Methodology

“AffliateBenchmarks™ reached out to a broad array of affiliate networks for recruitment support. In addition, some of the most prominent advertisers and industry news sources in this medium also assisted in recruitment to ensure a diverse pool of respondents. These various promoters helped enhance the outreach for AffliateBenchmarks’™ fourth research report by directing potential respondents to the highly intuitive, best-in-class platform developed by SurveyMonkey between the survey’s opening on July 1st and its official closing on September 1st. With their involvement, we were able to maximize the number of participants and ensure the report would be based on a representative sample of the entire market. Each participant was only offered access to the raw data; no rewards or payment were offered, which could have created answer bias. This report contains data from affiliates and advertisers around the globe. We thank everyone for their support. Due to data integrity issues, we have not included the agency/consultant data in this report and will release that data later once the issue is resolved. Questions can be directed to AffliateBenchmarks@Netx.com. We apologize for this inconvenience.” There were in total 7,279 respondents.
Survey shows that of the respondents the largest percentage of people categorized themselves as Affiliates/Publishers. The next largest percentage of respondents categorized themselves as Advertisers/Merchants with Agencies|Consultants|OPM representing the lowest percentage.”

Where are the women in Affiliate Marketing?
The survey shows us that the affiliate marketing industry is still predominantly made up of men and what is remarkable is the percentage of male/female split is almost the same as the UK demographics in the 2009 UK Affiliate Census. By the way the UK have just closed their survey for the 2011 Affiliate Census so it will be good chance to compare using current data. I still don’t know why the overall ratio between men and women is so great. As I have stated before, it’s the perfect industry for women with children who want to generate income, be able to work from home and choose their own hours. I rarely come across Female Directors of our industry companies but more often than not, the marketing roles seem to be predominantly women as employees.

Over 65’s active in Affiliate Marketing
It was so great to see that 3.2% of the respondents were over the age of 65 which is in line with Royal Pigdoms social network research that the over 65’s represent 3% of social network groups. http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/16/study-ages-of-social-network-users/ According to Nielsen , although the over 65 only represent 10% of internet users in the US, the numbers are rising and it’s good to see that our industry is on the map within this age bracket.

Are you qualified?
The survey asked the question about the highest level of education that the respondent had.
28.6 percent of the respondents said that they had a college degree or equivalent. I would have liked to have seen an additional question asking respondents how much of their college studies had any relevance to what they were doing now. Affiliate marketing from an affiliate’s perspective is one of the few industries whereby no one needs to hold any qualifications at all. It’s all about experience surely? All any publisher really needs to know is how to set up an affiliate link, those clever techs out there have and are designing sign up and go platforms that can be used in place of a traditional website, example Blogger, Facebook, ,wordpress and so on. The technical skills of having to have a website in the early days are now a thing of the past.

Affiliate marketing is a part time career.
Again by comparison to that of the UK Affiliate Census in 2009/10 half the respondents In the US affiliate marketing survey did affiliate marketing as a part-time job. No surprises there, but what the survey did reveal is that the highest percentage of respondents only came into the industry in 2011. By contrast only approximately 1% had begun in 1994 (I’d like to shake their hands).

So is affiliate marketing profitable?
The majority of respondents got less than $10k per year with the top 2.7% earning over $400K per year. On first glance at these figures I immediately equated these figures as affiliate’s/publishers being in the less than 10k bracket but upon reflection with the likes of the high profile affiliate companies here in the US and UK they almost certainly would have to be in the over 400k bracket. It’s a shame the survey did not split this out. To put this in to context it should be noted that a high percentage of respondents did not or could not reveal their earnings.

What Affiliates look for before joining an affiliate program
I was bemused to read that Affiliate’s, when deciding on which affiliate program to join, the number one choice was the commission amount offered followed by relevancy then product & Price, with EPC (Earnings per click) coming in fifth place. Fair dues, EPC was the only metric of choice offered to the respondents, I’m still surprised that it was not the second highest when deciding which affiliate program to join. The amount of commission becomes meaningless unless the advertiser’s website converts. Most affiliate networks offer publishers the overall conversions of the Advertisers affiliate program allowing the publisher to make an informed decision before they join, however this metric can only be displayed to publishers if the Advertisers/Merchant has an existing affiliate program. Terms and conditions were third from last, I had expected this to be in the top three.

