The previous Master Class, which focused on techniques to recruit affiliates, promised a more detailed guide to affiliate marketing forums and this week we’ll be looking at which communities you may wish to get involved in to learn, teach, have fun... and spread the word.

Many forums frown upon you posting a blatant advert about your affiliate program. The best way to attract affiliates is by getting involved in the communities and helping others. Share your knowledge. Over time people will get to know and respect you. They will contact you themselves about marketing your products and services.

You should include a link to the information page about your affiliate program in your forum profile and signature.  Don’t add juvenile comments to your profile or signature; your aim as Affiliate or Account Manager is to project yourself as a professional and grow your affiliate program not be a Cool Dude.

Most affiliate forums are created with vBulletin software and a sample signature would look like this:

[color=purple]Your name, [url=http://www.your-company-name.com]Your Company Name[/url], Inc.

Your tagline or any other message[/color]

[url=http://www.link-to-information-page-about-your-affiliate-program.com]XYZ Affiliate Program[/url] – find out more about our affiliate program[/url]

Finally, you should have a well-designed avatar. It can be your corporate logo or picture. The latter will help affiliates recognise you at events.

 You should keep the same profile on all forums you choose to participate in to develop a coherent and recognised online brand.

ABestWeb

ABestWeb was set up to cater for the American affiliate marketing community and has sections on the major US affiliate networks. It can be a useful port of call to keep up with latest developments, but over the years it has unfortunately become overly-commercial. 

Networks, affiliate management companies and merchants are invited to pay a few thousand dollars to buy sections on the forums and are then free to fill them with ads.

It means ABestWeb has more sections than any other forum in the sector: you have to scroll down about eight pages to get to the bottom!
ABestWeb will not generally allow you to promote your affiliate program unless you pay. You may purchase banner ads, a section on the forums, or the lowest price option is to buy an announcement in the New Affiliate Programs and Announcements section for $75.

Affiliates4U

Affiliates4u is the only affiliate marketing forum in the UK and many of the country’s networks actively participate in it. PrimeQ’s section is here. 

Affiliates4u has developed from a straightforward forum into an all-round Facebook-like community (see May 17 Weekly Q).

Merchants are permitted to post announcements in relevant sections on the forum such as Promotions & Incentives, the sections belonging to the networks they use, or one of the four vertical channels, but it is not a good idea to do this too regularly or else the community may see you as ‘spamming’ them.

The forum runs regular events such as the travel networking event on May 23 in which PrimeQ was one of the sponsors and it can be a good idea to attend to learn more about the industry and build a rapport with affiliates.

Digital Point

DP as it is commonly known is arguably the biggest forum in the industry; just the Google section has 386,000 posts. It is a massive global community, with a large number of members from places like India. It attracts a younger audience than other major forums and the quality of debate is poor.

Although it caters for anything and everything of interest to webmasters and online entrepreneurs, a significant portion of the community seems to be engaged in affiliate marketing.

The affiliate programs section does allow you post on occaisional announcement, though it is more acceptable to do so in the Buy, Sell or Trade sub-forum.

eWealth

eWealth is a friendly international affiliate marketing community although a significant proportion of the members are from the United States.

It is devoted to affiliate marketing and so you don’t have to wade through discussions about PHP and MySQL to find affiliate-related discussions.

The most popular section is the Chilling Out and Program Discussion one and there are sections devoted to affiliate networks, search marketing, affiliate resources etc.

The only place where you are allowed to post an advert for your program is the Program and Website Announcements section. There is no charge and most announcements get between 20 and 80 reads.

Revenue Source

Revenue Source is a smaller community than the others but is a classy offering. It has a stylish green and black design and sophisticated features that other forums lack. The members are friendly and knowledgeable.

Set up at the tail end of 2004, it has sub-forums devoted to the major US affiliate networks and site design.

There are two sections where you may post ads for free: Affiliate Program Announcements section and Marketing Requests / Traffic Trades. There is also no charge for listing your affiliate program in this section of the Revenue Source directory.

Sitepoint

The only major forum in online advertising which is run from Australia, Sitepoint attracts a massive global audience (it is currently the 403rd most popular site on the entire internet according to Alexa) . Launched in 1999 by Matt Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle, Sitepoint has gradually developed to include blogs, tutorials, online videos and even publishes its own print books.

The forum community is generally knowledge and professional. The focus is on web design and programming rather than online advertising, but there are a fair number of affiliate marketers who frequent the forums.

You are not allowed to advertise in the Advertising Sales & Affiliate Programs section but can buy a listing from $10 in the Marketplace. There are various other advertising options.

