The writing’s been on the wall for some time – merchants and affiliates need to up their game if they’re to stay relevant, especially as the market gets more sophisticated.

Just take a look at the signs of the times:

• Implementation of stricter quality measure (eg Google Quality Score) to clamp down on “thin” sites. Especially hit hard are single page landing sites.
• The noose tightens. You can get somewhat around the QS issue with an about us, contact, privacy page and sitemap. But you can be sure that the quality control noose will continue to tighten.
• Expansion of the PPC and Affiliate market: Just like in the dotcom days, you’ll have fools rushing in, especially as PPC and affiliate marketing start to go prime time. Already, the “pseudo gurus” have shifted from pimping “Adsense in a Box” products to “CPA in a Box” products. [I’ve looked at a number of these products and the only person making anything from them, is the guy who sold it to you].

So is some “guru” out there going to exploit this market by issuing a free “Death of Affiliate Marketing” report?

If so, stay as far away as you can, because most expensive advice you will ever get is “free advice”.

I was reading Jim Lillig’s post “Performance Marketing Makes Sense” especially the part where he says:

“I believe engagement is to blame. The final frontier of advertising is to connect a product (and ultimately a brand) with truly interested consumers in a relevant, meaningful andlasting way at a time when they have the propensity to purchase or consider a purchase.“

In my opinion, it’s very much a “chicken and egg” issue.

If you’re promoting $1 or $2 zip or email submit offers, you’d be wondering what level of “engagement” you can work on, especially if you’re running at a 30 – 50% margin at best (or $0.30 to $0.50).

Granted some of us have the priviledge of getting Super Affiliate payouts which are double, triple or even higher than the posted rate, but what about the average affiliate?

You have a couple of options, and both aren’t exactly easy to take action on.

The first is to promote (more…)

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Having a foot each in the info marketing and PPC (Pay Per Click) space has been eye-opening and there’re a number of possibilities for hybrid marketing, especially given the pros and cons of each side of the divide as I’ll go into details here…

Information Marketing (or Info Marketing) is where I started out, marketing ebooks and digital products and gradually developing my own products.

Traffic generation and list building are the bread-and-butter for info marketers. The mantra “The money is in the list” applies.

As an info marketer, you should be keenly aware of the lifetime value of each customer. That’s the value of commissions or product sales you’d expect from each of your customers over the lifetime that they do business with you.

[If this is new to you, you need to work this out immediately, as it had direct implications on your business]

If you have compelling and sticky content and treat them well, you can expect to grow very loyal customers.

What’s a loyal customer?

Take me for example, when it comes to digital cameras and camcorders, I’d look at what Sony and Canon offer. If they don’t have what I’m looking for, I’ll consider other options (only with great reluctance).

The old time marketers would call this “brand loyalty”, the Internet Marketers would call this (more…)

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