Which affiliate networks do you belong to?
The respondents were asked which affiliate networks they belonged to, the top six Affiliate Networks that most had joined were Cj.com, Google Affiliate Network, Click Bank, LinkShare.com and Shareasale.com, however the respondents only had a choice of fifteen affiliate networks to choose from. In the USA there are between thirty eight and forty five Affiliate Networks.

Did Affiliate’s have a favorite affiliate network?
Cj.com is without a doubt a monster in the industry and longevity has most certainly helped and we were not surprised with it being number one, followed by Google Affiliate Network and Click Bank.

Affiliate Techniques
It was encouraging to see that a huge proportion of affiliates are still using a myriad of techniques in order to get traffic and not just relying on one or two techniques. When asked about their pay per click spend, 44% said they would invest less than around $5k with approx 2% who said they would invest around $60k or more. But natural SEO search came out as the top choice followed by social networks.

What Merchant offers do affiliates find work best
We had a problem trying to interpret this section, from what we can ascertain it would seem like affiliates get a better conversion when a merchant offers free shipping, this could be the top most liked promo. From our own research, free shipping + coupon works well.

What a great question!
“Are all of the websites you indicated above revealed in your affiliate profile?”
Only half of the respondents said that they reveal all of their websites and just under half said that they did not. If we take out the 5% that said the affiliate network does not support multiple URL listings then we see that a lot of affiliates do not display their multiple websites. What this means for an affiliate manager who has to approve affiliates before allowing them to join the affiliate program is that he/she is making a judgment call based on the site that the affiliate submitted when he/she joined the affiliate network. It’s a split second decision that could mean the difference between accepting or denying a potential gold mine for the merchant. How many affiliates have had emails saying “sorry your application was denied…” If the affiliate networks offer affiliates the option to list multiple sites, then in the affiliates own interest to list all of their sites. If the Affiliate Network does not support multiple listings then they should add this feature as it is in their own interest. As the survey reveals, there are some affiliates who have up to twenty five sites and up.

Why do affiliates stop working with an Advertiser/Merchant?
The top answer was because the affiliate was not generating enough revenue, which links into what do affiliates look for before joining an affiliate program see above. If the Affiliate Network has the metrics to show an existing affiliate program’s overall conversion / EPC (Earnings per click) then affiliates can make the judgment call before joining the affiliate program. If an Advertisers website simply does not convert or has low conversions for anyone, then no amount of traffic the affiliate sends will convert any better than without the use of affiliates. Most Affiliate Network tracking works, some better than others, but basic sale tracking works, so the affiliate network can’t be blamed here for poor conversions. It is black or white, either the affiliate is not sending relevant traffic, or the merchant does not know how to convert the traffic he/she gets. Affiliate Programs that do well are the ones where the Merchant has a good user friendly website with product demand and the right prices.

Don’t call us we’ll call you
Overwhelmingly, affiliates prefer to be emailed when being contacted by Merchants/Affiliate Managers and Affiliate Networks with only 2% opting for a phone call. Why? Because Affiliate’s are busy people and want to do things in their own good time. If just half of the respondents work part time on their websites, I would imagine that some affiliates will be working outside of office hours and at weekends where the only means of communication would have to be email.

Erm you don’t live here!
When asked “Where are you located?” 51% said that they were from outside the USA. This is an example of how affiliate marketing from an affiliate’s perspective has no country restrictions. The internet has facilitated the affiliate for just about every obstacle that may get in his/her way including language and currency. By contrast when Merchants were asked about their location over 70% said they were based in the USA.

In conclusion
By comparison to other affiliate surveys across many years, what we know is… Affiliates come and go like waves. Most of the big money making affiliates of today will in time be replaced by new big money making affiliates. The small affiliate generating one or two sales per week or month is just as important as the big affiliates as they represent a significant proportion of revenue for the merchant. The majority of affiliates are still part timers and prefer to be left alone to read their newsletters, this is not to say that some don’t prefer the phone call its horses for courses. Affiliates do read Affiliate Network and Merchant specific emails providing there is news in it, I bet that’s a relief to some people. Affiliates do use their own website analytics in order to monetize their traffic and Affiliates use social networking as a means to promote their Advertisers and represents a very large proportion of revenue.

Affiliates look at the commission percentage before anything else when it comes to choosing an affiliate program, so merchants take notice of this. I’m hoping that affiliates will continue to look at the Advertisers overall website conversions too before making their decision to join a program and if the network does not display or facilitate this metric, contact the merchant before joining the affiliate program and ask them what the overall website conversion is, average order basket and what the customer retention percentage is.