Google Adsense Disables Arbitrage Sites by June 1st

Numerous Adsense publishers have received emails from Google stating their use of Adsense on arbitrage sites is unacceptable and their accounts will be terminated as of June 1st.

The emails from Google say “our specialists found that your business model is not a good fit for the AdSense program”. While the webmasters’ accounts will be disabled on June 1st, all profits earned by then will be paid out in full.

The move is likely to impact on thousands of webmasters, many of whom have been making thousands of dollars a month through PPC arbitrage. Jeremy Schoemaker comments in his popular Shoe Money blog that Google is not targeting all arbitrage sites, but is focusing on the lowest grade sites, those “that are not converting well for advertisers”.

Arbitrage websites, also known as MFA (Made For Adsense) sites, typically buy advertising from Google via Adwords and earn money through advertisements fed by Google Adsense on their landing pages. MFA sites often have syndicated or plagiarized content.

The sites have been criticised for providing a poor user experience. Matt Mickiewicz, the Co-Founder of webmaster portal SitePoint, reflects the views of many web users when he says: “I’m sick and tired of seeing these MFA sites which add no value to anyone (besides their owner) and which clutter search results on Technorati and other search engines and fill the web with duplicate, useless, or outright stolen content.”

The move makes sense for Google since many Google AdWords advertisers refuse to advertise on the content network because of the plethora of MFA sites. In the long run it could mean more money for publishers if advertisers return to the content network.

It is expected the move will lead to MFA publishers attempting to replace Google Adsense ads with those from Yahoo Publisher Network or affiliate networks.

In other news, Google Adwords has banned ads for essay writing sites.

 

Zanox, Linkshare Jostle for Position in European Affiliate Marketing

Two developments on the same day, Zanox’s purchase by Axel Springer AG and PubliGroupe AG and the inaugural Linkshare Summit in the UK, demonstrate the world’s largest affiliate networks are ratcheting up their efforts to lead the lucrative European affiliate marketing arena.

On May 22, German newspaper publisher Axel Springer and Swiss-based PubliGroupe announced they had agreed to buy Zanox for €214.9 million ($288 million) plus performance-related bonus. Springer is publisher of the mass-circulation daily newspaper Bild.
On the same day Linkshare held a gathering in London’s Park Lane Hotel in which Japan and America’s largest affiliate network made no bones that the UK and European markets were central to their expansion plans.

Linkshare is owned by Japan’s Rakuten which, as the President of Linkshare, Stephen R. Denton, quipped in his keynote address is “the biggest internet company nobody has ever heard of”.  Rakuten is the world’s seventh largest online business with a market capitalisation of around $7 Billion; it even has its own baseball team in Japan, the Rakuten Golden Eagles.

Athar Qureshi, the Strategy and Business Development Manager of Zanox, says the purchase of the network by behemoth offline media groups “provides a huge boost in terms of the potential of household names from the advertiser community coming online for great programmes, and in some cases, moving into online for the first time.”

In the meanwhile, Stephen R. Denton told the Weekly Q that Linkshare was looking forward to serving the needs of affiliate marketers in the UK and Europe and running more events. “The first ever Linkshare Summit in the UK went very well and I am looking forward to the next gathering being even bigger and better,” he stated.

When Kevin Kozinchik, Director of LinkShare Europe, was asked why Linkshare was not moving faster to develop a foothold in the European market he said, “we have been in the UK for a year, but instead of rushing headlong into bringing merchants and publishers on board, our emphasis have been on researching the market and listening to people about what is currently lacking. We have a reputation for serving US merchants and publishers well and would like to understand each local market so we develop the same reputation in Europe.”

 

US Online Ad Spending Rockets to $17 Billion in 2006

Online advertisers in the U.S. spent a record $US16.9 billion in 2006, up 35 percent from 2005 according to a study released last week by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Search, lead generation, display and classifieds all grew, as performance-based and CPM pricing both increased.

“The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s report demonstrates the renaissance of online advertising,” Jason McClain, CEO of PrimeQ told the Weekly Q. “There were a number of lean years after the dot.com crash, but this is the fourth consecutive year in which advertising on the internet has shown an increase. PrimeQ is ten years old and our meteoric growth over the last few years has not only been down to the efforts of my hard-working team but the rapid transfer of advertising spend from offline to online.”

Some of the findings of the study include:

• Consumer-related advertising accounted for 52 percent of online ad revenue in 2006.
• Revenue from advertising on search engines accounted for 40 percent of online ad revenue in 2006.
• Display advertising generated 32 percent of online ad revenue in 2006.

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“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.” William Shakespeare English poet & playwright (1564-1616 )

 

 

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