Despite this optimistic forecast, the Eurozone is looking like it’s going to head into another recession.  We’re not going to revive the economy and head back into the 1980’s euphoric hay day of mass employment, university education and new dot com businesses launching every other day.  However, for the UK to prosper, consumers do need to keep spending.  So there’s plenty of opportunity for publishers to increase their business; it’s a case of being clever with your choices.

Why not carry out a consumer survey early in 2012; understanding an audience is the key to success, and it’s a great way to start the New Year.  Then make a calendar of events, news hijacking has always been a great tool for advertisers, and if you offer a stellar platform to do this you could find yourself quids in.  Here’s my favourite advert ever from just after Obama won the Presidential election, you’ve just got to laugh!  And think, why should affiliate marketing not be able to utilise news?  People will be looking for content, searching for specific products, you just need to make sure you’re not behind the times.

There’s our first two pointers, let us know what you think!

Representing Powerlinks at the event was Head of Business Development Greg Carrol, here’s what he had to say.

CJ: How long have you worked with CJ Greg?
G: CJ have been helping us with development for just over a year.

CJ: Do you get to meet advertisers often?
G: It’s been my primary goal in this major growth stage to meet as many as possible, CJ have certainly been great in helping achieve that.

CJ: What were your objectives at the CJ Travel Publisher day?
G: To introduce our new technology to the travel industry.

CJ: Did you get all the information you wanted from the meetings?
G: I did. The AM’s in every meeting made sure there was a great flow of information.

CJ: Do you think the Travel Publisher Day will benefit your business and if so why?
G: Absolutely, I am glad to say that thanks to the meetings we will start working with many new advertisers and publishers over the coming weeks.

CJ: Would you recommend other industries to attend a CJ Advertiser/Publisher day?
G: Totally!!! The CJ account managers have their ears to the ground when it comes to new and exciting technological opportunities, these events are a chance for various industries to see almost everyone in a day rather than stretched out over a few months.

CJ: How would you like to see these events grow?
G: I think the intimate nature and almost ‘speed date’ approach was perfect, it gave all parties just enough time to see if an opportunity existed and platform to arrange discussing it further. As a person focused on business it would always be good to see more advertisers but we definitely fit as much as we could into one day!

CJ:           How long have you worked in affiliate marketing?
SA:          6 years now, 4 years client side and 2 years with Arena.
CJ:           What attracted you to the sector?
SA:          I think like most people I fell into affiliate marketing!  My career started at a regional newspaper back in 2004 where I worked on direct mail campaigns; I didn’t know anything about affiliate marketing until I joined Brightside in 2006.  A friend approached me with a role that had come up in the marketing team where she worked and thankfully I went for it!
CJ:           What do you think are the most important factors facing Legal & General in the affiliate marketing space?
SA:          Affiliates can drive large volumes of sales for advertisers in the finance sector but it is easy to become reliant on them for volume and overlook the longevity of the customers they refer to us. With this in mind, it is important to measure the overall value of a customer and then work with all publishers to grow a more loyal customer base. I believe this will be a key focus for Legal & General and it will be great to get to a position where we can reward our publisher base not just on  volume but also the value of the customers they drive.
CJ:           What technologies are you investing in at the moment?
SA:          We are investing in a new affiliate hub and also investigating PayPerCall tracking.
CJ:           What is your biggest bug-bear about publishers?
SA:          I don’t really have a bug-bear about publishers, I just find those who are easy to contact and are transparent with their activity work better with us and our advertisers.
CJ:           How do you think a publisher could work better for you?
SA:          As above just keep in contact and be forthcoming with idea’s and new ways to promote Legal & General.

It takes minutes to explore a website and understand a little bit more about it, but with over 60,000 publishers in the CJ network cataloguing them is a major task! So why bother?  Well, it’s important to really know what each of our publishers do, how they work and then make sure that we pair them with advertisers to ensure sales are achieved and we’re targeting the right audience with the right adverts.  It helps both publishers and advertisers so it really is worth the effort.

We produce these nifty graphs for every affiliate

To ensure we get through all our publishers we take on the approach of divide and conquer.  As soon as a publisher is earning they’re automatically added to our publisher portal ready for review by a member of the Commission Junction team.  The review process is easy but thorough as we refer to it a lot when building programmes for advertisers.

Not only do we classify each and every site on the CJ network, but we sub categorise as well.  We look at the business model, category covered and content style to classify each and every publisher.  It then allows us to track each publisher and report more thoroughly for our advertisers.  We’re completely transparent and honest with our advertisers and it helps us build bespoke programmes and design successful affiliate marketing plans.