We already knew that Affiliates come from all walks of life and now from all around the world, they are diverse and many have the skills and knowledge which they use to drive targeted traffic to the merchants website.

Affiliate Marketing is global and it can only get better.

For more information about this survey please go to
http://affiliatebenchmarks.com/

AffiliateProgramAdvice.com and The Noise Farm Inc now have the results of the UK Affiliate Census and we will be comparing UK and US after we get the green light from our friends at Econsultancy.com We already have some staggering differences, stay tuned.

Even before the economic sharp intake of breath, I said that merchants should think about joining two affiliate networks. One of reasons, I stated back in the day, has proven to be correct which was not to rely on any one affiliate network for their sales and or leads just in case an affiliate network goes bust. Id like to think I was being prophetic but its just common sense really. Merchants should be adopting “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” strategy across all their ecommerce when it comes to being dependent on third parties, paid advertising for example. I feel belonging to two networks is still appropriate today and for the reason above. Since 2000 there was evidence that if one affiliate joined one affiliate network the chances were they had joined most of them and is still true today and I can see the point made in the e-consultancy.com report “from a merchant’s perspective the benefits of belonging to more than one network may be outweighed by the extra administration, duplication of effort and the danger of being spread too thinly”. We can see that not all affiliates use all the affiliate networks that they have joined up to, affiliates therefore have clear favorites now. We know that some affiliates who joined affiliatewindow.com in 1999 joined many other affiliate networks but never promoted their merchants. We could attribute this to the same reasons why some merchants are reluctant to join a second or third affiliate network. “more than one network may be outweighed by the extra administration, duplication of effort and the danger of being spread too thinly.” Another reason why we may see this pattern in the likes of Cj.com, Tradedoubler.com, Affiliatewindow.com and other established affiliate networks is one of affiliate choice and familiarity. Choice meaning a wide range of merchants within the affiliates sectors. Familiar meaning, payment terms, linking methods and even country specific. I still feel merchants should go with two affiliate networks and start focusing on affiliate networks with international presence as it’s not impossible to sell goods abroad but more over merchants can tap into cross border affiliates. In a nutshell, merchants and affiliates should not limit themselves always have a plan B :0)

What we have seen is merchants getting a better understanding of how affiliate marketing works, some affiliate networks have provided better technology to aid more transparency on where sales are coming from. Merchants have a better understanding in the pay per click arena and we have seen a huge reduction in the number of merchants allowing brand bidding. I think these are the key factors that have contributed to the 2% loss and not necessarily anything to do with the current economic crisis. The predicted increase at 12% is a clear signal that affiliate marketing continues to thrive. I can’t help but be disappointed that affiliate marketing has only ever made up even 10% of all online sales, I thought this figure would or should be so much higher by now.

There is a core group of affiliates that are hard at work trying to come up with new ways to use the internet to acquire their own website traffic, new affiliate blood is still sluggish and still top heavy with just a few affiliates generating most of the sales for their merchants, now that merchants are getting to grips with this ambiguous form of internet marketing maybe “we” the industry should be honing in on those affiliates that need the same kind education and nurturing to balance things out?

Get the full report from e-consultancy.com

A step-by-step guide on how to break into affiliate marketing.

The following is an excerpt from the fast track guide on how to begin as an affiliate. The guide has been written aimed at people who know almost nothing about the industry or how to get started.  This guide walks newbie affiliates through the very basics just to get them started in generating revenue. The guide is filled with resources and tools and information using blogging methods by way of example for those who may not know how to get a website together. I have opted to charge a nominal fee of $8.73 for the complete guide which can be downloaded here
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/affiliate-marketing—how-to-begin-as-an-affiliate—a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-break-into-affiliate-marketing/8218631

I never understood and still don’t understand why so many people never looked at this industry to supplement their income. Affiliate marketing is ideal for people on low incomes, the disabled, parents who want to stay at home and look after their children or simply to supplement their income. Affiliate marketing facilitates the opportunity to work from home and enjoy what you will be doing.

I know that it will always be easy when you know how, but even I had to start somewhere and I am still learning after all these years. This article is intended for anyone coming into the industry that has little or no understanding about affiliate marketing. This is specifically aimed at anyone wanting to become an affiliate/publisher.

