5 Comments

Online Marketing: The Future is Now

Oct 17, 2008
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As the web grows in new directions, affiliate marketing will grow with it.Advertisers and publishers are looking to affiliate networks to innovate in useful ways that help them drive sales.Here are three themes that we’re starting to see take shape at LinkShare.

Social apps

Web Services allow that developers to integrate affiliate links with their shopping app.Since web services allow developers to build links “on the fly”, they’re especially useful for sites that need to cater to dynamic data.Two great examples of developers using web services in smart ways are Buzzilions and StyleFeeder, both featured on ReveNews.

With web services end users interact with advertisers, not just publishers.For example the publisher Lemonade allows anyone to develop his or her own “Lemonade Stand” with their service.The Lemonade Stand builders can hand-select products and promotions, and then plug that Stand into his or her social networking platform of choice.Visitors to his or her social networking page can see these hand selected products and, if they choose to buy one, the Stand builder and Lemonade share in the commission.The end user is actually choosing which ads to show.The developer builds the containers that enable this interaction.

To help further such interaction LinkShare just released a new API called Targeted Merchandiser which enables developers to build customized, contextual product widgets.

The web is becoming more social.Web services make affiliate links available in a way that can be tied in to the social web.

Contextual Ads

Contextual advertising has been around for a while, but affiliate networks are just starting to expand into this area.In the right setting, contextual advertising can make it easier for publishers to promote relevant advertisers, and for advertisers to gain distribution.Affiliate networks now offer solutions that allow publishers to determine product relevance based on their content and that require less technical expertise.

One such product is LinkShare’s Easy Links.This program uses a predictive algorithm and an advertiser product feed to display relevant products on a publisher page.We’ve seen the most publisher adoption so far from niche content sites and blogs.

For example, a gardening blog can partner with a few Gardening advertisers such as Gardener’s Supply and Parkseed.If these advertisers offer Easy Links, the gardening blog can place those Easy Links on their site and customize the design to match the look and feel.The Easy Link will then display top converting and relevant gardening products from their chosen advertisers.The gardening blog is paid a revenue share based on sales generated for the advertiser.

Affiliate programs are becoming more user-friendly for publishers with all levels of technical experience.By offering these solutions, networks are working towards broadening the footprint of affiliate marketing.

Interactive Ads

There’s a wide range of creative types that can enhance the end users shopping experience.Video and product widgets are two examples.One of my favorite examples is from Beatport which sells digital music to a niche audience.They created a Flex Link that enabled their publishers to place their audio player on their site and offer song snippets to their users.It makes for an engaging sales tool, as well as valuable content. As the industry becomes more competitive it is important for publishers to leverage new and engaging types of creative that drive higher conversions – beyond banners and text links.

Flex Links give our network the means to leverage different types of rich and engaging content with their users.We have some examples up here.

Affiliate 2.0

As innovation continues to drive change in e-commerce, we will continue to see creativity in the way advertisers and publishers work together.The web can change overnight.To capture interest, and revenue, in such a world companies should seriously evaluate the types of tools we’ve described above, and leverage the expertise of their affiliate marketing partners to help them make the most of this great new frontier.

About the Guest Contributor: Ian Rosenwach is a product manager at LinkShare, a global online advertising services provider.

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing + Contextual Advertising + Performance Marketing
  • Jonathan (Trust)

    All that stuff is great and since you're the product manager at Linkshare, there is one major thing in which you lag behind the other networks.

    Real time reporting.

    SAS – real time.

    Google Affiliate Network – real time

    CJ – usually within a couple of hours unless it's a batch merchant

    Linkshare – whenever the merchant decides to send in the information.

  • http://www.cumbrowski.com/ Carsten Cumbrowski

    Hi Ian,

    Welcome to ReveNews. I didn't know that you have something of a writer in you :) .

    I am glad to hear that you officially announced the LS contextual web services. Did you consider any of my suggestions from during the soft launch?

    I just noticed my draft post about the services at the RN admin interface and don't want to post anything that was already addressed. I downloaded the current specs for publishers and will have a look myself, but if you could shoot me a quick note or give me a call, I'd appreciate that.

    Trust has also a good suggestion for you. Since LinkShare does not offer pixel tracking and relies on the advertisers to send over reporting data, a web services API to send the data more frequent would be nice. More sophisticated advertisers could implement it into their websites and send data throughout the day, whenever they determined that a transaction is legitimate and transaction-able. This could be instantly after the commission-able event occurred in some cases.

    Since it is a thing that affiliates have high on their wish list, some advertisers would implement it, not only to make their existing affiliates happy, but also to stand out from their competition, adding an additional selling point to their "Why should you" list for attracting and recruiting new affiliate partners (especially the high volume ones, e.g. super affiliates)

  • Herb

    and speaking of LinkShare's contextual ads: how about many more choices of shape? I see just one: a large tall tower. Can't use it.

  • Ian

    Trust and Carsten,

    Thanks for your feedback. I’m pleased to say that LinkShare has recently released a near real-time reporting upgrade for our Advertisers. The near real-time reporting upgrade will provide publishers with a real-time, directional snapshot of clicks, impressions, products and estimated commissions, while the advertiser’s LinkShare tracking (via LSTrans or Web Services) will continue to provide the final accounting of actual commissionable events, commissions earned and cancellations and returns. The near real-time reports will be called Media Optimization Reports and they will be available once each Advertiser has completed the free upgrade. Right now we’re in the process of working with Advertisers on installation.

    Carsten,

    Appreciate your thoughts on the Targeted Merchandiser API. I’ll give you a call this week to discuss.

    Herb,

    We do actually have eight standard IAB sizes for Easy Links. You’ll find all the size choices in the drop down menu on the Easy Links page in the new Dashboard.

  • http://www.cumbrowski.com Carsten Cumbrowski

    Thanks for the response Ian. I am sure that Jonathan is as pleased as I am to hear about your LSTrans web services and Media Optimization Reports.

    Please keep us in the loop, because that is stuff worthwhile to blog about and what is not only interesting for advertisers, but publishers as well.

    Those features are optional to advertisers and publishers who would like to use it cannot influence advertisers in their decision to implement it or not, if they don't know of its existence and how it has to be implemented (to help the advertiser with it or provide tips and suggestions).

    I am looking forward talking to you later this week. Cheers!