The Deeplinking tool can be installed on Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, so all bases are covered.  To launch installation, just click on one of the following links for the browser you want to run the tool with: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer (32-bit version).

You can also click on one of the icons below to launch the Deeplinking download for that browser:

And here’s a step by step guide to using the tool:

• Once you have installed the CJ Deeplinking tool on your computer, an icon will appear at the top of your chosen browser and under the “Tools” menu (IE/Firefox).

• Click on this to bring up the login window, here you can enter your CJ Username and Password or register to the CJ programme if you are not already a CJ client.

• Once logged in, the below window will appear.  It will show the URL for the page you are currently on and give you the option to change your PID if you have more than one account with your programme. You can also enter your SID (shopper ID) which is used for cashback sites.

• To produce a deeplink go to the Advertiser’s page you want to deeplink. If you are using IE or Firefox use the shortcut ‘CTRL+ALT+SPACE’ to bring the deeplink window back on screen with the current webpage’s URL in the ‘Page URL’ line. Chrome doesn’t allow shortcuts but you can just click the CJ Deeplinking icon, it will bring up the Deeplinking window with the URL of the active page you were on.

•  You then can decide if you want your deeplink in a URL or HTML format.

If you chose a URL format you can’t produce any link text but can encrypt the URL. If you choose HTML you can choose whether the link opens in the customer’s current window or a new one, you can also ‘Encrypt’ or ‘Hide tracking code on URLs’ and can create a link text.

With the HTML deeplink format, you can also combine encrypting and hiding, the tracking code of the URL is shown below (IE and Chrome only).

When you are ready to generate a deeplink, click on the ‘Create Deep Link’ button. If deep-linking is accepted by the advertiser whose site you are on, and you are already signed up to their programme this deeplinking message will appear. You can use the “Copy to Clipboard” button to paste the CJ link code to your website.

If the following message appears it is because the advertiser allows deeplinking, but you are not signed up to their programme, a link is provided on this window which allows you to apply for the advertiser’s programme.

Finally, if the below message appears it is because either the advertiser does not allow deep-linking or they do not have an advertiser programme with Commission Junction.

This tool is currently only available with UK advertisers but we are looking to expand this to other countries.

We hope you all get on well with this tool and it makes life a little bit easier for you.  If you have any questions feel free to ping us a line at admin@cjblog.co.uk, or leave a message below and we’ll get back to you.

We like to keep things straightforward at CJ and so it’s a first come, first served opportunity.  Simply pick up your voucher from below – you’ll have to hurry though, as they’re sure to be snapped up in a jiffy.

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These voucher codes, worth £75.00 each and expire on 24 November, 2011.

Just follow these three easy steps to redeem your voucher:

1. Click here to go to Google to create your AdWords account.

2. Log into your AdWords account and simply follow the step-by-step guide to create your first campaign.

3. Enter your unique voucher code after entering billing information.

To spread your reach further to high quality search engines and websites, go here to find out more about Search 123, the UK Pay Per Click search engine owned by CJ’s parent company ValueClick Inc.

It’s such a talked about topic because it’s important for both marketers and publishers.  Marketers are always looking to analyse their return on investment, learning more about their audience and consumer behaviour.  It’s also about bread and butter for publishers, making sure they get the credit and commission they’ve earned.

It’s a complex discussion with no one-stop solution.  I recently wrote a piece for A4U on this very topic – if you’re keen to learn more you can read it here: http://www.affiliates4u.com/news/2011/08/who-has-right-play-god-ongoing-attribution-debate/

“If you’re developing mobile websites, you need to bear in mind the diverse range of viewport dimensions you will be designing for.

Something that looks good on the iPhone may look different on an Android enabled phone and completely different again on a Nokia smartphone running Symbian S60.

At the very least, keep your mark-up W3C standards compliant and don’t rely on emulators – they are not yet sufficiently sophisticated to accurately reproduce what the phones are displaying. Ideally you’ll need to have the hardware to test out your cross-platform site.”

  

 

 

 

 

“To minimise the amount of spam you receive, you should place your email addresses online in a way that spambots usually can’t pick them up.

Write your email address as email [at] domainname.com rather than email@domainname.com.

If writing your email on a website using HTML, use Mailtool: to make it as user-friendly as possible for people who wish to contact you. Then obfuscate it with Hivelogic’s incredible Enkoder Form.”

Brezo Sanchez Ocaña

Account Manager 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A large proportion of publishers I know own dozens if not hundreds of domain names. Later on they regret having purchased so many as they don’t have the time to build websites for them. Also they don’t attract the amount of type-in traffic they were hoping for. Therefore discipline yourself to only buy domain names that you must have.