What is affiliate marketing? Some call this performance based marketing, some call it referral marketing, some call it revenue sharing, some call this loyalty marketing and I have heard it being called partner programs, associate programs, all these terms are correct. Affiliate marketing is predominantly on-line advertising whereby the affiliate is paid a small commission for referring their own website traffic to an online store. Affiliates get rewarded based on an action performed by his/her referred visitor, the affiliate remuneration (referred visitor action) can be based on cost per click, pay per sale, CPA, CPA (2) can also mean pay per lead (example, insurance quotes).

“A system of advertising in which site A agrees to feature buttons from site B, and site A gets a commission on any sales, clicks or leads generated for site B. Affiliate Marketing is on line advertising where the advertiser (Merchant) pays for advertising purely on results. All affiliate campaigns are based on a revenue share or hybrid commission/leads deal.”

          Source: Jessica Luthi, E-Consultancy.com (Affiliate Marketing–A Buyers Guide April 2004)

Do people really make money from Affiliate Marketing?

“High-level findings from USA Affiliate Census… At the hobbyist end of the spectrum, nearly a quarter of affiliates (23%) generate less than $50 per month in sales for their merchants, and a further 7% generate between $50 and $100. At the other end of the scale, 17% of affiliates generate more than $50,000 a month in revenue for their merchants”

          Source: http://econsultancy.com/reports/us-affiliate-census

Reported in the United Kingdom Affiliate Census, “the UK affiliate market was worth £3.82B in 2008, a 22% increase from £3.13B in 2007. An estimated £227M was paid last year in commissions and fees to affiliates and networks.”

          Source: http://econsultancy.com/reports/uk-affiliate-census

Please keep these figures in perspective; whilst there is big money to be made in this industry, the figures should not mislead you into thinking that you can give up your day job in a week. The report is to show you how much money some affiliates earn. I can tell you the majority of affiliates work very hard to achieve a sustainable income.

One problem with this industry that I have found is that it can be vague when it comes to information on how to do affiliate marketing from an affiliate’s perspective. The problem of ambiguity seems to stem from the fact it is an individually defined kind of sector, meaning it’s based upon the affiliate being seen and operating as an individual. Each affiliate will have their own level of understanding about the technology, marketing, how the internet works to name but a few. However, there are some basic rules to follow. Tip: walk before you can run, start off small, and get it all working before reaching for the moon.

When do you start making money?

Realistically, by month three you could be looking at double figures and depending on the subject/topic you chose, you may even reach three figures, (this is also subject to many variables) I can tell you if you have reached double figures by month three, you have something viable to build upon, don’t give up. What this will show you is that you are on your way and what you are doing is working, just some further fine-tuning may be required. There is no magic wand, there is no such thing as a sure thing, and it all takes time and effort. If I was coming into the industry as a newbie today, here is how I would do it and I wouldn’t need to have technical skills or even a website. This is how to become an affiliate using simple blogging

 To buy the guide
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/affiliate-marketing—how-to-begin-as-an-affiliate—a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-break-into-affiliate-marketing/8218631

The Redsave affiliate program offers a tiered commission structure from 4% on electrical goods, to a very generous 15% on gifts and gadgets! However, as a terrific Xmas incentive Redsave are offering an amazing 25% commission rate on all gift & gadget products normally at 15% commission from now until 21st December 2008! So make sure you sign up to the affiliate program now to take full advantage of this terrific offer! (Please note this offer only applies to items normally at 15% commission, and excludes all electrical products, swimming pools/trampolines, robotics, deals of the day, and gift experiences.)

The Redsave affiliate program has 120 day cookies, updated product feed, dynamic links, industry sized banners, content, and a monthly affiliate newsletter with all the latest news and offers from Redsave, as well as tips and assistance.

The affiliate program is managed by Catherine Dunn at AffiliateProgramAdvice.com and you can contact her at Catherine at AffiliateProgramAdvice.com with any queries or for help or assistance.

You can sign up to the Redsave affiliate program with AffiliateWindow here!

More retailers than ever see affiliate marketing as a very effective sales channel but reduced budgets are affecting traffic and turnover, according to research published today.

The Affiliate Marketing Survey Report 2008, conducted by digital marketing research publisher E-consultancy and affiliate marketing agency R.O.EYE, found that 46% of merchants rate the channel as very cost-effective for driving customer acquisition, up from 44% last year.

