all of my team members to do exactly the same.
The setup instruction are outlined in 3 easy steps you can do. But first, you must be an SFI affiliate. So if you havent join SFI, you can do so join here. Its free.
Let me share with you how I brought in over 805 affiliates all on Autopilot.
Below is a screen shot of my SFI account
Step 1, lets configure the autoresponder system to put your business on Auto Pilot.
I can’t stress enough the importance of following up with SFI signups. I would imagine that my business would be nowhere near as successful as it has been were it not for following up using my various autoresponders. What’s more it is now totally on AUTO-PILOT!
Below I will show you how to upload the followups from my personal autoresponder into your own. Then I will explain how to customise these messages with your own personal and affiliate info so that they look like your own and more importantly you get any credit for sales made from them. The affiliate info included will be your Plug In Profit Site, SFI, and Traffic Swarm.
These messages will also go a long way to supporting and encouraging your personal affiliates to upgrade their SFI accounts.
Bookmark this page (Press Ctrl + D on your keypad) and pass it on to all your affiliates. The more this process is duplicated the better for us all.
Below I will outline a step by step process for implimenting the steps above. You must have a Getresponse Pro account to do this. If you don’t already have a Getresponse account then you can get one here.
If you already have a Getresponse account then read on:You will need to set up a new responder at your Getresponse account. To set up a new responder log into your Getresponse and click the “Setup & Manage Lists” on the left hand side. Then click the “Create a new list” link and set up a new responder. You will need to name it something original.
Download my SFI followup messages HERE, and create them in your account.
- Log into your getresponse account by clicking here.
- Log into your “New” responder by choosing it from the drop down menu at the top left of your screen.
- Click the “Create New Messages” link at near the top of the screen.
- Select I do not need a template, then hit next step.
- Copy day one content and hit add message.
- Repeat this step until you have completed all the follow up message with the day interval
That’s it! Well done, you have loaded my follow up messages into your account. Now you need to customise them with YOUR affiliate IDs and personal info. To do this follow the remaining steps:
Before your Getresponse account is completely configured you need to make sure that your details and affiliate links have been entered in the correct place so that they will be entered in the appropriate emails in your followup series.
Adding Your Variables To Getresponse
The “variables” section in your Getresponse is basically where you can make a change with one or two clicks and effect the links in all your messages.
This means that I can set up an email campaign, you can upload them and by adding YOUR variables you changes links in the messages automatically without having to change every message manually or individually.
For example one affiliate id in your Getresponse messages may look like this http://www.[[pre_sfi_id]]/MG
By going and inserting a variable in the [[pre_sfi_id]] field of the “variables” section of Getresponse you can automatically change this link in your followups. In this case I would insert quickinfo247.com/235051 in the [[pre_sfi_id]] field.
Now lets see how we add your “variables” which effect every message in your followups.
Please note: If you are not a member of any of these programs then it is important that you leave something in the variable fields otherwise there will be dead links in your emails.
Adding Your “Variables” Steps:
- Along the top of your Getresponse page click the “Prospects” section, scroll down to “Variables” and click.
- You should now be on the “Variables” page. Scroll down and you will see two form fields which read “Variable Name” and “Predefined Value” respectively and a check box which read “add also for slave accounts”. Usung these boxes you will add your info to the followup messages. Let us see how to do it.
- Here is a list of what each variable relates to and how to add YOUR info:
- name_id = This is your “name”. If you don’t know this then you need more than a followup series;-). To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “name_id” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR name(ie John Smith). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
- domain_id = This is your main domain name. You can basically put any website address here. If you own a Plug In Profit Site then it is a good idea to enter this URL. You can get your own website here. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “domain_id” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR website domain name(ie freeadvertz.com). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
- plugintraining_domain = This is your Plugin Profits Training site address. If you don’t have a training site for your Plug in team nor a Plugin site then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “plugintraining_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR training site address(ie myteamtraining.com). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
- plugin_domain = This is your Plug In Profit Site affiliate domain name. If you dont have one then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “plugin_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR Plug In Profits affiliate domain name and affiliate number(ie pluginprofitsite.com/main-7387). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
- sfi_domain = This is your SFI affiliate domain name. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “sfi_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR SFI affiliate domain name and number(ie moreinfo247.com/8902557). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
- trafficswarm_domain = This is your Traffic Swarm affiliate ID. If you don’t have a Traffic Swarm id you can get one here(This is free to join). If you don’t want to do this then just leave then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “trafficswarm_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR Traffic Swarm affiliate domain and number(ie trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?318138. Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
- trainingsite_domain = This is your SFI Training site address. If you don’t have a training site for your team then then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “trainingsite_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR training site address(ie sfielite.com). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
Congratulations! That’s it you have set up your SFI Followups now all you need to do is come to your Getresponse account whenever you get a new affiliate and add them to the series(See below for instructions).
Most Important
Test your emails to ensure that they contain all YOUR affiliate info. To do this follow the instuction below. This is very important.
Testing Getresponse Email Followups
Steps:
1. Log into your Getresponse account here:
http://www.getresponse.com/login.html
2. Along the top of the page hold your mouse key over the “Messages” section, scroll down to “Test Messages” and click.
3. You should now be on the “Test Messages” page. Scroll down a little.
4. Where you see “Your e-mail” enter your regular email address.
5. Click the downward arrow where you see “Choose Message” and choose “All messages” or choose a particular message from the list that you want to test. If you choose “all messages” everyone of the emails from your campaign will be sent to your email account.
6. Click the “Send test message!” button.
7. Check your email account to have a look at what your prospects see everyday when they open their in-boxes.
Note: Now every time you get an email notification of a new SFI Affiliate add them to this autoresponder to encourage them to upgrade. To do this log into your Getresponse account go to your SFI Followups account using the drop down menu at the top left of your Getresponse accout, then go to “Prospects”, then “Active prospects” and use the form there to add the new affiliates to your autoresponder system.I have added a link to this training site at the bottom of each followup message which you are free to remove. I hope you keep it there in appreciation of this series and also to make sure your team get access to training and support.
Good luck with your marketing. Tomorrow, I will show you where I get my leads from, and how to import them to your campaigns.
Andy Huang