Be cautious of hype-ridden new TLD releases. There is currently a lot of hysteria surrounding .co domain names, but they could end up being just as much of a damp squib as .tel, .ws and other TLDs. One thing many people are not aware of is a .co domain is seen by Google by default as a local Colombian domain; great if you want to rank well in Colombia, not so great if you wish to use it for a UK site.”

Dipa Shah

Account Director

 

 

We’ve recently changed the way that publisher enquiries are dealt with here at CJ. Any queries we receive are now split evenly across the Ad Dev team and we all take a bit of time each day to to go through and answer them. Over the past few weeks, one of the most common questions to cross my desk has been a variation on this:

‘Why has advertiser x rejected my application?’

This can be a tricky one to respond to. Each advertiser has their own set of criteria to determine who makes the cut, and this can vary considerably from programme to programme, but if you’ve recently applied unsuccessfully to one of our Advertisers, and you’re looking to find out why, here are some of the most common reasons for rejection and some tips to help you get accepted in the future:

Point 1: The Advertiser may have restrictions on certain types of publisher

Before you apply to an Advertiser, make sure you read the programme description. Advertisers will often use this space to flag any special requirements for publishers. For example, the Argos description specifically mentions that incentive sites will be declined.

Some Advertisers have Special Terms and Conditions that you will need to accept before joining a programme and it’s important to read these too as often they will provide more detail on restrictions.

Point 2: The information in your account may not be giving the best impression of what  you can offer

Network Earnings and EPC

Ever wondered what those little green bars in your account signify? It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the more green you have, the more likely you are to be earning plenty of the other ‘green’ through CJ. The geeks amongst you may be interested in the official explanation of how our system calculates this:

You are ranked in an apples to apples comparison with all publishers by taking each publisher’s total commissions (regardless of currency) and then converting that total (if necessary) to US dollars. After each publisher’s commission total amount has made this conversion to a common currency (USD), the ranking is established.

Network earnings ratings are based on a scale of zero to five bars. Publishers earning zero commission are excluded from the overall calculation and given a blank rating. The ranking is calculated relative to the entire network based on commissions earned by publishers during the previous month. The specific bar graph ranking is as follows:

Many advertisers who are pressed for time will use the bar ranking system to concentrate on publishers with proven earning record. Likewise they may look at your EPC (Earnings per Hundred Clicks) ration to assess your suitability.

Not all of the information in your account is generated automatically, however, and there are areas where you have the opportunity to edit your details:

Publisher name: if you are a new publisher on the network with no history, try using a name that gives advertisers a clue to your business model or area of expertise as this will make it really easy from them to approve you. In a long list of applications for a travel brand, John Smith Travel Solutions is much more likely to get the Advertiser’s attention than a publisher simply called John Smith.

To edit your name, log into your account and visit this tab:

Make sure your URLs are up to date: If you’re desperate to work with Sainsbury’s through your new site: groceryguru.com, but the only URL you have listed in your CJ account is the one you registered when you joined the network: iluvmonstertrucks.net, it’s easy to see why your application might be declined. Keep your URLs up-to-date and don’t be afraid to list them all.

To edit your URLs, visit this tab in your account:

Promotional Methods: There’s a box for this: use it! The more information you can give the advertiser on how you work and what methods you are using to promote them, the better:

Point 3: The content of your website may not be everyone’s cup-of-tea (AKA: They’re just not that into you..)

Advertisers can be extremely picky about where their brands are displayed and more often than not, a rejection will simply be based on the fact that when an Advertiser visited your website, they didn’t like what they saw. What constitutes a good website is highly subjective and what works for one person won’t necessarily tick all the boxes for another. Once someone has made their mind up it can be very difficult to persuade them otherwise, however…

If at first you don’t succeed…..

Try again. If you really want to promote an Advertiser, don’t be afraid to get in touch and let them know! Our biggest Advertisers get hundreds of applications every week so don’t be dispirited if you are rejected immediately. If you have a good case for working with that Advertiser- then make sure they know what it is.

The easiest way to contact an Advertiser is to use the Mail tab in your account:

When you hit the ‘Compose’ tab, you’ll find a list of all of the Advertisers that you have applied to in the ‘to’ section:

You can then write your message and hit send. This will send an email directly to the Advertiser’s account.

Useful things to include:

• Where you plan to promote the Advertiser
• How you plan to promote the Advertiser
• Any useful stats about your website that might sway the Advertiser (e.g. you are new to the CJ network and therefore have no earnings history but your site gets x amount of traffic every month)

I can’t guarantee you’ll get accepted but it’s worth a try.

I hope that goes some way to explaining some of the rejections you might have received in the past. If you have any questions on the post just email admin@cjblog.co.uk