However, comparisons with last year’s survey show that the average proportion of online marketing budget designated to affiliate marketing has dropped from 18% to 14% since 2007, and that the proportion of online sales ascribed to affiliate activity has decreased from 16% to 12% over the same period.

Restricted budget has jumped from fifth place to second place in the hierarchy of barriers to successful affiliate marketing. Despite the inherently low-risk nature of performance-based affiliate marketing programmes, less money is being invested in this area. This research highlights the importance of a well-managed affiliate marketing campaign, ensuring the channel is driving incremental sales.

Almost 60% of merchants surveyed acknowledged that affiliate relationships and sector experience are crucial to a successful programme, reflecting the need to prioritise investment in internal resources or outsourcing.

Other findings show that sales generated by SEO and content sites have eclipsed those of paid search and loyalty/cash-back sites.

The Affiliate Marketing Survey Report 2008 is based on the findings of a survey of more than 250 merchants and 150 agencies in July.

Linus Gregoriadis, E-consultancy’s Head of Research, said: “Whilst the research represents something of a wake-up call for the industry, the good news for affiliate marketing is that merchants continue to regard it as a cost-effective channel for driving customer acquisition. However, there has been a slight decrease in investment in affiliate activity which can be attributed to several factors.

“Whilst reduced budgets due to the economic downturn may be partly responsible, merchants are also getting better at getting traffic directly to their sites and they are also refining their approach so that they are not paying out for sales unnecessarily.”

The report identifies the most significant affiliate marketing trends as the rise of super-affiliates, brand-bidding and growth of cash-back sites. Some 45% of respondents highlighted brand-bidding as the most significant trend.

Mark Kuhillow, Managing Director of R.O.EYE, commented: “The 2008 report has clearly sent out some key messages for the industry. With budgets being reduced as a result of the economic situation, this has had a direct effect on the traffic and sales merchants and agencies have received through the channel.

“While more merchants than in 2007 view affiliate marketing as a very effective channel, almost 70% are spending less than two hours per week communicating with their affiliates and policing them. It is more important than ever before to forge strong relationships between merchants and their affiliates to protect volume and the channel’s efficiency. This report highlights the changes the industry and exposes the end of ‘easy pickings’ for affiliates.”

APA response in due course …

It’s no secret that we have always rated PaidOnResults.com as one of the top affiliate networks, Ill just reiterate why this is. From an affiliate’s perspective, they have thoroughly understood that affiliates are all at different levels of marketing and technical know how. They have been able to combine a layman’s term approach without compromising or patronising the affiliates who are serious tech heads and this is where their strength lies. The ability to understand who their users are but most importantly what they want.

A few cool tools in clued:
Basket data, I now know at product level what my visitors are buying. Yes that feature my not be new to some affiliates and some networks, but I don’t have to drill down through reams and reams of reports, put in my click reference or spend precious time in just analytics. At a glance I can see who, what, where, when and how many. Its not available across all merchants, if merchants want to be included then they need to contact POR, any merchant who wants to upgrade just needs to get in touch support at paidonresults.com and they will take you though it. Some merchants may not be able to upgrade, due to limiations of there order system for example, just depends how technical you are or if you have access to a developer, if the latter APA may be able to help you there. The flip side of the basket data from a merchant’s perspective, it takes the guess work and the hours of analytics to query “What products are being sold from affiliates?” Screen grab below.

Merchants have had an affiliate radar tool called trends for some time now.
For merchants and agencies we can see affiliate rising super stars but more importantly we can see affiliate falling super stars too, this tool allows us to spot the affiliates before they fall off the radar completely. Now this is a pretty powerful tool if you think about it. Yeah it’s not new any more from a merchant/agency perspective anymore, but it is for affiliates because, you get to see your performance per merchant in a visual way see image below.

The information you see as an affiliate is the information I see as a merchant. I can now better use my time in making sure that I get a blue arrow for the next month to prevent future red arrows. It’s like an early warning system for both affiliates and for merchants. Those that have been in the business long enough all understand that time is precious. Harping back the UK Affiliate census (which we are revisiting this year) we saw that a high percentage of affiliates did affiliate marketing in their spare time.

