Affiliate marketing

SUMMARY: A successful affiliate program takes more than just high commissions. A proven product and an optimized landing page can be just as important.

Read how a team of software marketers kick-started an affiliate program by running their own landing page tests and, yes, offering a high commission. Sales of the target product have tripled since making the changes. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: As marketers continue to add online channels, they need to know which ones best contribute to sales. Proper attribution is vital to getting the most from your marketing spend.

We spoke with a Marketing VP for a home improvement retailer who believes many marketers are missing the mark on channel attribution. Find out why -- and what you can do to make sure you’re counting the revenue contributions made by all channels. read the complete article

SUMMARY: "A third of merchants (34%) say that 5 or fewer affiliates are driving 80% of their affiliate sales of sign-ups." "A further 23% say that between 6 and 10 affiliates account for 80% of sales." "More than a quarter of merchants (28%) say their organisations are poor at managing networks and monitoring affiliate activity." view the complete research record

SUMMARY: Even though eBay is one of the Net's top 5 advertisers, they still invest significantly in growing their affiliate program -- which we guess proves no site can get all the traffic it deserves by itself.

In MarketingSherpa's new exclusive interview, eBay's Senior US Affiliate Manager reveals practical tactics on structuring commissions, best publishers to work with and going global: read the complete interview

SUMMARY: We continue our look back at 2009, with a focus on how B2C marketers adapted to the challenges of the recession and gained new insights into emerging channels, such as social media and mobile marketing.

Here are links to five B2C articles from 2009 that show how marketers can boost conversions even when consumer spending is down, and can optimize existing tactics while testing new campaign strategies. read the complete article

By Anne Holland, Founder

The US Supreme Court has ruled that if a company does not have a physical location (a store, office, warehouse, etc.) within a particular state, that state can't require the company to collect and remit sales tax on customers located in that state. For decades now, many state legislators have floated ideas about changing that law because they "lost" millions of dollars in potential tax revenues.

First, the catalog and TV direct response... read the complete blog post