Level of affiliate activity (active/inactive; day job/spare time)

• 51% of respondents say they are ‘active’ affiliates compared to 39% who say they are occasionally active and 10% who say they are inactive.
• 27% of affiliates say they do affiliate marketing as their day job (compared to 73% who do in their spare time)
• Of those who do affiliate marketing as their day job, 92% are active [Figure 20].
• Of those who do affiliate marketing in their spare time, the majority (52%) are ‘occasionally active when they get the time’ [Figure 20].
o 36% of spare time affiliates are active and 12% are inactive.
• The active affiliates are fairly evenly split between those who do as their day job (48%) and those who do it in their spare time (52%) [Figure 21]. (to obtain this full report click here )
I feel PaidOnResults.com have addressed the shortage of time that affiliates have and its also by nature of the industry we are in, spreading your self too thin is a common problem amongst our peers.

Under Merchant bulletins, I can now select the merchant and immediately I have the top ten best selling products and create a content unit. See image below.

For me the biggest plus point is more about saving valuable time and paidonresults.com allow us all to do this. Get in there quick, no messing about waiting for reports to download and time out, with a combination of visual reporting, overviews, trends and detailed, its up to you how deep you want to go.

Just as a little side note, from A merchant and Agency perspective, I get to see the IP country origin, whilst this for me can immediately high light a potential fraudulent sale and yes we know IP tracking is not full proof, I do think having this option in the front end for affiliates would be just as useful to them. If affiliates don’t have time to look at their log files and other analytics, what better way to see what other countries are buying products from your merchants. We are seeing a rise of affiliates cross country promoting, this could really help them along the way.

Here is the official announcement from PaidOnResults.com and before I sign off, we at APA are very proud to be working with you guys and we thoroughly appreciate everything you do. I can’t wait until you go to aim, when is that? Id invest in a heart beat… you get our super star award!

Here’s to Graeme and Clarke and all the guys and girl at POR. Graeme you should be patented, trade marked and pickled for prosperity.

Paid On Results is proud to announce the release of the latest version of our highly regarded Affiliate Control Panel.

The new Affiliate Control Panel hosts a number of new and improved features and reports, including the release of our upgraded Content Creator – making it simple to create your own custom designed product feed content.

Content Creator – our first Content Creator was highly rated by Affiliates, and the new version is even better. With an integrated in-browser WYSIWYG HTML editor, you can create truly customised product content. The content is served dynamically keeping it up to date. These system improvements are all based on feedback received from active users of our existing system and make it one of the easiest and most flexible systems around.

Basket Data Report – see which products are being purchased by your visitors. Merchants need to support this feature, however, already a number of our Merchants have integrated the necessary advanced tracking code. We already have Basket Data going back to 2005 for some Merchants! You can now see exactly what products you have sold and can even grab links and product images for any product listed in the report.

Bulletins – every Affiliate knows the feeling of an ever increasing Inbox full of emails from Merchants with their latest promotions and offers. Our new bulletins system gives Merchants the platform they need to effectively get that information out to Affiliates. Like our Voucher Manager, you can subscribe to the latest bulletins and receive emails which can be personalised to give you exactly the information you require. You will also receive the Affiliate links you need.

Improvements to the ever growing Merchant Directory make it even easier to select Merchants to promote by providing the following detailed performance data for each Merchant – Conversion Ratio, Average Commission and Approval Rate.

Additionally, a number of other improvements have been made to each report incorporating a fresh new design layout across the whole Affiliate Control Panel whilst still keeping our easy to follow page navigation from the previous version.

The launch of this control panel will also see a change in how we plan to introduce future upgrades and new releases. Rather than holding the launches of our major upgrades until we have several new features all available at one time, we will be introducing minor changes and new features thought the year.

We always listen to feedback we receive from our active affiliate base so please be sure to leave any ideas or suggestions via the feedback forum when you logout of the control area. Many of the upgrades you see today are as a result of such feedback.

The Affiliate Control Panel was developed fully in-house by Paid On Results.

http://www.tamba-games.co.uk/internetworld/

And it works and I love it, I know…. I cant help myself, its just soooo cool.
It’s a little addictive :0)

Oh yes sorry here is the serious bit!
29th April – 1st May 08
Remember to register FREE for Internet world ,it looks like its going to be mega huge and the key note speakers, well the list goes on and affiliate marketing is getting a pretty big presence. If there is one event NOT to be missed, its this one. Ill be going and if your about let me know and lets grab a coffee.

Keynote Theatre

The leading names deliver the cutting edge

Tuesday 29 April 2008

The future of the social web
10.15

Myspace , Travis Katz , Senior Vice President International

Consumers reconfigured: identity and lives online and off
11.00

Futureal , Tamar Kasriel

Harnessing Social Media for B2B and B2C marketing campaigns
11.45

Intel , Chris Hogg , Director of Marketing

How UK Government approaches the web and social media
12.30

Central Office of Information , Jamie Galloway , Director of Digital Media

Session: New trends in digital marketing
13.15

McKinsey & Company , Jacques Bughin , Director

Monetizing Social Media: a case study in measuring the value of social media marketing online
14.00

E-consultancy , Ashley Friedlein , CEO (reccomended by APA)

The dangers of the proprietary web – Future of Internet and Open Source
15.00

Mozilla Europe , Tristan Nitot , President (recommended by APA)

Google University Adwords Masterclass
15.45-17.00

Google , Google University

Wednesday 30 April 2008

Beyond media cannibalisation: feeding the always-on consumer hugry for more…
10.00

ITV Broadband , Annelies Van Den Belt , Managing Director

Marketing 3.V: Strategic marketing, next generation immersive advertising and brand engagement in virtual worlds
10.40

Habbo UK , Phil Guest , Managing Director

Mobile Internet: a broadcaster’s perspective
11.20

BBC , Peter Mercier , Head of Mobile

To see the full list of key note speakers go here

http://www.internetworld.co.uk/masterclasses.html

IDM Academy
http://www.internetworld.co.uk/idm-academy.html

Digital Marketing theatre
http://www.internetworld.co.uk/digitalmarketing-theatre.html

Enterprise Content Management
http://www.internetworld.co.uk/ecm.html

The Microsoft Pavilion at Internet World
http://www.internetworld.co.uk/copy-microsoft-sharepoint-pavilion.html

More than 1,000 respondents took part in this survey, making it the most authoritative study of its kind about this fast-evolving marketplace.

“The percentage of organisations using Yahoo!’s paid search platform has climbed from 45% last year to 49%. The proportion of advertisers using Microsoft’s platform has dropped slightly from 33% last year to 30% this year.”

"9% of companies surveyed are spending more than £1 million annually on paid search"

“Gregoriadis added: “As separate entities, Yahoo! and Microsoft are struggling to make significant inroads into Google’s seemingly impregnable position.”

The research also found that 89% of search advertisers rate Google as the best for return on investment and, identically, 89% of company respondents rate Google as the best for quality of traffic. Google is even more dominant for its management tools. An overwhelming 94% of client-side advertisers and 91% of agencies said that Google was the best in this regard"

Down load a sample of The UK Search Engine Marketing Report or for the full report from E-Consultancy.com

My thoughts are, evidence shows that MSN & Yahoo, whilst indeed they don’t have volume, for some merchants, they can yield a better conversion, indeed Yahoo came in as No 2 for next best converting engines. Whist this report is UK it would be intersting to see a US comparison re MSN and Yahoo.
"Some 77% of UK company respondents are based in the UK"

I would be asking the question how many people are seriously investing into other search engines to complement their google efforts. “Google’s seemingly impregnable position” The concerns I have and still have is that far too much investment into the one google basket is dangerous for a business and still advocate not putting all your eggs into the one google basket all that data about your business, would you hand the keys to your safe to a complete stranger?
Also some food for thought, what’s your plan B if google died tomorrow?

Was this latest move from google’s changes in their trade mark policy good for your business? Some will argue yes and some will argue no, it depends on who you are, what is clear is that google likes to keep us on our toes and throw a few curve balls and all we can do is be reactive, this makes me nervous. Impo, we need a serious competitor to secure our businesses and MSN/Yahoo have got to get it together to provide that choice. All the signs are there it’s in their conversions (for some companies) this is encouraging and I really do hope they can get the juice and tools to propel them on and fast! Don’t get me wrong, I think google is a super power and they command respect. Now here is where I can see an interesting scenario developing which could work to MSN’s advantage. “According to company respondents, the biggest problems preventing paid search marketing success are as follows:

1) Keywords too expensive (38%)
2) Lack of internal resource (36%)
3) Lack of budget (34%)"

Where by click costs become so expensive it starts to drive companies to the competitors and it will start with the small to medium businesses. Internal resources, lack of… may also drive businesses to google’s competitors. The more the google goal posts keep shifting, the more appealing their competitors become, now that would be an interesting scenario. Never underestimate the little person, whilst economically they may have less then the deeper pockets, collectively they have the power to influence and change the search landscape over time.
We’ll see :0)